Mod!Challenge A Clash of Titans: Fanfic vs RPF!

Oh now you start offering the good stuff.

No one resists the little "ribs" from the tin and the lid shaped circles on the ends of the jiggling red sugar log.

 

Yes, the deadline for submissions is December 17th, and whenever you finish, you can just send it to any mod

 

Hey, everyone, just letting you know that there are now three (3) days left to get stories in! They come due at the end of the day on the 17th, and we kick off the voting on the 18th! Aaaalmost theeeere...

 

And there are still slots available on both teams if anyone wants to be a last-minute sign-up (which I totally support)

 

*offers @Raissa Baiard some delicious tinned cranberry sauce*

 

I told you I know what sells. Aluminum flavored cranberry sugar product encourages productivity.

 

Submission A

Turkey trouble

“It all started with a turkey.” Jedi-healer Kaagi Adin was relaxing in his apartment when his friend Aaqu Mearhin came into the room. He had been to the restaurant of Serinka in the basement of the Jedi-temple to celebrate friendship-day. It had been an old tradtion not celebrated by the Jedi-knights at all but now with the war between the republic and the seperatists raging and their brothers and sisters away on missions or even paying the ultimate price the Jedi-council had announced that it would be celebrated in the various restaurants of the Jedi-temple.

“A turkey that was staying in the children's farm and died in his sleep. I know. Master Ekiway was with the bird when it passed away. And knowing about the festivities taking place he presented the bird to Serinka to make a delicious meal. I was there when he began to prepare it.”

“I arrived later when he was putting it on the stove and getting busy with the drinks for the arriving Jedi from various departments.” Kaagi began to laugh. “I had taken a mujaa fruit juice from the counter and was headed to where Ben and Alco were sitting at a table. Ben spotted it first. A wisp of smoke was coming from the stove. And no Serinka was busy with a drink for Master healer Vokara Che and engaged in a lively conversation with her.”

“Her great friends Master Kowal and her padawan Lanei Setiquiyak were arriving when the fire-alert started to blare.”

“Serinka and his cooking. It frequently ends with a visit from our fire-department. This time was no exception. The turkey turned into a crispy critter and that had fire-chief Henny commenting that it was a work of art.”

“Yes after it was put on a white sheet on one of the tables. Madame Jocasta Nu came to the restaurant with her archivists and called it a Chiaroscuro. And no I didn't know what she meant at all until master Kowal and her Flibbertigibbet padawan...”

“Flibbertigibbet Aaqu what's that?”

“Her padawan Setiquiyak is one. She is a speaking waterfall and as a sesquipedalian sometimes quite annoying to her listeners. Comments on that are met with a glower from her. She did that after fully agreeing with Madame Jocasta Nu about the turkey turned into art.”

“It had chief Henny and his crew in stitches, giving comments on those long words and explanations and annoying Setiquiyak even more.”

“Her next comments came out in a Higgledy-piggledy way.”

“Now you are again using those funny words Aaqu. Healers don't use those.”

“Nu's influence. I know. But you started it when you transported files from the healer's ward to her precious archive with those added details. She gave you quite a lesson when you came again with archive material that's wasn't archive material at all.”

“Nu doesn't like bandaids or a used trocar to keep the pages together at all. And that old Snickersnee from an exhibition used by Serinka to see if the bird was still juicy inside and safe to eat had her in her most haughty Madame Jocasta Nu mood. Art was destroyed.”

“Temporary art, just like the cakes and plates you see at a dinner where important beings are involved. Chief Henny and his crew had no reservations at all. They even assisted Serinka when he began to slice the bird into pieces and distributed them to the tables. New friendships were made when crèche-master Rian Solma came with his charges to the restaurant. Initiates were interested in the fire-fighters. Chief Henny invited Rian and his charges to come to the next exercise.”

“And as I recall Kaagi.” Aaqu began to smile. “Rian asked us to give his charges their shots before that exercise. We have to see if we have enough of those large plastform syringes in stock.”

