#also several chunks of in salt and gold
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I don't believe in making major edits to stuff I've already posted publicly, but every now and then when I reread my own fic I am sorely tempted.
#that argument in the middle of ch10 of the vampire fic#i would pay real dollars to go back in time and fix that one#they're just saying words and none of it is about the actual conflict#which is that fenris is too scared to want anything (especially a vampire)#but at the same time he's furious hawke won't just sit there and wait for him to come to a decision#i'm scared to try to be happy with you but how dare you be happy with other people#if anyone ever rereads that fic just imagine this is what they yell about right before she bites him#instead of the balderdash they do say#also several chunks of in salt and gold#i was too cowardly to make danarius as evil as he should have been#and a couple things in spire#but anyway that argument is the big one#quark rambles
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[ID: A bowl with short-grained rice to the left and a curry to the right; a spoonful of pickled ginger tops the rice. End ID]
カレーライス / Kare raisu (Japanese "curry rice" with carrot and potato)
Kare raisu is a classic example of 洋食 (yoshoku)—Western-style food adapted to a Japanese palette. It first became popular among the Japanese navy, having been inspired by the diet of the British navy in the late Meiji period—the British themselves had appropriated and adapted dishes which they termed “curries” during their imperial rule of India.
The base of kare raisu's flavor profile is カレー粉 (kare ko, curry powder), which is used to spice the roux that thickens the curry. Since they were first manufactured and sold in the 1950s, premade curry roux cubes have been popular among home cooks as a quick way to season this dish. This recipe begins by making enough roux for the dish, for those without Japanese curry roux cubes at home.
Kare raisu is often made with chicken or pork belly, but meat is sometimes omitted. This recipe calls for sườn non chay, but if you don’t want to use a meat replacement, just increase the amount of carrot and potato!
Recipe under the cut.
Patreon | Tip jar
This recipe calls for you to make a roux as its base, as this is the most widely-used technique for this dish. A similar effect could be achieved by adding Japanese curry powder in after the onions are browned and proceeding with the dish from there, adding butter or margarine along with the water, and thickening the curry with some flour after the vegetables are tender, if desired.
Ingredients:
For the chicken:
1 package (100g) sườn non chay, or 350g other vegetarian meat substitute
(If using sườn non chay) several cups vegetarian ‘chicken’ or ‘beef’ stock from concentrate, vegetable stock, or water
1/4 tsp Japanese curry powder
A few cracks of black pepper
For the dish:
2 Yukon gold potatoes (400g), peeled
2-3 medium carrots (200g)
1 package (100g) suon non chay, or 350g other vegetarian chicken substitute
6 cups water, or enough to cover
2 tsp vegetarian ‘chicken’ or ‘beef’ stock concentrate (optional)
3 Tbsp neutral oil, to fry
2 large yellow onions, sliced
1/2 sweet apple, grated (optional)
3 Tbsp usata sosu (Japanese Worcestershire-style sauce)
1 Tbsp vegetarian oyster sauce (or substitute soy sauce)
1/4 cup coconut milk (optional)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1-inch chunk (10g) ginger, minced
Sườn non chay may be found in bags online or at your local Asian grocery–the bags will be labelled “sườn non chay” as well as “vegan meat slice,” “textured soy bean protein,” “vegetarian food,” or “vegan food.”
Apple is a fairly common but non-essential addition to this curry; it adds a subtle sweetness to the final dish without being immediately recognizable as apple. Other common additions which have the same effect are honey, jam, and mashed banana.
The Japanese Worcestershire sauce adds umami, salt, sweetness, and a hint of fruit: it may be replaced with equal parts soy sauce, ketchup, molasses, and date syrup or apple sauce.
The coconut milk adds savor and a creamy texture; the flavor of coconut is not detectable in the final dish. You could also use soy or oat milk for this purpose.
For the roux:
3 Tbsp Japanese curry powder
1/4 cup non-dairy margarine
6 Tbsp (45g) AP flour
Instructions:
For the roux:
1. Melt margarine in a small pot on medium, then reduce heat to medium-low. Add flour and toast for 15-25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until flour is lightly golden brown.
2. Add curry powder and toast for 30 seconds, until fragrant. Remove from heat.
For the dish:
1. If using sườn non chay: In a stockpot, soak sườn non chay in enough stock to cover for about an hour, until rehydrated. I also added a few cracks of black pepper and about 1/4 tsp of Japanese curry powder to the stock.
Adding a small plate to keep the sườn non chay beneath the surface of the liquid can help them to soak faster.
2. Tear sườn non chay into thin strips and return to the pot. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the liquid has evaporated; set aside.
Soaking in broth or stock helps the flavor of the sườn non chay to be more concentrated. If you're short on time, just soak them in water until softened, squeeze the excess water out, tear them into strips, and set aside until ready to fry.
3. Prepare your vegetables. Peel potatoes and cut into wedges (if your potatoes are particularly large, halve them widthwise first). Peel the carrots and chop them with diagonal cuts, rotating the carrot about 1/4 turn between each cut (this style of cutting—rangiri—is commonly used when preparing cylindrical vegetables for simmering in stews, because it increases their surface area). Halve the onions through the root and then cut them into slices; mince the garlic and ginger.
Some cooks will cut the onions into wedges and fry them until translucent, while others cut them into thin slices and fry until they are deeply golden brown; I took the latter route to add savor to the final dish, but consult your own preferences (and time!).
4. Heat 3 Tbsp neutral oil in a large stockpot (the one you simmered the sườn non chay in, wiped clean, is fine). Fry sườn non chay until lightly browned and set aside. (If using a different meat replacement, follow the package directions for stovetop frying.)
5. In the same pot, fry onion on medium-low for 20-30 minutes until golden brown, agitating occasionally. Add ginger and about half the garlic and fry for 30 seconds until fragrant. I like to add about 1/4 of the roux at this point and fry until fragrant to increase the presence of the spice in the final dish, but this isn't common in Japanese preparations.
6. Add carrots and potato and allow to fry for about 2 minutes. Add apple and stir to combine.
7. Whisk water together with stock concentrate, Worcestershire sauce, and oyster sauce, and add to the pot. Return your meat replacement to the pot.
8. Simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes, until carrots and potatoes are fork-tender.
9. Dissolve the rest of the curry roux into the sauce and add the remainder of the garlic (this divided addition allows for a sharper garlic taste). Add coconut milk, if desired. Simmer, uncovered, until thickened, about 5 minutes. Taste and adjust sauces.
Serve warm with short-grained rice and fukujinzuke or rakkyozuke.
#Japanese#recipe#vegan recipes#vegan cooking#vegetarian recipes#yoshoku#carrots#potatoes#suon non chay#sườn non chay#apple#coconut milk#osata sosu#kare ko
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How to Make the Cheesiest, Crispiest Tuna MeltMaking a tuna melt isn't hard, but these tips will help you make one that's truly cheesy, crispy, and comforting.
BY GENEVIEVE YAM
August 24, 2022
Growing up in Hong Kong, I considered the tuna melt a special occasion food. The sandwich is one of my dad’s favorites, but my parents—who mostly cooked Chinese food—never made it at home. Whenever he had a hankering for a tuna melt, my family would pile into the car and he’d drive us to a homey beachside restaurant 30 minutes away that had the cheesiest, crispiest tuna melts. The hefty sandwiches were held together with colorful frilly-ended toothpicks and came with a tall pile of crispy fries.
To this day, I still consider the sandwich at that restaurant to be the gold standard of tuna melts. The tuna salad, which was packed with crunchy celery and had just the right amount of mayonnaise, went down first on the bread. Melted white cheddar hugged the salad, and several slices of dill pickles provided a sweet, vinegary tang.
Those tuna melts are so embedded in my memory that I think of them each time I make the sandwich. Over the years, it has become one of my go-to meals when I’m looking for something easy and comforting. Though making a tuna melt isn’t difficult, the tips below will help you make a truly stellar one.
