The Eternal Lost Lurker wrote:

     "Yukari as she walks by waving her hammer and sickle,
dressed in thick felt boots, a heavy overcoat, and a fur hat,"
says 'In communist Russia, titles say you.'
   

This is an awkward take on a very outdated joke that long ago ceased being
worth even the faintest of chuckles.

Which, if you think about it, makes connecting it to Yukari a good
call...hmm.
 

$Eh.  I've no emotional attachment to the bit, I just felt it needed 
something.  Would have been funnier as an actual picture, I think.  Heh, 
an appropirate title for this probably would have been 'Hit or Miss', 
given that some of the bits sucked. 

     "Oh, my God!  Look at that dress!" Yukari said loudly,
drawing Minamo's attention.
   

"It's made of people!"
 

$They don't call it 'skin' tight for no reason.

     Her jaw dropped as she saw Yukari undressing the mannequin
and keeping an irate store clerk away with one foot.
   

Saw it coming. :) That's SO VERY Yukari. Nice work. :)
 

$Thanks.  My idea for this scene was what ultimately bugged me until I 
started doing these.  I could SEE that scene in my head as if it 
actually existed.

     "Twenty thousand yen?!" Yukari screeched as she waved the
dress in front of the cashier's face.     "No way!"
   

Wow, that's awfully cheap for a dress like that.

 

$Adrian mentioned something similar.  I figured that that would be about 
$200 American, which I'm given to understand is fairly high for a 
low-mid range department store, the kind of place where teachers looking 
to stretch their clothing budget might shop.  Nyamo has certainly shown 
her willingness to treat herself to a few nice things, mostly because 
she budgets better than Yukari (I think), so $200 for a nice dress is 
doable for her.  I figured Yukari would be hesitant to spend that much, 
especially if there are other things she'd rather have.

     A thought occurred to her as she stepped out the exit into
the mall proper, and she stuck her head back in.  "Hey, Minamo,
where do you want to meet back-  The dress!" she cried as she saw
her friend rather guiltily paying for it at the cash register.
   

Saw THAT coming too. XD

 

$Again, I could just see it in my head.

     "So which is it?" Osaka asked intently.  "Let's say I'm
writin' in english and I accidentally spell angry 'a-g-r-y'.
Would I say I had accidentally left an 'N' out of the word, or
would I say I accidentally left a 'N' out of the word?"
   

Wow, that's a VERY Osaka thing to ask.

 

$I thought so, Osaka likes thinking about the meanings behind words and 
the way people talk.  I do, too, and I wrote this right after the last 
one down there, when Tomo was typing.

     Yomi smiled faintly while she pulled out books and papers

>from her bag, ignoring the usual murmur of voices and activity
>from the students around her.  Selecting a small folder of papers,

she left to join her friends where they clustered around Osaka's
desk watching her attempt to solve a Rubik's cube.
   

Oh God...Osaka and a Rubik's cube... XD

 

$One might think that she'd display some hidden talent and instantly 
solve it.  But part of Osaka's charm, to me, is that she doesn't seem to 
have any hidden talents.

     Everyone oohed, except Osaka, who had begun the delicate
task of the alternate solution to the Rubik's puzzle, which was
to take all the stickers off and paste them back on.
   

I wonder how many of us actually did that when we were kids...*raises hand
guiltily*

 

$I did mine so much the sticky wore off and it didn't work anymore.

     "It came with a CD full of cute animal pictures," Tomo
added smugly.
   

*snrk*

 

     "!" said Sakaki.
   

*SNRK*

 

$I bet she wants a computer now.

     "What?  What about that big speech you made about being
able to turn out homework just as good as mine with your new
computer?" Yomi asked in disbelief.

     "Ah hah, I uh, I also got a copy of Counterstrike last
night and I was so busy playing it I forgot to do my homework,"
   

Saw THAT coming. XD

 

$Of course, it's Tomo.  I may not really know computer oriented humor, 
but I definitely know the ins and outs of avoiding homework.

     "Hmm," Yomi said, her smile growing as a thought played out
in her head of Tomo walking along with a plasma rifle, oblivious
as she snuck up behind her with a BFG.

     SPLORCH.

     "What server do you play on?" Yomi asked as Tomo was about
to walk away with her homework.
   

Heeheehee....

 

$Some temptation to do one of the two of them playing together, but 
never got any ideas.  Maybe someone else will.

     "Wouldn't it make sense, though?" Osaka reasoned.  "Think
about how it sounds.  Stencil.  Sten-cil.  Kinda like Hansel.
Ooh!" she exclaimed.  "Wouldn't that make a cute fairytale?
Hansel and Stencil, the story of a young boy and a stencil, lost
while painting signs to a witch's bakery in the woods!"
   

.............................................

 

$I inflicted this on my friends and english teachers once.  Then I 
looked it up and found out that the root is actually french.

     Tomo used the opportunity to snatch the orange tanyaki and
   

taiyaki

 

$Thought I'd misspelled it, but wasn't certain.

     "Oh, you got it," Yomi said, a smug little smile on her
face.  "What's wrong, Tomo?  I thought you loved habanera
tanyakis?"
   

The only response I have to this is to hit up Google and do a search for
'taiyaki'. :P (Hint: Taiyaki is customarily filled with sweet bean paste,
and while the popularity of habanero in Japan IS growing, I don't think it's
at the level yet where your average taiyaki-ya will make habanero-flavored
taiyaki on demand...)
 

$Actually, I kinda thought Yomi would make her own, for exactly the same 
reason.  Never made one, I'm not a big bean paste eater, but surely it 
couldn't be so difficult Yomi would balk.

     "Oh, I get it now," Osaka said in awe.  "So that's why you
love spicy food."
   

That aside...heh!