“We have. Medical supplies are always on the priority list.” Kaagi wiped his eyes. The festivities had lasted into the little hours.

“And now it's bedtime for us. Our duty begins tomorrow uh today. Rian and his charges are our first clients.”

 

Submission B

SAVE THE GIBLETS! (ANH, humor)

“It…started with a turkey.” Han Solo looked anxiously at his wife, who didn’t indicate, by the merest flicker of an eyelash, how she was taking his explanation.

Beside him, Wedge Antilles muttered “It started with *a* turkey.” Han glared at him, but continued.

“You know, it’s traditional to celebrate a special event with a feast, and on my homeworld, we usually have a turkey as the main dish.” Wedge glanced at him, and opened his mouth to argue, but Han silenced him with a look. Play along.

Princess Leia Organa Solo cleared her throat. “What, exactly, is a turkey?” she asked.

“It’s a large domestic fowl. Similar to the Nuna,” said Tycho Celchu, Wedge's fellow pilot and a native of Alderaan.

“Yeah, so we needed a turkey or something, and Lando said he knew where he could get one—”

“I said I thought I knew,” said Lando Calrissian, but Han cut him off with a hand wave.

“So he talked to a guy he knew, and came back with some turkeys. And since we didn’t need that many, we figured we’d redistribute them to the needy. I mean, you know how the Empire treats people, and there’s a lot of folks just trying to get by...”

“A guy you knew?” Leia’s eyes narrowed. “This guy wouldn’t happen to be Hondo Ohnaka would it?” A nervous silence followed. “Oh, by the Force…!” She looked at the group, who were trying to edge back into a shadow. The looks of guilt were only heightened by the chiaroscuro of light and dark falling on their faces. “Dare I ask where he got these turkeys from?”

“I didn’t ask,” said Lando, “but we did pay for them. In full.”

“Five hundred turkeys?” said Leia.

“Honey, we thought we were buying five. And we were trying to figure out a way to get rid of them…”

“Hey, I tried to sell them!” protested Lando.

“No one wanted to buy them,” muttered Wedge.

“Well, yeah,” said Han, “so—”

“Because they were still alive,” continued Wedge. Han cleared his throat.

“I’ll explain everything,” he said, glaring at the younger pilot.

“Chewy offered to do the slaughtering,” said Lando.

“Not helping!” muttered Han under his breath. “But it was messing up the Falcon—"

“Shouldn’t have been using the snickersnee,” said Lando. “A smaller knife would have—”

“THANK YOU!” said Han. He was beginning to sweat, and looked anxiously at his new bride. Leia still had the cool mask that she’d used to such effect in the Senate, betraying nothing of her true feelings as she tried to get to the bottom of the…incident. “Anyway,” he continued, “we figured we’d just give the rest away.”

“Is that what you were doing?” said Leia.

“Yeah!” He stood up straight. “The war’s been hard on everyone, and the folks here on Treyvar have suffered as much as anyone. So we figured we’d just distribute the extras we didn’t need, and give them a hand.”

“By dropping the turkeys on them?”

“Uh…we were afraid that if we landed and tried to distribute them that the people would swarm the ship.”

Leia leaned back. “The tribal chief of the Treyarni has lodged a formal complaint,” she said. “The aerial bombardment of the Trima village is regarded by them as an act of aggression and a possible act of war.”

“Hey, we were trying to do something nice!” said Han. Wedge sighed and looked away. Leia crossed her arms.

“Four hundred and ninety five live turkeys, dropping from the sky, crashing into roofs, blood and feathers all over the walkways, people running around in terror, higgledy-piggledy—”

Wedge looked at Tycho. “Higgledy--?”

“An Alderaanian expression. I’ll explain later.”

