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Aug. 23rd, 2021 02:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
b1tchlasagna(Note to the mods: please ignore and reject the my last attempt at posting this. I didn't know hitting enter when I was typing out the tags would result in posting it, I thought it'd just get me the full tag).
Octavian Country Day School: The Café
12:26 PM, September 2nd
It’s lunchtime and Massive Blockhead and her friends are eating and gossiping. Harrison tells us Dylan has a pale grilled chicken breast from her Zone lunch, Alicia has a veggie burger (no bun). It looks like she's doing vegan and keto at the same time. Kristen is just dipping a banana into a Styrofoam cup of fro yo, and Massie has some spicy tuna rolls. Just like when Harrison’s describing their designer clothes, I don’t care about what they’re eating. It doesn't add to the plot, nor is it used for characterization, like the lunch scene in the Breakfast Club, where the group’s packed lunches reveal something about themselves (i.e. Bender doesn't have a lunch because his parents didn’t care enough to make him one, Andy has several weeks worth of food to build muscle for wrestling, Claire eats something exotic and expensive because her family’s extremely rich).
The Blockhead starts the conversation with “I have plans with a Briarwood boy on Saturday,” which is apparently worth “a minimum of twenty points.” Hey, wait a minute, I didn’t bring this up before because I hadn’t thought of it, but who determines how much points a certain tidbit of information is worth? Do you just decide how much it’s worth? That sounds like a broken system!
She only told them now and not earlier, since she didn’t want Claire to hear. Kristen asks “when did you meet him?” and Massive Blockhead answers “yesterday, at Galwaugh Farms.” This makes Alicia a little…I won’t say suspicious, more like confused, as she was supposed to be “sick.” Massie lies and says “I wasn’t sick all day.” They buy it, so the Blockhead starts gushing about how “he is fifteen, ah-dorable, and has his own horse,” prompting Kristen to say “he could be the one.”
Even if Chris didn’t already have a girlfriend, I would still be spamming X. I believe in high school sweethearts, they’re rare nowadays, but they do still exist. I don’t however, believe in junior high sweethearts.
Also, isn’t it a little weird that a fifteen year old wants to date someone a few years his junior? Massie would be 12-13. When you’re that young, age makes a world of difference. It's even weird when you're friends with someone a year above or below you. By college or after, it seems to even out. That’s why it’s weirder to see a 17 year old dating a 15 year old than a 25 year old dating a 30 year old.
Then she recounts chapter 4, where she met Chris and thank the gods of literature, the chapter ends, and we get Claire’s perspective flip of the canteen.
Octavian Country Day School: The Café
12:26 PM, September 2nd
Claire's looking through all the “fancy” food they serve. I put “fancy” in quotation marks because the sushi platters, tofu steaks, crudités and a colorful “design your own salad” section aren’t as fancy as Harrison makes it seem. Sorry, but you missed your mark by about two decades. The last time sushi was classified as “luxury food” was in the 80s maybe 90s. That's why the Breakfast Club, which was made and set in the 80s had Claire eat sushi for lunch, to establish that she’s from a rich family.
In the 2000s, sushi wasn't fancy anymore, nor was it seen as some kind of exotic food only rich people could afford. It's like you're writing for a different period, Harrison. Aside from that, tofu steak sounds like it’d be cheaper than real steak. I worked in a butcher shop, a nice sirloin would cost about 50 if you convert it to USD. No way tofu would top that. Crudités is a fancy French word for raw vegetables served with a dipping sauce, so it doesn’t sound any different from those ready made veggie platters you can get at the grocery store, you know the ones with cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, sliced cucumbers, celery, broccoli/cauliflower florets etc.
In the end, all she buys is a Toblerone chocolate bar. This surprises the cashier, who says. “finally, a girl around here who actually eats chocolate.” She thinks it’s so “refreshing.”
Claire wondered if it was really possible to be in a school where no one are junk food. I too, am having doubts. Why would you even sell chocolate if no one buys it? It sounds pretty wasteful to order a bunch of stuff no one would buy just so you could let it sit there in the candy counter. How long has that been there? That sounds like Claire just bought nasty, expired chocolate. Also, are you implying everyone in this school is so diet obsessed, like the Blockhead, they won't eat chocolate for fear of getting fat?
I'm gonna have to start spamming X again. I don't buy this for a second. Think of your school when you were around the same age. Were there people were watching what they were eating to be thinner? Yeah, probably. Were there also people who didn't give a crap? Of course. See this is why it's so unbelievable that an entire school would act like a hive mind on a low fat diet.
