shardbond | olive garden

olive garden

🎈GET YOUR ASSES TO OLIVE GARDEN🎈

Sometime in the morning on Sunday, there are little notes that have been slipped under everyone's doors. Written in markers reads the following:

Let's celebrate getting Knuckles back at Olive Garden tonight at 6pm!!!!
Also I'm bored
-Percy

…Yeah………but hey, at least these notes will be customized! Each note has two characters, but, uh, these might not be accurate to who's actually in the room. He doesn't know who everyone's roommates are, so he's just hoping for the best I guess. (Someone's note includes the new guy, More. Shizuka is also on one of these as a pink dolphin with glasses.)

Anyway, the Olive Garden seems to have some balloons floating around. With the current state of the residents, nobody seems to care! There are also chefs in the kitchen who will make whatever you ask, but pushing them around enough will get them to leave the kitchen to anyone who wants to make something. (Thank you Redd.) Drinks are available for everyone, alcohol and regular soft drinks alike, and really? The world is your oyster. … Olive?  You get the drill.

code

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ By now, More is a little flushed from drink. He swirls his wine in his glass for a moment, before taking another sip. ]

Though a life without family is considered a lonely thing... the shadowy memories that remain to me of mine are all of strife.

I imagine it must be as complicated as any other relationship, but -- I'd be lying if I said I understood it completely.

[Rio tried her best!]

Yes, it certainly is. We often tend to think that a family can be something uniquely stifling, but that may just be an assumption made because of the specific nature of our culture.

How does your tribe raise their young?

[Stifling... that's a new one.]

We... don't have young. There are plenty of animals who do, but Matoran and Toa do not. We just live as we are.

Oh?

[ More is instantly slightly more sober, just to take this new knowledge in. ]

So you are born with your full mental faculties? Is there still a process by which common knowledge of your people is instilled with you, or is it instinctive entirely?

We're created that way, yes. Though, every Matoran I've met has had to take on apprenticeships or tutoring to learn and hone their skills or knowledge in a particular field for their work.

I guess it depends what you would consider common knowledge... but I'm no scholar.

Our children come into being without any knowledge but to cry for food and cling to their mothers. Even language is beyond them. Every facet of what it means to be a person needs to be taught, bit by bit. How you are taught may affect your sense of self for life.

Though that might be difficult to imagine for you...?

[ It is certainly difficult for More to imagine Vakama's experience. ]

It's not the first I've heard of it here, at least, but... yes, it's hard to grasp.

As far back as I can remember, I have always known how to speak... how to read, write, how to take care of myself in the most basic of ways. A Matoran who can't... I imagine is usually too injured or damaged to do their job. That... would normally fall onto the Turaga, to help them.

So your society is split into two tribes? The Matoran are workers, and the Turaga are caretakers of time kind...?

No, that's not quite it.

Matoran are the common workers, yes - the people who occupy our city. Turaga are our figures of leadership - or, figure singular, as of late. And Toa - what I am - we act as protectors.

Our affinities split our districts and professions from there in six directions.

[ Hey now, that religious comment is raising a lot of alarm bells but More doesn't want to be judgemental... ]

And the role you fill is decided from birth? Is it selected for you or based on inborn qualities that occur naturally?

As far as how we're created?

[Ah, here he hesitates, staring into his drink.]

It's... complicated.

Most Matoran are as they were made to be. Ta-Matoran, Le-Matoran, Ko-Matoran -- that can't be changed. But if our destiny has a different path for us, however it may come, we can find ourselves made... different.

[One of his palms leaves his glass slightly, eyes tracing it. These long years, and it still looked foreign at times.

...]

Our professions... that depends on where our personal strengths lie. We have apprenticeships, we make our own names in our city to perform our duties. But destiny can find ways to interrupt that, no matter intention.

The Great Spirit guides, and is said to be wiser than all when it comes to our virtues. But... I've found that destiny is something you have to discover for yourself... regardless of what leads you on your path.

[ As More listens, he is careful to keep any and all judgement from his expression. The key to learning about different cultures is to approach them on eye level, without intention to map your own values onto them. More doesn't remember much of his days as a traveler, but the core principle is still ingrained in him.

Still, that last bit gets an approving smile. ]

I am certainly in agreement on that point.

[ And to make it feel less like Vakama is being interrogated, he'll volunteer some explanation of his own: ]

My world is divided into eight major tribes, a hidden and condemned ninth tribe, as well as magical beings. What tribe you are born into harshly affects your life in the future. The tribes often differ quite harshly in their social standing, and many feel that this order is given to us and should be followed as-is.

I cannot agree with such thinking. Regardless of birth, regardless of paths laid by our forebears, I think each person has a right and responsibility to forge their own fate.

[So something similar but much stricter than the Metrus, it sounds like.]

Mm. There has to be some give and take.

Even if society divides in a way that cannot be changed, there still needs to be exploration and community. Unity is just as important a virtue as destiny - there is no real finding of purpose if you cannot be willing to understand and work with those who are different than you.

It... can be hard to do that, as well, if there is no room to learn exactly who you are.

[ More is nodding along to this. Vakama puts emphasis on very different aspects than More would, and thus it is easy to tell just how fundamentally distinct their worlds are from each other. Still the spirit of the statement resonates. ]

I think of tolerance and self-determination as two sides of the same coin in this context. As long as society remains divided, freedom for individual choice is likewise limited.

Though you speak of destiny as something that sounds rather distinctive. Is it an inner calling or a path that is determined from the outside, only separate from your birth class?

[Ehhh kind of both, so he doesn't really give a firm yes or no.]

We consider it a virtue. One of three.

Unity brings us together. Duty keeps us guided towards our responsibilities. Destiny grants us our purpose, however it may come.

The Great Spirit is the one who created us, and the one who places the stars in the sky that tell what is to come. Some would call his plans an absolute. Some say he can rewrite the stars themselves. But how we come to find our purpose is more in our own hands than just following a prophetic writing.

[Or the glimpses of a vision.

His eyes travel to his hands again, a little more somber.]

He finds his ways to guide, however abstract and confusing as they may become, so that our world may continue to live.

[ Bonkle Lore................................

More listens quietly, equal parts fascinated and disturbed. There are many faiths in the world and one should be free to believe as they see fit, but most of his experiences with religion were still negative so this is. Hm. ]

Thank you for being so candid with me. Your world is truly completely different from my own and I feel like I stand a lot to learn from you.

Likewise, my friend. I'd like to hear more about your own, if you ever feel the desire to speak of such.

[He is not here to convert - heavens only know that there were plenty of creatures out in the universe that did not care one bit about Mata Nui in general.]

What was your name?

I'm More. It's been a pleasure to derive so much insight from such a simple party game.

[ Sometimes you get super sidetracked from the party to talk about Purpose instead, it happens. ]

[A little bow of his head at that introduction.]

Toa Vakama.

I find it a little more worthwhile, in the end. I've never been much for a gathering like this, besides... but the conversation has not been wanting.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

olive garden

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject