sky fish

It’s almost been 12 years since Free! released and we’re all still beautiful butterflies! I want to celebrate these guys with you because I know you’re all still here too! This will be a really casual event for RinRei week 2025! Feel free to do as many or as few prompts as you like, because any RinRei that exists in this world makes it more BEAUTIFUL! Art, fics, memes, poems, headcanons, gifs, AMVs, comics, ANYTHING! I wanna see it! Make your beautiful art of these two nerds!

The days will be February 14th - February 20th, and of course we have to start with valentines so we all have a reason to celebrate!

Day 1: Valentine’s Day Day 2: Vacation / Day off Day 3: Pet(s) / Companion Day 4: Library / Study date Day 5: Underwater / Beach Day 6: Courage / Fate Day 7: Free! Day

Make sure to tag your work as #RinRei Week to show it off! I look forward to seeing anything you guys make! I will also be making and posting some art, of course!!

For whatever reason my twitter account got suspended so that’s the reason it disappeared over the past weeks. 😅 I’m still trying to get it back, but I don’t know if it’s possible. However, I do have a private account where I tweet various things (mostly RL stuff / writing / some fandom talk).

Hello all! I thought it would be interesting to see a follow-up to the previous Ghost Hunt survey (results) with some additional questions. Since the original creator is no longer around, I decided to create my own survey. :)

This survey is open to anyone who has seen and/or read Ghost Hunt by Fuyumi Ono and Shiho Inada. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes to answer.

Click HERE to fill out the survey.

The deadline is December 31st, 2017.

I will post the results sometime early next year at @ghosthuntcollections​.

Introducing 

Speakeasy Spirits

A Ghost Hunt AU by @tiffotcf and @csakuras

Theme: Crime, Supernatural 

Pairings: Naru/Mai & Gene/Yasuhara

Prohibition-era Boston, where crime controls the streets and booze flows in secret. When a dangerous encounter throws Mai into a new job, she is ready to start afresh. However, a shadowy underworld lurks at the edge of her sight. The handsome twins she befriends are not all that they seem. But then, Mai might not be either.

Read it on 

fanfiction.net

You? Me? A committee of my friends? Of yours? Of those who have the most kudos? Of those who have no interest in fandom, but want to protect other people from dangerous content, whatever it may be? Who gets that power, and how long will they have it?

Who are you comfortable with giving the power of regulating all the content? What happens in grey areas? What happens when something you like isn’t liked by the Decider? Is there an appeal? Who gets to make the arguments for and against something?

Certain people are screaming that AO3 is bad because it’s not a “safe space.” The real problem they have, though, is that AO3 was created to be a safe space - for writers. And it does a pretty good job of that. It was designed to be a place where writers are safe from arbitrary content rule changes, random and unwarned deletions, and abuse-report abuse (which is common on ff.net). The Four Big Warnings + CNTW system is beautiful in its fairness and simplicity.

I’m a member of the LJ generation, and when I first came to Tumblr (grudgingly and out of desperation, I might add, since it tragically seems to be the only place to really connect with other fandom peeps) I was horrified at how people here had established this sort of fucked up bully culture, where nobody is responsible for monitoring their own consumption, and rather they expect everyone else to custom tailor content to the whims and desires of the Shrieking Banshee Masses. And woe be to the person who doesn’t bend and break! “I’m going to bully you while accusing you and your Big Mean Poopie Content of being the actual bully, so I can hopefully distract you and others from realizing I’m being a royal intrusive asshat who failed Astronomy 101 b/c I clearly believe the world revolves around me.”

The irony here is that this in itself is an abuse tactic - victim blaming with a side of gaslighting. Pot, meet kettle.

And it’s the exact same mentality that drives right-wing lunatics to kick up a fuss about the existence of icky cootie gay people in media because we need to “protect family values”, or who take to screeching at Starbucks because their particular religious symbolism isn’t portrayed on the winter holiday cups and OMG WAR ON CHRISTMAS, STARBUCKS STOP OPPRESSING ME BY NOT CATERING TO MY PERSONAL TASTE.

