Outside the Dorms; Tuesday [ 04/17 ].

[shestheworst.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, it would take a lot more than the threat of losing funding to allow Britta Perry to be able to take this sort of fascist regime to take over, even if only for a week. She regarded the uniforms with complete disgust, seeing them as nothing more than symbols of conformity and the loss of individuality for the mindless monotony demanded by the Man to ensure that no one had their own brain, personality, or even fashion sense. This was not going to stand. Oh, no. Not while Britta Perry had anything to say about it.

The smoke bomb had been a failure, but Britta was sure that this protest would be more effective...and more important. Uniforms! Ha!

Needless to say, Britta was not wearing her uniform. In fact, her uniforms were piled up in front of her on the ground.

"We will not be confined to the strict and starchy guidelines of uniformity!" she called from the front of the dorms. "We are not clones, but human beings! We are not factory made cogs to fit into your machine, but people! Down with your pre-fabricated attempts to make us all mindless blank slates to serve the one percent! This is America, not Communist China! This is the Land of the Free, not the Land of 50-50 Cotton-Poly blend! I reject your pathetic attempts to make us conform and substitute it with anarchy of my own! Behold!" She held up her lighter in triumph. "This is what I have to think about your fascist dress code!"

And this was where she was supposed to ignite the lighter and set the flame to the uniforms and send them up in a glorious blaze of revolution, but her thumb seemed unable to spark the flint. "Damn it!" she said, giving the lighter a shake and trying it again, to no avail. "Why isn't it working?"


[[ stop her. please. ]]

Comments

[dollpocalypse]

Now, Topher was up in his room on the third floor, trying to play a video game. And Topher was very distracted by the screaming.

So he opened his window.

"Can you not?" he called.

[[there was a very heated internal battle over whether i should send topher or my school board NPC. i think i chose wisely, but who knows?]]

[shestheworst.livejournal.com]

Britta narrowed her eyes, glaring up into the sun so she couldn't even really see who was shouting down at her. Whoever it was, he obviously was just another lemming.

"Can I not what?" she challenged up to the sky. "Can I not stand here and accept the suppression of my rights as a person? Can I not put my foot down and stand up for justice? Can I not reject these glorified straight jackets of conformity? Oh, sure, they're just uniforms. Just uniforms now. But what happens when these uniforms start turning into the shackles of oppression? Will we next be known by numbers rather than our names? Will we become faceless rodents on the hamster wheel of mediocrity and slavery? CAN YOU NOT STAND UP AND BE A MAN AND CLAIM THE FREEDOM THAT IS RIGHTFULLY YOURS FROM THE GRASPS OF THE MAN TRYING TO HOLD US DOWN? Shake off the shackles of suppression! Shrug off the shroud of subjection! Throw off your uniform and toss it out the window! Say no to assent, and yes to discontent!"

[dollpocalypse]

"This is worse than the yelling before!" Topher called back. "And I like the uniforms!"

[shestheworst.livejournal.com]

"You would!" Britta, Queen of Comebacks, yelled back.

And swore a little more over her lighter, still refusing to ignite.

[dollpocalypse]

"They're comfy and look like my regular clothes!" Topher agreed. "And I think you're out of lighter fluid!"

[notfrizzy.livejournal.com]

"Excuse me, young lady," said the normally upbeat and perky Lizzi, whose typical smile had most decidedly been turned upside down, "but what do you think you're doing?"

[shestheworst.livejournal.com]

"I'm standing up for liberty!" Britta announced, narrowing her eyes at the woman who had, in part, put the school into fascist lockdown. "I'm standing up against the conformity of youth! I'm standing up against man-made pre-fabricated materials that aren't even comfortable, but whose production probably flattened out a gajillion acres of lush jungle forest. The moment we start to dictate what citizens must wear or say or do is the moment we give into fascism!"

Again, Britta felt this rousing speech was the perfect time to set the uniforms on fire, but the lighter would still not cooperate, so she gave them a far less dramatic sort-of kick.

[notfrizzy.livejournal.com]

"That's very inspiring of you," Lizzi assured her, "but we're really going to need you to stop that."

[shestheworst.livejournal.com]

"Need me to stop?" Britta asked. "Need? Why? Can't handle someone standing up for their own individuality? Need? Can't handle a wrench thrown into the cogs of your machine? A turd in the punchbowl can't just climb out on its own, you have to fish it out. And I'd like to see you try. But you know what? Somehow, the turd always comes back. There will always be turds in the punchbowl of submission. ALWAYS!"

[notfrizzy.livejournal.com]

"Now, now," Lizzi said, with a finger-waggle in Britta's direction. "That sort of language is uncalled for." Because Britta was eight. "And more importantly, young lady, think of the affect your actions are having on the other students here. Do you think your classmates would like to see their school shut down because of your demonstration?"

