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- In your house, relationships crop up in the most unexpected of places between all sorts of objects, so it’s not unsurprising to hear about a new person you’ve met every other day or so.
- But when others learn about the two of you as a pair? A self-assured, trash-talking toilet-man and a shy, timid human? Now that comes as a surprise to many.
- This is, admittedly, not without unfounded reason. You freeze up whenever you even think about confrontation, much less dissing others. And Jean Loo is… well, he’s Jean Loo. The name alone makes many a dateable’s face scrunch in confusion at the thought of you together. How does that work, really? How are you compatible? By all accounts, it shouldn’t really be possible.
- But they do say opposites attract, after all, and it'll certainly still hold water in this case!
- So. Jean Loo Pissoir. Famously verbal and all too happy to contribute to discussions where he isn’t exactly needed; grand fantasies and even grander ambitions. One could assume that he takes up all the space in your relationship, simply because he won’t stop talking and you’re all too happy to oblige him most of the time.
- This, though, ignores that a facet of Jean Loo’s passion for crapping (NOTE: cool-rapping) is the verbal sparring of it all, which I can only imagine extends to deeper conversations with him. It is hard to crap battle (NOTE: cool rap battle) without knowing more about your partner, after all; much harder to trash talk them, too. So I think he'd definitely want to help you out.
- The first time you interact with him was, to you, definitely just as embarrassing as you thought it would be; here comes someone with confidence that practically blasts you out of the room, and you’re wondering if you’ll even be able to handle thinking about it the next time you get up with the urge to go in the middle of the night. Jean Loo, on his end, likely dismisses you as he does most people who don’t immediately prove their own worth (his standards are a little too exacting, methinks).
- But subsequent interactions prove themselves to be easier as Jean Loo quickly picks up that, despite how poorly that went on your end, you still want to talk to him. And I imagine he’d be touched: based on how everyone else acts around him, I don’t imagine many come back for seconds, so the thought of you awkwardly breaking eye contact and clearing your throat every other sentence but choosing to come back anyway endears you to him.
- It’s there that he pinpoints your problem: you need a little extra vigeur. And you might not be able to show it right away, but he can coax it out of you the way he knows best: by being (and I say this lovingly) insufferable, to help you out a little.
You lower Ballcock, sighing. The mic is doing its best to amplify your voice, but it can’t do much if it’s not really given anything to work with, your attempts at dissing him feebly bouncing off of the bathroom tiles.
‘I — thanks for your help, but I don’t think this is working, Jean,’ you say, politely as ever, but with an obvious note of exhaustion in your tone. ‘We’ve been at this for half an hour. I just can’t beat you.’
Jean Loo scoffs. ‘So maybe you are not destined to be a world famous crapper (NOTE: cool-rapper) like Jean Loo. That is OK. It is hard to match his tactical brilliance. But all you are missing is un peu de confiance! That means confidence, in case you did not know.’
Irritation flashes on your face briefly before you smother it back down. ‘I know, I’m just not — like that. I can’t just say something and then get someone to back down. It’s never worked that way for me.’
He waves a dismissive hand. ‘It is a simple problem. You are meek as a mouse, when you need to snap the jaws’ — he punctuates this by gnashing his teeth furiously — ‘like the shark. Crap-e diem. You know the phrase.’
You bite your lip as if to swallow some choice words for him. His face turns smug.
‘Well? Or are you going to give up like a little bébé?' He screws up his face, attempting to mock an infant. 'Ouin, ouin, ouin —'
Something snaps in you, then, and you’re seizing Ballcock with both hands and rushing out almost too fast for him to hear: ‘Can you can it for a minute, I’m seriously at my limit / Take that attitude and bin it, or I’ll hit you with a — skillet.’
‘Aha!’ He points at you triumphantly, and you blink, your hands relaxing on the microphone as your mouth falls open. ‘See? Said with confiance! You just need to apply this to other parts of your life. Like saying you do not want pickles in your MacDarnels orders.’
