Fifth Floor Common Room, Wednesday Evening

[wasthecuteone]

Making campaign posters was hell on a girl's manicure, and Petra's nails had finally reached the chipped-up point of no return. It was time to redo them. She decided to relocate to the common room, both for more space for the fumes to dissipate in and so she could watch TV while she worked and waited for her nails to dry, and, since she couldn't decide which colors she wanted to use while she was in her room, she wound up carrying around a dozen with her, which she would be more than happy to share if anyone else wanted to get in on the nail-painting action.

She had a bottle with her name, which she thought was pretty cool, but the color was a little darker than she was feeling right now. Maybe for her toes. She finally decided on a blue foil, with silver glitter on her ring fingers just for fun, though she laughed for about five minutes straight when she remembered what those two were called.

She flipped through channels looking for something to watch before she got started. Most of the TV was weird and not what she was used to, but she was able to find a rerun of The Shills, The Corporation's wildly popular program about product placement and the teens who love it. It was the episode where Lorrie and Chad broke up and she tearfully gave him back the Frou Frou bag he'd given her when she agreed to fake marry him to promote his new beer line. Perfect.

((I own all three nail polishes mentioned, and am wearing Swimsuit..Nailed It! right now. I blame Beauty Queens 100%. Open common room is open!))

Comments

[life_inshadow]

Tara's moods went in one of two directions: Either she wanted to hide in her room forever, or she was going to go nuts if she looked at her walls for another second. Tonight was one of the latter, so she went common room browsing in search of distraction.

"Hey," she said, wandering in and plopping herself in a chair. "Are you watching anything good?"

[wasthecuteone]

"It's just The Shills," Petra said as she scrubbed at her thumbnail with a cotton ball. "This is a pretty good episode, though." Then she turned to smile at Tara. "Hi, I'm Petra, and before you ask, yes, I'm new."

[life_inshadow]

"You do kind of have that glow," Tara said, with a hesitant smile. "I'm Tara. I've been here two years. Petra's a pretty name."

She didn't know The Shills, and she glanced to the TV to try to figure out if she'd seen it and just didn't know the title.

[wasthecuteone]

Onscreen, Lorrie was sort of cuddling the designer bag as she debated whether she should return her fake-engagement present or not.

"Wow, two years? Have you completely lost track of reality yet?" Petra asked. It was trying to be a joke, but it didn't quite make it there.

[life_inshadow]

"Well, I'm a witch, so..." It was halfway meant as a joke, even if it probably fell pretty flat. "Wait, is that girl going to make out with her purse?"

[wasthecuteone]

"What, like, seriously?" Petra asked, then glanced at the TV. "Oh, no. She just has to give it back because she's breaking up with her fake fiance, and that makes her sad because it's so the it bag of the season."

[life_inshadow]

"... I don't understand rich people," Tara decided.

Kennedy might have seemed like an exception, but no, Tara didn't really understand everything about her, either. Not that Kennedy was the bag-of-the-moment type. (Boot-of-the-moment, on the other hand...)

"And, um, yeah? I don't turn people into toads or anything, but I'm Wiccan. The spells-and-herbs type. So, uh, reality's ... a little unreal for me."

[hurtingzeebo]

Sam was foraging for food wandering around, seeing who was out and about. "Hey," she called to Petra as she made a beeline for the common room fridge.

She was hoping for someone's leftover Peking Duck.

[wasthecuteone]

"Hey yourself," Petra said, twisting in her seat to watch the girl go into the kitchen.

[hurtingzeebo]

Damn, no Peking Duck. Sam settled for a can of chicken and stars soup. She set the can on the counter, rifled through approximately one and a half drawers for a can opener, then gave up, pulled a flat-headed screwdriver out of her back pocket, and started stabbing at the soup an with the screw driver.

"Whatca watching?"

[wasthecuteone]

"...The Shills. What. What are you doing?" And why did she carry a screwdriver around?

[hurtingzeebo]

Because it fit in her pocket better than the electric jigsaw did.

"Making soup," Sam said. She managed to poke a hole through the top of the soup can and looked around for something to pour it into. When nothing presented itself, she shrugged and set the can itself on the stove to heat it up. "You should see if Celebrities Under Water is on."

[wasthecuteone]

"I'm fine with The Shills, thanks," Petra said, mainly because she'd never heard of that show. "Uh, I don't think that's safe?"

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Is the TV acting up for someone besides me?" Bruce asked as he walked into the room.

Look, he'd been given the impression that nobody in Fandom watched stuff like that on purpose. And he didn't notice the collection of polishes until after he was fully in the room. He was going to be completely out of his element tonight. He just knew it. It was just a matter of whether or not he could roll with it.

[wasthecuteone]

"No?" Petra asked. "It's The Shills. Brainless background noise while I do my nails? Although this is a pretty good episode." Lorrie just loved that bag so much.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I can't say I've ever seen it," Bruce said. "What's it about?"

[wasthecuteone]

"You've never seen The Shills? The hit show about product placement and the teens who love it? Wow, you've totally been missing out," Petra said. "This is the one where Lorrie decides she can't fake-marry Chad to promote his new beer line after all, so she has to give back the Frou Frou bag he gave her as a fake engagement present," she explained. "Such good TV."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"It doesn't really sound like something I'd usually watch on purpose," Bruce admitted. Although he was stunned the TV never turned it on for him. "But I guess it couldn't hurt to give it a shot."

Actually, he wasn't sure about that. But he wasn't going to say that out loud.

[wasthecuteone]

"Well, you're a guy, so it'll either make you want to poke your brain out, or you'll think it's funny," Petra said. "It can go either way."

[new-it-girl.livejournal.com]

Hanna had been somewhat hiding in her room since her disastrous weekend, but she was done with moping. She even wandered up a floor.

"Hey," she greeted, glancing at one of the nail polish bottles. "That's a hot color. I have that one at home."

[wasthecuteone]

"Hi, Hanna," Petra said with a smile. "You can use it if you want; I couldn't make up my mind so I brought a bunch."

[new-it-girl.livejournal.com]

"You sure?" Hanna replied. "I mean, I have my own in my room, but sometimes it's just better to get someone else's perspective on color choice."

She eyed her own copperish-brown painted nails. "Just so you know, I'd never willingly choose this one. It matched the bridesmaid dress I wore for a wedding."

Non-wedding was more like it.

[wasthecuteone]

"Then it's definitely time to change it, don't you think?" Petra asked. "If the wedding's already happened, I mean. And, yeah, you can use any of these, or you can get your own and we can have our own little manicure party. I'm trying to hype myself up for fall colors, but..." she held up the bottle of Swimsuit...Nailed It! and shrugged. "Obviously I'm not there yet."

[new-it-girl.livejournal.com]

"At least it's still summer," Hanna pointed out, reaching for a dark purple. "If my room was right down the hall, I totally would get mine. But a mani-pedi party should happen in the near future. One that anyone could participate in if they wanted to."

Hanna was already getting ideas.

[wasthecuteone]

"We could organize it!" Petra said. "Part of my platform for Student Council--oh, I'm running for Student Council, remember me at the poll if you're a junior--is dorm cohesion, so I want to throw events where we can all get to know each other and have fun. I was thinking about doing a makeover night, and we could do a mani-pedi night too."