Pick the right kind of tuna
I prefer using olive-oil-packed tuna, which is richer in flavor and much more moist than water-packed tuna. Look for sustainably fished tuna that’s caught by pole and line, or brands with a Marine Stewardship Council label. Buying solid tuna (as opposed to chunk) allows you to flake tuna to the size you want and results in a salad with better texture.
Add some crunch and acid to your tuna salad
The tuna salad in a melt should be good enough to stand on its own, even without the cheese or toasted bread. Instead of adding dill pickles as a garnish, I incorporate chopped pickles into the salad, along with a few tablespoons of crunchy diced celery, some salt and pepper, and a quarter cup of mayonnaise for a salad that’s balanced in both taste and texture.
Use mayonnaise—not butter—on your bread
Mayonnaise is my preferred fat when I’m making grilled cheese or a tuna melt. The condiment is made with vegetable oil, which has a higher smoke point than butter, so your kitchen won’t erupt in smoke before the bread is properly toasted and the cheese is properly melted. Mayo is also easily spreadable when cold, and who wants to wait around for butter to soften when all you want is a quick sandwich?
Put a lid on it
For a sandwich that’s crispy, cheesy, and golden brown, start by placing your bread (I like a hearty sourdough) mayonnaise-side down in a skillet over medium-low heat. Top the bread with two slices of cheddar, then cover the skillet with a lid. The trapped heat will help the cheese melt evenly. Some of the cheese will melt off the sides of the bread and create a shatteringly crisp frico-like cheese skirt.
Quick-pickled onions provide crunch and tang
After the cheese has melted, place a quarter cup or so of tuna salad on one slice of bread and top it with several slices of onions that you’ve quick-pickled in seasoned rice vinegar. The onions add crunch, but they also add a burst of acid that cuts through the richness of the cheese and tuna salad.
Tuna Melt
GET THIS RECIPE
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Clueless non-cooking American-raised answer: what even is a pot roast? Like, it's a phrase I saw in books sometimes, I think? But I don't really know what it means in terms of what it does to the meat and I have no idea if I've eaten it. (Basically this is me saying that I'm pretty sure plenty of your teenagers will have no idea.)
I need you to know, and I mean this in a very loving teasing sort of way, I legitimately laughed out loud at "What even is a pot roast?"
I'm using your ask to thank everyone for their VERY helpful comments, and yes, a lot of the appeal for me of doing the pot roast is that it's really easy, reasonably priced for a beef dish, but looks nice and the leftovers are FABULOUSLY reusable in a variety of ways, which for me is the big thing--I remember when I was experiencing food insecurity the thing I hated the MOST was eating leftovers for several days in a row, because it was cheaper to make a LOT of one thing. I think everyone who has experienced a rough go of things has certain things that remind them so powerfully of the experience that it sets them off in ways that are admittedly goofy, and mine is eating leftovers. HATE.
ANYWAY, pot roast! It's easy, sexy, and can be had very cheaply, especially if you manage to shop a sale!
POT ROAST
What you need is a cheap cut of meat--there's no "pot roast cut" but what you usually want to use are the tough cheap cuts that work really well for long cooking, so your rump roasts, your chuck roasts (usually what I buy), a 7 bone roast if you have a roaster big enough makes MARVELOUS pot roast and the bones make EXCEPTIONAL broth afterward. I used to recommend brisket, because brisket used to be cheap before every useless-ass barbecue dad decided that he wanted to be ~special and skilled~ but still just make MEAT instead of learning to cook pastry or something LIKE A LADY and so went and bought a Traeger to use to make subpar wastes of beef 3 times a year. SO brisket's expensive now.
Cheap cut of meat --no less than 3 pounds
beef broth (2 cups, save the other 2 cups for later in the week)
I can't tell the kids to use a heavy brown ale, but use a can of heavy brown ale. Alternatively, red wine is the classic choice, but I'm happiest with my brown ale.
Tomato paste (save the rest of the can for beef stroganoff later in the week)
seasoning: I'm going to have to figure out how to simplify, simplify for these kids without many resources, so I list these from contribute the most to contribute the least
- salt and pepper
-thyme
Worcestershire sauce
-bay leaf
-rosemary
-of course you can fuck around with whatever it is you like!
Sliced onions
potatoes cut into big chunks (Yukon golds do best)
Carrots cut into big chunks
Mushrooms are also very good in this
about 2 tbsp butter and 4 tbsp flour(ish)
Equipment: a dutch oven or deep roaster, depending on what you have and the size of your roast.
1. Heat your oven to 325. Low and slow is the way we're going here. This doesn't take a ton of ACTIVE time, but it takes a lot of cooking time.
2. Put salt and pepper all over your roast. Lightly dust it with about half of your flour. (When I do this for the teens, I will explain WHY we're doing all this to help teach them techniques they can hopefully crossapply) Then toss your dutch oven or roaster on the stovetop, and throw some olive oil or canola oil or whatever the fuck you have in that bad boy. Sear on all sides, with a nice deep golden crust. Take it out of the pan and toss it on a plate for a minute.
3. Put your onions in the pan and saute them, remembering to give them a little salt. Deglazing time! Throw your can of ale (or cup of red wine if you're a traditionalist) into the pan, making sure to scrape up the bits of detritus on the bottom of the pan, that's where the good stuff is.
4. Toss the beef broth and all of your flavorings in the pot. Set the roast back in the pot.
5. Cover with the lid, or tin foil, depending on what you've got. Toss it in the oven for about an hour and forty five minutes. Play video games! Read a book! Do chores! Whatever! The great thing about this is that so much of the cook time doesn't involve you at all.
6. After the time has passed, put the root vegetables into the pan with the roast, making sure to nestle them around and get good braising action in the liquid. Cover it back up and put it back into the oven for ROUGHLY one and a half to two hours. The great thing about this is YOU DON'T USE A THERMOMETER. (another reason I picked it) You cook it until it's fork tender! That is, easily flakes with a fork.
7. Take it out of the pot when its done and shred it with forks, knives, your hands. Put you pot back on the stovetop, we're going to make gravy.
8. Make a thickening paste--take your butter and flour and mash it into a paste, and then add that to the pot, cooking for a few minutes to thicken (You can also use cornstarch to thicken, if you prefer. Remember cornstarch CANNOT be added straight to hot liquids, and has to be mixed with a bit of water first)
9. Serve! Put some meat and vegetables on a plate and cover with gravy. Some people choose to put all the meat back into the pot and coat with gravy before serving--I don't like to do that because I feel it limits my leftover options.
#oh wow you can do sub-bullets anymore#what a crock of shit#my AU bullet point posts probably make ZERO SENSE NOW
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All 77 of my current AUs
I’m probably going to instantly regret making this post but it’s four in the morning and also I desperately want to talk to people about these things.
This is just. Copypasted from my AU list page. Some stuff might be outdated in a week. Who knows. Not me.
Star Vs The Forces of Evil:
Monster Carvers (link) - Main Star Vs AU. Stomco endgame + Tom stays with Marco + Star raised by Monsters (specifically Buff Frog). The titular antagonists were originally going to disappear after the prologue what the heck happened???
Pretty Cure vs the Forces of Evil (link) - Exactly What It Says On the Tin, Pretty Cure x Star Vs.
unnamed Pirate AU - Star Butterfly has a perfectly nice, unbearably boring life as a high-class lady, with little to do other than wait to be married to her arranged fiancé that she’s never even met. A week before her wedding she sneaks on board a shipping vessel in the hopes of having an adventure. She gets a little more adventure than she bargained for when the ship is attacked by pirates.
“"Cannon”“ - A cannon-adjacent AU that started as a crossover with Monster Carvers
unnamed Infinity Train AU feat. human!Star and human!Tom.
unnamed Post-Cleaved AU featuring forced humanizations, amnesia, and one small time hiccup. Also Dave and Wrathmelior are missing, so that sucks for Tom.
unnamed AU where Marco goes to live with Tom for a while instead of Star during Lint Catcher
How to Train Your Dragon:
Outsiders (link) - Main HTTYD AU. Instead of watching the entire Berk fleet sail off to their dooms with Toothless, Hiccup and Astrid free the arena dragons and take Toothless while he’s being brought to the ship and then they all get the heck out of dodge. Dagur accidentally set himself adrift with Heather back when they were both small. Snotlout learns the hard way that being the Heir/responsibility kind of really sucks actually??? Stoick has to deal with his son going rouge. And Gobber and the Berk Teenagers have to deal with Stoick and Snotlout respectively.
