#i do love self indulgence this is fun check out my navel gazing actually no do not look at my belly button

[lightbulb-warning]

i used to freehand comics all the time as a child and since the part i liked was the drawing part i would just draw panel after panel because i didn't want to stop drawing to think about icky icky words, plus the story TOTALLY still made perfect sense! to me! and noone else, but 'whoooo caaaaares omgggg its not like comics and sequantial art are a communicative meeediummmm lmaoooooo'. i spent my entire childhood telling myself stuff like "oh pfft I know this story by heart- ill SIMPLY remember the dialogue and write it later" ...and. I can't help but admire baby maiora's (call that a minora ba tm tsk) fucking audacity? hubris? confident wrongness? kid couldn't even remember to finish the comics in the first place? INCREDIBLE levels of unearned self assurance, wish that were me, genuinely- what an icon!!! anyway i think i have forever cursed myself

[redfreesias03]

Something Something Something, Red Freesias.

OR: The slightly embarassing-ish result (that's sort of a conclusion?) that I reached after I spent several days thinking in my own way about how things would change if I let it slip that I'm tired of running a blog, while on a road lined with red freesias.

I hate giving up. Like, I'm really bad at sticking to goals, but I hate actually giving them up.

Redfreesias is something I started on a whim because I (in retrospect, rather arrogantly) thought I could share translations that properly showcased the charms of songs I loved. Quickly, it became a blog that translated songs other idol fans loved, because I've always known firsthand how frustrating it is not to know what a song you love is saying. After a couple of years (in which I graduated from high school and college and had increasingly less free time), I planned on stopping, but that would be giving up, so instead it became a blog where I just...self-indulgently posted things I liked at a carefree pace.

Or rather, I tried my best to think of it as a blog like that, but I really can't.

I do my best not to harbor unrealistically high self-regard of my personal relevance as a translator. I've translated a considerable number of songs, but the quality thereof varies considerably, and the truth of the matter is that most of those songs have considerably more-accessible and much more-palpable translations available elsewhere. Conversely, this is something that in the past has brought me endless peace of mind, because 1) if nobody expects anything, you can't disappoint them, 2) they're not likely to demand things and 3) they can't get angry at you.

Without going too into my personal background, all three of those things are incredibly stressful to me, and having people (usually on anon) express feelings to that extent is probably why I've done my best to make my blog a unilateral existence with as little interaction as possible.

Still, as odd as it sounds, I need to admit that I somehow, illogically, expected something.

To be honest, I'm not sure what it was. Praise? Compliments? Maybe something as simple as someone to gush about songs with.

I wanted the blog to be me shouting into the void, but I wanted the void to shout back (but only ever positively).

Typing that out, even I'm aware of how impossibly, obnoxiously contradictory that sounds.

And so I quietly began to dislike my own blog. At a time when so many of my fellow Americans are either unemployed or forced to work in the frontlines of a pandemic, I'm very fortunate to be able to work from home. But logging on and dealing with tech issues I dislike for work and then doing it again "for fun" is decidedly not fun, and so I quietly began to dislike my blog even more.

When something you (and only you) decide of your own initiative to do isn't fun anymore, the rational thing is to stop. But I hate giving up, and so the thought of just...ending the blog, with a whimper rather than a bang, seemed detestable.

But that's just stubbornness, right? SKE and 48 legend Matsui Jurina promised years ago not to graduate until after summer of 2021, but she announced an October graduation for this year. As a devoted fan, all I could think of was good. I'm glad for her.  Overcompetitive, ever-going, eternal-sun Matsui Jurina chose to stop. She prefaced her graduation statement with "I want to muster up courage and take a step forward"–because even when the end looks like a whimper, even when it might look like going back on your word, sometimes it's brave to stop. Sometimes it’s best to put your own likes and dislikes, volatile and everchanging as they may be, first. There's a line that I've come to really like in Momusu's quintessential graduation song Never Forget You that more or less goes "Was it just by chance that we met? Then our goodbye is also just chance."

Redfreesias is something I started as a whim, so isn't it alright to end it on a whim?

Anyway, all of this is to say that I still really like idols, but maintaining this tumblr isn't fun for me anymore, so I'll stop. To anyone who read through this navel-gazing atrocity of a post, thank you. For previously accidentally translations that I never got to uploading, please check the Wayback machine.

[deepdarkwaters]

2016 WRITING YEAR REVIEW

@notbrogues tagged me!