“One of these ‘turkeys’ became impaled on the Sacred Spire of Mylanthis, and it took a trocar and two gallons of parmessi oil to get it free. It will require a two-week ritual to reconsecrate the temple.” Leia glowered at him. “Do you have any idea of the damage you’ve done? The Emperor is dead, and the Imperial Navy is in retreat, but we can’t finish them off without the help of the people of the Galaxy in throwing off what’s left of tyranny! And the people of Treyvar—”

“All right, all right, you don’t need to be such a flibbertigibbet!” said Han, throwing up his hands.

“A flibbertigi—” Leia was choking in indignation. “Do you realize what you’ve done?”

“Hey, I was trying to do something nice!”

“By bombing Trima with live turkeys? Causing thousands of credits worth of damage? Injuring nearly 70 people? Nearly destroying a sacred site?”

Lando held up his hands to calm her. “Hey, we’re sorry,” he said. “We never meant to hurt anyone. I mean, they were birds, right?”

“Yeah,” said Han, exhaling in defeat. “We had no idea. I swear to you, honey…I really thought turkeys could fly.”

THE END

 

Submission C

That is what the history books would likely say about my experience this past Friendsgiving: It All Started with a Turkey. Seems so simple a turn of phrase, and given the holiday not one wholly unexpected. Unfortunately the picture of that holiday cannot be given without the chiaroscuro that the Force has forced upon my life as a person that works a game preserve on Hosnian Prime. . .sorry was, did. . . still a bit higgledy-piggledy about the whole thing considering I merely was off sorting out the paperwork to retrieve a new specimen when suddenly the bank transfer couldn’t connect on Hosnian Prime – it just, was gone.

Wow. Sorry. Off topic. This was my first Friendsgiving on Naboo and I had been reading up on the subject so I wouldn’t let my new human and Gungan cohorts down. I made sure to purchase the largest Turkey I could find and a Duck with all the fixings! I had promised them as much as a thank you for taking me in in the sad shape I was in that I would do the main course! The turkey in case that wasn’t clear.

I secretly had paid the animals food preparer to help me practice my snickersnee technique for the final duel! I have to admit, I think I was getting quite good. If I do say so myself. It was also plenty fun to try out those ancient inbred skills we supposedly have.

Soon the big day of gluttony arrived! I tended to the Falumpasets with practiced care and soon I was off to the docks when my comm pad chimed to let me know my delivery had arrived. I knew I was cutting it close, but I figured it would all be alright. Plenty of time for the late days early dinner to be prepared, and told many people that when they asked how the turkey was coming along. If only I had shared a little bit more. Perhaps I could of avoided so many things.

Hurrying to the loading docks what to my wondering eyes did I spy? A crate with no vents, it didn’t make sense?!? Perplexed and befuddled I came at a trundle to the strange sight I saw, what is this I wondered and ogled and goggled at all. For my package it was labeled and it opened up easy. No feathers and no gobbles nor quacks came out! Inside it was cold, frigid and bracing, with a wave of my hand the mists of ice I dispersed to find frozen pre-plucked carcasses inside! All my practice to snickersnee with a fine vibroknife went away with that blow, my time truly wasted it was to learn that skill and to study that bird.

Well there went the whole dinner show! That was a lot of planning I would never get back, but for now I had bigger things to worry and fret, like these frozen birds and no Sith or Jedi with a lightsaber to instantly spit roast them!

A quick question revealed the seller was not at fault, it was I. For my first friendsgiving I had studied the food and the creatures, but never the day itself. One cannot fault an outsider for not understanding such things. . .although as some liked to point out, the holonet was a thing and he knew he should of used it before now.

Trying to make the best of it he hurried home, package in tow, and used the holonet now! “Help me search bar! You’re my only hope.” He whispered to himself with a sideways glance at the turkey and the duck on his counter. Soon he was led to posts that told him he had nothing to dread. With briny waters and hot steamed pots, the turkey and duck were soon thawed out. With trocar in hand he set things aright with oils and butters to savory delight stuffed and squirted until he could force it no more! Then he stuffed the duck into the turkey and wondered once more. What was this thing and why did they crave it so?