Modern Riders/Time Travel AU - Modern!Hiccup is dragged by his cousin into an unwanted camping trip with the other riders and one electrical storm later, they find their cell phones aren’t working any more. Also are those flipping dragons?! On Berk, Stoick and the other vikings are shocked to find a group of teenagers in the woods who bear a shocking resemblance to some of the members of a dead generation of children.
Unsevered Bonds - Modern Riders (minus Hiccup) meet a time displaced Hiccup who recognize them as his reincarnated friends, even if they don’t remember their former lives.
How To Train Your Lusus - Everyone are trolls on Alternia. Hiccup is a brownblood who’s probably the only troll in existence to get a second Lusus (Toothless) after his first one (Stoick) is killed. Astrid is an oliveblood that Hiccup is flushed for, Fishlegs is a yellowblood, Snotlout is a blueblood, the Twins, Dagur, and Heather are all purplebloods. Dagur killed both his and Heather’s lusus so now he’s trying to take care of her even though she absolutely hates him (and not in a black way), and he had an unrequited pitch thing for Hiccup at one point before they flipped pale (and are actually Moirails now). That’s pretty much all I have for this one.
unnamed Harry Potter AU - Does not actually take place at Hogwarts. Everyone attends Dumstrang (possibly) and the topic everyone avoids is Care of Magical Creatures, because the local Dark Lord is Drago Bludvist. Main trio is Hiccup, Snotlout (Pureblood cousins), and Fishlegs (Muggleborn)… somehow.
Dragon Gang (link) - Mob/Mafia AU set in the vaguely 1920s in a Fake Country so no one can call me out on inaccurate geography.
Rebuilding Bridges - Set in a Multiverse where RTTE and The Hidden World are mutuality exclusive. (Pt.1): After dealing with Drago but before dealing with Grimmborn, Hiccup and Toothless once fought a witch intent on ‘harvesting’ dragons. Now ten years after the dragons have left her apprentice seeks revenge and kidnaps Zephyr and Nuffink, and a panicked Hiccup and Astrid are contacted by the Very Retired and Very Much Done With This Kid witch. Meanwhile in the RTTE-verse, The Dragon Riders only just got back from informing Berk about Johann’s treachery, when some crazy lady spontaneously appears in the middle of the Edge with two terrified children she intends to feed to dragons. Yeah, that’s not happening. (Pt.2, spoilers for this AU I guess???): Zephyr and Nuffink and their parents have safely returned to New Berk, but their world has been shaken by what was and could have been. Zephyr and Nuffink, after bonding with Dagur in the other timeline, decide they want to try and help him in theirs. This was perhaps not their best idea. Meanwhile, the Nightlights escape the watchful eye of their parents to go exploring outside the Hidden World, and quickly meet the hatchlings of their dad’s brother! (so… their cousins, then?)
Something Wild (name subject to change) - Several years after Berk (along with most of the Archipelago) is attacked and taken captive by a far more advanced foe, Stoick is able to free most of his people but what he finds when they get manage to regroup back to their island is less than a relief- Berk ravaged and their elderly and children, left behind by their captors, missing. To make matters worse, the dragons are still out there, now with some kind of devils riding and aiding them. Now Stoick, Gobber, and the rest of the people of Berk must find safety and a way to fight back against they’re new foe, find what happened to those who are missing, and figure out who these dragon riders are and whether they’re friend of foe (gee i wonder where the Berkians went and who the dragon riders are golly what a mystery). (aka the feral/semi-feral!dragon riders au i keep trying to create)
Lost (name subject to change) - Alternate attempt at the feral/semi-feral!dragon riders au. Several years before the events of the movie could happen, a raid on Berk not by dragons, but by other people, leads to the destruction of an entire generation when the raiders manage to capture the Teenagers of Berk and ship them away. While in captivity, they meet and ultimately befriend the dragons that in another life would be their partners and together they all escape. Unfortunately, they’re Thor-knows-where, and with no one they can trust (or understand) except each other, getting back to Berk might take a while…
The Lego Movie:
Hero with Two Faces of Yellow - Another ‘Emmet and Rex share a body like Good Cop Bad Cop’ AU
Peacemaker AU - Main Lego AU. About a year after the Duplo aliens attack, Emmet is attacked and presumed dead, but he’s actually been taken by General Mayhem to meet Queen Watevra Wana'bi, who remembered and missed her ‘father’. Later, Rex ends up jumping into an entirely different timeline by accident (this one) and decides to try and play the long game by befriending Emmet, who’s now living in the Systar System. That probably won’t work out for him the way he wanted.
Miraculous Ladybug
MiracuClass Knows AU - Prior to Volpina, each member of the MiracuClass finds out the identities of Ladybug and Chat Noir, and just sort of collectively become their secret keepers. Inspired by Epiphanies by PFTones3582 on Fanfiction.net.
Miraculous Sburb AU - The MiracuClass play Sburb and end up dragging a good chunk of Paris in with them when they enter the Medium. Marinette is a Light player, Adrien is a Doom player, and that’s all I got. Gabriel probably definitely dies.
One Is Silver and the Other Gold - aka the Marikimno Brot3 AU. I headcannon that Marinette, Kim, and Nino were close friends as little kids that drifted apart a few years prior to the start of the show. In this AU, that never happened. Also, Alya becomes Adrien’s best friend instead of Nino, and Nathanel becomes their friend too somehow? (someone help Alya, she’s an extrovert and both her friends have social skill levels in the single digits.)
The Ladybug and the Monkey - Main Miraculous Ladybug AU. My take on the ‘Fu chooses Kim to be the second Miraculous wielder instead of Adrien’ AU that I’ve somehow seen multiple times.
Sleeper Miraculous - AU where instead of the Miraculous being handed out, they’re transported magically to their wielders after they’ve proved themselves somehow. The Miraculous still need to be ‘activated’ by the Guardian to be used on either a permanent or temporary basis, so Ladybug still has to go to Master Fu at first before she becomes the new Guardian, but she knows literally none of the other members of Team Miraculous’s identities. They have a chat group, too, where Ladybug updates team members on whose Miraculous she’s going to activate, and both Chloe and Kagami never blow their identities. Contains both mild Classmates + (even milder)Adrien salt and sugar. (define irony: wanting to punch someone in the face for being an a-hole only to realize that said a-hole is you).
Miraculous! Pretty Cure! - Another Pretty Cure AU. Yep.
Mesapia AU - Butterfly!Marinette AU with a few twists - 1) instead of just facing the villainous user of the Ladybug Miraculous, all of the Miraculous have been lost to villains (save for the rabbit). Marinette frequently empowers her classmates (+Adrien, who’s still under house-arrest in this AU, Luka, and Kagami) to fight the Miraculous Villains, who are also all fighting each other; and 2) This isn’t so much a Kwami Swap as a Kwami Scramble, no one uses their canon Miraculous here (except for Fu briefly, and Emilie had the peacock before what happened to her)!
Boys vs Girls AU (name subject to change) - Marinette vs Lila with the Boys (+Kagami) on Marinette’s side and the Girls on Lila’s.
Labyrinth - Almost the entirety of the MiracuClass go missing (+Lila, Luka, & Kagami, -Chloe) and on a related note, eight very young children wake up in an ever-shifting, monster-filled underground labyrinth and grow up together. And two of them have some special, appearance-shifting jewelry…
Mad Gabriel - Miraculous Ladybug x Mad Father, starring Adrien as Aya, Marinette as Dio, Gabriel as Alfred Drevis, Nathalie as Maria, and everyone else as the doctor’s victims (Lila is Ines).
Miraculous Royal AU - A fantasy AU starring the MiracuClass (shocker) spread out across three fantasy kingdoms.
