canon is welcome to night vale.

[neat_science]

(( thinking about playing with the idea of tentatively bringing this guy to eway! ))

Mun, listen to me. I have several... very... time-sensitive samples incubating in my laboratory, you know the ones, and an interview scheduled for this week with an angel. I'm sure, this time, it's a real angel, not a... a child in a dollar-store costume, or a malevolent hungry spirit wearing that same exact costume. I can finally start gathering a representational sample of Night Vale's alleged angel population, and...

Listen, what I'm trying to say is that I don't have time to hop into another dimension, I'm... sure I could schedule something for January but until then I really... can't leave at a moment's notice. What about Cecil?

Comments

[damncompass]

I know that feel, bro. Muns just don't pay any attention to what you've got going in the lab. It's frustrating.

[neat_science]

Is there a way to reason with them? I'm not saying 'never', I just... need time to sort out my commitments, and find the equipment I'll need for samples and readings.

[damncompass]

Sometimes. The best way is to show them clearly how important what you're doing is. And then sometimes even then they don't care. However, if you're really lucky, you get a better place to do your work. I did, but I think I lucked out.

[neat_science]

[ He recently saved the town from being permanently absorbed into buzzing shadow creatures, does that count as important? Mun? Hi? ]

What kind of work do you do? [ Interested smile! It's always nice to meet a fellow scientist who isn't, you know, being chased by politically active dogs or fighting with their double or daring people to ring the doorbell of a non-existent house. ]

[damncompass]

I study Artifacts. [ His face lights up. He absolutely loves what he does, as odd as it is. ] Er, well, they're objects that have really strange properties. They do things that they're not supposed to do, like a snowglobe that freezes things, or a teleporting compass. People haven't actually studied what they do or how they do it, like ever. So I'm working with that, trying to figure them out.

[ And needless to say, it's awesome. ]

[neat_science]

Oh -- that's almost exactly what I'm doing in Night Vale!

[ WEIRD SCIENCE BROS ]

Everything is so strange -- no, [ he corrects himself, though he doesn't stop sounding enthusiastic. ] Not everything, I collected some bark and leaf samples from a very old tree recently, and so far I haven't been able to find a single thing unusual about them! They might be unique in being the only things that aren't, well, unique!

[damncompass]

Huh. That's really cool. [Joshua gets thoughtful, but no less animated. ] So, Night Vale's your town with all of the weird? Maybe the tree was there from before the weird came, and hasn't absorbed any of it yet. That's fascinating, though, that there's only one non-strange holdout in all of your research.

[ HE IS SO EXCITED TO TALK TO ANOTHER SCIENTIST OF THE WEIRD ]

[goodnightlisteners]

Oh, Carlos, it's really not so bad slipping out of time and space. You do get used to it after about, oh, a year or so.

[neat_science]

But my experimental time points are every other day, Cecil. There's a new growth of what I believe to be real watch hands, watch hands with tiny fingernails. I might be close to a breakthrough.

[goodnightlisteners]

Oh, well, you know how much I love science. Science is--well, it's just very important, right? Maybe you can do science in that other dimension! I bet you could. [Dreamily,] You could do science anywhere, huh...

[chloroformedthejanitor]

I mean if you're that place's only scientist that seems like a pretty dependent relationship. It might be unhealthy.

Besides, who said there's no science in another dimension? Call it a work trip and be done with it.

[neat_science]

Oh, there are other scientists. Though... now I come to think about it, I haven't actually seen any of them in... some time.

[ He looks a little worried. Although there's probably nothing to worry about. People disappear a lot in Night Vale, but many of them turn up again, and only some of them return changed of face and personality or with an existential terror in their newly-glassy eyes. ]

[dropthebase]

Oh you poor dear I know just what you mean. I have several experiments that are surely in shambles with as long as my own mundane has kept me away.

Other than the ones that have certainly grown legs and sentience by now. Hopefully not a otherworldly rift and bloodlust to accompany, but you can never be too sure with things like that...