[OPEN] Pressure wouldn't squash me and fire couldn't burn

[spaghettification]

Who: Dr. Siebren de Kuiper and You
What: Springtime shenanigans
When: Before April event
Where: Library, Downtown Hollow, Festival Green, Northwest Hollow
Warning(s): CW for hallucinations (visual, auditory) caused by a traumatic brain injury.

1. I live in the shrubbery, for that's all I crave [Library]
Guess who's now working at the library? Honestly, on some level, he thinks they just accepted his application because he offered to clean the tops of all the shelves, which is what he's doing on this fine day. Floating toward the ceiling, find your new library assistant with a cloth, swiping the dust off. Oh, he'll sweep later, but for now those with dust allergies may need to beware!

Still, if you have a question about finding something, or just want to stare at the man who gravity forgot, here's your opportunity.


2. I don't want these excitements to see me to my grave [A Bad Day]
It's a cold morning, but Siebren is up early, meandering the streets of Downtown Hollow (for values of meandering that involve floating above the cobblestones, barefoot). There's a frustrated look in his eyes, and every so often, he looks over his shoulder.

"Shut up, shut up! I don't need your opinion on the matter. And stop following me!"

There is, in fact, no one visible following him. But he's clearly very agitated by whatever he's hearing them say.


3. I can live life in vacuums for years with no drink [Telescope]
3a. Construction
Siebren's first paycheck goes partly to food, but with the rest of it, he buys a brass pipe, glass lenses shaped to exacting specifications, mirrors and other miscellaneous parts. Find him in the Festival Green on an afternoon he has off work, carefully working off a hand-drawn diagram to assemble something that he's clearly excited about.

3b. Stargaze
If Siebren knows you at all, and even more if he likes you, come a clear evening you may get a message on your sending stone, inviting you out toward Northwest Hollow, away from the streetlights of the town itself. There, a very happy scientist and his telescope await company for a good old gawking session at the moons and the planets.

Don't worry if you don't know him yet; once he's gotten the telescope working, he posts a bulletin board notice inviting anyone at all to come do the whole astronomy thing with him.


4. And put up with hardships more than you can think [Wildcard]
Find me on Discord to plot!

Comments

CUS YA HAD A BAD DAY,

[saltwaterlungs]

Darcy's in an alley smoking out of range of anyone who could ostensibly rat on her when she sees Sigma go past. At first she thinks he might be talking to a ghost, but nothing seems to follow him, and there's a momentary pang of panic on his behalf. She swats out the cigarette and peels off into the street to pursue.

"Hey-" she gets ahead of him and starts to jog backwards, "I don't know what you're seeing or hearing, but I think it might be something that the rest of us aren't, no? You want a hand?"

1

[notinflictthem]

Hawk has a book of poetry tucked under his arm when a small smattering of dust lands on his shoulder. He cranes his neck, and utters something he never thought he'd get to say to another human being.

"How's the weather up there?"

2

[misbegottendreamer]

That voice, that unusual harmony- oh!

"Muthsera de Kuiper?" Drelasa moves to approach the good doctor, but is startled when he suddenly shouts. Fortunately, she doesn't assume the aggression is directed at her in particular; this is far from the first time she's heard shouting like that. Instead, she readies herself to defend herself, but keeps her body language inviting, hands open and visible.

"You are... not feeling well, I suspect?"

[spaghettification]

"I'm hearing him continue to insult me and my work." There's a gesture at empty air. "I may not be respected like I once was, but I am not willing to allow myself to be dismissed. I spent years working for Lucheng, both on the moon and on the space station."

[spaghettification]

"Chances of dust clouds, but otherwise clear." The man's accent is Dutch, and his smile comes easily to him. "I did find some child's drawings up here earlier. Who knows how long ago they climbed up to hide them here."

[notinflictthem]

"Tall kids," he remarks.

"You uh- you tell Mr Newton you were going to be breaking some of his rules or are you on a 'better to ask forgiveness than permission' thing with him?"

3b

[blindwatchersees]

"Now, that's a Dwemer device if I've ever seen one. Granted, I don't know if I ever have< seen one. I'll be frank, I don't really know what a 'Dwemer' is, but I know they had things like that. For planet-gazing, if I'm not mistaken."