Quartz Butterfly AU - AU in which Jagged Stone takes the role of (a significantly nicer but still villainous) Hawkmoth as Quartz Butterfly, with Penny taking on Mayura’s role as Songbird. (yes i know peacocks aren’t songbirds SHHHH).
MiracuTrio AU - AU based on fanofanimation’s submission to terrible-miraculous-ladybug-aus, where Kim becomes a permanent member of the team after Party Crasher.
Mitterlicht - horror-ish AU inspired partially by various horror games, Lucidstuck, and Underbright (no, really). After receiving their Miraculous for the first time, the temporary heroes start having less-than-restful nights. Things quickly go from bad to worse when fragmented, panic-inducing dreams turn into nightly (and solitary) trips into a dark world full of monsters that want to take something referred to just as their ‘light’- a bright light that acts as both a beacon to the hostile creatures and the only way to return to consciousness every night -which just so happen to be in the exact spot (and in many cases, are also vaguely the same shape) of their Miraculouses.
Mirakatsu - Aikatsu AU
Ladybug: Don’t Deal With Hawkmoth - (aka the result of listening to the Cuphead Rap Battle 50 million times) Cuphead AU where Ladybug and Chat Noir have to go around beating up akumas and collecting their butterflies to avoid getting akumatized by Hawkmoth.
Miracle Thieves - a phantom/gentleman thief au where Marinette and Adrien (who have been thieves for years) unwittingly steal a pair of magical artifacts and decide to team up afterwards. Includes Fox!Nino, Journalist-determined-to-expose-their-identities!Alya, and possibly Tiger!Markov.
Homestuck:
unnamed AU inspired by To Live a Normal Life
unnamed Harry Potter AU
Merged Sessions AU - An AU where our favorite trolls and the Beta Kids are all part of the same session
Same Side of the Scratch AU - AU where the Beforus Trolls replace the Alternian ones, and when both sessions get scratched the Alternian Trolls end up in communication with the Alpha Kids
Same Side, Same Session AU - Combines both of the two immediately above AUs, The Beta Kids and Beforus Trolls have a session together that fails and gets Scratched, then the Alternians and Alphas play the game together while the pre-scratch players (all alive) travel to their session and have Meteorstuck Shenanigans.
Relief Was Just a Dream (name subject to change) - aka the mandatory Troll Rebellion AU, inspired by a fic I don’t remember the name of on A03. Sweeps after Karkat and Feferi are (seemingly) culled, Ace Legislacerator Terezi Pyrope -one of the best despite knowing she’s one wrong move away from being culled for her disability- is called in to investigate a series of traitorous attacks on more and more ships. Weirdly, the trolls seen most in the attacks don’t even seem to exist, all seem to bleed a painfully familiar cherry red, and have powers that even Her Imperial Condescension doesn’t seem to have. (not a no-game au)
Freetime AU (name subject to change) - AU where Bro leaves Dave on Dad Egbert’s doorstep, and Dave and John grow up as brothers.
Megaman:
Pokemon Network - Hub lives Pokemon AU with at least two protagonist teams. Team A: Lan, Hub, Mayl, Dex & Yai in Kanto. Team B: Roll, Glyde, Gutsman (Gus) in Kalos. What are Chaud and Protoman/Blues up to? ~Secrets~
Sailor Moon:
Inverse Corruption - When Beryl scours the Earth looking for her reincarnated generals she fails to find them, but she does manage to find the senshi instead. Sailor Moon has to unknowingly face the very girls who were supposed to protect her, fighting side-by-side with the Shitennou instead. (the boys are highschoolers to the girls middleschoolers)
Hazbin Hotel:
Infernal Relations - Why did Lucifer and Lilith wait so long to have a child? Simple; they didn’t. Unbeknownst to Charlie, her parents both had and lost a child thousands of years before she was born, a fact that will have far more of an effect on her hotel than she could possibly realize (even if she had known).
Apprentice Charlie AU - AU where Charlie gets into a fight with Lucifer and leaves before she ever thinks to create her hotel and Alastor ends up finding amusement by taking on an apprentice. (inspired by Helluva Teacher by Sol_Victoria on A03)
Phineas and Ferb:
Cursed Cats AU - AU based on the song Black Cats of Halloween. Phineas, Ferb, and their friends are cursed by a demon who turns them into black cats, save for on Halloween night. They’re then thrown into a world of magic and have to find each other, their way back home, and a way to break their curse, preferably in that order.
Danganronpa:
Online Gamer AU - no one dies/non-despair AU where no one is a super/ultra highschool level anything, no one has met each other in person, and they all play Among Us together. Junko always dies first and she’s low-key going to hurt someone over it.
unnamed AU where the murders of the killing game happen differently (aka the mandatory dr au)
unnamed AU inspired by ask-the-dr-reset-kids - After an incident that forces Hope’s Peak to temporarily close it’s doors, Class 78 all transfer to a different school. Junko is in jail, Mukuro is coping, Izuru is looming somewhere, the Ultimate Despair are waiting like sleeper agents to cause the The Most Despair Inducing Event in History, and Makoto is straight up not having a good time (and has very good reasons not to tell anyone).
unnamed AU where both Class 77 and Class 78, including both Junko and Mukuro but without Chiaki end up playing the Killing Game together.
Double Mastermind AU - similar to the above, both Class 77 and Class 78 wake up one day with no memories of their school lives. They’ll have to work together, somehow, to find out where they are, how to get back to civilization, and how to get back their memories. Meanwhile in the control room, Makoto and a sort-of-but-not-really-reformed Junko are working together as the Masterminds behind the mystery. Well, Makoto’s working, anyway. Junko just kind of wants to give Makoto daily migraines. Contains Junko/Makoto hateshipping.
unnamed Taka Lives AU where instead of switching roles with Hiro during the third trial he just manages to survive the murder attempt. He does not, however, get out unscathed…
another unnamed Taka Lives AU where Makoto, at Kyoko’s urging, decides to stay with Kiyondo the night he would have died, throwing a huge wrench into the would-be-blackeneds’ plans.
Asassain!Makoto AU: The Killing School Life - an au where Makoto is secretly the Ultimate Assassin.
Assasain!Makoto AU: The Killing Mystery - au that’s basically the one directly above but takes place in a non-despair (or maybe averted despair would be more accurate) timeline. After receiving and turning down a job to assassinate a certain up-and-coming politician, The Black Mask (Makoto) alerts his would-be victim, an old former friend, that someone is out for his life.
Remnants of Hope AU - AU that takes place after the end of School Mode, with the class not being picked up by the future foundation right away. (does this. does this actually qualify as an au i’m not sure.)
unnamed Class Swap AU
unnamed AU where Makoto and Kiyotaka are brainwashed into Ultimate Despair in addition to Class 77. Contains both sweet and very effed up Naeishi, as well as Despair!Makoto+Izuru friendship (or as close as Izuru can get, anyway). Technically another 2 (or 3, sort of) masterminds au.
Soulmates AU - In a world where most people are colorblind until meeting their soulmate, Makoto Naegi walks into Hope’s Peak Academy colorblind, blacks out, and wakes up to color. As it turns out, the same thing happened to everyone else!
Scrapbook AU - After entering into Hope’s Peak Academy, Makoto started a scrapbook/photo album of himself, his classmates, and eventually even the class above his own during their time on and off school. It soon became a class diary of sorts after being discovered, shared among everyone… then a chronicle of the events leading up to Class 77 going missing, The Tragedy starting, and Class 78 sealing themselves inside the school bunker, before returning to it’s original purpose as Class 78 lived inside their homemade bunker. In canon, Junko found and burned it. In this timeline, it’s an amnesiac Makoto and his classmates who find it, hidden under the floor in Makoto’s room.
Amnesia AU - A boy wakes up in a school(?) with no memories of where he is, how he got here, or even who he is. As it turns out, there are fourteen other people here… and all of them have the same memory loss he does! (may or may not be an IF Bad End AU)
Polychain AU - Another different Victims and Blackends au, that extends well beyond the original Killing Game. The Tragedy occurs very differently in this one… initially. Also features Junko escaping after the Killing Game, and Hajime and Shuichi being half-brothers and kids of the survivors.
