#Najimi's fucking face

[weedle-testaburger]

i love how even though the credits don't show anyone's faces you still get a whole bunch of their character in them, like yamai hiding in the cabinet to try to follow komi and najimi doing whatever the fuck they do

[moontouched-moogle]

[despairots]

#   ⌒ LOVESICK

𖥦 ˖⁩ ࣪ ִֶָ you’ll kill anybody if they get in the way of your beloved…

★ ( ˶ˆ꒳ˆ˵ ) › ayato aishi x lovesick && male!reader — yandere, obsessive behaviour.

i just wanna say you were technically based off of osano najimi from komi can’t communicate (this is so off from everything omg)

warning/tw: yandere, obsession/obsessive behaviour, gore, yandere behaviour, lovesick reader, etc.

you were obsessed with him. you followed where ever he goes… it was just a small little crush that turned into a obsession.

you wanted him, you needed him.

no one can take him from you…

but this bitch named taeko yamada keeps trying to take him from. he’s yours. no one else’s, and if someone was trying to take him from you…

“i’ll kill them.”

“oh hey, m/n!” a fellow friend of mine called out as i patted my skirt done, “hm? hi, budo!” i waved at him. he was huffing and puffing from all that running before having a grin on his face, “did you do the homework?” he questioned as we walked into the school changing our shoes.

“yeah, why?” i answered with raised eyebrows, he laughed, “surprise that you did! your brother told me that you weren’t in your room and your homework was empty!” he slapped my back, my eyes widened recalling last night.

“stay away from him, got it?” the girl was shaking, covered in blood whilst holding her abdomen where all the blood was coming from, i grinned sadistic like as i brung down the axe cracking her skull open as her body dropped dead.

“that’s what you get for trying to confess to him~” i giggled, dropping my axe and dragging her body infront of her families house, “now let’s see how they would react seeing their cheating daughter drop dead gorgeous~” i covered my mouth with my stained gloves.

picking up my axe, i left the scene. blood scattered everywhere.

“he also said that your legs were covered in blood. did you injure yourself?” i looked down to my wrapped thigh that was actually injured from the dead girl stabbing her keys into my thigh, “yeah, i’m fine.” i answered.

i waved goodbye to him as we departed to are own classes, the teacher walked in and sighed, “i have sad news today, yuma tenma was just reported dead last night.” i almost laughed right there and then but faked it by covering my mouth.

“i thought you were a nice person, m/n!”

“i don’t like going into detail but her head was cracked opened with an axe and left dead on her family’s pouch with a note saying, come find me. i’m the one who killed her signed by.. her boyfriend; toya sato” the teacher pushed her glasses up.

“i am deeply saddened by her death and angry at her boyfriend, he is currently in jail.”

i quietly chuckled with a tiny smile knowing no one noticed and were startled by her death. what i didn’t know was that a black haired boy noticed and instantly knew what i had done, well, obviously he should know he was right beside me… and it was for the plot so.

everybody was chatting among themselves also sobbed by her death before the teacher slammed a piece of chalk onto the board, “right, now let’s get to teaching.”

i hummed, skipping through the halls, a wet cloth in my hand since it was cleaning time. A door slid open, a hand reached out grabbing me by the collar and another hand covering my mouth to stop me from screaming to gain attention.

“ow! what the fuck is wrong with you?” i rubbed my head as i heard a lock click, ‘shit… he knows.’ i gritted my teeth as i looked away nervously before i heard a chuckle, “never know you were the type to murder people so brutally, m/n.” i scratched my arm with a startled look.

“h-how… how do you know it was me?” i glared at him while also having a scared feeling inside, afraid he would expose me, afraid i would lose him. he walked closer, twirling a knife in his hans, “let me guess, you murder people with that knife, huh ayato?” he grabbed my shoulder slamming me into the wall behind me.

“you really thought i wouldn’t know it was you that dragged me into this room.” a weakly smiled, my legs shaking, i didn’t care that i was gonna possible die here but he was touching my shoulder.

“and you really thought i wouldn’t know it was you who killed yuma and framed toya~” the knife was at my throat, does he have a knife kink or some shit? i nervously laughed, “framed toya with the same axe he used to cut up some wood, you’re actually smarter than i thought.”

“your calling me stupid?” i deadpanned with crossed arms, ignoring the knife slowly drawing blood, “no, i just think we would be good partners in crime.” “so you could get with your beloved taeko yamada?” i sarcastically commented.

he should’ve known that i killed yuma for him, i didn’t want her to confess to him on friday nor did i want taeko or him too, “you do realize i killed yuma for you, right?” i raised an eyebrow, guiding the knife away from my throat, he was so fucking hot.

with that smirk on his face, “of course i know you killed yuma for me.” i switched positions with him, making him pinned to the wall while i grabbed his collar and looked down. “they why didn’t you notice those other girls and boys were killed by me?” he hummed in thought.

“because i’m not into them.” i sadly chuckled, “could’ve said that before i killed them.” ayato smirked before pecking my lips, “i’m not into taeko either. i knew you were obsessed with me, the feelings mutual. wanna know why those other students disappeared?” my eyes widened.

“it’s because i killed them for you.” he whispered into my ear making my legs shake, he kissed me again a little more possessive. i pulled away with a flustered look, “you idiot, you were stalling.” he smirked as we left the room almost half of the school gone.

“how about we kill that idiot that was staring at you sexually?”

“and you see dear? that’s how i met your father.” i had a kind smile on my face as my daughters looked at each other before looking at me and ayato, “are we gonna find our loves soon?” ayano asked clutching onto my skirt.

i nodded ruffling her hair, “in high-school dears.” mafuyu and ayano raced upstairs, ayato wrapped his arms around me pecking my cheek, “you left out the part where we dismantled the perv.” i chuckled pecking back his check.

“they’ll be traumatized, ayato~” he rolled his eyes, “they weren’t traumatized when you mentioned you killing yuma so brutally.” i laughed, “because how could i go on without mentioning you figured it out.” i answered.

“yeah, yeah, whatever.”

[mellobee-draws]

Request

Can I have some Osana hcs on how would they/she/he confesses? I don’t see enough Osana or maybe I’m too blind

Requested by @lurainq

Type - fluff/hcs (with a little sprinkle of angst/osana sulking because im mean)

A/n - of course you can have najimi confessing hcs and I know right there isn't enough najimi and I think I have only found like one or two and I accidentally got too invested and wrote a lot oops

Ok so I'm not going to sugar coat this

They are fucking straight forward with their confession

But you can't blame them i mean you're probably their childhood friend

Unless you're a komi situation

Anyways we'll talk about that later

Honestly they probably would ask in the worst time possible

But if you say yes they'll be extremely happy

If you say no they'll be kinda sad and very awkward with you they won't seem like it tho

Okay now we get to the hard part

So if you're like komi (calling out the komi kinnies) and not najimi's childhood friend this will be more difficult for najimi

Since they probably can't look you in the eyes here's what they'll do to get the encouragement to ask you out

Lots and lots of practising in the mirror for a week

Then uses tadano to practise for 2 days

Then they're ready and leave a note in your locker next time they go to school

Probably have the place they said for you to meet them be the rooftop and the time would be end of day since before school people would be talking to them

Insert osana trying to calm down while waiting

When you get there I think they would stutter a lot while asking you

If you say yes you now have a very happy and not so nervous najimi

If you say no they'll might literally get sick for a week or more and will be scared to face you

Edit - forgot to add header credits

[grey-eyed-menace]

"...Saikou-san, what the fuck are you doing?"

Megami did not startle, she refused to admit that the Aishi-Freak had done such a thing to her, catching her off guard, so, of course, she quietly turned around with an air of refined disinterest, cocking an eyebrow.

"Investigating a student complaint," she responded easily, gesturing over her shoulder with an annoyed air, "they expressed worry over a possible confession ending in violence, the student council is trying to prevent it all together."

Aishi blinked slowly, likely confused, before leaning sideways to pear around her side, before her entire face morphed into a scowl.

"Saikou, if you want to prevent Yamada-chan's pleading just say so," she snapped, straightening back up and crossing her arms.

...what.

"She's a sweet girl, a little clingy sure, but she's just worried about her brother leaving her behind when he gets a girlfriend," Aishi went on, pinning her a with a disappointed look, "I'm sure if you just talk to her, she'd be more then willing to hear your side of-"

"You're not interested in Yamada-senpai?" Megani asked faintly.

The disappointment morphed into genuine flabbergasted confusion, "What? No, of course not, why would I? I'm a little caught up with... things, yeah? Family things, stuff that makes me stare at the front door for hours every night with dread sort of shit."

"Why aren't you interested?!"

"...he's not my type? Saikou-san you are aware that not everyone in this school is head over heels for the guy right?"

"What the hell happened to Najimi Osana-san? Sunobu-san? Rito-san? Kina-sensei? Mida-sensei? What the hell has this entire week been Aishi!?!?"

"Bad luck? Comeuppance? Look, do I need to bring you to the infirmary Megami-san?"

"You... your meant... your meant to be a freak! The signs were there, they were all there! The sneaking around, the creepy behavior, everything with all of Yamada-senpai's suitors! My disaster of a week!" She exclaimed, barely withholding a scream of frustration, hands clenching.

Aishi took a calculated step backwards at the outburst before a voice called out to the pair of them, and one of the Occult Club members rounded the corner, no... not a member...

Ruto the leader.

His pace was hurried, his entire face painted a bright pink, and he had his school bag clutched precariously to his chest as he strode forward.

Aishi rose her hand in greeting, causing his gaze to practically snap to her, noticably lighting up like a Christmas tree, and Megami was left grasping at straws.

"Him!?"

[zer0cracy]

It just hit me, but your icon reminds me of how Najimi's been drawn as of late. The whole simplified face thing.

Look at this page and tell me if you see something:

That’s right, I’ve been rocking simplified Najimi for the last

FIVE

FUCKING

YEARS

welcome to my *origin story*, motherfuckers 

[incorrectcommunication]

Auto Education, part 1

Tadano teaching Hitomi to drive and taking Najimi along for the ride Tadano: That's a pothole. To the left! Hitomi: Take it back now y'all. (Drives into pothole) Najimi, sticking their face into the front over the center console: Cha cha real smooth! Hitomi: I don't think that's how the song goes. Tadano, crying and gripping the handle: Please just take me home. Hitomi: Country Roads. Najimi: To the place. Hitomi and Najimi, in unison: I Belong! Tadano, crying harder: What the fuck?

(Source: ???)

[worangetraveler-multiverseguide]

Looking at 324 with wait there’s a new one already?

Time has lost all meaning but I need something to distract me at work cause I cant watch much more reactions to the latest smash reveal (was awesome though)

Future Worange ready for a new chapter... honestly I just went to check out of curiosity but well since its already here? LETS GO

Wait we jumping straight to third year? ... seriouslly Japan having their vacation period MID school year is tbh upsetting me

So basically the day before third year Komi is nerveous... makes sense all in all but... WHY DO YOU GO TO BED AT 11PM!?!?!?! It feels so... weird (when in eality it should be normal but fuck you I want extra hours to fool around since I’m at work all day :P)

Komi... I’m pretty sure your boyfriend would be happy to get a call or text from you and will be there for you, I know you live with anxiety but... im starting to realize I have a very short fuse today :P

Talking about one’s worries... this actually brings a smile to my face

??? wait 10 minutes... what is he...