Checking the holonet again he set the oven after brief calculations, with a glower and frown he checked his math twice. He was a keeper of beasts! Not a number keepers race! With glower firmly set he sealed up the cooker and off of the weights he settled the temps and the times, and so he hoped all would be well.

Turning back to the holonet he sent out a message of time and apologies for when he and the fifty seven pound turkey would arrive. These new friends were gracious at his being late, despite him being the one bringing the main piece. Then settling his mind, he turned back to his work, their was a mother soon to give birth and many things had to be just so. These lizards so large were a pernicious and peculiar sort with each having their own odd habits, whinnies and snorts.

It wasn’t long until something came drifting, and he felt it before his nose was bothered something fierce! When it clicked in his mind he rose with a start knowing he had full well to dread!

***************************************************

When he arrived to party, smile painfully pressed into place, he presented his contribution to the feast and found many a gracious friend to be made that day. As well as a few flibbertigibbet sorts, but he tried to focus on the positives that day, and not the negatives like his blackened turkey he had brought to the feast. For holonet had failed him though he still knew not why. They feasted! They drank! They talked of work, of sports, and of toasts! A well and fine day it was in the end, and grateful and weary he was when he finally drifted away.

It wasn’t until the next day as he walked with a new bounce in his step into this place he was coming to call home that he discovered the answer. An answer to the question he had forgotten until now. It all started with a turkey but went awry with a duck! For he forgot that additive would change the cooking that the holonet told, and the third of his new friends that were out by food poisoning testified to the important of it. So remember new friend or old, when looking up recipes or cooking new things, asking a person – even if not a friend yet – is not such a shame. This Yuzzum can spout this as true! So Bob exclaimed ere the medics dragged another coworker out of sight, “Happy Friendsgiving! I’ll ask for a teacher when we do this again!”

 

Submission D

Pass the Turkey
Timeframe: ST, 34 ABY
Characters: Kazuda “Kaz” Xiono, Jarek Yeager, Neeku Vozo, Tam Ryvora
Synopsis: Kaz decides to contribute a dish to Team Fireball’s Life Day dinner, because it’s not Life Day without a turkey.

------
It all began with a turkey—roasted until it was perfectly golden brown, skin crisp and savory over juicy meat that practically melted in your mouth. The kind of turkey featured in all the advertisements, the very picture of a traditional family Life Day dinner. Kaz’s father was nothing if not traditional, and so the Xiono family Life Day feast always had the perfect turkey as its centerpiece. It wouldn’t have been Life Day without it.

This year, though, Kaz was halfway across the Galaxy from his family, working as a mechanic in Jarek Yeager’s repair shop on the Colossus fueling station on the water world of Castilon (and also as a spy for the Resistance. But only Yeager and Poe Dameron knew that). And Life Day dinner was obviously not going to be the same, not when it was going to be served around the scratched and weathered all purpose table in the garage office, cooked and served by Yeager himself and the shop’s other two mechanics, Tam and Neeku.

Yeager tapped his stylus against his datapad as he regarded his staff, seated around the same all purpose table. “So I’ll make the salt crusted burra fish again this year, and the fleek eel fritters,” Yeager said. “How about you, Tam, can we count on your famous mashed choke root?

“Of course,” she answered. “And I’ll make a jogan fruit parfait for dessert, too.”

“Ooh! And I shall bring kabatha crisps and roasted Wawaatt sprouts!” Neeku exclaimed. The Nikto clapped his hands and bounced in his seat enthusiastically. “I love Life Day dinner!”

“What do you want me to bring?” Kaz asked. The idea of having Life Day dinner like a big party where everyone brought their favorite dishes sounded kind of fun, so different from the formal dinners he was used to. He couldn’t wait to pitch in. “The roasted root leaf? Kublag curry? The turkey? You guys are gonna have turkey, right? It isn’t Life Day without a great big turkey!”