The mentality is one and the same - “Cater to ME ME ME or FACE MY DIVINE WRATH even if it means taking away other people’s freedom!” while hiding behind a flimsy-ass shield of faux righteous anger.  

Up to the late 1990s, fan communities were often small and decentralized because there was a huge fear that fans would be targeted by content creators if they drew too much attention. Since several authors (Anne Rice, Mercedes Lackey, Anne McCaffery) actually DID issue cease&desists to fan creators, it’s kind of understandable where the fear came from. It’s also why you still see fanfic floating around with disclaimers, something young!tumblr loves to mock.

Harry Potter changed *everything*. Like, I really can’t emphasize how much. Fanfiction was always there, being shared on email lists or privately hosted or literally mailed cross country. But Harry Potter hit BIG in 1997. It had a massive crossover appeal that hadn’t been seen since probably the original Star Trek, and the baby Internet was all. over. it. If you weren’t there, imagine Twilight. But bigger. And J.K. Rowling stood out from other creators by condoning fanfiction in her very early interviews. Not to mention there was a lot of down time between books and, as you might know, the fans do not do well unpoliced. 

This led to, I’m not kidding, an explosion of sites like FF.N. I don’t think a lot of younger users get how revolutionary AO3 is: not just because it created a safe space, but because of how much it’s done to centralize fanfiction on the internet. We used to get our fix through webrings and e-serves, so in the late 90s/early 00s we thought nothing of having dozens of scattered fanfic sites.