MDSH: MY CHADANO SENSES ARE TINGLING!

Don’t ever say that again but why do you...

HOLY SHIT THIS ABSOLUTE CHAD! HE WENT TO SEE HER IN HIS BIKE!

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT but he is already leaving? Okay so even Chadano’s power isnt limitless... that’s to considerate

Regardless, this is a fucking sweet gesture and

MDSH: MY TRAGEDY SENSES ARE TINGLING

Dude... stop, that one is not even funny, at least the previous one had an obvious punchline

MDSH: I KNOW BUT KOMI ASKING TADANO TO CALL HER WHEN HE ARRIVES SAFE NEAR MIDNIGHT IS RAISING ALARMS IN MY HEAD

Yes I can hear them but please, chill

Okay thankfully this time you were wrong, no tragedies and Komi eventually fell sleep, also seems there was more talk but we didnt get all? Interesting and alright

And so a new day begins and the third year arrives

A lot of familiar faces everyone welcoming each other and

One Week Ago Worange: THE TRAGEDY IS COMING I CAN FEEL I--*OOF*

SHUT THE FUCK UP THERE’S NO TRAGEDY YOU CAN SEE TADANO AND KOMI NEXT TO EACH OTHER ONCE MORE AT CLASS! 

....

But if you reworded tragedy into “shenanigans”? You would be up to something

So lets have a small looksie

ACTUALLY LETS REWIND 5 SECONDS THERE... SHORT HAIRED MANBAGI!?!?!?!?!?

MDSH: I WAS RIGHT!!!!

Short haired Manbagi and the fact she is part of the casualties as disrupted my sense of anything, Najimi is still with Tadano and Komi in class 3 though, what the future holds? Only the future know

One Week in the Future Worange: ...

Okay this bit is over and I’m leaving, ready for more shenanigans next week and probably (for real?) my next round of liveblog, see you eventually :D

[just-a-venomous-kinnie]

Hajime x Oc pt4!

Anyways🥋❤🛐😎🙄 So hi. This episode is inspired by the fact that I have nothing better to do and NEED to continue this series😁☝ pls do enjoy my cringe writing.

The nurse who announces Death

3rd person pov😜☝

Keiichirou lays down inside of the nurse's office since he was sick from pe. He turns his head to see a shadowy figure moving past his window. It turns out to be a pale lady in a nurse outfit staring back at him.

Keiichirou screams in terror as she smiles at him.

Intro song break🕺 Kimi no koto🎶watashi no koto🎶 Dereka no koto🎶 Shiranai koto😩🎶Oshiete yo🎶 Mada shiranai hanashi😩☝🎶 Kanaeru tame ni ima😜🎶 kokoro hiraite🎶😞

(Alr back into it🙄)

The group of teens plus Keiichirou stand outside of the window he led them to. Leo takes a photo as Keiichirou points.

"That's where she was?" Hajime asks the little boy

"She looked like one of the man girls from Paris is burning" Keiichirou said.

"The school nurse is a big pentagram fan. Maybe you were just high" Satsuki says to him

"I was NOT high. I swear it was her. I never left the bed" He says in protest.

"Listen guys, high or not,that lady is fucking HIDEOUS. Maybe you did mistake her and you just don't know" Najimi says to him while eating a chocolate bar she had in her bag.

"I'm guessing it was the cursed nurse" Leo says taking another photo. Satsuki asks who that was.

"Yes, she posseses sick people without health insurance and takes them with her to the spirit world" He said, he them proceeds to go on about the nurse taking another kid.

"Don't you worry little guy! You're tough as nails!" Hajime says rubbing Keiichirou's head.

"You're..hurting me.." Keiichirou says

"You're a goner.." Hajime says defeated, the little boys starts to cry.

"Wish i could say it was nice knowing you.. But i hate kids so bye little bud" Najimi says,throwing her chocolate wrapper on the ground.

"I don't believe in that cursed nurse, come on Keiichirou we're going home" She says upset.

"What home? You don't believe me?" The little boy says, following after his sister.

"What's her problem?" Hajime asks Najimi.

"Fuck if I know..maybe her period?" Najimi says putting her bag in her arms.

"I fucking knew it" Hajime says, grabbing a chocolate bar out of Najimi's bag and opening it.

Skip to the Miyanoshita residence

Keiichirou sits at his desk writing something. Satsuki asks what Keiichirou wants for dinner until Amanojaku says he wants dumplings. She makes a comment about him getting meow mix and looks at the windows seeing them closed.

"You closed the windows already?" She asks the child.

"I don't want that drag queen nurse peaking in on me" Keiichirou says.

"Drag queens won't bother you, worry about priests" Satsuki says putting her hand on her hip.

"Leave me alone! I've got to fill in my special Olympics application" the boy says as Amanojaku laughs.

"Ehehehe special-special Olympics! Ha! Can't wait to see that!" He says laughing.

"Leave him alone!" She says. Amanojaku starts to "immitate" a special person until Satsuki speaks.

"Stop being hateful and tell me about this cursed nurse you fur bag" Satsuki demands the cat.

" Oh alright im sorry. Why don't you look in your mommies ghost diary?" He asks

"HA! Just as I thought! You don't know then she doesn't exist" she says triumphing.

"Whats the matter? Did Oprah have a show oh d-d-denile or something?" He asks the girl. She makes a sad face and whispers Trya banks

"Keiichirou what do you want for dinner? Tell me" Satsuki asks. Amanojaku makes more noises until Satsuki turns back to him.

"I'm gonna beat you (R-slur)!" She threatened the cat.

Satsuki's father soon come home and they sit down to eat dinner. He says that it'll be hard to show his face after the doll incident but he'll gut up and go if he has to.

"Could you wear a wig and a dress?" Keiichirou asks. Satsuki asks him what he was talking about.

"Think im in enough trouble.." His father says.

"Make sure to stuff a bra and tie your peepee down, I don't wanna be the only kid without a mom" He says looking down at his plate.

Satsuki yells at him until he slams his hands down.

"They beat me up all the time! I DON'T NEED ANOTHER GOD DAMN REASON!" He says running away.

" YOU WATCH YOUR GOD DAMN MOUTH" Satsuki yells as her father watches them.

"Ok..im off the hook!" Their father says happily.

"DAD!" Satsuki yells at him

" It's alright him Satsuki, they make fun of me all the time too now. I don't need another god damn reason either!" He says before eating a dumpling.

" Remember what i was telling you about your mother's cooking Satsuki? Well these dumplings would do your mother and Paula Deen proud...if Paula was Japanese" He says enthusiastically.

Cut to after some cute flash back of young Satsuki cooking with her mother.

As the children go to sleep, their father drinks some alcohol in front of their mothers mural and sobs.

Cut to a memory of very young Keiichirou and his mother

"Is it good?" She asks her son as he happily sips the Apple Juice while saying yes.

"You certainly love apple juice don't you Keiichirou?"she asks for him to again reply yes.

"But it gives you such gas." She says after he burps and excuses himself.

"You're gonna die aren't ya?" He asks.

"Uh.." She says looking down

" Lets lighten this dark moment with a joke. Go ahead mom pull my finger" the little boy says holding out his pinky.

His mother goes to grab it before she's lifted into a void. He drops his apple juice and starts to run after his mother.

"Come back its really funny! Everyone at my school is doing it! You see, when you pull my finger i make a noise like i farted, it'll kill ya!" Keiichirou says before a hand trips him up.

The ghost nurse grabs him and takes his mother away as he starts to scream. Soon he wakes up in his bed shaking and crying

"I'm trying to sleep here.." Satsuki says, pulling herself up to the upper bunk.

Keiichirou starts to sob as Satsuki tells him to get a hold of himself and that it was just a dream. The child still sobs all night.

Skip to the morning

Satsuki stands in the kitchen with her father as Keiichirou gets ready for school. Her father starts to make himself something to eat while Satsuki rants to him.

"Well he screams and cries every night and wakes me up and then I can't get back to sleep! GOD having a dead mother is hell on your beauty rest" Satsuki says angrily as she chops the vegetables.

"Um..I'm a little hung over so can we talk about this later?" Her father asks. Satsuki replies with fine as she continues to chop.

"Don't talk, Just remember I haven't had much sleep, and I've got a knife" Satsuki says slowly as her father gives her a weird stare.

Cut to after school

Keiichirou crouches on the ground with drawing him mother in the sand. The wind soon blows her face away.

"Damn it.. Just like Etch A sketch" Keiichirou says angrily. He stands up and turns around to see the nurse starring back at him from the school balcony.

"Sorry I'm late, Mr. Sakata was being an ass!" Satsuki says running toward him.

"Yeah! I was this close to screaming PEDOPHILE so someone would let us out the damn classroom" Najimi says jogging next to Momoko.

"Dirty mouthed heathens" Momoko says under her breath.

"She's back! RuPaul!" Keiichirou says. Satsuki asks what he was talking about.

"The drag queen nurse is back look!" He says pointing.

The girls look over to see nothing. Momoko explains that she didn't see anyone while Keiichirou stands in confusion.

"She was there I saw her!" The boy yells in his defense.

*Gasp* "He's on drugs!" Momoko says distraught.

"I'm not on drugs!... Just paxil.." (Depression and anxiety medication) He says.

"Momoko is right,You didn't get much sleep last night" Satsuki states

"I never do, you snore like Rob Mungle" He says slyly.

"Then you're lying" She says, Keiichirou starts to tear up and run off away from the three.

"Damn girl... Maybe you should've been a bit nicer. Kids do have wild imaginations, maybe his brain was just fucking with him" Najimi says looking at the boy then to her.

Skip to the next day

Satsuki is walking home as one of her neighbors say hi to her.

"Mornin satsuki!" She says

"Hi there!" Satsuki says, mimicking her southern accent.

"Don't you just hate laundry day?" She asks

"If yer husband would get a job you could buy a dry'er" Satsuki says while grabbing clothes

"I'd do good to have that deadbeat come back without liquor on his breath and lipstick on his collar,Rat bastard!" the woman laughs.

Satsuki heads back inside

"Keiichirou-- Why am I still talking like that redneck?" Satsuki asks herself as she looks around for her brother.

Satsuki notices a poorly written note:

"Sis Dear Mom A Love, going you're P.S. see to Keiichirou" (yes exactly like that)

While Satsuki reads the note, Keiichirou is finding his way to the train in the city. Satsuki flips through her ghost book pleading that the ghost isn't there. Low and behold she is, she reads on how her mother doesn't truly know how it would work out to kill the old hag.

Meanwhile, Keiichirou makes his way on the train with Amanojaku in his bag.