Unnamed AU where Leon and Taka also attended Makoto and Sayaka’s middle school.
Ghost AU - After being killed, the victims and blackened are forced to stick around and watch the Killing Game happen, believing they'll be allowed to move on after they leave. Turns out, they're very much wrong- but at least after it's over their classmates can see them! Too bad they're the only ones.
Teachers Assistant AU - inspired by a fic I don’t remember the name of on fanfiction.net. After Nagito blows up a building and gets suspended, Chisa is forced to take a Teacher’s Assistant or be fired. Somehow, a very reluctant Makoto gets the job, despite being in the class below her own. Cross-class shenanigans ensue.
Unnamed Timetravel AU inspired by a fic I don’t remember the name of on fanfiction.net where Makoto and Alter Ego, the only survivors of the Killing Game, are sent back in time to Makoto’s first day attending Hope’s Peak - Makoto mentally and Alter Ego physically. Not as dark as the premise sounds, at least theoretically.
Crossover
Dagla!Adrien AU - Adrien isn’t the son of Gabriel and Emilie Agreste, but instead his parents are a Modern Dagur and Mala. He still works for Gabriel as a model, but otherwise has had a very different upbringing (most notably the inclusion of a lot of people who have cared about him for his entire life, such as his best friend Zephyr Haddock) and acts more like Chat Noir both with and without the mask. He still befriends his canon friends, becomes Chat Noir, and falls in love with Ladybug. (HTTYD x Miraculous Ladybug)
unnamed Adventure Time x Star Vs AU
Miracutale - Lila pushes Marinette down a hole, Adrien tries to catch her but fails. Undertale ensues. (Miraculous Ladybug x Undertale)
Sailor Bella (name subject to change) - AU inspired by some art from Turning-the-Tides, Princess Serenity reincarnates not into Usagi Tsukino, but Isabella Garcia-Shapiro, and her Senshi are reincarnated into the boys. I have no idea who Endymion became if he exists at all in this AU. (Sailor Moon x Phineas and Ferb)
unnamed three-way crossover between Harry Potter, Miraculous Ladybug, and How to Train Your Dragon.
unnamed Steven Universe x Undertale AU - After returning from the Jungle Moon, Steven and Connie end up stranded in an alternate timeline where they meet what appears to be another half-gem going by the name of False Topaz (Frisk). Things get a little more tricky when it turns out that gems and humans coexist somewhat… on one side of a giant, seemingly uncross-able mountain range live humans, on the other gems, and after a war between the two a few centuries ago, both cultures have a kill on sight policy. To make things more complicated, gems seem to be very different in this timeline. (note: Frisk is not actually a gem, just disguised as one)
unnamed Undertale x Star Vs AU - There’s a new face at the Silver Bell Ball - Frisk, heir and ambassador for the Kingdom of… Monsters?! Star and Frisk are quick to befriend each other, but despite that, Star can’t help but feel that Frisk doesn’t like her… And Frisk may have more than one secret to share… or maybe to keep.
unnamed Miraculous Ladybug x Danganronpa AU - The Worst Most Despair Inducing Event In History was localized to Japan (but the effects are spreading), and the six survivors of Hope’s Peek, aided by Kagami’s father, whom Byakuya naturally has connections to, immigrate to France to pick up the pieces of their lives. Meanwhile in France, Ms. Bustier’s class gain five new transfer students after the events of Miracle Queen.
Games - (everything)
Wild Things - (everything)
#LONG post#Star Vs#HTTYD#Lego Movie#Miraculous Ladybug#Homestuck#Megaman Battle Network#Sailor Moon#Hazbin Hotel#Phineas and Ferb#Danganronpa#Undertale#Harry Potter and Adventure Time don't get their own tags because they only show up once each#and only in crossovers
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inspired by this post by @elliestormfound
It’s Lambert’s turn to cook dinner tonight for the witchers wintering in the keep and he’s feeling rather inspired, after Geralt and Eskel went ice fishing and came back with four lovely large trout. Going down to the root cellar while the other two witchers were taking care of the gutting and cleaning and de-scaling of the fish out in the yard, Lambert picked out some onions and some potatoes and some garlic. He also took a container of the goat milk butter they’d started making after Eskel had insisted on getting the keep its own mini goat herd. The animals themselves were stinky, ungrateful bastards, but even Lambert would admit having the fresh milk was nice. Once they finally figured out this goat cheese thing, it’d be even nicer.
But for now Lambert’s heading back upstairs with a basket full of potatoes and onions and garlic and is greeted by some absolutely beautiful fish fillets laid out on the kitchen counter. A lesser man- such as many high-class chefs with their fancy restaurants in the cities- might shed a tear at the sight of such divine knife work. Lambert is so glad Eskel let Geralt do the filleting this time.
He dices onions and garlic and preps the potatoes, washing them and piercing them in several places with a knife. The wood-stove is already lit, doing its best to spread fingers of warmth through Kaer Morhen’s cold stones. Opening up two of the burners, Lambert plunks down a pair of heavy iron saucepans onto the stove. He makes two batches of an onion-butter sauce, one with garlic and one without. While that’s simmering, he seasons the fish with rock salt that he’s fairly certain Vesemir collects and grinds himself, and then divides the fillets out evenly between two baking pans. Lambert pours the sauce over the fish before sliding them, along with the potatoes, into the large oven to slow cook.
With some time to kill, he washes the dishes he’s created so far and then starts poking around in the kitchen cabinets. He finds things he knew were there, like shelves filled with jars of different spices and a section dedicated to baking supplies, and things he didn’t, like glass bottles of apple cider in a bottom cupboard. Lambert uncorks one and sniffs it, and, yep, that is apple cider and it’s still fairly fresh too, probably squeezed and bottled by Vesemir this past autumn. He doesn’t think the old man will mind awfully if Lambert commandeers some of it; it’s for a good cause, and it’s not like Vesemir won’t also get a share of it.
Putting a larger pot on the stove top, Lambert mixes up a hot drink made with apple cider, a splash of squeezed fruit juice, and spices. Sticks of cinnamon and dried orange and lemon slices float in bubbling amber liquid as it simmers on the burner. Dinner will be done before the wassail is, but that’s alright; they can have it as a nice follow-up afterwards.
Lambert glances up from stirring the drink as Vesemir enters the kitchen. The old witcher is carrying a basket with fresh broccoli from the winter garden, tiny bits of ice glimmering on green buds from being washed outdoors in the cold. Taking a deep breath in, he smiles appreciatively. “It smells delicious.” Yellow irises find the bottles of apple cider out on the countertop. “Ah. I see you got into my juice stores.”
“For a good cause, old man.”
Vesemir’s nostrils flare as he leans towards the pot. “Yes, indeed. An after-dinner treat?”
How does he always know these things. “Yeah,” Lambert admits.
“Would you be willing to trust me to watch over your handiwork for a bit? I thought I would add broccoli to the menu tonight, but the table in the hall could really use a wipe down before we sit down to eat.”
“Sure, I can go do that. Stir the pot on the stove occasionally and don’t fucking burn my food, okay?”
Vesemir acquiesces with a nod and waves the younger witcher out the door.
The table is rather dusty and bread crumb-covered from a multitude of meals, so Lambert wipes it down with a dry cloth and then a wet one. He also takes the opportunity to set the table, putting out plates and silverware for all the witchers, though not in the pompous, shitty way a noble household would. Just a fork and a knife, thank you very much. The butter dish and the ceramic howling wolf salt and pepper shakers Eskel had brought back one winter go on the table too. Vesemir keeps his eyes on the broccoli he has searing on the stove as Lambert comes in and out of the kitchen, pretending not to notice as the younger snags napkins for the table that he knows will be neatly folded beside their plates. And he thinks they don’t know that he cares.
