User blog comment:Metool Bard/Fanfiction: I Not Stupid/@comment-4618045-20180416165813/@comment-34871403-20180417004551

Wow. That's... pretty much everything I wanted to get across in this tale, and then some. Thank you for the insightful comment.

As for the valley girls, well, it's really just as Chaz said. They were jealous of Leni because Chaz was studying with her and not them, so they decided to mock her out of spite. Plus, I felt the way they humiliated her with the shapes-in-the-hole game led nicely into Leni's conclusion that puzzles were the answer to her problem.

Though it's funny you should mention them feeling out of place. Initially, it honestly felt a bit weird for me to post this story right on the heels of my brother's own tale, where Leni gives Lola sage advice about dealing with bullies. However, I feel that context is everything. Like you said, in this story, Leni was hyper-aware of her flaws at the time, mainly because she was nervous about making a good impression on Chaz.