Theodor chuckles, and adds a teasing, "Gedragen de planeten zich vanavond, doktor?"

[spaghettification]

"Gedragen?" Siebren lets out a hearty laugh, shaking his head. "Nee, ze dansen als schoolkinderen. All we need is a maypole, no? Do you want to take a look?"

[spaghettification]

"I would feel better if he would just shut up!" Nearby, a potted plant on someone's balcony doesn't so much fall as fling itself at the ground where no one is standing.

[spaghettification]

"Sir Isaac has always been a hero of mine. But while he struggled to merely name and define the force that binds us to the planet, I took it further and sought to harness the harness! With...some success, but not in the form I hoped."

While he doesn't touch ground, Siebren lowers to a more conversational level of height.

[notinflictthem]

"So you had some sort of laboratory accident and now you use your gravity powers to fight crime? I think I read that comic."

He might be thinking of someone else.

"I'm Hawkeye, nice to see your face and not just up your skirt."

[spaghettification]

There's a startled look on his face, and then one of dismay, before he grapples for a normal facial expression. Close, but so, so far away.

"Siebren. Nice to meet you, as well."

[blindwatchersees]

“Almost feels a little intrusive, but I suppose the burden is on the planets to keep their secrets. Yes, then, it’s be a delight!”

[saltwaterlungs]

"Okay, and what I'm saying is that I don't think I see Lucheng or whoever, and I definitely don't hear him, I think you might be having a time, dude."

Darcy reaches to pat for her phone and-

"Fuck- ehn, my usual trick needs a phone and they haven't invented those yet. I don't think sitting for a daguerreotype would work either. Do you know anywhere around here with a mirror?"

[spaghettification]

"No, not Lucheng--the large Samoan man. You really can't see him?" Siebren can't stop seeing the bull in a china shop, even with Darcy saying he's not there. "He'll follow, if we try to go somewhere, I'm certain!"

[spaghettification]

The telescope's eyepiece is offered to Theodor, as Sigma steps back slightly. "I left it pointed at one of the moons, rather than the planets. Cadence, that one is called. A truly poetic name for her. Her sisters are Endurance and Silence."

[notinflictthem]

Yeah he caught that.

"That's actually what happened to you, isn't it-" he sighs, "I've gotta shut my big mouth about this sort of thing, I'm sorry. Bad start. Do you want to float back up there and we can take this from the top?"

[spaghettification]

"Oh, no. Not at all. I was never a hero or a crime fighter." His fake smile sort of sucks. No, it really sucks. And he doesn't bother to hold it for very long at all.

[saltwaterlungs]

"Nope. It's-" God she really wishes she had the phone trick right now.

Although, it has been raining...

Darcy reaches a hand out, gestures, and the small deposits of water left over from the most recent showers coalesces into a larger glob, that she deposits in a puddle by his feet. The reflection is dim, but it should still work.

"Look in here. Do you see him?"

2.

[decohere]

Ava materializes a few yards back from Siebren, her hands up in surrender. "Sorry, I wasn't- Wasn't following." But she did happen to be behind him, heading the same direction, so she does understand why it'd look like that!

[notinflictthem]

"Neither was I, it seems like a lot of work. And it's dangerous, too- I've got a belly so yellow that if lie in a stream I can make some prospectors very excited," he jokes.

"You're a scientist?"

[blindwatchersees]

“Cadence, you say?” he puts his eye to the eyepiece, taking a long look.

“And her sisters are Silence and Endurance? No doubt there’s a story there. Are they actually sisters, or is that a poetic turn of phrase?”

[misbegottendreamer]

“‘He?’ Who is troubling you, muthsera?” She pauses, a thought suddenly crossing your mind.

“Are you… forgive me for prying, but are you perhaps being troubled by the Fourth Corner?”

It would be strange if that were the case, seeing as her world’s gods seem to be absent in this place, but… it’s a familiar place to start.

[spaghettification]

"Not you, him!" Emphatic gesturing at empty air. "Mauga. He's been mocking me all morning, since I woke up."

Did Max ever mention the Samoan Talon operative, loud and bombastic and chaotic? Either way, he's not here at all.

[spaghettification]

"Poetry, though their names were chosen in hope of inspiring peace and harmony among the people of this world." Which sounds nice, but if they needed to name the moons in the sky for that???