Total Number of Stories Completed: 24 complete (although a bunch of these are just separate bits of the Bespoke universe), and 6 lingering WIPs.

Total Word Count: 133875, goddamn :O

Fandoms Written In: Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein Killers Kill; Dead Men Die - Annie Leibovitz Kingsman Night Watch - Sarah Waters RED The Carnival Is Over - The Seekers The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett Velvet Goldmine

Mostly Kingsman, the others were all for exchanges. I can only seem to focus on one main fandom at a time.

Looking Back, Did You Expect To Write More Fic Than You Thought You Would This Year, Less, Or About What You’d Expected? Less... I had all these plans to write less fic and more original stuff fpr publishing but NOPE I am helpless in fandom's iron grip.

What's Your Own Favorite Story Of The Year? I'm very fond of Ballerino... I highly recommend writing the most self-indulgent swoony trash your heart wants, because it's the most fun ever AND I think when you're gleefully enthusiastic about something then other people have fun with it as well.

Did You Take Any Writing Risks This Year? Bespoke, maybe...? I've been super passionate about OT3s before (received loads of Butch/Sundance/Etta treasure in fic exchanges, for example), but never really been invested on the writing side. It's a fascinating one to figure out.

But Smaychel is the best writing partner imaginable, so in that way it's not really a risk at all :-)

Do You Have Any Fanfic Or Profic Goals For The New Year? F I N I S H   M Y   W I P S I am so sorry I am the worst. I was so adamant on getting everything complete by the end of the year but it just didn't happen. Too many pretty ideas, never enough time! WIPs are the priority. I've got a stack of original short stories and another novel to finish as well, but honestly I'm just having way too much fun with fanfic to prioritise them (and nobody reads original stuff anyway).

Best Story Of The Year? Is this a different question to Favourite Story?

Most Popular Story Of The Year? Ballerino is my most popular story ever in any fandom in about eighteen years of posting fic, so... thank you?!

Story of Mine Most Under-appreciated By The Universe, IMO: This fandom does appreciation like no other :-) There’s always going to be smaller ships like Roxy/Merlin that fewer people are interested in but that’s cool, you know going into it that there won’t be as many readers for that stuff as for Harry/Eggsy.

Most Fun Story To Write: Ballerino probably because it's just everything I love thrown at a page. Fight scenes!!! White tie formalwear!!! Undressing people in white tie formalwear!!! Ballet!!! Bottom Harry!!! Phone sex!!! Kingsman agents’ banter!!! Gross old stalker licking the sweat off his victim!!!

Story With The Single Sexiest Moment: Viewer Discretion Is Advised (aka the Bespoke fic where Harry and Eggsy finally get together while Merlin instructs) was an interesting one. I was trying to challenge myself to write something smokin hot without it being about dicks, and it turned out to be one of my favourite things I've ever written mainly for this scene:

"Pick a place," Merlin tells him, "anywhere you like, but don't touch him."

Through Harry's glasses feed, Merlin sees Eggsy's eyes moving and knows exactly what he's seeing: scars on golden skin; soft ridges of retrained muscle; the glorious way Harry flushes when he knows he's about to get what he wants. "Here?" Eggsy asks, soft and uncertain. Merlin watches the boy's shaking fingertips hover an inch or two above Harry's collarbone.

"Very good." Merlin hears a quick intake of breath at that, a shaky exhale, and drops his voice to a low murmur just to see what happens. "Good boy, Eggsy."

"Fuck," Eggsy mutters, "oh my god, fuck," and stares straight at Harry, at Merlin through Harry. "Okay, what now?"

"Nothing," Merlin tells him, and watches Eggsy's eyebrows flicker in confusion. "Pick another place."

"Here?" Eggsy checks, sliding a little way down the bed to kneel between Harry's sprawled legs, pointing at the place just above his navel.

"Good choice." Eggsy looks vaguely disappointed at that; must have been hoping for a word other than 'choice'. Tease, Harry finger-spells at Merlin. "But don't touch him."

The camera feed dips when Eggsy nods his head. Merlin watches his fingers trace the line of soft hair leading down to Harry's pyjama trousers, never actually making contact. Eggsy's got his lower lip caught between his teeth as though he's concentrating, hand moving lower and hovering a hair's breadth above where Harry's cock is heavy, half-hard, wearing the taut silk of his pyjamas like a second skin.

"Hands up, Eggsy. Harry, turn over for me."