Tam and Yeager exchanged a glance. “I think we’ve got everything taken care of,” Yeager said carefully. “Why don’t you just get the joh blastoh punch from Aunt Z’s?”

“What? Oh I get it…You guys don’t think I can cook, do you?” The look had said it all; in their eyes, Kaz cooking was a recipe for disaster. He couldn’t use basic tools like a hydrospanner properly, so he probably couldn’t handle a topato masher, either.

“It’s okay, Kaz,” Yeager soothed. “We’ll have plenty of food…”

“I can totally cook!” He shoved his chair away from the table with a metallic scrape and jumped to his feet. “And I’m going to bring the best dish to Life Day dinner! You’ll see!”

——
Turkey.

Kaz spent almost an hour scouring the Colossus’s marketplace for a single bird without success, but he was determined to find one. Salt crusted burra fish was all very nice, but it wasn’t Life Day without turkey. And when he brought out a big, juicy, golden turkey and set it in the middle of the table, Tam and Yeager would ooh and aah, and they’d have to admit that he was more than just some flibbertigibbet who couldn’t tell a servo driver from a screwdriver.

Finally, Kaz wound up at a small butcher’s stand in the far corner of the market.The proprietor was a surly looking Klatooinian who was chopping bits of mystery meat with a wickedly pointy little knife. “Turkey?” He grunted in response to Kaz’s request, snickersnee rising and falling in quick rhythm. “Lemme see if I got any left on ice.” He vanished into the back of the shop and returned with a frozen avian “There y’go.”

“That?! That’s not a turkey!” Kaz protested. It was no larger than a moderately sized tip-yip. How was he going to have an impressive dish to present with that miniscule bird?

The Klatooinian glowered at him. “It’s all I got left. Don’t get many turkeys out here in the middle of the karking ocean. Next time, try buying your turkey more’n a day before Life Day!”

-----
Lacking any other options, Kaz bought the small turkey, vowing that what it lacked in quantity, he’d make up for in quality.

He hadn’t technically been lying when he said he could cook. He could make noodles, a dish which was not only tasty and filling, but surprisingly versatile. You could drizzle emulsauce on top for a snack, boil them in broth to make soup, or stir fry them with some chili paste and veg pro for a nice meal. Admittedly, he’d never attempted cooking anything like a turkey before, but how hard could it be to cook one, anyway? You just stuck it in the oven for a couple hours and, boom, done!

Kaz had a vague idea that you needed to start preparing a turkey ealy roast one, so he set his alarm and slipped into the garage's tiny kitchen while Neeku was still snoring in his bunk. He pulled the turkey out of the conservator where he’d stashed it behind a bulk bag of frozen crispic so that no one would find his surprise addition to Life Day dinner before it was ready. He brushed a layer of frost off the vacuum-sealed plasti-wrap, and read the directions: “Thaw turkey in a bath of cold water for four to six hours. Cook for 3 to 3 ½ hours, or until the meat reaches an internal temperature of 75 degrees.”

Thaw.

Four to six hours.

“No…no, no, no…!” Kaz shook his head frantically looking down at the ice cold and rock solid turkey. He didn’t have that long. Lunch was going to be served at noon, barely six hours from now. If he didn’t have the turkey cooked on time, he wouldn’t have anything to bring, and it would just be another time when he screwed up. There had to be something he could do! He scanned the cooking instructions again.

”...until the meat reaches 75 degrees,” Kaz murmured. What if…what if there was a way to get the turkey to the right temperature faster? He remembered seeing something on the holonet about some guy on Baatu who was famous for roasting nunas using an old pod-racer engine, and while the shop didn’t have a pod-racer, they did have…the Fireball.

-----
It took Kaz a few tries to rig up a sling that would hang the turkey at the right height to be in the stream of the Fireball’sthruster. He climbed into the cockpit. “All right,” he told himself. “All I have to do is just ease the engines on…just for a minute…and we’ll have a perfect Life Day turkey. Easy, right? Right!” He toggled the ignition and…

WHOOSH! The engines roared to life.