‘That was really, really cringe,’ you whisper, although you seem pleasantly surprised at your initiative. ‘I don’t. I —'
‘Yes! It was not very good. Rhymes all over the place. But what matters is that you said it! Channel that, and you will be set for life, mon ami.e.’
And the corners of your lips, slowly curl into a smile.
‘Yeah, I guess so.’
- Reality is much more complicated than that, of course, but this isn’t to say that it’s the only way you two function together. There are more points of connection here.
- Jean Loo is not just spiffy with speech; he is also, as he proclaims, an intellectuel. Connect with him on another one of his interests, and you’ll have just as much success on that front. I imagine he loves to talk with you about his side passion with marine biology, for example, and although that doesn’t mean he'll stop crapping (NOTE: cool-rapping) about the topic, it is something that helps you see the full facets of the passion that so drives him normally.
- And as quiet as you are, there are bound to be interests of yours that you’re naturally more talkative about — a favorite TV show, a favorite hobby, a favorite music artist (if you have one that is not Lil’ Crapper); he loves hearing you be passionate about your interests, because in them you’re less afraid to speak your mind, less afraid to debate or disagree with him. Your passion doesn’t always have to be loud — it’s the enthusiasm that matters, and it’s something that he deeply values and likes about you.
- He’s quick to reassure you when you’re worried about something; he’s blunt, for lack of a better word, so it’s nice to know when someone’s not making fun of you in ways you can’t understand, or when you worry about taking up too much space or having said something wrong. Even if he did lie, I don't imagine he'd be especially good at it.
- Despite all of his bluster, he is slightly inexperienced when it comes to deeper connections such as these — shy isn’t the word to be used here, though. He’s used to being assertive, but he’s not used to getting farther than that. This is where you’re good at reassuring him, too: that he isn’t driving you away, that you like what he has to say.
- The two of you fill in each other’s weak spots in this manner, like puzzle pieces, like lock and key. He is all too easily provoked and goaded, and you can help shut down these situations: defuse the blue-haired bomb before it starts cussing others out and getting himself kicked out of the Breaker Box.
- In turn, he comes to your defense whenever he can— a true knight in shining porcelain. He can be your mouthpiece whenever he wants (it is fantastically easy for him), defending you fervently against those who disagree.
- But this also comes along with teaching you that being timid and agreeable doesn’t mean that you have to take shit from other people in the process. He stresses this one more often than anything else, since you actually have a choice in that matter, and at least for you it’s not literal.
- And when you do finally stand up for yourself, he’ll be so unbelievably proud of you.
All you wanted was a calm morning, but Bathsheba, self-proclaimed queen of clean, is making things difficult again by complaining loudly to everyone in earshot. Jean Loo has a front row seat to it, because he’s directly across from the bathtub, of course.
When you ask Bathsheba to stop, she scoffs, likely expecting you to bend over backwards for her, or accommodate her (both of which you’ve done before.)
But that isn’t what you do today. You stand up straight, looking her directly in the eye — and there’s a little bit of that French attitude (or maybe just the Jean Loo attitude) where you raise your chin, defiant, and are suddenly more imposing than you’ve ever been.
Bathsheba glowers at you, but the stare holds unbroken. The tension is so high Jean Loo half expects you to start rapping right then and there. You don’t, of course, but his influence is still there when you say, without flinching, ‘I’d really appreciate it if you could leave me alone.’
With most other people, it would be a terrible way to tell someone to go away. But you’re so unnervingly firm about it that Bathsheba gasps, utters a distinct hmph! and stalks out of the room, evidently wanting nothing further to do with you. As soon as she’s gone, all the tension deflates from your body and you lean against the sink, panting like you’d just sprinted a mile.
‘That was the absolute worst. How do you do that?’
‘Jean Loo simply walks into the room and everyone leaves of their own accord.’
‘Right. Well, I’m never doing that again.’
But again, what matters is that you did do it, Jean Loo thinks, watching you get back to brushing your teeth with a certain renewed sense of self, smiling around the bristles. And he grins right along with you. Maybe even drops a beat.
(Now all you have to do is out-crap him (NOTE: cool-rap him), though it may take a long while before it gets to that point. He is the undisputed master, after all.)