The prompt for the next two weeks is...

Changes

A reminder... Do go and find yourself a prompt for the Embracing Spring fest! 500 words minimum before 1st May. You can do eeet! (And I am looking at you, Elf, Chart and Minhha! No pressure, of course... ;0))

And a poll...

Poll #3189 Name
Open to: Friends, results viewable to: All

Should youka_nitta change name to nitta_youka so we have the same name as our tiny comm @ LJ?

It is Iwaki's birthday tomorrow, the 27th, and our current drabble/fic/novel challenge (write something, dammit!) is "Development" - should go well with the birthday, eh?

There are still a few days left to come up with a prompt or three for the Embracing Spring Fest.

Welcome to the Embracing Spring Fest 2009.

As we all are painfully aware, there will be very little new manga to read for Youka Nitta-sensei's fans for some time. We have done our best to play with Sensei's characters and bring you smutty fics to ease the pain a little, but we would like to encourage more fans to try their hand at writing or drawing Youka Nitta fan art and fic.

Hence we have decided to celebrate spring with a fest: Embracing Spring Fest 2009!

How is this going to work?

Anybody can submit up to three prompts - that is a few words or lines of a plot you would like to see. A prompt could be, for instance, "Carlo/Magira; Sex in the bathtub" or "Shimizu/Kenzaki; Shimizu gets a divorce and decides to take a cooking course as she is a remarkably bad cook. There she meets and falls in love with Kenzaki, who has troubles explaining to his host club boss why he isn't earning any money."

Promps can be submitted here until the 7th February 11.59 pm, GMT. Please try to keep your prompts simple. Our minimum word count to participate is only 500 words. We want to encourage new writers and anyone who's ever thought of attempting Nitta-based fic to go ahead and give it a try! Art for the prompts is of course also accepted, and can be anything from a carefully done sketch to a giant painting. Also, we won't be attaching your name to your prompt - this is both to encourage you to give prompting a try, and to not intimidate the writers/artists with the idea of giving a gift to someone.

Sign-up will begin on February 8. It won't be hard to do; we'll have a list of the prompts and you'll copy the prompt you want to a reply to make your claim. Posting of your fic or art will begin on March 15. You can post your work anytime from March 15 through April 15. Remember, prompters do not also have to create for the fest, and creators don't have to prompt.

While you're waiting for the fest to get underway, feel free to post drabbles, sketches, inspirational discussions or questions about working in Youka Nitta's universes, about canon or anything else you would like discuss in relation to writing YN fanfic.

Finally, feel free to pimp the Embracing Spring Fest 2009 far and wide! The more people who hear about it and want to participate, the more Youka Nitta fan goodness for you!

snapelike and lore


( Deadlines )

( Rules )

... and now I have fic to read! *eyes Geri's writing*

Important Matter 1: Lovely Nitta-lovers, can we scrape enough $ together to buy the comm another half year of paid time? I have 2$ on my PayPal account now, and they don't get us far. Youka-nitta.net is safe and sound www-wise for the next year.
ETA: The generous geri_chan has just gifted the comm a year's paid account! Don't forget to thank her for the sweet Christmas present that benefits us all. Thanks, Geri!

Important Matter 2: Youka Nitta Fanbook. Over at Yamane Ayano @ LJ they've made a nice book for the sensei. I suggest we do the same for Nitta-sensei, also because it might cheer the lady up a notch or two. Maybe use half a year or so to perfect fic, art, manga reports from various countries, fan letters, descriptions of why/what/when we got into Nitta's manga and so on... Suggestions, please - so that those who aren't comfortable with writing can participate as well. We will probably need modding - high quality, which means betas, "art directors", and so on.
Your opinion?

Important Matter 3: Nitta Masterlist. I suppose we want it both on Youka Nitta Project and as a Del.ici.us account, right? We have http://delicious.com/youka_nitta and I can make a blog roll for the web site. That should probably cover our needs, seeing that the fics are so many. Erm... not.