"Thanks for coming with me momoko and Najimi, I mean, you could always use some Jesus y'know?" Satsuki says

"I have such fond memories of that hospital, it's a loving place if healing- Except for those who die" Momoko says quickly

"Roger that! Keiichirou was so little when mom was in the hospital how will he find it?? And with his dyslexia he could end up in Bangkok!" Satsuki says back to her.

Satsuki starts speaking broken Japanese to which Momoko asks what she was saying. Satsuki explains that her mother put the ghost to sleep when she was little. She asks Momoko if her mom said anything about it and why did the ghost only show up while he was around.

While this all happens,Keiichirou is finding how way around to the hospital. The two go back and forth about the hospital thing until a flashback starts.

"Listen Satsuki,you only get a chance like this once in your life!" Her father says to little her while nurses run inside the hospital room. He runs after them and they close the door, he asks who's first as the door locks.

"Do you know how long I waited outside that room for him to finish?!" Satsuki exclaims

"Oh dear god" Momoko says.

"Can we like put a time out on this hospital talk" Najimi says sickly

"What do you mean?" Satsuki says looking down at her friend who was holding her stomach.

"I just hate hospitals! All the needles and dead people! Hell, Last time I went there for something I figured out I had a tumor in my left ass cheek!" Najimi says angrily.

"Well now you can get over your fears of hospitals, isn't that great!" Momoko says happily

"Fuck you" Najimi says looking away.

Keiichirou successfully makes his way to the hospital.

" okay I got to level with you you remember that I told you that I Met Your Mother at the excadice homosexual conversion camp? that was just one of the floors at the hospital the ones where I was on was the rehab Wing. Before I met Jesus I was really fucked up, And a slut." Momoko says

" anyways we heard the story about this nurse who comes around after the other nurses make their rounds every time she went into one of the rooms that patient, swear to God, flatlined! DEAD,GONE, TRULY MEETING JESUS!" Momoko explained.

Momoko explains that her and Satsuki's mother talked about praying and stuff before going on about how she met Satsuki's father.

Keiichirou explains how he missed his mother and how the last time he saw his mother was when he went to go get apple juice. He also yelled about how he was thirsty as a mother fucker and decided to go home with Amanojaku. As he walked, he talked about raven being hot until seeing the ghost floating towards him.

The three girls run through the hospital trying to find Keiichirou till they see a Mexican nurse yelling at them.

Satsuki,Momoko and Najimi get to the boy and try to protect him. They yell, "The patient has been cured" twice. It seems to momentarily stop the ghost before she starts again.

"WHAT THE FUCK SATSUKI! I'M NOT TRYNA DIE. BY SOME DRAG QUEEN!" Najimi says as she throws chairs at the ghost.

"Chill kids, she's not gonna hurt you. Floatin Florence Nightingale here, she's only coming to give you a little message. Don't feel bad about bailing on Mommy Dearest" Amanojaku says as the ghost disappears into light and leaves behind a letter.

"It's a letter from mom! When did she write this!" Satsuki asks. Momoko admits that she forgot something, she tells the other three that the ghost was an angel from the Lord telling everybody to say their last goodbyes.

The kid's father open the not to read it out to them.

"Dear Keiichirou,

well I'm sure this is incredibly inappropriate I mean you'll probably be only 4 or 5 by the time that nurse finally gets his to you it's not like the afterlife has any FedEx office or anything, I'm leaving strict instructions for this letter to be left out for you but with my luck with this being county and all they'll probably bury it with me. I would like to give you some words of wisdom or Comfort or some heartfelt Mojo I'm so strung out on methadone right now I'm doing good just holding my pen. Oh! before I forget let me get down to business, me and my mom is really pissed off some ghost spirits in our time and well sorry to break it to you but they'll probably be coming to kill you. I do hope that Satsuki finds that diary can't remember where I put the damn thing. I'm so high..hahah.. But I did leave you a photo album! look at what I was wearing oh HORRIBLE! (A few photos show of them) I mean even after I married your father I still dressed like a dike... I hope I didn't put that Pink Suit picture in here oh God damnit I did.. and father always thinks it's so cute to draw his eyes and see see! look he did it there! But for all its flaws I really did love the guy. Really did love the guy AND THE CRAZY WALL SLAMMIN sex we used to have! I have to say I really enjoyed being you kids mother at least I think I did.. nurses increasing the drip and I'm losing it..I'd love to give you some more Family Ties moments but that's not me,tough love baby! that's just how I roll..

Keiichirou gets his own juice and tells his father to look at how he did it himself. He then asks if he can do his straw for him since he's bad at shapes.

"No Keiichirou...this time,you do it yourself" His father says crying.

Satsuki and Keiichirou go in to hug their father as Momoko cries in the sideline.

"Well at least one of us got our mommy issues cured" Najimi says getting up and patting her skirt down.

The end, This shit took me about two months to finish wtf?!?! I'm pretty sure this got out on your brithday. Happy birthday I suppose! I really wanted to finish this earlier but I didn't so bleh. I'll probably start pt.5 tomorrow if I'm feeling it sooo. Bye🕺💃🐢

[linkspooky]

Pls... your top ten nisioisin characters... i love your lists...

I LOVE TO TALK ABOUT  HOW MUCH I LOVE MY FAVES. IF YOU EVER ASK WANT TO ASK ME WHO MY FAVES ARE FOR A SERIES FEEL FREE TO SEND ME AN ASK.

My favorite thing about Niosisin’s characters is how genuinely subversive they are. Not in the sense that he’s deconstructing tropes, but rather these are characters who would never get their story told in most other books, because they are not good, or righteous. Nisioisin breathes life into them, and allows those who cannot be forgiven, those who are deviant, those who have dropped out of society to still remain human. He tells their stories the same as everybody else, because their lives are just as fun. 

1. Even if I’m hated, Even if I’m Despised - Kumagawa Misogi 

He’s only my favorite character of all time so I’ve talked about him on this blog before, but let me find something new to say. Oh Kumagawa, how do I love thee, let me count the ways. Or maybe it’s Oh Kumagawa, how do I despise thee let me count the ways. 

Kumagawa’s character is so interesting because it’s written in antithesis of everything a shonen protagonist is. For Kumagawa, his determination just makes him fail worse and worse. His desire to be involved and help people always guarantees the worst result for the people he wants to call his friends. His empathy is extremely painful for him, and is a trait that drives him insane rather than making him a kind and loving person. 

A lot of time in manga empathy is like, a magic fix-it-all bandaid that basically makes the main character a saint by being able to emotionally relate to anybody. Kumagawa is the reality of that situation. He is empathic, and by relating so much to the humans around him he shows how ugly, and messy human emotions can really be. Recovery and saving others isn’t necessarily a beautiful thing, it’s complicated and sloppy. 

Kumagawa is a character where getting stronger won’t solve any of his problems. Which is what happens in a lot of shonen manga, rather than trying to emotionally mature the main character will just learn a new fighting technique and develop that way. Instead, Kumagawa winning fights means absolutely nothing. The only thing that can free him is to grow up as a person, and the fact that Kumagawa’s arc is given equal weight to both of the main characters shows how accepting of weirdoes and broken off beat characters Nisioisin is as an author. 

What I like about him is how genuinely broken he is, but not for monstrous reasons but for entirely human ones. It’s his genuine care for others that breaks him the most. He’s a character written to be insane, but also geniunely human. Kumagawa is not able to live properly, or even act like the main character like Zenkichi and Medaka are but he’s still able to find his own way to live. 

2. I don’t feel any reality from you people - Ajimu Najimi 

“Genius who is super good at everything, but is secretly sad and lonely on the inside” is a pretty common Nisioisin trope. It tends to be pretty hit and miss with me, but it also resulted in one of my favorite characters of all time. I tend to like these types of characters more when they’re allowed to be… what’s the word… unlikable. When the story isn’t trying to go on about how cool they are.

The reason why I love Ajimu is because she is just like Kumagawa, a subversion of the character you expect her to be. The same way Kumagawa suverts Zenkichi in a way, Ajimu subverts Medaka. The same way that Medaka is all loving, Ajimu is indifferent to absolutely everything. The reason she’s able to be kind to everyone around her is because she genuinely doesn’t care about you. Her real personality when not being apathetic, is to just be downright nasty and look down on absolutely everything. 

She’s completely self absorbed because according to Ajimu she’s the only one who exists in the universe. She’s the only one she knows for sure is real. The opposite of Kumagawa, a character entirely lacking in empathy, not even thinking of herself as human in any sense of the word. Ajimu acts like she knows everything in the story like she’s reading off of the script, but that’s because she literally thinks that everything in this world is fiction and she’s literally breaking the fourth wall.

And my favorite part about Ajimu is that the story doesn’t glorify her meta fourth wall shenanigans. She’s not treated as someone who sees through everything in the end. She’s just pathetic, and suicidal, and dragging everybody else along into her trillion year long self pity party. She’s more of a human failure than someone who can’t possibly empathize with humans, and that’s why I love her. 

3. There ain’t no meaning, got it? - Ii (Boku) 

Ii-chan is the narrator of Nisioisin’s first ever series, Zaregoto (Lit. Nonsense). It’s not really until the second book you get a grasp of his character, but Strangulation Romanticist does such an excellent job of setting up who he is as a person. This is another one of Nisioisin’s character types (narrator who feels ennui, and really, really doesn’t want to be a person). 

What’s great about Iichan is that he is special in a way. Just like he’s described in the books, when he’s thrown into situations everything goes a little bit crazy. He always gets dragged into mysteries, and has people die around him even though he tries to stay as uninvolved with people as possible. He’s actually a great look at what a character constantly caught up in murder mysteries like the main character of a detective novel would actually act like. He has this deep rambling narration that sways between nihilism and existentialism that makes him a really unique character to read about.

But at the same time Iichan is also kind of a normal dude. And I don’t mean in the sense that he’s an everyman, or has no personality, but he kind of just feels like one. The great twist of No Longer Human is that Yozo isn’t some inhuman monster, he’s just kind of a normal guy who drowns out his misery by taking advantage of women. Like, it’s not all that uncommon. The same thing with Iichan, as poetic as he gets he’s kind of a very petty person and most of his flaws are very mundane ones. 

It’s basically very hard to care about other people in this world. Ii-chan doesn’t want to at all, he just wants to have all of his emotional needs fulfilled by the friend he both infantilizes and puts on a pedestal. He’s just super clingy about the one relationship he has in life, because he’s afraid of losing it, but he’s also afraid of being close to her. Ii-chan is just kind of a normal person reacting badly to trauma, but he presents himself as such a mystery that most people lose sight of that (in story). He’s kind of just petty and annoying, and that’s why I love him. 

4. No Longer Human - Hitoshiki Zerozaki

Zerozaki is Iichan’s greatest character foil. Basically the best way to describe it is Zerozaki is Mersault. The flip that is switched on for everyone that prevents them from killing someone when the idea crosses their mind is turned off for Zerozaki, and so he kills. He doesn’t enjoy it, he doesn’t have a particular reason to it, he just can’t overcome his impulse to kill. If Ii-chan is restrained, then Zerozaki never restrains any of his impulses at all and lives following only those. 

