[text / action for Goldenrod / go ahead and make mingley top levels if you want]

[meteorman]

A. Text

To whom it may concern,

This is an invitation to a casual Hanukkah celebration to be held tonight at the Skellington House in north Goldenrod. Food will be provided, though if you wish to bring some to share I'm certain that no one will object.

No RSVP necessary. Anyone who would like to is welcome to stop by*. In strange times and places it pays to be able to find common ground in what little may be familiar.

- Dr. Stanford Pines

*Except for Rick Sanchez, unless he promises to behave himself. There will be children in attendance.

B. Action

[The mansion is hard to miss, partially because it's awfully large and partially because beneath the Christmas decorations the Halloween ones still appear to be up. Add the menorah in the window and the combined light the place gives off is probably visible from space.

As promised there is food: it's not a proper sit-down dinner, considering he figures people will keep trickling in as they have the time, but there are latkes and sufganiyot (he may have asked for Mabel's help with those) along with more Johto-appropriate foods and some things that fall squarely in-between. There are also driedels available, with markings that appear to be painted on in glitter, for people who would like to play or at the very least learn how.

It ought to be a nice night.]

Comments

[meteorman]

[He is probably both taller and wider in person than he appears on a tiny screen. Whoops. He smiles brightly when he sees Armin -- for a man who likes to think he's mysterious and reserved, Ford Pines tends to wear his emotions on his sleeves.]

Quite correct! Go ahead and put them with the others. Anywhere is fine.

[schachmeister]

[Armin searches for an empty spot on one of the laden food tables, setting down the bag when he finds one.]

I didn't know you also celebrated this Hanukkah.

[meteorman]

Ah, well. I'm not the most observant member of my faith.

[Which is perhaps putting it lightly, what with all the bacon he eats, but he has to stick it to his dad's lingering memory somehow.]

[schachmeister]

We don't really have any of these religious celebrations where I am from. It's interesting to learn about what sort of religions are out there in different worlds.

[meteorman]

Isn't it? I admit I never went after a degree in theology but that was only for lack of time. Why, even the little I've managed to glean about the native deities of this reality is fascinating.

[schachmeister]

It really is. Though I'm not sure if this is the subject I would choose to study if I had a chance.

[Which he doesn't, not back home. He's a soldier, after all.]

[meteorman]

Oh? If you did have the chance, theoretically, what would you want to learn?

[schachmeister]

Geography. I want to know why the heart of some mountains burns, and why there are country sized beaches even without any water nearby. I want to know about the ocean and how deep it is and if the water is really as salty as my grandfather's book said it was and what sort of animals live in it. I want to see everything about the world.

[But he doesn't want to learn all of this in the school benches. He wants to go out there and really see it. And really, all of these questions might be answered already where Ford is from, but the people of Armin's world never venture out beyond the walls. The whole world is practically undiscovered.]

[meteorman]

[Country-sized -- he means deserts. This kid is from a world that cannot properly conceptualize a desert.]

Beyond the wildlife this world does seem to run on rules similar to my own and, presumably, yours as well.

There's a lot I could teach you if you're ever interested in learning.

[schachmeister]

[That is what you get when you live your whole life, all fifteen years of it, locked between three then two walls, with a government that suppresses information as greedily as hollow-eyed starving children devour old bread and roots. But enough about his delightful childhood.]

You would?

[Armin's eyes have gone wide, as if he can't quite believe the offer. Not since his grandfather's death had someone taken it upon themselves to teach him things just for the sake of learning. Oh, the army had taught him plenty, manoeuvres and survivals skills and strategies, but it had always been for a purpose and always tinged with, what he felt, was a slight disappointment that no matter how good Armin was at the theoretical subjects, his body was barely suited to even serve as cannon fodder against a titan.]

[meteorman]

Of course! What is the point of having twelve PhDs if I can't [Yell at anyone who'll listen about how smart I am] pass some of that knowledge along? Particularly to someone who wants to learn.

[And, alright, part of him might just like being looked up to. All his life he's wanted to feel important and respected, and he's found the best way to do it is with his mind.]

[schachmeister]

[Armin doesn't know what a PHD is, but it sounds like something impressive.]

Please! I want to know, but sometimes its hard to know where to start. Compared to my own world... everything here seems to have progressed so much further.