At the same time, the Digital Millennium Copywrite Act was coming down. The legality of fanworks was getting more and more complex. And no one knew how to handle these questions, because they had literally never come up before. When it was just authors going after individual fans, things usually went quick and brutal. Fans had neither the money nor the legal teams to stand up to creators, even if (as we were slowly beginning to realize) we had a strong case to create and share fanworks. So, if you got hit with a takedown notice, you took your fic down and laid low, hoping to avoid any further interest.  But now the legal burden was shifting from individuals to well-funded corporations. Fanfic.net and LJ didn’t want to shut down their fan-contributors, who were creating a huge stream of free content and bringing in advertising revenue. At the same time, they didn’t want to get shut down by a lawsuit if Lucasfilm found Han/Chewie smut and decided to go after the real money. The next 10 years were basically all of us – authors, fan creators, website executives – stumbling through brand new legal territory and figuring it out by trial and error. FF.N erred on the side of caution by becoming more and more restrictive. They shut down the entire Anne McCaffrey and Anne Rice sections, and eventually banned “pornographic” fanfiction from the site in an attempt to cover their legal rears. (It backfired, unsurprisingly, because say what you will about fandom: we like our smut. Also, FF.N had other issues that we won’t get into here will discuss shortly.) A bunch of other sites folded or waned in popularity as fandom wars divided the fan population. Authors scattered to the winds, and a lot of them ended up on LJ.  LJ started out very user friendly. We’re talking an open source code, an almost entirely volunteer staff. Even after it was sold to 6Apart in 2005, LJ was pretty permissive. A lot of that had to do with the aforementioned DMCA, which protected ISPs and hosting corporations. Like I mentioned above, a lot of the migration from FF.N to LJ (as a place for fanfiction SPECIFICALLY) came when FF.N started banning explicit fanworks. Why? Because FF.N targeted these fanworks based entirely on user reports. “Tell us if you find porn,” FF.N said, “And we’ll take care of it.” Backup real quick. LJ, in many ways, set the standard for online privacy in a way that was far ahead of its time. Friendslocked journals were the norm rather than the exception and many, many communities disallowed anonymous commenting. (I’m not saying LJ wasn’t toxic as fuck, by the way. It is 2017 and let’s all have a moment of acknowledgement for how terrible LJ culture actually could be.) But LJ, on the whole, was much, much better at self-policing than FF.N. On FF.N, all of your stuff was out in the open. It was just there. Anyone could read it, anyone could report it. And these two sites coexisted. All BNFs had a private journal and a public FF.N page. So if I hated someone and I wanted to harass them off the internet, on LJ, I’d have to make multiple sock puppets and concoct elaborate multi-journal ruses to do it on LJ (haha, who would do THAT?). What am I to do? Simple: Head off to FF.N and anonymously flame them there! FF.N became synonymous with anonymous hate long before the anti-smut censorship came down. But once those rules were in place, the system was rife for abuse by the Purity Police or grudgewankers. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay before it was cool to dm “kill urself” to someone on tumblr, it was happening on FF.N. All you, the early internet user, had to do was post a report link for your rival’s FF.N account on your LJ. Hate a pairing? A kink? Why not post a scathing rant, link included, to this captive audience of ALL YOUR FRIENDS. Yeah, this system had no room for abuse. So. FF.N opened the door and fandom came rushing through like the raging assholes we are. Certain Fandoms Alluded To Previously got so deeply divided that they split and formed their own fanfiction archives that occasionally rained hate on each other. Everyone else slowly withdrew to LJ, where locked communities offered some level of protection. Then, irony of ironies, fandom as a whole got targeted by the purity wankers. And of course, of course, it came back to Harry Potter.  It’s 2007. Things have quieted down since 2001, when certain unnamed people’s fics were targeted for plagiarism and deleted from FF.N even though, just to be clear, they actually were plagiarized and, while there was an element of mob persecution, the actual fact remains that the work in question was legitimately in violation of FF.N’s TOS. Ahem. It’s 2007. And everyone’s fairly chill. Creators are far more comfortable with fanfiction and fan creators are confident in posting their work so long as they aren’t profiting directly from it. Hosting sites, meanwhile, are profiting from fanworks, but they’ve got the legal shield of the DMCA to hide behind, so they’re feeling A-OKAY. And then Warriors for Innocence appears. WfI existed before strikethrough, and they existed after, but they made their mark on fandom when they reported upwards of 500 journals, most of them fan journals and communities, to LJ. The theory runs as follows: 6A, the company who’d bought LJ 2 years prior, realizes that the DMCA didn’t protect them if the fan works in question are “indecent”. Compounding this, 6A is already trying to clean up the famdomier aspects of LJ. Either they’re looking for a sale, or sites like ONTD are bringing in massive amounts of hits. WfI brings 6A a perfect hit list, and 6A goes to work. So one morning we all wake up and find that hundreds of journals, including the pornish_pixies community and several BNF’s personal journals, have been deleted. Literally gone: a lot of the media stored on these communities has been purged forever. Hope you had backups. Also gone: large swaths of the Pretty Gothic Lolita community, Lolita book discussion groups, and rape survivor communities. 

“TV Animation Free! Novelize” short preview 4 translation (image from: https://twitter.com/KA_esuma/status/877814573784383490)

I told him no, dammit.

Waves of regret wash over me as my body sinks heavily to the bottom of the pool.

Am I going to die here, in the Samezuka indoor pool during a joint practice?

The shouts of “Rei-chan!” from the side of the pool get gradually further and further away. My consciousness feels like it could disappear at any moment.

They say you’re supposed to see a light at times like this. The theory of the light. When you’re close to death, all your brain cells become active, and as a result of all those synapses firing all at once, you see a bright light. I suppose it won’t be long before I see that light too.

That aside, if I’m going to die here, I wish I could have died a bit more beautifully. Why did I have to be wearing nothing but a speedo, of all things! Not beautiful.

Now that I think about it, my very first memory that I can remember was of something not beautiful as well.

It was a gross looking cheeseburger from a fast food place. When I saw that the burger looked completely different from the picture on the menu, little me, not even old enough to enter kindergarten, finally asked my mother why the cheeseburger was so ugly.