Once again this is another common Nisioisin character archetype “A murder, but they’re sad and lonely.” What I like about Hitoshiki is how much of a deviant he is to that archetype. 

He wants a friend and somebody who understands him, but at the same time he hates himself so he doesn’t want anybody too close. He lives in a family of murderers and he’s somehow the rebellious child of the family. He’s constantly running away and wandering from place to place. What makes Zerozaki interesting is how self aware he is about all of this too. He rambles his thoughts and will just be like “Yeah, so anyway that’s totally fucked up (LOL).” 

 5. Is your life dramatic - Kaiki Deishuu

Kaiki is a character who I admire for his philosophy above all else. He’s another one of those “deviant” characters like Kumagawa who would just be a villain to be defeated in any other narrative, but in this one he gets fully fleshed out as a character. 

What’s interesting about Kaiki is that he chooses exactly the way he lives. He decides to be a villain. Kaiki at some point sees through most of the lies of the people around them, and for how meaningless the things that you are told have value can be. He hates holding onto ideas like those.

But that doesn’t mean that Kaiki rejects everything. He doesn’t claim to see above society, or that he’s not a part of society. Rather, Kaiki just uses that awareness to realize he can give meaning to whatever he personally finds meaningful. Because it’s all meaningless anyway, as a human being he can create his own meaning. 

So his want of money is not just simple greed, it’s what he’s decided to live for. Kaiki is an adult who willingly chose to become a conman because he finds that’s his place in society. He just doesn’t trust himself enough to be kind despite feeling the same desire to save others, so he decided to lie to them and trick them instead. 

6. “I don’t know anything, you’re the one who knows” Oshino Ougi

Ougi is just interesting conceptually. They are literally Araragi’s own shadow, running away from him and given form and consciousness of their own. While Ougi themselves works as a common Jungian shadow archetype calling characters out for what they are repressing and also revealing the bare faced truth to them, which is why they are so heavily associated with mirrors, lights, and shadows. 

My favorite part about Ougi however is not their connection to Araragi. It’s when Ougi starts to become their own character. An oddity with consciousness that begins to deviate from what they were made for, because they were allowed to live on their own.

Ougi did not become a fave of mine until Zoku because that was when they started to self reflect and realize their own strange existence separate to Araragi. The conversation scene with Araragi is one of my favorite in the whole series because it shows how Ougi is just a genuine tease, and a very clever and insightful person. That’s who they are, outside of just being an oddity that exists to criticize others and call out flaws. They’re ridiculous, and a little strange, and they enjoy screwing with other’s heads and messing around a bit too much. But Ougi Oshino is Ougi Oshino. 

It’s just an interesting concept, to have to define who you are as a person when you were created out of all of the unwanted qualities, and insecurities of another person. 

7. Why are you touching me without permission, you weed - Yasuri Nanami

Nanami is another one of those “I’m a genius and I’m good at everything but I’m secretly sad” characters, and once again what I love about her is how unlikable she’s allowed to be. None of what Nanami is capable of comes off as cool for very long. She’s basically framed and treated as a horror movie monster, always speaking in the same monotone voice. The one story that shows her true nature in chapter four is literally, paced, framed, exactly like a slasher movie with characters being hunted down and killed one by one. 

Nanami’s just this horrible wretched existence that doesn’t even want to be alive. She basically acts like frankenstein’s monster, ie, the one in the book. She’s just this corpse that is barely even alive in the first place, constantly sick and in pain, and she’s also at war with herself. The part of her that wants to die and the part of her that’s lonely and wants to find some reason to live, or some connection in life are constantly at war with each other. 

And as horrifying as Nanami is she also feels like the most human of Niosisin’s, super-genius characters. She’s riddled with weaknesses and flaws. She lashes out when he’s in pain, she felt bad when her parents told her to die. You get the sense that Nanami’s super genius isn’t what drove her insane at all, it was just how everybody around her treated her as some thing that was not human. Isolation made her this way. She was conditioned to act this way not born inhuman. There are characters that Nisioisin writes that are genuine sociopaths (as in the trope of an unfeeling person unable to feel human emotions), but Nanami is not one of them and so when she starts acting with sociopathic-traits in her personality it makes her all the more painfully human because we see how she’s been driven slowly to act this way. 

7. *Yawns* Nezumi

Juuni Taisen is one of those death game stories where every character is defined by their one gimmick and written around their concept. In the original novel each character really only gets one chapter to be fleshed out as a character. I half suspect Nisioisin wrote it as a dare to himself on how much he could accomplish with one chapter.

The interesting part about Nezumi is his concept again. He can redo anything 100 times. You think this would make him amazing at anything in life because of his time loop ability, but physically having to live through all of those time loops exhausts him to the point that he’s too tired to do anything. You would think he could get anything he wanted out of life, but there are times he can ask a girl out one hundred times and get rejected one hundred different ways. 

Nezumi is interesting because of how quietly he lives. There’s nothing he really wants out of life, and nothing he wishes for, like a rat he just scurries and survives. 

9. I am currently being accused by everyone - Kakushidate Yakusuke

The same as Iichan and Kumagawa, Yakusuke is a guy who is just cursed by constant bad luck. What I like about Yakusuke is that he’s a full fleshed out character, instead of just an unlucky every dude protagonist.

He’s a contract worker who is constantly shifting between jobs. Due to this fact he’s got like 1,000 skills that he gained on his various jobs. He’s not smart, but because he’s experienced so much of life he’s incredibly resourceful. Which is why he makes a perfect counterpart and foil to Okitegami.

Yakusuke’s everyday life is him constantly being accused and blamed, and falling from one bad situation to the next. But, he has so much experiences that it’s what draws Okitegami to him who can only ever experience one day at a time because her memories will reset at the end of the day. He’s exactly my type of man, a total failure at all walks of life.

10. This is your last chance, let me make you happy! - Kugi Kizutaka

He’s so low on the list because his story “Magical Girl Ritsuka” only has one chapter published in english, but he’s so interesting he instantly became a fave. He’s actually a concept i have been looking for for a long time, which is basically what I describe as “Reverse Junko Enoshima.” 

Basically someone as smart and manipulative as Junko Enoshima, who can make anybody into their toy, and predict things years in advance and control everything, but instead of using that power to send the world to despair, they use that power to give the world hope instead. Not out of any genuine good will or because they’re a good person, but because they’re obsessed with the idea of giving people happiness the same way Junko is with sending people to despair. 

Kugi is a lot like that. He’s a genius ten year old who sees everybody for their potential to be used, and looks down on absolutely everyone around him. He’s made contact with a magical girl, because he’s pretty clearly planning on using her to enslave the world to him, so he can force everybody to be happy. And it’s absolutely adorable. He’s just such a genuine terrible little person while at the same time wanting to make everyone happy. 

[safflowerseason]

veep rewatch - 3.03

Season Three, Episode Three - Alicia 

aka - The One with the Announcement 

Tracie Thoms is well cast in the role of Alicia. 

When Jonah runs across the street, you really get a sense of how ill-fitting his clothes are (and also how freakish they make him look as a result). His pants are at least two sizes too big. 

Amy back in a skirt suit very reminiscent of her S2 outfits. 

Love the behind-the-scenes quality of the scene in the Veep’s office, with Selina getting fitted while her staffers work on the speech. 

Sue: Ma’am, it's Amy. She sounds uncomfortable. Like she's with a member of the public.

And now Amy in a beautifully tailored purple dress! This is not my personal favorite shade of purple (I would have preferred something a few shades darker…this is a bit too “crayola” purple for me) but the dress is super cute and it looks wonderful on Anna Chlumsky and fits her like a glove. I adore the peplum detail on the skirt and the little sleeve flaps.

Selina in another black and red outfit, in yet another episode where she wrestles with what she can say publicly versus what she actually believes. Definitely a consistent fashion theme of S3 so far. 

Gary: It's like SNL is going back in time and abusing a child.

Love the ongoing balloon bit in this episode. 

Kent: We need to rewrite the speech! Dan: I can’t rewrite the rewrite, Kent. I'm still writing it! Kent: That’s the reality, Dan. If you don't like the reality, go live in Oregon and make quilts with my mother. She could use the help.

Dan/Amy parent!watch Amy: Do…do I take her hand?  Alicia: Yes, hold Miss Amy's hand. Mike: Amy was born to be with kids Amy: …Peeing is fun…!

Amy: Okay…great pee.  Dan: I wanna know who's responsible for that sketch, you cock…*sees Amy and Halo*…tail napkin. Yeah, you heard me! Doyle: Dan. Amy. Dan: Shit, I gotta go.  Amy: Senator Doyle.  Doyle: I have a meeting scheduled with the Vice President right now and it is "right now” right now. Amy: Dan, you take this…right now. Dan: What?!

I always thought this little tussle, as well as Dan and Amy’s very brief interactions with Halo, indicate that while parenting would have represented a chaotic (and comedic) learning curve for both of them…it’s not like they don’t grasp the basic reality of what it means to be responsible for another human being. Both of them willingly hold Halo’s hand. Dan cuts himself off in the middle of cursing out the SNL guy, Amy doesn’t really know what to say to a little girl but she still tries to make her feel comfortable…these are small things, but there’s an awareness, however limited, of what it means to manage small kids. Yes, Dan and Amy are dramatic and completely obsessed with their work and have limited emotional intelligence. But they are also technically functional adults who have a base level of propriety and social awareness. In contrast, during S7, Mandel’s attitude toward the idea of Dan and Amy as parents seemed to be that they would be practically criminally negligent, monstrous in their grotesque selfishness and sociopathy. Which, like, sure, I wouldn’t want Sex-Psychopath Dan anywhere near my daughter. But it doesn’t track with the earlier seasons of the show.

Ben: Because then they sound like they're the result of war. Kent: It’s the curse of the unintended narrative. Dan: Okay, but you still want military first?  Selina: Yes!  Dan: *grumbling* Yeah…I’ll just say them simultaneously.

The show never gets into it much, in either era—and it seems like BKD was always tragically doomed to be nothing more than a plot device—but there was always a little spark with Ben, Kent, and Dan’s dynamic. It’s not hard to imagine that the three of them, together, could have grown a very successful business in DC (…I have imagined it). Dan always works best around people who stomp on his ego and boss him around, which Ben and Kent certainly have no qualms about, but he’s also active and ambitious in a way that they aren’t, so they actually make a decent team. Also, Dan views Ben and Kent as men in a way he doesn't with Mike and Gary, which affects how he interacts with them. 

Doyle is a real dick in this episode. His presumption. It is so infuriating. It reminds me of all the male senators during the Kavanaugh hearings.

Selina: Seniors are the easy vote. Child care is a principle.  Ben: Ma’am, you have plenty of principles…you just gotta pick another one.

Dan: I don’t do offended…but I am affronted that you’d even think that.  A classic Dan line. 

Selina: I'll tell you what happens. They get bullied when they're little at school, and then they perpetuate the cycle by bullying me.

JLD’s face when she sees Catherine’s dress…masterful. 