Right after she pays for her food, she spots the Massive Blockhead, Alicia, Kristen and Dylan, at their own table. Of course it’s the most exclusive table, in fact it’s so speshul and unique it was the only four-top in the café whereas all of the other tables were designed to fit at least six. During my first reading, I thought it was implausible that the four most popular girls in the school come with their own table, now I don’t find it as unbelievable because in one of the later books, William Block stops OCD from implementing uniforms by donating a new library. What’s stopping him from building a table just for his “darling” daughter and her friends?
Claire makes some observations.
Even though she knows they’re awful people, even though if she tried talking to them, they’d talk behind her back too, Claire still wishes she could be there, solely because it would mean a promising future at OCD.
Now I know Claire’s young and dumb, as we all were at that age. And when you’re young, you can’t see that far ahead into the future. You think junior high will last forever because that’s how it feels; a few years feel like an eternity and you think the person were then will be the person you’ll always be. Claire thinks her uncool and unfashionable Country Mouse self will be the person she'll always be, she's not thinking that she'll change or things will improve, she assumes everyday at OCD would be as disastrous as her the first half of her first day. It's all due to being young and not having perspective. It's why Claire desperately wants to be popular and it’s why she wants to impress Massive Blockhead and her clique. For now, I can understand why she has that mindset towards someone who torments her. Emphasis on for now.
Claire starts looking at some other tables. There was one where the girls are wearing such heavy makeup they look like someone on the Psychic Friends Network did their makeup. Another table has a group has girls so thin, they looked like the lipstick-covered straws that floated inside their diet Coke cans.
Briarwood Academy: Hidden in the Bushes
3:25 PM, September 4th
School’s over, and the heavy oak doors of Briarwood Academy flew open and a rush of boys in gray jackets and red ties ran out. That description implies they’re all in uniform. After all those outfit descriptions, it’s a little weird to see them not dressed in Lacoste, Armani, or Hugo Boss clothes. I guess Harrison thought scrolling through GQ for what guys should wear isn’t as fun as scrolling through Teen Vogue and Seventeen for what girls should wear so she had them all put in uniforms. Across the street behind the hedges, all of the knockoff Plastics (except for Kristen who couldn't get out of class) are spying them with binoculars they’d “borrowed” from the science lab.
Oh my god, they’re stalking their love interests! Now, of course this isn’t half as bad as Edward following Bella in his car in Port Angeles and watching her sleep before they even started dating or Patch from Hush Hush knowing everything about Nora the moment they meet, but Twilight and all the bad YA novels that followed traumatized me so much with their BS that Stalking Is Love, even something as minute as this is making me gag.
They have trouble spotting him, so Massive Blockhead tells them to look for a guy that looks like “Leo DiCaprio, before he got doughy.” When Alicia points out everyone at Briarwood looks like a young Leonardo DiCaprio, Massie tells her Chris, or should I say, Chris Abeley, who’s a “firsty-lasty” (meaning he’ll always be referred to as Chris Abeley, not Chris) has messy blond hair. But I’m pretty sure even a 90s Leonardo DiCaprio was blond, I distinctively remember him being blond inTitanic and Romeo and Juliet, and since everyone else also looks like a Leo clone, that advice is useless!
Massie keeps searching, Dylan starts eating a chocolate raspberry Zone bar, and Alicia asks if the Blockhead would rather get a “kiss from Chris Abeley after he ate a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and drank pickle juice or…a kiss from Chris Abeley after he barfed up clam chowder?” She says both then reflects on how they had to prepare for their stakeout. First, she told Isaac she was going to the library after school and to pick her up at 4:30, then it’s implied they skipped their last class to hide behind the hedge since OCD and Briarwood both ended at the same time. I hope Isaac will have the sense to pick up Claire and bring her home beforehand, otherwise that one time comment I made about her having to walk home will go from one off comment to canon.
Massie continues searching and Dylan and Alicia ask her to relay every, last detail of their last conversation. Like what exactly he said and if he was “making eye contact with you when he said ‘It’s a date?’ ” When the Massive Blockhead confirmed “he even winked” Alicia and Kristen starts acting like she had just told them she was engaged to be married. Kristen? When did she get there? There’s no mention of her showing up, I even reread the page a few times and then used Ctrl+F to check my ebook, I thought my sleep deprived brain was misreading it, but nope. She really did just pop up out of nowhere.
That’s not how you do it, Harrison. You have to establish her arriving there first. Otherwise it looks like she just teleported there!
Kristen explains she’s late because “we ended up getting this major assignment in the Women in the Workforce” and she couldn’t just leave. She has to start a business but she’s out of ideas. I guess the old fashioned lemonade stand won’t cut it here. Dylan jokes that she should “invent something for people who don’t have ideas,” while Massie sarcastically suggests something to help her find Chris. You mean a tracking device?