[wasthecuteone]

"DON'T DO THAT!" Petra yelled out a window from all the way up on the fifth floor. "They're polyester! They won't burn! They'll melt! And we'll have a giant mess on the lawn!"

God, Britta. You were the worst.

[shestheworst.livejournal.com]

"And so that MESS ON THE LAWN," Britta shouted back, "will forever symbolize the day we refused to become mindless clones in the face of conformity!"

But the uniforms would continue to fail to burn thanks to her still faulty lighter. "What a piece of junk," she murmured to herself.

[wasthecuteone]

"WE ALL HATE THE UNIFORMS, OKAY?" Petra yelled down. She hadn't heard Topher. "Just don't RUIN THE LAWN! We're gonna have to look at that after these people leave!"

Geez, Britta, you needed a lighter to light a fire? Petra could do that with two sticks.

[shestheworst.livejournal.com]

Hand Britta two sticks, and someone was probably going to wind up with an eye poked out.

She took the other shout into consideration, looking down at the pile, and narrowing her eyes thoughtfully at it. "I'LL BE CAREFUL, OKAY?"

Geez. It was grass; not like it wouldn't grow back.

[wasthecuteone]

Not if it was covered in melted plastic, it wouldn't.

Petra switched tactics. "I CAN FIX IT, OKAY? I can tailor your uniform so it looks decent! I'll--I'll fucking sew an anarchy symbol into the lining! It can be a subtle rebellion! Trust me, I GET IT, I just really would rather you didn't set the lawn on fire!"

[inaskinnyway.livejournal.com]

On her way back from town, Susan with her uniform and nearly-normal-looking hair happened upon the scene, and really, she should have known.

"Britta," she said, "come on now."

She was judging you again, Britta.

[shestheworst.livejournal.com]

And Britta fixed her judgy-pants roommate with a withering look.

"Really, Susan," she said,l "are you going to let them brainwash you into submission, too?"

Actually, she wasn't too terribly surprised.

[inaskinnyway.livejournal.com]

Judgey-skirt roommate, thank you. The pants were a crime against anyone with eyesight and a few people without it.

"You do realize that if we play nice they'll go away and so will the uniforms, don't you?" she said. "As opposed to making a scene on the lawn that could get the entire school shut down?"

[shestheworst.livejournal.com]

"If the entire school shuts down over a protest,"--Britta would feel hella accomplished and proud, "--then I wouldn't want to go to that school, anyway. And you might be able to play nice and conform to some idealist lie, but I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I did that. It's wrong, that we have to change who we are and pander to some rich asshat who'll only dole out money because he's feeling magnanimous about it. I am not going to kiss anyone's ass just so they like me. And neither should anyone else at this school. This is the kind of thing that made me drop out of high school in the first place."

That, and trying to impress Radiohead.

[inaskinnyway.livejournal.com]

"That's your opinion," and Susan didn't necessarily disagree, at least on all levels, "but what about those who don't have anywhere else to go, hmm?"

Yes, she was totally trying to work the guilt here.

Ignore the fact that those people would be in the same position come graduation anyway. That was not the point.

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

Quinn was on her way back from yoga class when she spotted Britta and felt all the zen drain right out of her.

"Please tell me you aren't doing what it looks like you're doing," she said. "Because I know you don't want us to lose the school over uniforms."

[shestheworst.livejournal.com]

"If we lose the school over uniforms," Britta informed her with a pointed look, "is that really a school we'd want to be a part of in the first place?"

Considering Britta had tried to drop out of high school and still wound up stuck at one, she was really not the best person with which to argue the point of staying in school.

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"If you're one of the kids here who has nowhere else to go, yes!" Quinn said, folding her arms. "Or if you're a senior. We're graduating in two weeks and I won't have that ruined for us."

She sighed. "People are being such babies about this. I wore a uniform every day for two school years and was proud of it."

Of course, Cheerios drag was a little more flattering than the plaid monstrosities.

[shestheworst.livejournal.com]

"How nice for you that you're comfortable in being a conforming mindless sheep," Britta said, "but I believe in making a stand for things. Graduation and formal education is all a scam, anyway, just another thing they make you believe you need so they can control us further with their ideas of the status quo and the continuous lie that is the American Dream."

[fates_jaye]

It was probably not a good idea to encourage Britta. But after a while of recording what was happening, one squirrel look puzzled as if saying, "Did I leave the gas on?" and then scurried away with his notes.

To come back later with a Post-It stuck to a toothpick for use as a makeshift picket sign. The sign was blank, but that was not the point. There was angry chittering, too, which was probably squirrel for "Damn the man save the Empire!" but that might be hard to decipher.