Important Matter 4: I am going to try to make our archive work this weekend. Looking admiringly at (Snupin's) Moonshadow, we need to have The Archive, because it simply matters to the fandom to have things in one place. Efiction, though, so that people can add or take their fics down as they like.

And now I'm going to read fic... mmmm. If you have written something, feel free to point me in direction of said fic. OMG, I have spare time...OMGOMG! [/Katou-ish puppy-bouncing]

Hi! I'm lore and I'll be your cruise direct...no, wait, discussion leader! Every week, maybe closer to Monday next week, I'll be posting a few questions for us to chew on and share thoughts about. I thought it would be a good idea to open with Nitta-sensei's most popular work, and the work that brings most of us together: Haru wo Diateita (Embracing Love in the US).

Feel free to reply with your answer to all or some of these questions:

So, how did you get into Harudaki?
Have you read the series more than once? Fess up, how many times?
What about the series keeps you coming back? What elements of the series make it special to you?
What are your favourite chapters or parts of the Harudaki saga? Why?
Tell us about your favourite character in the series and what makes you love him (or her!).
Anything else you'd like to squee about concerning Harudaki?

Don't hesitate to reply to each other and get into discussions within the replies. That's what this post is for, after all! *HUGS*

love, lore

And just to break our challenge-posting-announcement we present to you the first drabble challenge! Let's just pretend it's Wednesday today, shall we?

The prompt is cross-over.

How you choose to interpret it is up to you. (And yes, cross-over between HP and Haru is allowed, just like cross-overs between YN-universes.)

ETA: I've made a [character: non-youka nitta] tag for cross-over characters. There will be no other character-tags for those.

Happy writing!

- Not that there are many... just for later convenience.

We have decided to issue a weekly drabble challenge. A topic/prompt will be posted on Wednesdays.

- Drabbles have to be 100 words, no more, no less.
- Post with or without cut - NC-17 must be under cut.
- Drabbles can of course cover all Youka Nitta-sensei's works.
- Drabbles inspired by a prompt can be posted any time after the deadline.
- Please, tag with author: name, type: drabble, character: name, manga: abbreviation (post on abbreviations later...)

We might add to this at a later date. There's a link to this post in the sidebar.


( Drabbles-Header for Your Convenience )

We all know what happens when a small group of active authors find a new fandom, right?

( Our first common fandom project? )

Unfortunately, the first modly post here is also a sad one. Nitta-sensei has been caught up in a plagiarism scandal; it is not yet determined how bad this is, and what the consequences for her will be. It is not as bad as it seems; Nitta-sensei has been using fashion photos as reference for some of her covers, but it is questionable if this is a case of plagiarism or just erm- slightly enthusiastic inspiration and use of photo reference.

A link to a news article with the most incriminating example is here.

In Japan, however, this is a big thing, and one of the results might be that Youka Nitta might stop creating any more manga - at least for some time. Nitta-sensei has not been aware of the copyright infringement and - due to the fact that she has several editors and assistants who should have known better and stopped her - I tend to believe her. Therefore I'll use some time and money for the next months or years, if necessary, to send letters to support Nitta-sensei and tell her publishers that I'd love more from her hand. If any of you wants to do the same, I've posted contact information for Nitta-sensei and her publishers.

The info is collected by pgrape over at youka_nitta@LJ and posted here by her permission.

I'll link to this post from the side bar and I encourage you to use a stamp or two and send Youka Nitta a few supportive words. Physical evidence always works better than email. Nitta-sensei understands and reads English, if not overly well. Do mind the fact that all mail will probably be read by assistants at the publishers.

ETA: For those of you whose browser can't handle Japanese signs, I've made a screen dump so you can download the picture and print out the addresses that way. Pic's here.

ETA II: Thanks to pgrape, we now have the translated addresses, if you'd rather use those. The post below's edited.

( Nitta-sensei's contact info )