He watches Harry move in quarter turns, first onto his side and then stretching out languidly on his front like a spoiled cat begging to be petted. Not too far away from the truth, really.

"Pick another place."

"Here," Eggsy says immediately, gesturing to the dimples at the bottom of Harry's spine. His whole hand rests there for a moment, a centimetre of space between his skin and Harry's, then he lifts his wrist and starts drawing gentle little swirling patterns in the air with one single fingertip. "Fuck, I know it's probably in my head but I swear I can feel how warm he is from here."

Harry makes a soft little stunned sound at that, pressing his face into the pillow. Merlin knows how much it costs him not to lurch up into this kind of almost-touch; the time he kept it up for the entire length of The Fellowship of the Ring, Harry naked and draped across his lap on the sofa, Harry was begging by Rivendell and outright sobbing by Lothlórien, and came crying when Merlin finally ran a fingertip down his spine at the credits.

"You're doing beautifully. Both of you.

"Fuck," Eggsy murmurs again, sounding fascinated by the writhe and twist of Harry's back as he slowly starts to lose his mind.

It's almost half an hour before Harry finally says please.

"Don't touch him," Merlin says softly. Eggsy hesitates with his fingertips drawing spirals in the air just above Harry's scapula, head tilted slightly to one side as though he's waiting for more. "You mustn't let him have anything the first time he asks for it. Give him an inch and he'll take a mile, goes the saying."

"Yeah, I got six inches I wanna give him," Eggsy says with his mouth right by Harry's ear, and Merlin downs his entire drink in one shaky swallow.

"What do you think about that, Harry?"

"Please." His voice is muffled in the pillow, screen dark where his glasses are pressed there, until Merlin tells him to turn his head and speak nicely. "Please," he says again, clearer but devastatingly quiet, imploring gaze fixed on Eggsy's eyes so Merlin can see the fluttery way he's blinking and the pretty pink flush in his cheeks.

"Stay still for me," he says, and Harry freezes, silent and barely seeming to breathe. "Eggsy – touch him. One fingertip, stroke him as gentle as you can. Watch what happens."

The glasses camera refocuses automatically when Eggsy leans in, filling the screen with Harry's upper back and shoulders – the glimmer of sweat, every pore and freckle, every scar from old gunshot wounds to the ghost marks of Merlin's favourite flogger. When Eggsy touches him, forefinger dragging a lingering line from the nape of Harry's neck to a spot between his shoulder blades, Merlin can see in perfect high definition the sudden thrilling rush of goosebumps bursting up and marring the beloved skin just below his damp hair.

"Oh," Eggsy says softly, inflected like he's just found god.

"That is why we say no to him."

Most Sweet Story: I suppose Harry babysitting Daisy and letting her draw tattoos on his arms in Sleeping Beauty?

"Holy Crap, That's Wrong, Even For You!" Story: I don't do wrong! Even the BDSM kinky pain shit is as fluffy as candyfloss. I usually quite like a bit of fucked up angst but it just doesn’t do it for me in this fandom, at least not when I’m writing. I just want everyone to be happy and kiss lots (and gangbang Harry until he’s done).

Making Harry a seven foot tall god with fuckin massive antlers and galaxies for eyes was a bit odd, maybe :P

Story That Shifted My Own Perceptions Of The Characters: This sort of demisexual voyeur Merlin in Bespoke was Smaychel's creation really. We just talked endlessly about these guys for weeks on end before they ever made it into any fic, and somehow he's become so comfortable for me to write even though we're nothing alike. I didn't realise until months into posting that most of the stuff I write for that series is Merlin POV.

Most Unintentionally Telling Story: I don't know about unintentional, I'm pretty open about the extremely specific indulgent crap I love to write :P

Hardest Story To Write: I'm dragging my feet a bit on Echoes of Dreamland (the one about Harry and Merlin as posh schoolboys) because it's taking me closer to the Flame Keepers series being OVER and that makes me sad! My very first offering to this glorious fandom. Need to finish this, then there'll be a sequel to the Roxy/Merlin Little Sparks thing and a final small Harry & Merlin epilogue, then I think it's done. (Unless I actually give in to the temptation to finally write a Kingsman origins story with some of the Flame Keepers retired agents OCs, but not sure anybody wants to read basically original fic.)

Biggest Disappointment: MY WIP SHAME. Terrible.

Biggest Surprise: Every time someone says "so I really didn't like bottom Harry but fuck you for making me love it" my heart grows seven times bigger.