In those days, my mother often said to me, “Rei, you’re very argumentative, aren’t you?”

Even as a child, that was vexing.

Why is it wrong to be argumentative? What’s wrong with thinking about the reasons you think certain things, and why you like and dislike certain matters, and debating them? In this world, everyone is too vague. They often decide to do things for no reason, or because  “I said so,” or “thats just the way it is.” I could never understand that.

For example, the colors they use to denote gender.

On toilet signs, it’s always blue for boys and red for girls.

In the past, it seems even backpack colors were black for boys and red for girls. It’s absurd. Why can’t boys have red? Why can’t girls have black?

my babes!! getting married

I am pleased to bring you the very first interview with director Sayo Yamamoto!!! You don’t know how much I’ve been waiting for this… This one is pretty general because of course she has never been interviewed before so they are asking her the basics, but it’s very interesting to finally hear things from her perspective too, since she’s the one who started it all. More interviews with her will be appearing in other magazines in the near future, I’m looking forward to those ones too.

Also, I believe a bright future is to be expected for Yuri on Ice, since she seems to have lots of plans…!! (I was shivering typing out the translation, lol)

Translation is under the cut.

***If you wish to share this translation please do it by reblogging or posting a link to it*** 
***Re-translating into other languages is ok but please mention that this post is the source***

Interview (first appearance in media!) The world of “Yuri on Ice” that director Yamamoto wanted to create With 8 notebooks full of notes in one hand, director Sayo Yamamoto has answered our interview for the first time. We have asked her how this new animation that no one had ever seen before was born.

A complete translation of an interview with the Ghost Hunt author, originally published in Da Vinci’s December 2010 issue.

Part 1: The Ghost Hunt Series Reprint

Part 2: The Rules for Writing Girls’ Novels

Part 3: Rewriting Ghost Hunt

More Ghost Hunt-related interviews are on the way! Follow me on tumblr or twitter to keep track.

The “World of Dictionaries” Interview with Miura Shion

The translation of the Miura Shion interview is at last complete!

Part 1: Encountering a Dictionary

Part 2: Comparing Dictionaries

Part 3: Karma and Romance Swirl in the World of Dictionaries

Part 4: The Difficulties of Expressing in Words

Part 5: The Meaning of “Creating a Dictionary”

Part 6: Memories of the Lessons

Part 7: More Reading Than Writing – Middle School Days

Part 8: The Profession Known as the Novelist

Part 9: The Power of a Motif

Part 10: The Meaning Of “Reading with Everyone”

Part 11: The Meaning of Reading and Teaching

Please look forward to the next big translation project: 

RinRei WIP Week starts tomorrow! To those participating this week, here are some brief guidelines for posting your WIPs~

These will also be posted on the Submission Rules page for reference. Feel free to check back there anytime you need to view these again. c:

Tag all your WIP posts with #rinreiwipweek

SFW and NSFW entries are both allowed! Just remember to tag all NSFW stuff as such.

For fanfics: be sure to include the genre and rating as well as a brief summary (if you had not done so in your description/comments already). This will help anyone who wants to finish your fic stay consistent with your original idea.

You can post as many WIPs as you’d like!

Just as a reminder/disclaimer - please keep in mind that, when posting your unfinished work, you are automatically acknowledging and giving your permission to have your piece potentially picked up and finished by someone else.

RinRei WIP Week is a two part mini-event where (1) fans share their unfinished RinRei art/fics, and (2) choose someone’s WIP and take on the challenge to finish it themselves.

Initially, I had been planning to do this myself and post all of my RinRei WIPs on February 12th. However, after making a post about my idea and seeing that some other fans expressed interest in doing this as well, I decided to make this into a little event~

The event will take place February 12 - February 19, where anyone and everyone who would like to share their RinRei WIP(s) will post them up here on tumblr with the tag #rinreiwipweek (along with some description/comments/additional info about the piece, if they have any). Then, people will be free to pick any of the posted WIPs that they like, and will have one month to finish them, so they can post up the completed works anywhere from March 19 - March 26.