Eventually all the food is done cooking and the old witcher lets Lambert take care of the plating of things, helping him carry the platters of roast potatoes and fish and broccoli into the hall. The smells must reach the other witchers in the keep as Geralt and Eskel quickly appear at the door, dressed in clean clothes with cheeks pink-flushed and the slightly spicy-sweet scent from the witch hazel soap they keep in the hot springs wafting off of them.
“Wow, that smells good,” Eskel comments. Geralt’s nostrils flare in agreement and the two are quick to take their usual seats at the table, eagerly eyeing the spread in front of them.
As soon as Vesemir fills his plate, the rest of them are free to dig in as well. Scenting the air, mouth partway open, Geralt gravitates towards the fish without garlic and scoops a good chunk onto his plate. Eskel takes a smaller piece from the same pan and a similar one from the other as well. Like Vesemir, Lambert takes a big serving of the fish with garlic. They all take potatoes and cut them open, steam wafting into the air from the well-cooked soft white insides. Goat butter melts quickly from the heat and they sprinkle rock salt on top of potatoes now drenched in gold. Broccoli joins the rest of the food on their plates and they eat in silence for a while, too hungry from the day’s work and grateful for a good meal to have the wherewithal to interrupt it with conversation.
Eventually though, as Vesemir and Geralt go back for second servings of their preferred fish and Eskel takes more broccoli, they find themselves able to take their concentration enough off the food to talk.
“Thank you for making dinner, Lambert,” Geralt says, because sometimes he can be a polite bastard. Lambert suspects it has something to do with all that time the white-haired man spends around a certain uppity sorceress.
“Yeah, thanks,” Eskel parrots, talking through a mouthful of potato because he doesn’t have a questionable influence in his life to teach him courtly manners. “’S delicious.”
Vesemir nods in agreement. “Quite.”
Resisting the urge to shrug off the praise, Lambert pretends the tips of his ears aren’t turning red. “Mhmm. Yeah. Uh. You’re welcome, I guess.” He remembers the wassail he has simmering in the kitchen still, and takes the excuse to flee the room. “Hot drinks, for after dinner. Should be done, so I’ll, uh, go get them.” Getting up and walking away, he waits until he’s completely out of eyesight of the others, because Vesemir would somehow fucking know if he didn’t, before he lets the bubbling warm feeling in his chest spill onto his face. He smiles the entire walk back to the kitchen.
Returning with a big wooden pitcher full of hot wassail that drifts the sweet scents of apples, citrus, and spices into the air with curls of steam, he pours it into the mugs gathered at the far end of the table, placing one in front of each witcher.
Vesemir, the madman, doesn’t even blow on his before gulping down a large mouthful. He swallows and immediately goes back for a second, humming his approval.
Slightly more cautious, Eskel blows on the surface of his drink before trying it. His face changes to a contemplative look and then he nods, seemingly in approval.
Geralt takes a sip from his mug with an unreadable expression. Lambert watches him carefully, knowing the other witcher can’t stand to drink apple cider on its own. Taking another sip, Geralt lets out a quiet grunt.
Lambert’s voice gets ahead of his head. “So? Is it good?” Shit shit shit way too pushy, what, do you need validation or something-
Shrugging, Geralt says, like he’s simply stating a fact, “Everything you make is good.”
There is a pleased yet embarrassed heat rising in Lambert’s cheeks, because Geralt doesn't say nice things when he doesn't mean them. “Fuck you.” Dammit, why can’t he be the kind of person who just goes speechless in moments like this.
Geralt doesn’t reply, but he’s smiling in that tiny way he thinks is unnoticeable, with the very corners of his lips and the tilt of his eyebrows, or something. The white-haired witcher doesn’t go back for seconds of the hot drink like Eskel does, or fourths like Vesemir, but he finishes the mug that Lambert poured for him, which is compliment enough in the younger’s opinion.
It’s a good night, he thinks, as they finish their drinks and Geralt and Eskel take the dishes back to the kitchen to scrub them clean. Even better as they all pile into the study, with it’s warm wooden walls and bearskin rugs a ballast against the winter’s chill. They quickly have a fire burning bright in the hearth, and the room becomes cozy and comfortable. Vesemir settles into his armchair with the old bestiary he’s currently annotating and the three younger witchers tangle together in a pile on the fur splayed before the fire. They wrestle lazily for a bit before sprawling out drowsily, serene and drifting somewhere close to sleep.
In the early hours of the next morning the armchair is empty, bestiary shut neatly on the accent table beside it, and the fire has reduced itself to cold ashes. Lambert wakes up to white hair tickling his nose and his feet tangled with Eskel’s, the other man’s calves laying on top of Geralt’s knees. Soft fur brushes his chin from the bearskin that had been spread over the three of them sometime in the night, keeping them warm beneath it with their combined body heat long after the fire had died out. There’s no window in this room but Lambert has a feeling it’s still not late enough for them to need to get up, so he lies there with his eyes closed, simply enjoying the weight and warmth of his brothers beside him.
#i know that post is kinda old now lol#but i'm p busy so it took me a bit to finish this#i love writing cooking and food tho so. i knew i had to#maybe it's a lot of my fantasy background being redwall and other brian jacques books#and that man loves his food#fish recipe based off my grandma's salmon#i don't have it on hand but i need to get it again bc i really like it#part of what makes cooking a loving thing for me is learning ppl's tastes#like my mom doesn't enjoy garlic#so i adjust what i cook to have less or no garlic if she's eating it to#the point of cooking for someone is making them something they'll enjoy#i just think lambert would b thotful like that#also enjoy my many headcanons abt what kaer morhen is like#the witcher#lambert#geralt of rivia#eskel#vesemir#yennefer of vengerberg#food#cooking#the witcher fic#kaer morhen#writing#my writing#mine#yes i did eventually learn that in the games lambert can’t cook. no i don’t care
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Daenerys Targaryen in A Storm of Swords vs Game of Thrones - Episode 3.1: Valar Dohaeris
In this series of posts, I intend to analyze precisely how the show writers downplayed or erased several key aspects of Daenerys Targaryen’s characterization, even when they had the books to help them write her as the compelling, intelligent, compassionate, frugal, open-minded and self-critical character that GRRM created.
I want to make it clear that these posts are not primarily meant to offer a better alternative to what the show writers gave us. I understand that they had many constraints (e.g. other storylines to handle, a limited amount of time to write the scripts, budget, actors who may have asked for a certain number of lines, etc) working against them. However, considering how disrespectful the show’s ending was to Daenerys Targaryen and how the book material that they left out makes it even more ludicrous to think that she will also become a villain in A Song of Ice and Fire, I believe that these reviews are more than warranted. They are meant to dissect everything about Dany��s characterization that was lost in translation, with a lot of book evidence to corroborate my statements.
Since these reviews will dissect scene by scene, I recommend taking a look at this post because I will use its sequence to order Dany’s scenes.
This post is relevant in case you want to know which chapters were adapted in which GoT episodes (however, I didn’t make the list myself, all the information comes from the GoT Wiki, so I can’t guarantee that it’s 100% reliable).
In general, I will call the Dany from the books “Dany” and the Dany from the TV series “show!Dany”.
Scene 1
Summary: show!Dany and show!Jorah are on a ship. The two discuss a) the dragons' growth, b) whether it's worth being complicit in the slave trade or not and c) the Dothraki's seasickness.
We begin the episode with this conversation about the dragons:
JORAH: They're growing fast.
DAENERYS: Not fast enough. I can't wait that long. I need an army.
Is it true that Dany needs the dragons to conquer Westeros and wishes they were bigger than they are at this point in the books? It is:
Another year, or perhaps two, and he may be large enough to ride. Then I shall have no need of ships to cross the great salt sea.