Amy sends Gary a great “oh shit here it comes” look right after Selina starts to blow up at Catherine.

Also JLD’s fake laughing reaction to Doyle’s “L’il Selina” line. Brilliant.

Selina: So…I’m supposed to let a bunch of dead-eyed white guys shit all over absolutely everything that I stand for? An iconic line that is sadly even more applicable in 2020 than it was in 2014. 

Selina, in a rage: I have DECIDED that I'm going to LET them dictate to me. Because that is MY decision. Do you understand that? I am LETTING them do that! Get it?  Ben: Yes, ma’am. Selina: Right! But they do NOT own me!  Ben: They really don't, ma’am.  Selina: No, they don't! No, they don’t! *flings herself into the armchair*

Gary doesn’t do much in this episode, but he gets in some great little physical comedy bits, like trying to sneak Selina something to drink and then shying away. 

Mike calling Dee a “stupid cow” opens up such a dark crack into the normally sunny Mike. Matt Walsh really nails it, though, his own horror at his words…you really feel for him, even though it is a truly awful thing to say. I wonder if it’s a line they would have given to such a sympathetic character (for Veep, comparatively) in a post Me-Too world. Like, the audience just watched Mike get married! To Kathy Najimy!

Catherine: Amy, what the fuck is happening?! Is Mike on crank?! Amy: That’s actually the least of my worries right now. Your mom has gone quiet. 

Ben to Mike: You gotta go lower! You gotta go lower than the lowest lowlife. You gotta dig and dig and dig until you get to the point where you wish you were dead. Okay? And that's base camp.

Dan: Is there any way to snap her out of this Diving Bell and Butterfly shit? She should be rehearsing my speech right now. I mean…I am just impressed that Dan “only watches movies with Owen Wilson” Egan knows  about The Diving Bell and Butterfly.

Catherine: Your entire life has been leading up to this moment. And as a result of that, my entire life has been awful.  Sarah Sutherland’s delivery of this particular line is extra great…that little waver she puts on ‘awful.’ This whole monologue is so funny and spunky! 

All of the Selina/Dan interactions and miscommunications re: the speech and SNL once again foreshadow that their partnership is going to be a disaster. I appreciate how subtle the foreshadowing has been…while also undeniably consistent. 

I like that after an episode of being totally shit on by Doyle, Selina manages to get a win over him at the end, manipulating him in front of Alicia and Halo because of course he can’t say no in front of potential voters. Of course, she’s also manipulating them, but it’s a nice instance where Selina’s public machinations actually pay off for her. 

[thotyssey]

After an eventful three years since we last spoke, Thotyssey catches up with the Drag Race Season 9 star to chat about her bridal reality show, DragCon, fan photo etiquette, her (temporary) return to weekly NYC gigs, and the one “pageant” title she will never step down from.

Thotyssey: Hello Alexis, great to talk to you again! So it’s been a whole month already, but where were you for NYC Pride?

Alexis Michelle: OMG, this June was my craziest pride to date! It was busy, especially here in NYC for World Pride… but I love all the rainbow energy. I think all year should be like that! I’ll just tell you about my last few days of June, since the month would take this whole interview! I had the honor of dancing with a group of queeroes backing up Cyndi Lauper, opening the launch at Barclays. Then I had two amazing sold out nights of my new cabaret show at Club Cumming. Saturday morning, I flew to Chicago to perform at Pride in the Park headlining with Todrick Hall, Iggy Azalea, Coco Montrese, Taylor Dayne and more. Then Sunday morning, I painted at the Chicago airport at 4:30am to get to the march here in New York on time… we all know how that went, hahaha! But seriously, the vibes were great. And then I finished the night at Viacom for an awesome party with Lady Bunny spinning tunes!

Wow, I just sat home and watched Gilmore Girls, lol! Is it amazing to you that it’s been over two years since you starred on Season 9 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and here you are still constantly busy with gigs, projects, collaborations, etc?

It’s not amazing to me, it’s appropriate! But I am deeply grateful. Once the initial touring craze slows down, I think you find your way into your pocket of showbiz and end up doing the projects that are really geared towards you and who you are as a performer.

Werk! I loved your recent performance of “I Am What I Am” with the American Pops Orchestra… very dramatic and fun! Where was that?

Thank you! It was part of a concert called I Am What I Am: an evening of Jerry Herman and I was invited to come sing with The American Pops Orchestra lead by the wonderful Luke Frazier. It’s a JOY to sing with a full orchestra, and I got to perform at Arena Stage in DC with Paige Davis, Mauricio Martinez and Kathy Najimy! What a gag!

Amazing! And now Thorgy is performing with her full Thorchestra… I guess now even the “high arts” are better with a healthy dose of drag.

ABSOLUTELY!

Speaking of Thorgy, I really enjoyed “Drag Me Down The Aisle,” a reality show that starred you two with Jujubee and Bebe Zahara Benet, where you advised brides-to-be before their wedding. It was super cute! Only two episodes were aired on TLC, might we see more in the future?

Actually, it was just one epic special so far, and then there was a second prime time airing of the same wedding. We had so much fun filming it and making Emily and John’s wedding awesome, so fingers crossed for more soon!

Yes, definitely crossed! So, I won’t go dragging a certain young queen’s name further through the mud, but there’s been a bit of controversy regarding a recent Drag Race star who refuses to take (free) pictures with fans. She has her own reasons for this, but I think it also speaks to the greater issue of of how much or how little a Drag Race alum should let in a particularly rabid fanbase. Do you find that challenging to navigate sometimes still?

Ahhh… hot topic! Quickly, to the queen you’re speaking of: there is a valid part of the point she was making that I’m not sure has been mentioned yet. Venues and promoters usually charge for meet-n-greets. And there is sometimes pressure to keep the meet-n- greet’s value by not doing pictures with people who didn’t pay. So there’s a layer of respect to the people that paid, and also the venue that hired you. That being said, I think that’s not something that needed to be Tweeted.

For me, the only thing I’m strictly against are photos when I’m not on stage, without consent. If I’m performing under stage lights, fire away baby! But if I’m walking or standing around, or in an elevator, please ask. The way I separate meet-n-greet pics from quick photos people ask for when I’m on the go is, I offer to take a selfie. Rather than a posed shot usually with lighting, a selfie is more casual and I feel that keeps meet-n-greets that people paid for sacred. Plus, I can control my angles; I take a mean selfie! Also, if I agree to take a pic and I say “make sure your flash is on,” it’s not a discussion. I don’t give a fuck if you think a dark shadowy pic of me is “good,” I didn’t spend an hour on my face to be shot without a flash… so don’t argue! I will take your phone and delete said pics.

A valid warning! I also wonder if maybe New York queens are already wired to think of pics as being part of the gig? All the girls here take tons of pics with fans after their shows, regardless of whether their face has been sweated off or their bladder is about to explode. Maybe that’s not the case with every local scene.

I bet it’s common anywhere, and if my face is a shitty mess I probably will refuse. Luckily that’s not too much of a problem for me!

Ha! But of course! So as thrilling and fulfilling as it is to do these grand scale performances, you must sometimes miss the routine of a weekly local show.

Weekly shows definitely keep the drag muscles working in a different way, and I have missed that regularity.

Well, for a little while at least, you’ll be back in that saddle again! While your local sis Sherry Pie is Away Doing Stuff, you’ve taken over her Marquee Mondays at REBAR! That’s co-hosted by Danny Marandola, and is themed around a different stage or movie musical each week.

Yes! Miss Pie is taking some well deserved time off, so I’m stepping in for a bit. Danny and Sherry have done Marquee at REBAR for over a year, and it’s such a fun show. I’ve guested there several times, so stepping in and co-hosting with Danny is awesome. We had a great first week with Company, and I can’t wait for Monday… we are doing Funny Girl!

I’m also doing Sherry’s bingo Wednesdays at 8 at the Blue Whale and back with Danny at 10 at the Sip-N-Twirl for their “Big Movie Adventure” show, both in the Fire Island Pines.

And on August 10th you’ll doing Dragapalooza at the Hard Rock Atlantic City! Along for the ride will be Dusty Ray Bottoms, Derrick Barry, Coco Montrese and Rhea Litre. 

Yes, so excited to sing live with these awesome dolls! It’s gonna be a rockin’ good time!

Should be a fun summer. What are your DragCon plans?

I’m super excited about my booth concept, and I’m tying it to a show at Club Cumming on Friday the 6th… the first night of the Con. I won’t say the theme yet, but it’s Iconic AF. Show will be at 9pm!

Can’t wait to see it! And the question that’s on everyone’s minds: when the next All-Stars season comes a-calling, will you answer?

I’ll have to check my dance card to see if there’s space.

Fair! And I’m asking many queens, but your input is essential: the CATS movie trailer! Totally creepy, or amazing?

Creepy, but my gay ass will still go!

Ha! Finally, many aspiring queens want to know: what’s your best advice for a potential Miss DickPig Continental 2019? 

Give up. I’m not stepping down.

Thanks, Alexis!

Check Thotyssey’s calendar for Alexis Michelle’s upcoming area appearances, check out her website, and follow her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

On Point Archives

  Previously: Alexis Michelle (6.28.2016)

1 Thot Minute With Alexis Michelle After an eventful three years since we last spoke, Thotyssey catches up with the Drag Race Season 9 star to chat about her bridal reality show, DragCon, fan photo etiquette, her (temporary) return to weekly NYC gigs, and the one "pageant" title she will never step down from.

[belletristbooks]

Belletrist's Emma + Karah were lucky enough to sit down with Gabourey Sidibe at her hotel in New York City as she prepared to start her book tour. 