Participation in either parts of the event is completely optional. For example, even if you don’t post a WIP in the sharing part of the event, you can still pick a WIP and finish it in the second part. And vice-versa.

If you have any questions, please feel free to message me! I will post the submission rules just before the event begins in February. Until then, please like/reblog this post to spread the word to any RinRei/Free! fans who might be interested in participating.

As I’ve said, I will be posting all my WIPs for the first part no matter what, so there will definitely not be a shortage of art entries for this lol, but since this is most likely going to be the last RinRei event in a long while (or the last ever, period), I’d love to see as many people participate in this as possible. c:

Now that I got your attention I’d like to take this opportunity to announce the existence of @ghosthuntcollections, the official blog for the Ghost Hunt collection on AO3, which includes a bookmark/rec sub-collection and the half-yearly prompt meme challenges. Please follow if you’d like to keep up with news and updates concerning these collections.

Secondly, the Ghost Hunt challenge “Obscure Emotions” is finally open! This challenge is a creative exercise to write stories based on words from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. 

I received your votes through the survey and added the 10 most popular words to the prompts page. However, if you like a word that isn’t on among those, you are free to add it through the sign-up form (maximum is 10). The deadline for adding prompts is June 15th, 2017. 

Please note that some things will differ from the first challenge:

challenges are no longer unrevealed and anonymous. Your work and name will show up in public immediately after posting.

the suggested word count is now 500+ words. 

All information and rules are listed on the collection’s profile page.

@ghosthunthq is excited to host the 2nd annual Ghost Hunt fandom exchange!

(Oh, and yeah, the puns are back. You’re Welcome)

Do you want to make your second weekend in April something that transcends human understanding, or perhaps for the more analytical of us something that at least deviates from the natural?

Silly question, of course you would!

How to have a hauntingly good time?

First things first, make sure you follow @ghosthunthq so you can participate and get all of our updates.

Then,

Sign up for our:

Ghost Writer/Artist media exchange!

Rules: You must give in order to receive. This is an exchange, so signing up means you are willing to create something for your client. It really is obvious, but it’s always important to spell it out.

Ghost Writer/Artist: you are a ghost, your haunting can vary in intensity, but should remain anonymous. That is part of the fun.

Minimums: Fics must be 1,000 words + and art must be more than a quick sketch (multiple sketches or a singular more intense work for example).

Step 1: Sign up for the GH Ghost Writer/Artist media exchange!

You will sign up for the exchange via a submission form. Sign ups will be from January 18th- February 1st. Keep an eye on your dash for the submission form on the 18th.

On this form you will provide information both on what you will like to give as well as receive.

Your tumblr name. This is important for a litany of reasons not the least being so your ghost writer/artist can creep on you to get a better idea of what you want or annon message you to more directly try to get info. And definitely not so we can make tumblr hitogatas of everybody.

What type or types of media you would like to receive

A small prompt for the subject of the media. Don’t get your case rejected, so please keep it at least semi-professional guys.

What type or types of media you are willing/able to create

Using a number of spreadsheets and a complex algorithm we will match a Ghost Writer/Artist with their client.  We will contact everyone to let them know who their client is and what has been requested. You will get your prompts Feb 3rd or 4th depending on how long it takes us to take care of the maths.

Step 2: Get to work, this isn’t a cafe.

Last day to drop out is February 28th. Anyone who loses their specter or client will be provided with the assistance of a gifted medium to search for a new match.

Check-ins/Reminders will go out: March 2nd and again April 2nd.

Step 3: Submit!

Submit your completed gifts to the exchange blog making sure to mention/tag your client so they know their gift has arrived. The exorcism is set for the weekend of April 8-9th so we area setting up a soft deadline of the 7th for submissions. This will help us with making the schedule. 

Be sure to ask the GHHQ if you have any questions!