But that time was not yet come. Rhaegal and Viserion were the size of small dogs, Drogon only a little larger, and any dog would have outweighed them; they were all wings and neck and tail, lighter than they looked. And so Daenerys Targaryen must rely on wood and wind and canvas to bear her home. (ASOS Daenerys I)
However, that's not all there is to their relationship. Dany loves them as she would love her own human children:
They are my children, she told herself, and if the maegi spoke truly, they are the only children I am ever like to have. (ASOS Daenerys I)
Because she loves them like a mother would, she pays attention to how they grow and develop and act like a mother would:
Dragons always preferred to attack from above, Dany had learned. Should either get between the other and the sun, he would fold his wings and dive screaming, and they would tumble from the sky locked together in a tangled scaly ball, jaws snapping and tails lashing. The first time they had done it, she feared that they meant to kill each other, but it was only sport. No sooner would they splash into the sea than they would break apart and rise again, shrieking and hissing, the salt water steaming off them as their wings clawed at the air. (ASOS Daenerys I)
That level of care and attention (and her own cleverness in the choice of the word "dracarys") is what allows her to figure out how to order them to breathe fire on her own:
She took a chunk of salt pork out of the bowl in her lap and held it up for her dragons to see. All three of them eyed it hungrily. Rhaegal spread green wings and stirred the air, and Viserion’s neck swayed back and forth like a long pale snake’s as he followed the movement of her hand. “Drogon,” Dany said softly, “dracarys.” And she tossed the pork in the air.
Drogon moved quicker than a striking cobra. Flame roared from his mouth, orange and scarlet and black, searing the meat before it began to fall. As his sharp black teeth snapped shut around it, Rhaegal’s head darted close, as if to steal the prize from his brother’s jaws, but Drogon swallowed and screamed, and the smaller green dragon could only hiss in frustration.
“Stop that, Rhaegal,” Dany said in annoyance, giving his head a swat.
“You had the last one. I’ll have no greedy dragons.” She smiled at Ser Jorah. “I won’t need to char their meat over a brazier any longer.”
“So I see. Dracarys?”
All three dragons turned their heads at the sound of that word, and Viserion let loose with a blast of pale gold flame that made Ser Jorah take a hasty step backward. Dany giggled. “Be careful with that word, ser, or they’re like to singe your beard off. It means ‘dragonfire’ in High Valyrian. I wanted to choose a command that no one was like to utter by chance.” (ASOS Daenerys I)
She feels a lot of pride for them and knows how to distinguish each of them:
Every man of them, from captain to cook’s boy, loved to watch the three fly … though none so much as Dany.
[...] Viserion’s scales were the color of fresh cream, his horns, wing bones, and spinal crest a dark gold that flashed bright as metal in the sun. Rhaegal was made of the green of summer and the bronze of fall. They soared above the ships in wide circles, higher and higher, each trying to climb above the other.
[...] Drogon was aloft as well, though not in sight; he would be miles ahead, or miles behind, hunting.
He was always hungry, her Drogon. (ASOS Daenerys I)
Now, does this scene prevent any of these aspects from being true for show!Dany as well? No. That being said, not only these aspects don't come across as strongly in this scene (aside from how proud she is of them), it's also important to notice the show's priorities: they would rather focus on how show!Dany is dissatisfied with their slow growth because of her need to wage war and take back the Iron Throne (which, as I said in this post, is only a means to an end rather than the end that Dany really wants). Benioff describes Dany as "fiercely ambitious" and says in this video that "what she wants, more than anything, is to return home and to reclaim her birthright". I can't agree with these descriptions, so I need to call out this scene's priorities.
*
Related to how Benioff feels about Dany, we also have show!Dany saying this:
DAENERYS: Not fast enough. I can't wait that long. I need an army.
At this point in the books, Dany isn't even thinking of that, she is thinking that she will go to Pentos and meet Illyrio.
“From Meereen I am sold to Qohor, and then to Pentos and the fat man with sweet stink in his hair. He it was who send Strong Belwas back across the sea, and old Whitebeard to serve him.”
The fat man with sweet stink in his hair ... “Illyrio?” she said. “You were sent by Magister Illyrio?”
“We were, Your Grace,” old Whitebeard replied. (ACOK Daenerys V)
(Now, it could be argued, like @rainhadaenerys did in this meta, that show!Dany has more agency than Dany when she realizes, on her own, that she needs an army. It's a valid perspective that can coexist with what I'm saying here.)
This change doesn't bode well with the fact that they are choosing to portray the Iron Throne as show!Dany's most important goal when, like I just said, this is not what primarily motivates Dany. They are making show!Dany more ambitious (which, again, is not a bad thing in and of itself) than in canon and will have her pay the price for that later on.
*
JORAH: We'll be in Astapor by nightfall. Some say the Unsullied are the greatest soldiers in the world.
DAENERYS: The greatest slave-soldiers in the world. The distinction means a good deal to some people.
If D&D were following Dany's characterization, she wouldn't be aware of how deplorable and unacceptable slavery is at this point:
“...In Astapor you can buy Unsullied.”
“The slaves in the spiked bronze hats?” Dany had seen Unsullied guards in the Free Cities, posted at the gates of magisters, archons, and dynasts. “Why should I want Unsullied? They don’t even ride horses, and most of them are fat.” (ASOS Daenerys I)
Some people could argue that show!Dany's awareness of these issues from the get-go is a good change. However, I think it detracts from Dany's character development quite a bit. As @khaleesirin says here:
Dany’s supposed arbitrariness and hypocrisy ranging from “why wasn’t she against slavery earlier?” to “why did she leave Astapor?” stem from the fact that her beliefs, her core principles, were “anti-foundational”; they didn’t come from some pre-existing knowledge she adapted as a priori truth. They were all a result of her actual experiences. (x)
With this change, show!Dany misses out on the chance to receive this sort of growth; it detracts from her arc being of someone who develops her political goals and moral values along the way and may actually later validate claims that Dany is too self-righteous (she never was). Now, to be fair to the show writers (and I know this can be hard), particularly to Weiss (who, at least back in 2013, seemed to be much more sympathetic towards Dany than Benioff), he knows that Dany was a slave herself and that that informs her feelings and eventual actions against the masters (And so does Emilia Clarke). Even so, I have to say: I don't think Dany would have gone to Astapor if she were fully aware of the implications of being complicit in the slave trade.
“Khaleesi,” he said, taken aback by her fury, “the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained—”
“I have heard all I care to of their training.” Dany could feel tears welling in her eyes, sudden and unwanted. Her hand flashed up and cracked Ser Jorah hard across the face. It was either that, or cry.
Mormont touched the cheek she’d slapped. “If I have displeased my queen—”
“You have. You’ve displeased me greatly, ser. If you were my true knight, you would never have brought me to this vile sty.” (ASOS Daenerys II)
~
“I want to sail now, not on the tide, I want to sail far and fast and never look back. But I can’t, can I? There are eight thousand brick eunuchs for sale, and I must find some way to buy them.” (ASOS Daenerys II)
In these passages, we find out that witnessing the Unsullied's training is so hard for Dany that it makes her cry. It makes her question Jorah's honor as a knight for having thought that it was okay to bring her there. It makes her want to leave Astapor and never look back. I would say that Dany is an accidental queen (in the sense that she only became one for very specific circumstances, namely that all the men around her died) and, similarly, an accidental revolutionary - not in the sense that her haters argue (i.e. she just wanted an army and it became convenient to free the slaves), but rather because she only ended up in Astapor for very specific reasons: a) she didn't know how wrong slavery was and thought that slaves were treated like normal servants and b) she needed an army (not because of her "ambition", but because she realized that she shouldn't depend entirely on Illyrio and remain a beggar queen).
Show!Dany, on the other hand, knows that slavery is unacceptable and still sails to Astapor. Some things remain like they are in the books despite that change: like Dany, show!Dany still feels empathy for the slaves and risks a dragon solely because she wanted to free them. However, on a superficial read, it gives a bit of weight to the notion that she is too ambitious or that freeing the slaves was only a secondary goal to that of getting an army. Even if show canon can still disprove these claims, it's frustrating because they would be even easier to debunk if the show writers had been more faithful to the books.
*
JORAH: Do those people have any better ideas about how to put you on the Iron Throne?
DAENERYS: It's too beautiful a day to argue.
One of Dany's core traits is that she is open-minded and accepting of feedback, both positive and negative.
