Help (Me and TheMountainScene)

[Yare]

Name: Jago
Age: 25
Sex: Male
Appearance: Dark brown hair; blue eyes; wears thick glasses; slightly small, with a slightly high voice
Background: All his life, Jago was quiet. All his life, though, he was the first to help people in need. It started when he was a young child - even as a baby he'd walk up and hug people who were crying. As he got older, he'd start trying to give people advice. Interestingly, when he got into university, he didn't go into psychiatry; instead, he got a joint major in sociology and social psychology, and runs an anonymous website he calls "You'll Get Help", where he gives free advice and conferencing to people who log on and ask for it.

[TheMountainScene]

Name: "Maddy" Madeline
Age: 22
Sex: Female
Looks: Pale and brittle. Her eyes are a soft, gray-blue and her hair is a papery-blonde (On the whiter side of the blonde spectrum). She is known for being tall and slender.
Background: Madeline, traumatized from a terrible experience back in high school, is quiet and timid. She's afraid of looking people straight in the face, and can't bring herself to take the time to make friends. Because she spends so little time socializing, most of her time is devoted to studying and the practice of her family's art: the viola. Her parents, confident in her abilities to succeed, pushed her to audition at the local university, and were overjoyed when they found that she was accepted. She also enjoys her calculus lecture; the complex problems and the massive numbers of students let her meld into her seat and disappear. Just recently, she has summed up the courage to spend a little time out of her day on a website designed to help people with their problems...

[Yare]

Jago closed the door and dropped his bag in a chair. He sat down at his desk, opened his laptop, and drummed his fingers on the desk as it started up. The first thing he did was check his website.

There was a new message there. Slightly intrigued, Jago opened it up, and read its contents...

(You could basically post what happened to her, and I'll post his reply? :3 Maybe she asks to meet up in person to discuss it more or so, or whatever's in character for her?)

[TheMountainScene]

((Don't worry, I have an idea or two ;D))

Maddy stared at her monitor, unblinking. The thought that this was a bad idea rolled over and over again in her head. She felt so naked putting something like this on the internet. Anyone could read it.
Didn't you send it with the intention that someone would read it? Her conscience argued back.
"I... I don't want it to be made public..."
That's why it's a private message. The only person that could have access to it is the person you sent it to. In this case, the moderator.
She heaved a sigh and read the message to herself again. Unable to take it back now that it has been sent, she feared the worst and gazed, her face pallid, at the screen.

Dear {Insert Jago's SN}~

Based on what I have heard around town, I have heard your website provides support for... injured people. I'm not exactly comfortable talking about it, but my mother has been stressing that I find someone my age I can connect to, and this was the only idea I could think of.
A friend of mine has been struggling with something and I'm not sure how I can help her. When she was young, she was ambushed on the way home from school by some upperclassmen. They... dd things to her, and she never really recovered. They all were reported to the police and received their just punishment, but she still has been struggling with being with people and her parents are starting to get concerned for her health. I'm not sure if you've dealt with something like this before, but if you have any kind of advice that could help me I would appreciate your response.

From Brighter_Virgo

[Yare]

(Cool ^^ I'll pretend Jago's screen name is Jean_Valjean)

Ah, yes. The old "I have a friend..." approach. Jago had seen it several times before. The only thing to keep in mind was to continue saying "your friend" instead of "you".

Brighter_Virgo,

Your friend might not feel the response was adequate. What the upperclassmen stole from her, she can never get back; ten years in prison doesn't seem like enough compared to all the pain she's had to go through. I'm worried this might be holding her back from full recovery.

Maybe your friend felt like no one cared. Maybe she was scared people would hate her or blame her. If she's still having trouble with people, she's probably scared of it happening again.

What your friend needs is to become closer to people. A firm friend base can help her learn to trust and open up again. Your or a close friend should take her out somewhere to meet someone one of you knows, but she doesn't, so she can start off fresh. Whether they're male or female, it doesn't matter; if you think your friend can handle meeting a man, do it, so she can learn to trust the opposite sex. Go somewhere quiet, in case your friend is intimidated by crowds; or take her somewhere she's always loved, so that she'll have good associations with it.

Finally, help your friend realise it wasn't her fault. Nothing about her made the upperclassman do what he did - it was his own failings, his own problems that made him do that. Your friend needs her confidence back. Show her she's a good person; remind her of the reasons you became friends with her in the first place. I'm sure this will help her recover.

- Jean_Valjean-

(I had a crazy thought! What if Maddy gets her friends to follow this advice, and one of them introduces her to Jago?)

[TheMountainScene]

((Wow. Actually, that was one of my ideas ^,^ DING DING We have a winner! I'm gonna twist things up a bit, if you don't mind...))

Maddy stared at the screen, dumbfounded. A serious response. No ridicule, no skepticism. Her mind rushed as she stared at the response. Her mood quickly fell and she disheartened.
New People?
She had a hard enough time keeping the people she did now, her parents and psychiatrist, in check.
In public???
She had enough time getting out of her car every day for school, much less going someplace and meeting people.
Wait. She slowed down, returning to her psychiatrist. Ms. Sharyl would know, wouldn't she? If it wasn't for Ms. Sharyl, she wouldn't have had the strength to go to college, much less outside of her own home. She decided when she saw Ms. Sharyl tomorrow, she'd bring a print out of the response and see what she thought.

[Yare]

Jago didn't have any other messages besides that one, so he started on an essay he had to do. As always, though, he was wondering how his advice would impact her. Sometimes, people would message back to tell him he'd helped, but Jago didn't follow-up on people himself, knowing some people might not appreciate it.