The teen says he saw Q come through the woods, so clearly he needs to be taken to the house. After littering his cigarette butt (gah, teens!) they head off.

The kid’s name is Eliot, but he doesn’t want to know much about Q. Q thinks for awhile about how Eliot looks ugly because of his bad teeth, but he carries himself confidently so Q is jealous anyway. It strikes me that Q applies his visual standards to both sexes, even though the women get a decidedly sexual tone, because a lot of misogyny is born from an imagined ideal of ‘manliness,’ which does include a prototypical man. So the same knife cuts both ways, hitting women who fail to meet the sexiness, but also lambasting men who fail to meet the chiseled-jaw bullshit that is imposed on them. The difference is in the result of that failure, like here where Eliot can get a ‘but’ put on his statement. It’s still bad that Q judges him for his appearance and is shocked that Eliot can be confident in spite of said appearance, but on the other hand, he is allowed to ‘in spite of.’

Also it is 100% pure authorial that we continue to see awkward looking dudes but the only two women are conventionally attractive.

Eliot reveals that this place is called Brakebills.

“Do you live here?”

[…]“Yeah, I guess I do. […] If you can call it living.”

I think this is supposed to be ominous but all I can think is “lol, teens.”

Eliot takes him through a maze and next to the house, tells him to sit, and the dean will be by shortly. Except, you know, more annoyingly because ’ if you can call it living’ sounds like it’s going to be pretty indicative of his general outlook.

Q sits on his bench and tires to wrap his brain around the idea that he’s suddenly hundreds of miles away somehow, but can’t do it, until an older gentleman comes out and welcomes him to Brakebills College. Yup, another dude, who is described quirkily instead of hot, because dudes are everywhere and in all shapes.

He spoke very correctly, as if he wished he had an English accent but wasn’t quite pretentious enough to affect one.

Okay, I lol-ed.

The dean (Henry Fogg) says he’s been invited to take an exam, but he has to verbally consent to doing so, even though he fails to explainanything else, so that verbal yes/no is more of a loophole than actual consent. I keep seeing this and it’s rather annoying. Taking the whole ‘going by the letter of the law’ can make for some drama, if done right, but it’s magic, you can go by something fuzzier than that. I’d love to see a “you have to consent” followed by a whole back-and-forth as someone has to keep explaining and reassuring until the magic is satisfied that it’s true consent, but since there’s no real visible line for that the ask-er has to just keep shooting in the dark until they get there.

The bit here isn’t even used for drama, it’s just ye olde standard “fail to explain anything because someone still thinks that’s interesting for the audience” thing.

Q assumes he’ll be put back in Brooklyn if he says no, so he says yes and they go in the house.

It was a classroom, but not the kind Quentin was used to, where the walls were cinder block and covered with bulletin boards and posters with kittens hanging from branches with HANG IN THERE, BABY under them in balloon letters.

…what kind of classroom have you been in, Q? Admittedly, it’s been a while since my high school days, but I’m still pretty sure our posters had the periodic table, or a print of Washington Crossing the Delaware, or Shakespeare puns. (My dad is a teacher, and his bulletin board is memes that his students made with history jokes. It started with just one kid putting one up while he wasn’t looking, but he liked it so now they all compete for the limited board space.) Q was billed to us as extra-ultra-brilliant and going to all the top-level gifted classes and this is how he describes his classrooms?

Q then fails to explain why this room is so un-classroom-like, as all we get is “it’s got stone walls and lots of lighting and it’s really long.” Possibly the really long part is magic.

There are other students there, and we get a quick and vague overview, but there’s at least three girls in the mix! And none of them are called hot! Although they are the only ones in the room described as having been crying, so, like, still fuck you.

Q is the last person to arrive so once he sits the Dean gives instructions. 2.5 hours to test, they can look at each other’s papers but it won’t matter because magic, all you get is a Pass or Fail, not a real grade. Okay, and, begin!