EMMA ROBERTS: I'm obsessed with your book literally. I have to say all this so I remember exactly what to say. GABBY SIDIBE: Remember that you're obsessed with my book. EMMA: Yes I'll try to remember. Literally we started Belletrist and we asked for all these books, and yours was one of our top requests. We got sent the galley and, first of all, from the cover I was already obsessed… AND the title. I didn't know what to expect. Is it a comedy book? Is it darker? Is it short stories? Is it a memoir? What is it? I started reading it and it's just so you and so genuine. GABBY: You happen to know me. EMMA: I do happen to know you and I was just blown away by how real it was but also how funny, and articulate, and honest you were… GABBY: Thank you. I mostly wrote it for bragging rights.  EMMA: We've worked together obviously on Coven [American Horror Story: Coven] and I didn't know you to be a writer. Have you always wanted to write? When did all this start happening? Have you always kept a journal? GABBY: I'm really bad at keeping journals but I did something slightly creepier than a journal. When I was a teenager I wrote a TV show. This is so stupid but I wrote a TV show basically. It was a soap opera and here's how it worked though. This is so annoying. I'm very embarrassed to admit this but I had seven characters, five of those characters were the members of NSYNC.  Pause. [To Emma]: Shut up. Don't you dare. Shut up. EMMA: No, it's amazing. GABBY: Five of those characters were the members of NSYNC and the other two characters of the seven were me and my best friend. Now here's what happened, each of these shows ran for six months. They would run ... It was so creepy, oh my god. They ran between March 5th and September 3rd, and then September 4th was a day off. Then September 5th I would start an entirely different storyline with the same seven characters. EMMA: You created American Horror Story. GABBY: American Horror Story. I know. Exactly.  EMMA: You were a show-runner at 16.  GABBY: Correct.  That's what I did as a teenager. I'm not going to admit how old I was when I stopped doing it but let's just say I got too busy being an actress. I would have really bad days and I would just write myself a new day. I would write myself a better day and it made me feel ... I mean that's what I did when I couldn't afford therapy, and not that I believed any of that stuff and I didn't it was just for fun. KARAH PREISS: I was always like, who's the girl who's going to emerge and be like "I'm a JC girl"? GABBY: Oh my god, I'm such a JC girl, shit. KARAH: JC was ... GABBY: He was the true lead singer of the group.  GABBY: He was so soulful. EMMA: He was soulful. KARAH: I'm pro-NSYNC. GABBY: Yeah, the line in the sand. EMMA: I was Backstreet Boys. GABBY: Were you? EMMA: I was. GABBY: Honestly, I started writing it when I was like 16 and sometimes we were in performing arts high-schools and sometimes we were all grownups. It was always a challenge of how we were all going to meet each other. There was a season where ... this is so stupid. There was a season where some of us were mythical creatures like mermaids and succubi, things like that. Also there was a season where everybody was a prostitute. Yeah, shit got weird. When I became a phone sex operator things got sexier, but when I was 16 I was writing about sex and I was fully a virgin. Like I was a smooth ass virgin trying to describe sex in a dumb way. It was stupid, and cute, and little.

EMMA: That's amazing. Well, I love that. You've been a writer for a long time is basically what you're telling me. When did you start writing this book or when did the idea of you writing a book that was kind of your story and not a soap opera start? GABBY: Actually it has to do with Kathy Najimy and Gloria Steinem. Gloria Steinem I think it was her 80th birthday party. I'm going to feel horrible if she just turned 80.  It was, in fact, Gloria Steinem’s 80th birthday celebration and the event was The Gloria Awards in 2014. We checked.  EMMA: She [Kathy Najimy] inspired me to want to write too. Isn't she amazing? GABBY:  Exactly. She's so amazing. She's so dope. I love the shit out of her. She was like, "Just write anything you want. Whatever you like. Whatever you like." I had no idea and we set a date that was like two months out. She was like, "Write something and we'll talk about it in two months." The day of the date I got up at 6 in the morning and I quickly wrote this eight page story about how when I was in the fourth grade I baked cookies for my class for like Christmas, for a Christmas party. I completely neglected the fact that nobody in my class liked me, that I actually didn't have any friends in fourth grade and truly everybody hated me. One kid took cookies, the first kid I offered; because you have to go around and give out cookies. He took it and then he saw that nobody else was taking it and he came back, caught up with me, and gave the cookie back This is really ... it's a round-about way it's really about confidence because I get asked about my confidence a lot in this way that's like, "How can you be so confident?" Not "So what makes you confident?" They don't ask men where they get their confidence, they don't ask classically beautifully girls where they get their confidence from, they're asking me because they don't understand it. I really told this story about how sometimes when the entire class is against you, you just have to get up and have a good time anyway, and that that's how I found my confidence. I delivered it in front of the party and Vulture [New York Magazine] was recording, the same way you are, and they made the story public in a way that I wasn't intending.  EMMA: No! GABBY: I thought it was just for the room. After that all of these publishing companies were like, "I think you have a book in you." I didn't think that there was but I went with my book agent, David Kuhn. We went to dinner and he was just asking questions, really just getting to know me and he wrote about 20 or 30 things down. The next day he was like, "So I want a story about this" and I was talking about everything. About how much I hate dinosaurs. I hate dinosaurs. Talking about hair, and talking about what it's like to get dressed for a red carpet, and all these things. EMMA: I loved that.

GABBY: That shit is real okay. It's stressful but it's like no matter what you wear, even if you wear something cute somebody's going to have something to say about it and you can't help it. Turns out I had a book in me after all. EMMA: Yeah. I feel like there's five more probably. No seriously. It's amazing. You started structuring it, which I love all the titles by the way I was laughing out loud; and I have to say that I loved when I texted you telling you I wanted to talk to you about the book you asked if I got to the part about me. When you said it was in the obituary section I was slightly panicked. KARAH: She texted me. GABBY: Like here are the list of celebrities I want dead, starting with ... EMMA: I was just like "What?" I was getting hives. I texted her because she [pointing to Karah] had the copies. KARAH: I texted her, I was like, "You won't fucking believe what she wrote." Then I scanned it to send to her because it was just the most ... I think for a number of reasons was the most ideal thing that someone could write about Emma. GABBY: Especially right now.  EMMA: It was weird. You're a witch literally. GABBY: Did you get to the chapter where my friend is like, "I think you're a psychic but also I think you're a little bit psycho"? EMMA: Yeah. I circled that because everyone says that about me too. I feel like the way that you talk about how it is to be in the public eye, and the good part about it and then the bad part about it, I feel like you wrote about it with so much humor but also so much realness. That is what it's really like. It is totally amazing sometimes and then other times you just want to hide in the house and never go anywhere because you don't want anyone to comment. GABBY: In the same hour. EMMA: Literally. GABBY: In the same hour. It's almost 50/50. For me I didn't know what I was going to be when I grew up. I thought I would be a therapist, I thought I'd be a psychologist. I didn't intend on being an actress at all. Turns out I like it. For me it just way too easy to become it. I tripped and fell into one audition, and I do really love what I do. There's the thing where you're both introverted and extroverted at the same time. EMMA: Yeah. GABBY: I really love what I get to do but I also just want to go to Walgreens at 3 in the morning with zit cream on my face and not worry about it. The other day, this is so stupid, I threw out my back on Thursday because I was at the gym doing some weird stuff and my trainer had me deadlift like 80 pounds or something stupid. I went to work, my back was all messed up, and I was like "I'm going to get a massage after." That's a mistake. I got the massage, made my back even worse, and then I couldn't put on my panties, or my bra, or any clothes after. EMMA: No. GABBY: I'm literally in the bathroom leaning against a wall trying not to cry with one leg in a legging, because leggings are so hard to put on if your back is messed up. It took me like- EMMA: And post massage. GABBY: I truly could not move, and I had to call a Lyft, and it was raining really hard. I had to lay down in the back of the Lyft and I was like, "Holy shit I hope there's not paparazzi outside..." I really, really hope because I'm crying. There's tears streaming down my face, I don't have a bra on, it's raining, and I truly can't move and I'm Frankenstein-ing. I get worried all the time. Like I've cut myself while cooking, almost cut my finger off, and couldn't go to the hospital across the street because I hate the idea of sitting ... I've definitely been in the hospital where people, "Can I get a picture?" EMMA: Yeah. KARAH: That's savage. EMMA: Yeah. GABBY: The worst was going to the lady doctor. EMMA: Hmmm. KARAH: Hmmm. GABBY: This woman, this doctor- EMMA: We both go hmmm.  GABBY: She had her hand in my vagina and was like, "You look like that girl from that movie Precious." I'm like, "I kind of just don't want to think about what I do for a living. I just want your hand out of my- KARAH: Your doctor? EMMA: Yeah. That happened to me when I was getting a shot in my ass one time. I had to get a steroid shot because my glands were so swollen and I was sick. GABBY: Oh hun. EMMA: I went from set, they took me to the doctor to get a steroid shot to go back to work. My pants were down and my ass was out, and the girl stuck me and then put a piece of paper in front of me and asked for my autograph.  EMMA: I feel like you wrote it in a way that people can understand, because I feel like so many times people write about what that experience is like and it doesn't come across for people to understand who aren't in it, and I feel like you laid it out in such a way that- GABBY: I try. EMMA: When you were writing this book did you think about other people reading it? Did you worry about other people reading it while you were writing? Because it is very personal and you do name people by name. I guess people who are in it but also people in general, like were you writing for a particular audience? GABBY: No I wasn't. You know what John Gray told me? Our friend John Gray [writer/producer of American Horror Story] for those of you who don't know. When I first was being approached by different publishing companies and book agents I said, "I don't know." He was like, "You know what, you could write the book and then not sell it. You could just write it, see how you feel." EMMA: That's interesting. GABBY: I was like, oh okay yeah; because that is an option. EMMA: Yeah. GABBY: I wrote some stuff that I had to write, that I got out that I'd been feeling but that didn't end up in the book because it was too much. Every time I throw up this truth and I'm as honest as I possibly can be I have to go to my therapist to put that shit back or to figure out where to put it, where to file it because it's out here in the open. I might be feeling rage, and I might be feeling hurt, and I don't know how to go on. I don't know how to reconcile my 33-year-old self against my six year old self who ended up in foster care. I didn't even remember that it was three weeks. EMMA: That's a long time.  GABBY: It's a long time but when you're six you don't have a real sense of time or space or any of that. My therapist definitely deserved the last shout-out. EMMA: Loved that. How would you go about putting everything down? Would you type at your computer, or would you write it down, or did you have a lot of notes? How did you- GABBY: Like some Beautiful Mind wall? EMMA: I make a Beautiful Mind wall of magazine cutouts and quotes when I'm doing certain things because I am obsessed with scrapbooking but that's another story.  GABBY: I have my laptop. Here's how I worked; usually my editor would be like "Hey so when do you think we can have the next story?" I'm like "Friday." Meanwhile it's Wednesday and she knows I'm lying. We all know I'm lying. I'm like, "Girl I got you Friday. By Monday morning girl." She's like, "Do you know what you're going to write about?" I'm like, "Yeah. Maybe I'll write about lamp." Then what happens is two weeks go by where I'm dicking around on the internet not doing anything and then usually I'll take a shower and something will bug me. I'll go, ooh. I just think of like one sentence because I don't like to start a story from the beginning. That's easy. The second I hear something in my brain and I'm like, that's what I'm going to write about. Then I have to figure out the way into the story, that takes about two days. Then I can sit down and write a story in about six hours. I just have to do it.  EMMA: My mind is literally blown at something as simple and as complicated as you don't have to start at the beginning but that's amazing because I wouldn't even think like that. My brain thinks like, first sentence, what is it? KARAH: That's what we're taught to do. Did you ever take a writing class or is this just something that you ...  GABBY: I was bomb in English that's it. Even in elementary school I remember I've always been nerdy, and weird, and creative because my mom's a singer so I think that watch her be creative helped me to be creative. I remember when I was in the 4th grade we had to write a commercial for anything. That's all the assignment was, two or three sentences about a commercial. I decided to make a product that gives you hair for bald heads, it's a hair growth product. I called it MaLingair Hair Growth. MaLingair is my middle name. I literally took a bottle of oil sheen or something, I drew up a label, put it on the label, and then I went to my mom and I said, "Listen I need you to record a jingle for me."   KARAH: You were a one stop shop: brand and content.  GABBY: I wasn't fucking around in 4th grade. I made her record the jingle. We did it on the little tape recorder and she thanked it three times to triple it for harmonies, obviously, because my mom also wasn't fucking around. I refused to write anything, because you're supposed to present it in front of your class. I got up in front of my class and I said, "Kids, are you tired of spit shining your dad's bald head?" I just fucking riffed while playing the song. I just riffed until the end of the song. GABBY: So you know. My mom, I describe her as a goddamn star. My mom is like Bette Davis, she's like Whitney Houston she's got to have all the attention. I think that a lot of it is like, "Me too. Me too. What about me?" I think a lot of it has been trying to be like, "I'm also here. I'm also here." KARAH: You became an actress so there you go. GABBY: By accident but yes.

EMMA: What I loved about this book is two things. Number one is it made me feel good. Even when you were talking about stuff that is sad and stuff that is uncomfortable sometimes I had a smile on my face after every story that I read and was just in a good mood and wanted to read more of it.  EMMA:  Because I feel like what you were saying earlier about when people ask you about confidence and stuff like that; confidence is not something that's about any kind of physicality. Confidence is literally about how you live your life. You saying you live your life for you, that to me is what this book is about and why I loved it so much. That's I feel like what you're saying with this. GABBY: I'm trying to. I'm really trying to. I think being a woman how much trouble do you have around saying the word no. You know what I mean? EMMA: Yeah. All my friends will say, they go, "You always ask if people are mad at you." I go "Yeah because I'm used to being in an industry where if I say no people are mad at me." My friends will be like, "We're not mad at you if you want to go home and go to bed instead of meeting up with us for dinner." I'm like "Really? Okay." GABBY: That's like being a woman in general but it's also being in this industry where they'll forget about you like that, kid. That's what it is so I don't think that we as women are allowed to be happy or to do anything for ourselves. Everything is like you have to do this for your family; you have to do this for the man that you love or the woman you love; and you have to do this for your kids. It's like, hold on I ain't got no kids and nobody else is around here making sure I'm happy. Like raise your hand if you want to make sure that I fucking sleep good at night. Nobody? Me? Then I got to do it, I have to do it. Then you have to do it. What I'm really saying  is: I don't particularly want people to walk away with anything from this book. In a strange way I fucking wrote that book for me. I wrote it because I had all of these things going on in my head, and going on in my heart and my soul, and my life and I needed to figure out a way to file them and that's what I did with this. If you figure out a way to do it for yourself too while reading this book that is so dope, but I'm not here to tell you what to do.  EMMA: You're like for Gabby by Gabby. GABBY: For Gabby by Gabby. EMMA: Also, it was such a cherry on top that you mentioned me....  Pause.  No, no, no that came out wrong. GABBY: Right back to Emma, God! EMMA: No, no, no because I wanted to say something about Twitter. What I was going to say is that when I saw that I was also laughing because I just have this same relationship with Twitter. I don't really Tweet. I just Retweet now, I don't even really Tweet that much because literally I would Tweet something that couldn't have been more of a nothing Tweet and people would say all of these horrible things, as you know, and a chapter in your book is dedicated to it. I was laughing that it was in reference to us and- GABBY: That's why I got Twitter for real. EMMA: To defend our feud. GABBY: It really is. Do you remember I didn't have Twitter before that? EMMA: I remember that. Also what you said you were really going to Tweet me which was "You got beef Emma? Meet me at the playground at 3:00 and we'll settle this. P.S. your momma." I wish that we could all talk to each other like that and obviously know it's a joke. GABBY: Yeah. You and I both know it's a joke. I'll see you on set girl, like I'll catch you  Laughter…

Excerpted from THIS IS JUST MY FACE: Try Not to Stare by Gabourey Sidibe. Copyright © 2017 by Gabourney Sidibe. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

  EMMA: What are you reading right now? GABBY: Right now I'm reading Difficult Women by Roxanne Gay. Oh my God you would love. She's a fucking rock star. EMMA: I have to get that. One of your favorite books from growing up. GABBY: One of my favorite books ... and I have to do these dumb lists all the time…  EMMA: Sorry.  GABBY: No I'm saying the one thing I didn't list is my favorite books were the Sideways Kids from Wayside High. Do you know any- EMMA: Oh I feel like I do. Wait.  GABBY: It's the elementary school that was on its side or something like that. EMMA: Yes! GABBY: There were all these amazing kids. There was like BB Gun and her brother was Ray Gun.  EMMA: I do remember that.  GABBY: Wayside School is Falling Down or something like that. That's what it is.  KARAH:  Sideways Kids from Wayside High? GABBY: I think it's Wayside School is Falling Down. There's the 13th floor but it's not real. EMMA: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. GABBY: I love that book, I was obsessed with Clue. I really like short stories. I love a long ... I love a traditional ass novel but I love a bunch of short stories because it feels like I get 20 stories for the price of one, for the price of one book. I love that stuff. EMMA: Me too.  Pause.  Because we [Belletrist] talk about beauty also…  GABBY: You're so excited to talk about beauty.  EMMA: No I mean I am, but what can you not live without? What are your favorite beauty products? Tell us.  GABBY: I really like Fresh sugar lip balm. EMMA: I feel like don't you love makeup like me? Did I make that up? GABBY: I like to have it done. Yeah, I kind of do. EMMA: You do. GABBY: I love it when I'm trying to “thirst trap” on Instagram. EMMA: You're going to what? GABBY: When I'm trying to thirst trap on Instagram. EMMA: Wait. What'd you say? GABBY: I'm teaching you so many weird words. Do you know what thirst trapping is? EMMA: When you like someone? GABBY: It's not ... KARAH: No. GABBY: It's like when you ... I'll show you my latest thirst trap. I didn't actually do it. GABBY: There's a guy you like.  EMMA: Oh okay. GABBY: It's like ... Hold on this is my latest thirst trap that I took earlier today. I didn't post it.  Gabby shows a photo of herself looking hot.  EMMA: Gorgeous. KARAH: True. True. True.  GABBY: I didn't post it but I'm probably gonna later.  EMMA: You look amazing.  GABBY: This is the actual ... I actually thirst trap with that because the bra is too much. EMMA: You're gorgeous.  GABBY: I lost a little weight and all of a sudden I just like, "T-shirt and some heels right?" It's like, no bitch put on pants. I'm out here in these streets trying to ... I'm the weight that I was when I entered high-school. This is the smallest I've been as an adult so I'm going through that weird ... you know when you're a teenager and you finally get a little bit of titties and some hips and you're like- EMMA: No.  GABBY: You have titties. Look at you. EMMA: I'm waiting for them to fully come in.  GABBY: That bra's so pretty. EMMA: I did get this for my boobs for spring. GABBY: Yay.  EMMA: Do you want to write more books? GABBY: My book agent wants me to write more books that's for sure. KARAH: You should write short stories ... not that I'm telling you what to write but. GABBY: He was like, "I think you have a fiction in you." EMMA: I know me too. GABBY: I was just like chill. KARAH: I think you have a fiction in you.  GABBY: I was just saying today that I'm so creepy sexually I just really want to write an erotica fucking thing but it's really just me being a creep. EMMA: You should start an anonymous column. GABBY: I should. EMMA: I love an anonymous column. KARAH: Our friend did it as a Twitter. She had an anonymous Twitter. EMMA: @SoSadToday. GABBY: Ooh what is it? KARAH: I mean it's not anonymous anymore, she outed herself but she was anonymous for two years.  GABBY: So Sad Today. I'm on it.  EMMA: We could get a group of actresses together and do an anonymous column. GABBY: That would be so funny.  After we stopped recording our interview with Gabby, we were packing up to leave and making small talk and all of the sudden she whips two crystals out of her bra. Emma stopped dead in her tracks. Emma loves crystals.  EMMA: So you just whipped two rose quartz out of your bra, one out of each side, out of each boob. GABBY: Each side. Correct. The heart one, over the heart. The heart's on the left. Yeah? EMMA:  I can't believe you just did that. That just made my life. Okay, I just want to say, do you think that our love of crystals and the fact that we were on Coven is a coincidence? GABBY: No, I think we definitely ... Remember Papa Legba and how he attacked my mouth? EMMA: I do remember that. GABBY: I'm not taking any chances.  EMMA: Tell me which crystals we got. What's this one? I wouldn't do something as amateur as touch your crystals. GABBY: Oh my God, yes, you know the rule, but even if you did, I got some liquid sage, squish, squish.  EMMA: Oh, liquid sage? GABBY: Yeah, I got it on Amazon. KARAH: You know, this is like a thing. This is like ... EMMA: She'll come over, and I have my crystal sitting in my lap, and I'm at the computer like half naked, just like this. GABBY: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

KARAH: I came to her house, she had ... EMMA: I took an amethyst bath. GABBY: Bitch, yes. I just bought a $200 amethyst thing as a doorstop. KARAH: Do you bathe yours in the moonlight? GABBY: I try to, but I never really know when the moonlight is happening. EMMA: I'll text you.

[wrecking-man]

Komi 330: Battle Royale

Final thoughts:

Setoka is back and she’s ready to cause absolute mayhem. All thanks to the power of nepotism... Grandpa founded the school! This is her birthright!

Anyways... What to say? What to say?

It was a fun chapter. Not a whole lot happened, but it was of course just a chapter to set things in motion.

I love, love, love that we got to see more of Hiki again so soon. And she’s even gotten a friend already! This pleases me greatly. Shujou looks fun. I’m sure that they will become the best of friends.

I knew Najimi was going to fuck up, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so... instant. It was just a little oopsie though... I’m sure that Najimi is capable of flawlessly replicating Revolver Ocelot’s gun spinning.

It’s pretty funny how it’s become a running gag of sorts for Najimi to be carried over someone’s shoulder. At least 3 characters have done it. Once in this chapter, once in chapter 36 by Gorimi-senpai, and once in chapters 70-71 by a monk-themed character.

I can’t not mention the detailed Kishi and actual line of dialogue we got this chapter. The first detailed face of hers we got was in chapter 270... This chapter had the very second, unless I am somehow mistaken (pretty sure I’m not). It also has either her second or first line of dialogue. Depends on who we need to attribute a line of dialogue in chapter 62 to. Oda is finally showing her some proper love?!

Shiina... Shiina, Shiina, Shiina... What are we going to do with you? Seriously? Intentional friendly fire? Do you not want the [[Legendary Chicken Cutlet Sandwich]]?! Komi’s gonna get you!

Oh, and uhhh... Discount Tadano was cute again... But I will not yield so easily!

Looking forward to seeing how this all plays out.

Last but not least, I updated my fic a couple of days ago in case you missed it. Read it!