“Aaaaah! No!” Kaz slapped the toggle down as quickly as he could and vaulted out of the cockpit. The twine he’d used to hang the turkey from the engine hooks had burned through, and the turkey had fallen onto the garage floor.

On fire.

Kaz grabbed the nearest shammy and beat the flames out while bits of sizzling, charred turkey skin popped and flew higgledy-piggledy. Once he’d extinguished the fire, Kaz grabbed a pair of welding gloves and, panting, picked up the wreckage of the turkey.

“Awww…” Kaz sighed. The turkey was anything but golden brown; its exterior was blackened, cracked and dirty, and it smelled like engine exhaust. Once again, he’d messed up. Well, at least he still had the punch from Aunt Z’s…

And he saw that peeking through a crack in the charred crust, there was what looked like unsullied meat. Maybe…just maybe…if he cut off the outer layer, there would be some meat left. Not a lot, maybe, but enough.

Kaz had an idea.

----
“Cirilian noodle salad, with roast turkey!” Kaz said proudly, setting his bowl down on the table with the other dishes. “Made it myself!”

“You did?” Tam looked doubtful as he spooned a serving of it onto her plate.

“Yep! Roasted the turkey and everything!”

Tam and Yeager looked at their noodles and then at each other, their eyebrows raised, but Neeku dug in to his without hesitation.

“Oh, Kazuda!” he exclaimed, slurping down a stray noodle. “This is delicious! I have never tasted anything like this before! The turkey has such an interesting, smoky flavor! Incredible!” And he applied himself to devouring the rest of it with gusto.

Yeager held Tam’s eye a second longer and then took a cautious bite. His eyebrows shot up. “It’s good!”

“It is,” Tam echoed, in tones of pleasant surprise. “ Wow, well done, Kaz. You really can cook.”

Kaz smiled, basking in the warmth of their praise as he helped himself to the noodle salad. He was glad that he’d been able to pull this one out of the fire, so to speak.

 

Above are all the submissions we received for the Clash of Titans Friendsgiving event! The mods were super impressed with the creativity of all the stories, but only one team can emerge victorious from this Clash of Titans

You can help decide the winner by voting for your favorite story. To vote for your favorite story, simply send a PM to a Fanfic or RPF mod.

As a reminder, everyone may only vote once, and nobody may vote for their own story (no funny business with socks will be tolerated). Even if you did not get a chance to write for this challenge, you are absolutely encouraged to read all the stories and vote for your favorite!

The deadline for submitting votes January 10th, 2023 so please have any votes in by then.

Thank you!

 

*offers gingerbread cookies and slices of homemade apple pie*

A friendly reminder as 2022 draws to a close and 2023 begins that now is the perfect time to read all our submissions for the Clash of Titans and vote for your favorite by submitting a PM to any Fanfic or RPF mod

Happy reading!

 

A fair point!

For those who wrote and voted, I will add some of my rosemary infused shortbread

 

Friendly reminder that today is the deadline for submitting your vote for your favorite submission in the Clash of Titans event!

To vote, simply send a PM to any Fanfic or RPF mod

 

Announcement of Winners:

The mods were super impressed with the skill and creativity of all the submissions and especially by the cleverness with which so many of our very difficult bonus words were used in the stories

The results with points from votes and bonus word use have been tabulated. It was extremely close with the margin of victory being a single point as one would expect from such an epic clash of Titans, but in the end it was Team Fanfic who prevailed! Congratulations to the members of Team Fanfic: @Mistress_Renata and @Raissa Baiard!

Please give a big standing ovation to our winning team, all our wonderful participants who made this a fantastic clash of Titans, and everyone who read and voted on the incredible submissions created for this challenge

 

Congratulations Team Fanfic! And well done by all. This was fun!