[Open!]

[eatsyourscience]

Who: Souji [eatsyourscience], Tohru [breakthecurse], and EVERYONE!
Where: The Diner
When: December 26
Rating: PG at most, likely
Summary: Christmas chicken and cake has to be a little late this year, but Souji and Tohru aren't balked by that.
The Story:
This year is the second annual KFC Christmas in Wonderland. At least, it was planned to be. The Jabberwocky, Mirror switching, and Souji's amnesia caused a slight delay, but when everything went back to normal last night, he remembered his and Tohru's plans.

They convened in the diner this morning to get things ready before setting a signboard and the Colonel (plus twinkling fairy lights) outside the door to advertise the post-Christmas special.

Fried chicken (with Souji's best approximation of the 11 herbs and spices), a few appropriate sides, and plenty of Christmas cake complete the menu today. Cocoa, coffee, tea, and various other drinks are available.

Come on in! Feel free to use this log to mingle.

Comments

[strategisch]

After several exhausting days, the smell of meat frying and sweets baking are even more alluring than usual.

Normally Armin goes to the kitchen or dining room to get his food-- whatever seems the least intrusive at the time. He's a rare visitor to the Diner because being served and waited upon feels so strange to him. But today he can't help it; the aroma of cooking and the weird, lighted man with a beard standing outside both take advantage of Armin's natural curiosity, and he steps in.

It's rather like the mansion had been decorated, but a little more tasteful. He looks around, wide-eyed and wondering where to sit.

[eatsyourscience]

Souji's behind the counter, placing a perfectly sliced cake under a glass cover. He sees Armin come in and smiles slightly. He only recognizes Armin, doesn't know him, but somehow, everything makes him happy today, after the last week or so.

"Welcome."

He gestures for Armin to sit, either at the counter or any of the tables.

"I'll make a plate for you."

[strategisch]

Armin knows Souji too, in that vague, we've talked once and I've definitely seen you a lot sort of way. While quiet, his tall stature and particular presence makes him difficult to miss.

He wouldn't have pinned him as the cooking type, though.

"Ah... Thank you," he seats himself at the counter, a booth is far too extravagant for just one person, "anything is fine. What are you cooking today?"

[eatsyourscience]

"Fried chicken."

Souji retrieves a pair of tongs and puts a couple pieces of meat on a plate, arranging them so that there's room for him to add portions of a couple of side dishes.

"It's traditional where I'm from." A beat. "Though it's usually not after the holiday."

[strategisch]

"Do you mean for that 'Christmas' thing? I've never heard of it before, although the whole Mansion decorated itself, and everyone else seemed to know... Is it some sort of solstice festival?"

[eatsyourscience]

Souji nods. "In some parts of my world, it's an important religious holiday."

He slides the plate over to Armin. "Where I'm from, it's mostly for going on dates and eating chicken."

[strategisch]

"Ah, religion... But it's not so important where you live?"

Armin is still learning about that. It seems awfully complicated in other worlds, and he doesn't really see the point to it yet, but that's probably because he hasn't found the right teacher for the subject.

"Well, I'll take any excuse for a good plate of food, I suppose. Fried chicken..."

He lifts a drumstick to his mouth, hot, but not too hot, and takes a ponderous bite. It's very crispy and crunchy. Delicious. And messy! Armin covers his mouth with one hand as he chews.

[eatsyourscience]

Souji watches Armin's reaction to the chicken with a slight smile, and holds out a napkin before he brings his thoughts into order to answer the question.

"Where I live, religion is a little different."

[strategisch]

He takes the napkin with a full-mouthed "thank you". It's not the sort of food that he's used to-- a good fried chicken needs to be made from a plump, healthy bird. If he had a chicken back home, it was because it was a hen had stopped laying, and they were skinny and tough and only good for stewing. But being spoiled at the Mansion is slowly changing his tastes.

"How so? Don't you believe in 'God', like everyone else?"

So far, he's only been taught by monotheists.

[eatsyourscience]

"It's not really the same kind of god."

That might be the most common translation for it, but the more he talks to angels and demons, the more he's sure that it's not a very good one.

"It's more like...spirits. Forces that live in the world around us. We live reciprocally with them--it's not like the God most of the people here talk about."

[strategisch]

Armin cants his head.

"'Reciprocally?' How do you know they exist? Can you see them?"

What a terrible, terrible question to ask Souji.

[eatsyourscience]

Souji blinks at that, then looks upward at the ceiling.

"Yeah. I've seen some of them."

[strategisch]

He narrows his eyes in confusion as his brain tries to make sense of all of this. There's no 'God', but there are spirits, and they're tangible, perhaps like these angels and demons people keep talking about... Armin is being painted a rather odd picture of religion here in the Mansion.

"I wonder why there aren't any of these things in my world..."

[eatsyourscience]

It can definitely be confusing. The only reason Souji can make things clear to himself is because he's spent plenty of time talking it over.

"Hm...do you have a really strong government?"

[strategisch]

"Hmm... I wouldn't know if it's weak or strong. I don't have anything to compare it to."

He gives himself a second to think, then speaks again.

"The Military Police uphold the law, but I wouldn't say they're particularly strict. The general populace are allowed to do as they please, as long as it stays within the Walls."

"We do have the Cult of the Walls as well, who believe that the Walls were a divine gift from a god, and cannot be 'desecrated' but... well... I can't believe that, knowing the Walls are built upon the shoulders of massive sleeping Titans. Religion can't exist when its teachings are completely false, right?"

[eatsyourscience]

"It can. It does, more often than not. There was a philosopher in my world who said that religion was a tool used by the powerful to subdue the lower classes in order to keep them subdued and content with their position."

Ah Marx, you old rascal.

[strategisch]

"Oh."

That seems to click with Armin. Keeping the masses subdued and content? That was the function of his entire society, as livestock kept inside a pen, not even allowed to think of what may lie outside the walls.

"That makes a lot of sense, from the perspective of my world. Times are troubled now, and people cling to the familiar, but even when I was a child... I was called a young heretic for daring to dream what might be out there."

[eatsyourscience]

"It's not just religion. Any ideology can fall apart if people don't believe in it. Keeping people from knowing the truth is one of the easiest way to control them."

In his experience.

[strategisch]

"...You couldn't be more right, Souji."

Armin pushes some food around his plate contemplatively. It really bothers him, how little they know, how much is still a mystery that should be obvious. How could, in a mere 100 years, an entire culture of people completely lose their knowledge of the outside world? Why didn't anyone know where the Titans came from? The thought haunts him constantly, especially when everyone outside the Recon Corps seems so blissfully unaware...

"There's still so much that I don't understand. We have a long way to go."

[eatsyourscience]

"Don't give up."

He doesn't know just how much might be at stake for Armin if he pursues the issue. He knows, though, that even giving up his own life would be worth finding the truth.