Just as Kristen’s convinced they missed him, Massive Blockhead finds Chris, walking down the front steps of the building, with a beat-up leather bag over his shoulder and a can of Red Bull.
She zooms in on her binoculars and then starts gushing about how hooooot Chris is. C'mon, I can’t be the only one feeling uncomfortable.
While the Blockhead’s putting on a new coat of lip gloss when she sees him approaching, Dylan comments that it’s “almost like he knows Massie’s here,” and then it mentions her spitting out a cherry pit. Wait, what? Cherries? Harrison, you said before she was eating Zone bar, where did the cherries come from? Oh right, nowhere! This isn’t as bad as Kristen’s teleporting, but it still screamed “unedited.”
Chris gets so close to the hedge, his back’s facing them, so our “heroes” have to resort to texting to communicate.
Actually, he was only looking to pour his unfinished Red Bull over the hedge. And he just happens to dump the stream of pink liquid right on the Blockhead’s…head.
That’s karma for you. For being a stalker.
It turns out he was also waiting for a blue BMW blasting guitar-heavy boy music. Some guy asks him “how was detention,” and after he gives a sarcastic response of it being “killer!” Chris throws the empty can behind the hedge and it ricocheted off Alicia’s kneecap. Littering. What a classy guy.
After the car leaves, they start laughing, first over the Blockhead’s soaked hair, then over Alicia’s red knee. Dylan says “you guys look so ridiculous,” but Alicia says she shouldn’t be talking since her lips are so red from the cherries, she looked like the Joker. Massive Blockhead then says she wishes they sold that shade. I’m pretty sure they do! Bright red is the most popular shade, I don’t think it’s ever gone out of style. It’s everywhere, just go to Sephora. Dylan checks her reflection to confirm, then this happens.
It’s odd to see them sing about Maybelline of all things, given their characterization so far, I thought they’d be mocking it for being a cheap, drugstore brand.
Then the chapter ends with the arbitrary SOTU.
Octavian Country Day School : First-Floor Bathroom
9:25 AM, September 5th
Dylan and the Blockhead are checking their reflection. Dylan’s lips are still bright red from the cherries. She grabbed a facial towel off the cosmetics table by the window and rubbed it across her lips, but it only made them redder. I loved cherries and I’ve had them plenty of times, but I’ve never encountered ones that’d stain my lips. Which brings up the question, what kind of mutated cherries are these?
Massie still thinks it looks good and she suggests Dylan “top it off with a clear gloss.” Dylan however says “my mother threatened to cancel my Zone deliveries if I keep eating high sugar fruits that aren’t part of the program.”
You were eating a chocolate raspberry bar yesterday, I’m willing to bet it was full of sugars and other processed stuff. So that’s allowed but cherries aren’t? The Zone diet sounds very inconsistent.
The Blockhead still wishes her makeup lasted that long. Dylan then jokes that Kristen could start a makeup company and sell cherries but Massie thinks that’s actually a great idea. Dylan suggests the name Homebody for their brand, “because all of our ‘body’ products will be made from ‘home.’ ” You know homebody already has a meaning to it, right? It means someone who likes to stay home, watch Netflix, crack open a beer, relax with their cat, and not go out. Even Massive Blockhead thinks the name “should be more glamorous,” but Dylan still thinks “it’s all about being catchy and clever.” Except homebody isn’t any of those things. It sounds like you’re trying to market makeup to introverts who are bingewatching the Office for the umpteenth time on a Friday night, which is a stupid idea. Who gets all dolled up just to stay home? Pre-covid, I mean.
Even the Blockhead sees how stupid the name is, except her reasoning is that “there’s nothing catchy or clever about Guerlain, Dior or Clarins” yet they’re “doing a little better than Hard Candy or Urban Decay.” They’re named after famous designers, Guerlain is named after Pierre-François Pascal Guerlain, Clarins is named after Jacques Courtin-Clarins, and Dior’s of course named after Christian Dior. You can’t go the same route and name it after yourselves and hope it’ll work on the general population. It won’t ‘cause you’re not famous designers.
When Dylan points out they don’t know how to make cosmetics, Massie says “that’s what the Internet is for.” Then when the former wonders if Kristen will like it, the latter says “we’ll make her like it.”
Then the Blockhead goes into a stall, takes a piss and fantasizes about how great it would be to have everyone in the school, especially the older girls, rely on her for the latest beauty products and makeup advice. Then Claire would never threaten her social status again. She was never competition in the first place though.
And it ends with another SOTU. 
You know it’s weird fashion designers are “out” considering how obsessed with fashion they are. Ironic, to quote Palpatine.