[recentanimenews]

Bookshelf Briefs 9/4/19

Ace of the Diamond, Vol. 23 | By Yuji Terajima | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – Seido is reeling from their surprising loss in the final round of the West Tokyo qualifiers. Promptly, the third years retire to focus on college while the rest of the team gears up for the fall tournament. Many pivotal spots have been left vacant, so the junior varsity players are fired up to finally secure a place on the varsity squad. Not fired up are Eijun, who has trouble shaking the image of his pitch hitting a batter, and Kawakami, who squandered Seido’s lead and ruined the upperclassmen’s hopes of making it to Koshien. I always appreciate anything that leads Eijun to a more humble state of being and also really liked seeing Miyuki seriously step up to a leadership role after he is made the new team captain. I’m excited to see how this iteration of the team fares. – Michelle Smith

Barakamon, Vol. 18 | By Satsuki Yoshino | Yen Press – Much of the final volume in this series involves showing us that time is slowly marching on. There’s no time skip or anything, but life keeps happening. Tama gets a manga published. Miwa’s father is leaving to work on a ship, similar to Naru’s father, and Naru and Hina move on to the next grade, though the island is so small that they don’t get any underclassman to be sempai to. As for Handa, he’s become the stable part of the group; still teaching calligraphy, still being a bit of a goofball, but not going anywhere—this is where he belongs now. The overall tome of this series was relaaxing and fun, and that’s how it ended up, with the characters undergoing mild but meaningful journeys. I’ll miss it. – Sean Gaffney

Count Fujiwara’s Suffering | By Mahito Aobe | Yen Press – I’ve talked before about how I think that omnibuses of comedy manga are a bad idea, and this 540-page volume bears that out. That said, I don’t think I’d love this even in single volumes. Count Fujiwara is a cat, whose thoughts we are privy to. He’s dealing with two sisters—one an airheaded NEET who stopped going to school after a past event we only find out about near the end; the other is a more “normal” girl who has an unfortunate crush on her sister—unfortunate in that it contains all the annoying “comedy lesbian” tropes. There’s a speck of a storyline here about what happened to make Shizuka like this, but for the most part it’s “look at the silly girls and their frustrated cat.” You can do better. – Sean Gaffney

Hatsu*Haru, Vol. 8 | By Shizuki Fujisawa | Yen Press – I have occasionally wondered as I read a manga where a character discusses the fact that they’ve never felt love like other people if said character will actually end up being asexual. It’s rarely happened, and I don’t expect it to happen here, but it’s an interesting thought. Ayumi’s thoroughly analytical personality is great for a career as a newshound, but very bad when dealing with Takaya, who we’ve known for a while has fallen for her in his quiet, hard-to-read way. Her thesis paper on why they should or shouldn’t go out doesn’t help. Fortunately, we have Kai and Riko being adorable fluffs in love to balance things out. And this time Kagura’s on the cover, but STILL gets nothing to do. Arc when? -Sean Gaffney

Komi Can’t Communicate, Vol. 2 | By Tomohito Oda | VIZ Media – Much of this volume is cute. A classmate declares herself Komi’s rival in the national health exams. Komi attempts to tell (lame) jokes in writing. The gang goes out for ramen after school. Najimi encourages Komi to go shopping for clothes and the gang all chooses different outfits for her to try on and rate. And then there’s Ren Yamai, who has a crush on Komi and promptly goes into scary, knife-wielding psycho mode. I liked that Yamai’s threats against Tadano prompted Komi to firmly state (in writing) that she decides who her friends are, as well as the fact that this whole situation prompted Komi to “talk” a lot with Tadano and allowed for some funny Najimi moments. But I really disliked that, after all Yamai’s terrible, alarming behavior, Komi consents to be friends with her after all. Yamai is the Mineta of an otherwise really fun series. Sad face. – Michelle Smith

Murcielago, Vol. 11 | By Yoshimurakana | Yen Press – The police have had a very odd relationship with Kuroko, for obvious reasons, but they find themselves more drawn into the current case than usual. The people getting eaten by sharks rapidly led to brains in jars, including the wife of Tsuru, who he’s been trying to avenge but sadly reality gets in the way. Also, his partner may be secretly evil? Fortunately, Suiren is saved, and deals with her grief. She’s not even seduced by Kuroko—yet. And so we move on to a new arc, which involves someone going around killing master swordsmen. Murcielago will never win any good taste awards, and its leads are all sociopaths (even the police, to a degree), but it’s fun, and there are some great Kuroko faces here. – Sean Gaffney

One-Punch Man, Vol. 17 | By ONE and Yusuke Murata | Viz Media – When the hell did this get so boring? Its strength remains its humor, and the best parts of the volume are showing off that humor, such as Fubuki desperately trying to rally the incredibly apathetic troops, or Saitama only getting really pissed off because the hero hunter keeps ignoring him. But for the most part, it’s serious fights between serious heroes and serious villains, and honestly I can get that much better in My Hero Academia. The world is also pretty nihilistic here—we need the heroes because the villains are not going to stop and wait for them, as a Private Merc Force finds out when they are quickly beaten and enslaved. I want more funny stuff, please. – Sean Gaffney

Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle, Vol. 8 | By Kagiji Kumanomata | Viz Media – It’s time for new employee orientation, including a field trip and a hot springs visit. This actually means a bit more fanservice than the other seven volumes combined, as of course Syalis goes along with everyone—they have to pretend she’s working as a demon in order not to give it away. (This being a comedy manga, the author lampshades that Syalis is in a swimsuit twice within three chapters.) The jokes are the same, though—Syalsi is spoiled and a bit appalling but also too difficult to say no to, and also sort of cute and adorable. At least she’s not gleefully killing everyone anymore, so that’s a plus. It even feels a bit like an extended family now. – Sean Gaffney

Tales of Wedding Rings, Vol. 7 | By Maybe | Yen Press – We’ve hit a new harem manga record with this volume, as fully HALF THE BOOK is set up to have Satou and his fiancées get it on so that they can gain the power needed to defeat the Abyss King. Sadly, for anyone hoping for a payoff, there’s lots of skin and titillation but everyone is still a virgin by the end of the book. We also get some details of the prior hero, who was seemingly corrupted by the situation of “get to bone all these girls” and ended up getting killed by said girls, one of whom is still around thanks to the long lives of elves. Will Satou end up going down the same path? Well, not if this keeps up. This is a good series for fantasy fans but harem fans may be getting irritated. – Sean Gaffney

We Never Learn, Vol. 5 | By Taishi Tsutsui | Viz Media – As with the series’ spiritual successor, Nisekoi, We Never Learn is very good at balancing out each girl in the romantic comedy stakes so that they all get something to do. Unlike Nisekoi, the choice is not obvious from chapter one, either. It doesn’t help that Fumino seems to be honestly trying to help Naruyuki get together with someone else… even as she gets the shippiest chapter in the book, the classic “we have to share a hotel room and there is only one bed” trope. But the others get their moments as well (including the teacher, which I suppose I will have to get used to), and it’s cute, fun, and a bit sweet and romantic as long as you don’t mind it then snapping back to status quo. – Sean Gaffney

Wotakoi: Love Is Hard for Otaku, Vol. 3 | By Fujita | Kodansha Comics – Sometimes series can falter after their respective love interests get together, but so far that hasn’t been an issue with Wotakoi. There are some chapters that I find less engaging (generally the few that take place “in game”—I prefer the manga’s exploration of real life experiences), but as a whole it’s still consistently entertaining. I especially appreciate the importance placed on the series’ non-romantic friendships. The fact that Hirotaka and Narumi are dating is still being kept a secret in the workplace, so one of my favorite running gags in the third omnibus of Wotakoi is that their coworkers are all essentially rooting for them to hook up. In part this requires Fujita to introduce a few new recurring side characters who end up being a rather amusing addition to the manga. I continue to greatly enjoy Wotakoi. – Ash Brown

Yuri Life | By Kurukuruhime | Yen Press – Yuri Life is a collection of 4-koma vignettes about various cohabitating couples, the vast majority of whom are working women in their twenties. Some stories are kind of cute, but none is in the least bit funny, so it’s not that kind of 4-koma. Probably the best story in the lot is “Life with a Grim Reaper,” in which a grim reaper falls in love with a woman who’s supposed to die soon. I could see a concept like that filling at least one volume, but not so much the rest. The collection also includes “Life with a Yandere,” in which we get creepy inner monologues like, “If I snipped off those small, slim fingers, would I be the only one you touched?” Um, that is seriously fucked up! Why is that in the same collection as these other frothy tales? This is definitely a mixed bag. – Michelle Smith

By: Ash Brown

[worangetraveler-multiverseguide]

Komi-san “speedrun” 3

Sports Festival Part I: a lot happened so time for bullet points!

Sports festival HYPE! (specially since it appeared in the volume’s cover)

We finally meet Undyne... yeah sorry, hot-bloded, hyped as hell, competitive, I’m definitely sure Natsuno could suplex a boulder

SHE LITERALLY HAS FIRE IN HER HEAD (okay maybe not literally but still) also see takes temperature out of everyhting happening... weird but endearing considering that she think Komi-san is “cold”

Yamai will Yamai... urgh

First event! Stretches and Komi-san wins the old hag teacher’s favor... no comment

... can we make THIS kind of overprotective Yamai a thing? IT WAS HILARIOUS! also:

Flawless Komi-san is Flawless... sadly she is also prone to make people distracted so the second event (tug of war) was lost

Next event jump rope! and after a small tactical conversation the formation for the class is...well...

And they SOMEHOW managed 100 points in that formation... guess having a focal point to protect DOES help you?

MIXED GENDER OBSTACLE RELAY RACE! first from the class is Agari and... *sigh* between the “woof” in her head and the extra points for the “extra bread” she was showing... MOVING ON!

Nakanaka doing Chuuni things for dumb and for... oddly enough helpful since the mandatory “I have someone to protect” made her continue the race despite the “ridicule” she was gonna have to face

Lastly we have Tadano and ITS THE MEME!

Nice to see the context for this finally... speciall with the panel after it!

My Dumb Shipping Heart: I am pleased with this outcome

Sports Festival Part II:

Event break due to small rain!

Among the rain suddenly everyone losing it because Komi-san spoke! ... only it was Miss Forever 17

Miss Forever 17 being silly and embarrassing Komi-san... is actually a bit endearing because she does remark how all of them are good kids... she does care that people dont treat her badly despite her communication disorder :)

Scavenger hunt! Agari, Yamai and Komi-san ask for Tadano stuff and is perfectly fine, but he does know whatever Chaos seeker Najimi request will never return so fuck them!

All student musical chair! All dumbasses clashing to give a chair to Komi-san xD

Various more activities and...

HECK YEAH NINJA GUY!

And to end it all a class relay race with the score of... 1000000 points... rendering all the other events meaningless xD

(The Competitive idiot from class 1-1 while makes amusing faces really has not have an impact at all this arc which saddens me... but suddenly remembered her name... DO SOMETHING IMPACTFUL YADANO!!!!)

A hot-blooded match between Natsuna and Komi-san but suddenly Komi-san falls on the floor and in typical anime fashion all her class cheered for her and while she got 2nd place Natsuna had to retract that Komi-san was “cold” but she showed how “Hot-blooded” she is, but even more

How Much her class cares about her... silly at face value... heartwarming in hindsight? I’m not 100% sure tbh

But anyway that was the sports festival, a fun event filled with moments of collision and references and shenanigans, I quite like it although the “main” antagonist felt like a foot note between all that happened, may she eventually have a better part to play.

See you later for more shenanigans