wipesfaith | 04 [written/action]

[Classic incognito message, with the picture blocked out and everything; he even makes an attempt to disguise his handwriting, which he forgets after the first three words.]

Say you want to ask a girl out. How do you go about doing that?

Girls like flowers, right?

[See, there's actually a lot of consideration that goes into this. For a guy with a faulty brain-to-mouth filter and a do-or-die attitude, the amount of waffling here is...strange, maybe. But everyone's a walking contradiction. He has some ideas, along with maybe ten different speeches that he's mentally mapped out over the past three years and never planned on actually using, but second- and third-guessing himself leads to this pandering for advice...thing. He's pretty sure it's lame, but... It couldn't hurt, right?

Okay, so maybe he's just procrastinating.]

[Action]

[Anonymous dweebiness aside, Jean goes about his day as usual. Training at the Battle Dome; going to school; taking care of his horse at the stables, and taking him out for a ride into the woods; and checking the General Store for some...supplies, art supplies. Don't ask, don't tell.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You just ask her. [It's easy, okay. Though, the asker's probably already received that answer quite a bit... Hmm.

All right.] Make sure you go somewhere she'll enjoy, don't assume that just because you've gone out on one date that you're official or that she reciprocates your feelings, and if you really want to give her a gift you should get her something she actually likes -- if you don't think she's the kind of person to like flowers, I mean.

I coulda figured that one out. [But clearly he didn't. He just had to make sure... Alright, alright, this is advice from a real live girl here, so he'll pay close attention.]

Ok, so I shouldn't assume anything. Got it. [Like how he shouldn't assume that she'll even agree to this. Crap...]

Why does everyone keep crapping all over my flowers idea?

Sorry. It's hard to judge if someone's really gonna like flowers or not, especially since pollen allergies aren't all that uncommon.

[Let her be a little more cheerful about this.]

Flowers are a good start though! Even the roughest girl I know would appreciate them (I think, don't quote me on that, she really seems like she likes nature) and if you want to start out on that, then I say go for it. Just don't do anything overly romantic, like an entire bouquet of red roses. Even I'd be embarrassed to get that from anyone.

So I've heard.

Red is too romantic? [Okay, adding that to the long list of don'ts he's getting out of this. Maybe eventually he'll be able to narrow down to what he should do.] Maybe I should just get one flower. Or is that not enough? I don't wanna look like I didn't even try.

One flower's fine, but if you want to go bigger then three's a good number. A lot of good stuff comes in threes.

[He doesn't usually go for senseless platitudes, but if she says three's a good number, then that's good enough for him.]

Hey, you're a girl. [Brilliant observation, here.] How do you feel about poetry? [It was an old dude who brought it up, so he wants to make sure the idea isn't outdated or anything.]

[Almost as observant as Senior Red.]

I like it and I think it's a pretty thoughtful gesture. You should probably be simple on the descriptions though, it'll flop and just be funny to read instead of romantic.

There's so many ways for this to go wrong, isn't there.

It's the thought that counts?!

[That's so lame, Crystal. So lame. She's even heavily scratched out her original question mark and replaced it with an exclamation mark to make it ~~more lame~~ friendly.]

If you're worried about how it's gonna sound, why not write some right here? I won't judge.

Wait, here? You mean right now? But I don't know anything about poetry!

And you won't learn anything unless you actually try it out!

[It's a while before his next response comes in. Most of it consists of crossed-out lines stacked on top of each other, totally illegible with the exception of a few words that can be picked out from the overlying scribbles here and there: shiny, hair, and beautiful, among others.]

Your hair makes me think of the sky at night
Because it's dark and [Several dots of ink, left behind by tapping his pen on the page.

...Shit, he gives up.]

See, I suck at this.

[Thank goodness this is written. Crystal'd feel bad for laughing if the poor anonymous writer could hear her... She just keeps a totally-not-giggling smile on as she tries her best to help. She's no writer either after all!]

That wasn't a bad start though. What about...

Your hair makes me think of the sky at night
Because it's dark and your eyes are bright?

[...oh geez that sounds really stupid. Crystal tapes her pen on the page too, matching his spots.] Or something like that.

Hey that's not bad at all. [~~But he has no standards.~~]

Seriously doubt I'll master this crap any time soon though.

[She'll still take the compliment!]

I don't think you'll have to master it anyway... After all, it's about the effort you put in! It's the thought that counts! I'm sure she'll like anything you do for her, because it came right from the heart.

[Still, he thinks he'll just keep his lame attempts at poetry to himself for now...and maybe forever.]

Well I hope so. I don't want to weird her out or anything.

[Too bad. It was cute...]

You'll be fine. Good luck!!