 

$Makes a kind of twisted sense, given her association with Tomo.  Of 
course, she could just really like the flavor.

     "I know!" Tomo cried happily as she jumped in.  I know why
she's so upset!  She's mad cause I 0wn3d her last night!"
   

"In the ass! With a cactus!"

 

$I detest leetspeak, and I think its use for humor is getting staler and 
staler, much like the 'in communist russia' shtick, but Tomo definitely 
strikes me as the kind of person who would use it.  This is the only one 
where she does, though.  No more.

     Tomo did a little happy dance.  "It means she's not a l33t
h4xx0r like me, and I wasted her like the n00b she is last night
in Cstrike!" she exclaimed, shortly before Yomi decked her.
   

pwn3d.

 

$Haven't you always wanted to do that?  Every time I see leetspeak being 
used I want to scream 'You're raping my language!'

     The copy machine lid creaked alarmingly when she leaned on
it, and it had several plastic bits it used to feed papers in
through the top that looked breakable.  Yukari quickly hit upon
the idea of lifting the top and using the broad, strong glass as
a platform to allow her access to the folders.
   

Ut-oh.

 

$This was ripped directly from a japanese commercial for some kind of 
pocky I saw in the World's funniest commercials 2004 a few weeks ago.  
My wife actually came up with the rest when I told her the idea.

     It took some grunting and hitching up her skirt, but she
was able to climb up and sit sideways on the top while she took
out several empty folders from the half-empty box.  That done,
she rolled and spun to the side, accidentally mashing the control
panel with her thigh, so she was able to slide down to the floor.
Folders in hand, Yukari smoothed her skirt down and strode out
the door happily, never noticing the copy machine start spitting
out copy after copy into its tray.
   

Oh hell. XD
 

$The weakness here is that many copy machines rescan the image before 
every print, but more and more of them are getting sophisticated enough 
to store the image in memory and print from there.  I felt no need to 
elaborate in the story, though.

     The top of the school letterhead could be seen across one
side, having been pushed out of place, but not out of the picture
all together.  A little left of center was a picture of Hello
Kitty in coveralls, a pail and shovel at his feet, holding a sign
that said 'Tuesday'.
   

O_o;;

 

$My wife's idea, blame her.

     Touga blushed bright red, but grinned widely.  He didn't
know teachers would do things like this.  It was his duty, nay,
his trust as an office assistant to make sure that others saw
this.
   

He's a dead man.

 

$Eventually, perhaps.  Right now, he doesn't know it's Yukari, and 
Yukari hasn't found out it was him who spread them around.  Did we ever 
get a name for the student who stopped and helped her with her bike in 
the first few strips?  I've got the idea that he's that guy, but I 
couldn't find a name for him.

     "I can't believe those boys were passing these out!" Yomi
says, scandalized, looking at her copy as they all walked down
   

mind your verb tenses

 

$Crap.  >_<  I'm usually better than that.  This whole thing, actually, 
is about the worst self editing I've ever shown, but I didn't feel like 
spending the kind of obsessive effort on editing I usually do.  These 
are just supposed to be fun.  Still, that's embarrassing.  I wrote most 
of these out as present tense outlines, then converted them to past 
tense drafts.  Why, I can't say.

     "Friday the 23rd," Tomo said.  "That's today!"

     "Tuesday panties," Osaka said, grinning.
   

....X_x;;

 

$Didn't catch that earlier, huh?  I'd have never thought of it own my own.

     "Umm, the stationary, ma'am."

     "Ah."  Minamo digested this in silence for a moment, then,
improbably, her eyebrow rose higher.  "You were looking at the
stationary?"
   

*SNRK!*

 

$It's a miracle this one was worth reading at all.  I had to have a 
teacher see them to bring them to the principal's attention, and Nyamo 
seemed a logical choice, but until that last line popped out I had NO 
idea for a punchline.

     Yukari instantly recognized her own very characteristic
panties, and panicked as she felt the fear and embarrassment
creep up in her throat.  "It's not what it looks like!  I haven't
worn those in years, but my laundromat has been closed for a week
and I haven't had a chance to make it to another one!  They were
my last pair!"
   

....typical Yukari reaction. XD

 

$Formulaic, but fun anyway.

     Still life pencil drawings of running shoes.  Pics of
Sakaki running.  Pics of Sakaki sitting at her school desk,
   

Don't use lazy shorthand in prose. Spell out the word "pictures".

 

$I personally always distinguish between real life pictures and 'pics' 
on the computer, but that's just a reason I goofed, not a 
justification.  You're absolutely right.

*snip*

Pity for Kaorin that she's just TAINTED her collection...

 

$Ouch.  Bad pun, Osaka might like that one.

Tomo had played for a while, but it just wasn't the same.  Now,
despite the wondrous things available to do on a computer, things
she had elaborated on in great detail to her parents, she was
bored.
   

Ain't it always the way?
 

$Only one cure, for sure.

     Immediately, a page full of Lupin related links popped up.
Tomo considered those for a moment, scanning for one that looked
the most interesting.  Official website, nah.  Voice actor bios,
nah.  Picture gallery, now that looked interesting.  Lupin
hentai....
   

I had a feeling that's where this was going.

 

$Yep, that's the cure.  Whenever I'm feeling down, nothing picks me up 
quite like a page full of Lupin hentai.   ...kidding, of course.

     A few more clicks later, Tomo went back to Google to
redefine her search parameters.
   

*snrk*
 

$I don't know otaku/fangirl humor any more than I know computer humor, 
but maybe I'll muddle through something worth reading.

Nice work, all around. :)
 

$Thanks.  Glad you enjoyed it.  This has been your bit of mindless, 
entertaining fluff from me.  More to come, of course.  Thanks for the 
comments!

-Nugar




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