Video, Monday week 84: When you're sixteen (going on seventeen)

[infourbooks]

[Filtered from Tenel Ka]

[In a highly shocking turn of events, Neville looks nervous.]

So. Uh. Convergence.

And the festival.

[He has the flower situation well under control. And nothing else.]

What are you supposed to... do, when you take a girl to a party like that? I've got dancing down, but that's about it...

Comments

[Private Video]

[nodavinci]

Drinks, gifts...

You do plants, don't you? Get her some flowers for her hair.

[Private Video]

[infourbooks]

[Tony you have no idea how that hair has broken him]

That's a good idea. She's always doing such fancy things with her hair...

video;

[last_ofthe_jedi]

[Now that he's married, Luke feels that he's qualified to give dating advice. Hey, if he was successful that means he must have been doing something right. And no, "being cute" and "having nice abs" doesn't count. He totally did more than that despite what Kaylee might say.]

Just be yourself. Focus on having fun and make sure she's having fun too.

Oh! And sometimes surprising her with things you know she likes can be really helpful. On one of our first dates I took Kaylee to a hardware store.

video;

[infourbooks]

A hardware store?

[He's fairly certain that won't work for Tenel Ka. But he can kinda see what he's getting at here.]

[last_ofthe_jedi]

Yeah. Kaylee likes tools, she's a mechanic. [Luke is going to leave it at that. He's not about to get into the details of Mayfield and why Kaylee couldn't just buy her own tools.]

Just find out what she likes and ask her to tell you about it, show interest, get her something related to it, take her somewhere later, things like that. But for this party I'd say keep it simple. Just talk to her. Those other things can come later.

[infourbooks]

Oh... I guess that makes sense.

[Not a hardware store for Tenel Ka. Maybe dinosaur hunting sometime.]

During Pepper's event she had work to do... so this one's a bit different.

[last_ofthe_jedi]

[Luke nods.] I see.

[Then he tilts his head.] Out of curiosity, who is this girl that you're taking to the party?

[It sounds like it might be someone from the ship, and there aren't many of those who are girls Neville's age.]

[infourbooks]

Tenel Ka. Dr. McCoy introduced us.

This time it's a bit different because I actually asked her.

[After stammering a lot. That's how he rolls.]

[last_ofthe_jedi]

[Hey, Luke's a stammerer too. No judgement here.]

Oh, no kidding! Tenel Ka's my student. Or, I guess I should say my future student. Time stuff. It's complicated.

[infourbooks]

I was getting lessons from one of the people who started my school a thousand years ago. Time stuff is always complicated.

[Suddenly it occurs to him that Helga would probably have... all sorts of reactions to this]

[standsentinel]

Get yourself fitted for a good suit.

[When Kaidan was Neville's age, he was in the middle of BAaT and its limited dating pool, but he can certainly remember being another worried teen boy unsure of How To Girls.]

There's a reason people go for men, or women, in dress uniform, and a big part of it is that you're wearing something tailored. She'll like the sight, she'll appreciate that you went to the effort, and you'll feel better about yourself. Other than that... just go do what you'd normally do together to have fun at a festival. Dates are supposed to be about spending time with someone you like, just you and them.

[infourbooks]

A suit? I usually wear robes...

[Muggle things are just as confusing as girls.]

Dancing's a start, right?

[standsentinel]

Ah.

[Robes, as it turns out, are not all that common in Kaidan's sartorial circle of acquaintance. Unless one counts salarian council wear, and that sort of context is decidedly not about attracting a date's attention. He recovers without too long of a pause.]

Well, all the more reason to get one, then. She won't expect it, and that's the kind of surprise people tend to be OK with having sprung on them.

[infourbooks]

It would be nice to surprise her for a change.

[He's going to get a suit. What is that?]

She's really good at moving silently.

[Also he's really good at getting engrossed in plants]

[standsentinel]

Hazards of dating women from martial backgrounds. Shapard-- Well, the Shepard from my home reality-- [This is not getting any less awkward with the telling. Kaidan persists, for the sake of the story.] is an infiltrator. In the military I serve in, that means the ability to move silently and in stealth, and she had a tendency to practice it on board ship between missions. Unnerving as hell, and she'd laugh her ass off if she caught you off guard.

[infourbooks]

She doesn't laugh, at least. She... has this face, she makes. It's...

[Cute is not the word for Tenel Ka. But he's charmed by the face.]