[When he came here, they gave Armin a tiny device with which he could talk to people a whole city away, while viewing them on the screen and everything. Back home, they have a telegram and even that wasn't in every post office.]

Eren gave me an atlas for Christmas, but some of the references are a little hard to understand.

[Well, they are to a guy with a pre-industrial frame of reference. Especially when science and exploration had not been highly prized in his world.]

[meteorman]

[It's super impressive.]

We can start there, then. I find the best way to tackle a task of this magnitude is to start with the most pressing obstacle and work from there.

[schachmeister]

If you want, I could go get it and show you some of the things I've been running into.

[Or maybe he just wants an excuse to show off his fancy new atlas to someone who is nerdy enough to actually appreciate it. It's a fine book, okay. Beautiful. Full of knowledge.]

[meteorman]

[If anyone would appreciate a shiny new atlas it'd be Ford Pines. Armin's right on the money there.]

Oh, by all means.

[This is quickly becoming exactly his kind of party. Excellent.]

[schachmeister]

[Thankfully, the inn where they are staying at is not too far from here. After a quick promise to be back as soon as possible, Armin shrugs on his coat so he can go get his book.

And it really is an impressive book. Size-wise if nothing else. The atlas Armin is carrying when he returns is actually big enough that one might wonder how he is going to lug that all across Johto. Thankfully Armin is a bit stronger than he looks. And he is committed to this book anyway. You'll have to pry it from his cold dead fingers if you want it.]

Here. It really is amazing.

[He's got a small list of questions brewing already, but first he'll allow Ford a chance to check out the book himself, holding it out to him. Ford is as nerdy as he is, so he trusts he doesn't have to go into any lectures about proper book handling behaviour here. ]

[meteorman]

[Oh, of course not. Ford may not always have the most respect for other people or their possessions but he absolutely knows how to properly handle a book. An atlas especially deserves to be handled with care because an atlas is such an incredibly valuable resource in so many different ways. He would have killed for an atlas of half the worlds he fell into in the past thirty years.

He carefully flips through the pages, nodding in approval the more he sees.]

You were right. This is incredibly well-made.

[schachmeister]

[Armin glows a little under the praise as if it was directed at him. But then, what is a book but the extension of a nerd soul?]

Eren really picked something incredible.

[But then, giving gifts is easier when they are flush with wealth and have so much to choose from. That is what it feels like being in this world, at least.]

[He allows Ford to look for a few moments more, before he reaches over and turns a few more pages, ending up in the part of the Atlas that describes the mountain ranges of Mt Mortar. He points at a small passage that roughly sums up the history of the area.]

Here, I don't understand this very well. What does it mean by tectonic activity?

ink bullshits geology

[meteorman]

Ah! An excellent question. Tectonic activity is one of the main processes behind the shaping of major landmasses. The surface of the planet is not a single uniform piece of land; were you to remove the extraneous details like water and human settlements, you would see lines delineating different 'plates'. Think of an insect with many different pieces of armor making up the whole of its outer shell.

[That's probably a relatable metaphor, right? One that Armin will be able to parse?]

In the case of my Earth and this planet as well, those plates are capable of movement and their particular behavior in relation to each other is described as plate tectonics. In some places they grind past each other horizontally -- this tends to cause earthquakes. In others they push apart from each other and here, as the Atlas describes, they form mountains by pushing together and upward. You can often mark a boundary between plates by either a mountain range or an area with an unusual amount of earthquakes.

I am gonna make you bullshit so much science

[schachmeister]

[Armin listens in the same way like a sponge sucks up water. He takes in each word with an almost greed and awe. There is going to be some interesting entries in his diary journal tonight. There aren't too many earthquakes where he is from, but it does answer some questions he's always had about them.]

What makes them move?

wikipedia will get so much of my time

[meteorman]

The working theory is that their movement is caused by heat from the planet's core. While the surface of my world -- and this world, and presumably your world -- is solid, the inside can reach unfathomably hot temperatures and is in fact liquid at the center. This hot material rises and cools to form new additions to the surface layer, while cooler material sinks, resulting in an overall shift.

Soon, we'll just be pasting articles instead of tags.

[schachmeister]

[Armin's eyes widen, shining with curiosity.]

Does that mean there is water inside of the earth?