“A queen must listen to all,” she reminded him. “The highborn and the low, the strong and the weak, the noble and the venal. One voice may speak you false, but in many there is always truth to be found.” (ASOS Daenerys I)
~
The old man had not wanted to sail to Astapor; nor did he favor buying this slave army. A queen should hear all sides before reaching a decision. That was why Dany had brought him with her to the Plaza of Pride, not to keep her safe. (ASOS Daenerys II)
~
“Your Grace, I did not mean to give offense.”
“Only lies offend me, never honest counsel.” (ASOS Daenerys II)
This characteristic, however, doesn't come across in this scene, in which show!Dany is brushing off any discussion and trying to retain her own opinion on the matter.
Now, this is not to say that there aren't moments in which we see show!Dany listening to her advisors and following their counsel (there are many) - heck, even now, she is following show!Jorah's advice since she is still going to Astapor despite her misgivings.
However, considering that:
a) the show is, in this episode, adapting parts of ACOK Daenerys V and ASOS Daenerys I and II (all of which contain explicit moments of Dany asking for advice and feedback and truth from her advisors, even if they disagree with her),
b) the show will later try to paint show!Dany as reckless or dangerous when she doesn't listen to her advisors and
c) there's a widespread misconception that Dany (especially the show version) is unable to consider other people's perspectives... I end up looking askance at this scene.
They could have written many others (such as any of the three examples from the books that I showed above) that would have left us with a different impression of Dany. Worse scenes will come, of course, but I'm taking note of every single thing that may have helped to mischaracterize Dany in the eyes of the general audience.
Also, unlike show!Dany (who isn't shown onscreen offering either counterarguments or "better ideas" than show!Jorah's advice to turn Astapor), Dany is shown onpage making lots of questions to Jorah's counsel before deciding to follow it:
“How am I to buy a thousand slave soldiers? All I have of value is the crown the Tourmaline Brotherhood gave me.” (ASOS Daenerys I)
~
“Those are Illyrio’s tiger skins,” she objected.
“And Illyrio is a friend to House Targaryen.”
(ASOS Daenerys I)
~
“There will be dangers on such a long march ...” (ASOS Daenerys I)
~
“What if Captain Groleo refuses to change course, though? And Arstan, Strong Belwas, what will they do?” (ASOS Daenerys I)
While it could be argued that Dany is not offering "better ideas" here either, that's not my point: my point is that Dany is being shown here as an active player who takes part in discussions of which course of action to take, which is not what we tend to see in the show. Indeed, there are plenty of moments in which the series has show!Dany follow her advisors' counsel with no objections or complements of her own at all. That's why there are lots of different flavors of misconceptions about Dany: when it comes to whether she listens to people's advice or not, some argue that she can't think on her own and depends too much on them, some argue that she is too self-absorbed and never listens. In D&D's case, they have said that show!Dany has only relied on the men around her for the first two seasons, which is blatantly untrue in the books - see examples of Dany making her own decisions in both AGOT and ACOK here and here. Their misunderstanding of Dany is what makes me wary of this scene (for it is informed by said misunderstanding), so it's necessary to point out that what it intends to convey about show!Dany isn't what the books intend to convey about Dany.
*
Then, we have this:
DAENERYS: It's too beautiful a day to argue.
(Dothraki man vomiting)
JORAH: You're right. Another lovely day on the high seas.
DAENERYS: Don't mock them. They're the first Dothraki who have ever been on a ship. They followed me across the poison water. If they'll do it, others will. And with a true khalasar ...
JORAH: The Dothraki follow strength above all, khaleesi. You'll have a true khalasar when you prove yourself strong. And not before.
This exchange may be brief, but it is wrong and offensive on so many levels.
First, show!Dany seems to suggest that she is interested in expanding her khalasar when she says that "if they'll [follow her across the poison water], others will", which is something Dany never expressed any desire to do in the books.
Second, both show!Dany and show!Jorah think that the former doesn't really have "a true khalasar". Why doesn't she have a "true khalasar"? Is it because they are too few? Is it because show!Dany hasn't proven herself strong (as show!Jorah puts it)? In any case, both suggestions are bullshit. Dany does consider her "meager" group (as she puts it) a khalasar:
“We follow the comet,” Dany told her khalasar. (ACOK Daenerys I)
~
Yet even as her dragons prospered, her khalasar withered and died. (ACOK Daenerys I)
~
Aggo, Jhogo, and Rakharo were brave warriors, but they were young, and too valuable to risk. They kept her khalasar together, and were her best scouts too. (ASOS Daenerys V)
Also, while I've criticized the underdevelopment of Dany's khalasar before, each of them have different reactions to traveling at sea, so the show's portrayal manages to make their lack of characterization even worse:
Her brave young bloodriders had stared off at the dwindling coastline with huge white eyes, each of the three determined to show no fear before the other two, while her handmaids Irri and Jhiqui clutched the rail desperately and retched over the side at every little swell. The rest of Dany’s tiny khalasar remained below decks, preferring the company of their nervous horses to the terrifying landless world about the ships. When a sudden squall had enveloped them six days into the voyage, she heard them through the hatches; the horses kicking and screaming, the riders praying in thin quavery voices each time Balerion heaved or swayed. (ASOS Daenerys I)
Perhaps more importantly, unlike what show!Jorah says, Dany's khalasar is already devoted and faithful to Dany ever since she walked out of the pyre unscathed with three dragons. They already think that she is strong:
She was naked, covered with soot, her clothes turned to ash, her beautiful hair all crisped away ... yet she was unhurt.
[...] The men of her khas came up behind him. Jhogo was the first to lay his arakh at her feet. “Blood of my blood,” he murmured, pushing his face to the smoking earth. “Blood of my blood,” she heard Aggo echo. “Blood of my blood,” Rakharo shouted.
And after them came her handmaids, and then the others, all the Dothraki, men and women and children, and Dany had only to look at their eyes to know that they were hers now, today and tomorrow and forever, hers as they had never been Drogo’s. (AGOT Daenerys X)
~
“We follow the comet,” Dany told her khalasar. Once it was said, no word was raised against it. They had been Drogo’s people, but they were hers now. The Unburnt, they called her, and Mother of Dragons. Her word was their law. (ACOK Daenerys I)
~
Jhiqui had braided her hair Dothraki-fashion, and fastened a silver bell to the end of the braid. “I have won no victories,” she tried telling her handmaid when the bell tinkled softly.
Jhiqui disagreed. “You burned the maegi in their house of dust and sent their souls to hell.” (ACOK Daenerys V)
At this point, Dany doesn't have to prove herself as a leader to anyone because she has already done so. However, D&D seem to think that show!Dany still has to. What's even worse is that this plot point will be forgotten; show!Dany's khalasar will only make a brief appearance in season four and then disappear until she's captured and later unites all the khalasars to her cause. Then, when show!Dany crosses the narrow sea in season six, the Dothraki's fear of the "poison water" will no longer be an inconvenience (even though she is carrying thousands of them). It's lazy writing that, nonetheless, undermines Dany's character.
Finally, while at least they have show!Dany empathizing with the Dothraki the way Dany also does in the book, I wish the writers had made show!Dany empathize with the Dothraki based on her experiences like Dany does, because it highlights that Dany is humble and views herself as an equal to them:
The Dothraki distrusted the sea and all that moved upon it. Water that a horse could not drink was water they wanted no part of. They will learn, Dany resolved. I braved their sea with Khal Drogo. Now they can brave mine. (ACOK Daenerys V)
This scene may last for less than two minutes, but, as you can see, there's still a lot of wrong (or at least questionable) to dissect in it.
Scene 2
Summary: show!Dany is given a tour of the Unsullied barracks by Kraznys while show!Missandei translates his Valyrian into the Common Tongue. Show!Dany is outraged by their training, but show!Jorah still urges her to purchase them. On the way to the ship, show!Dany is distracted by a child who turns out to be an assassin sent to deliver a deadly manticore to kill her. Show!Barristan impales the manticore with his dagger and the child leaves. Then, show!Barristan introduces himself to show!Dany and offers her his service.
Considering how other aspects were poorly handled, I think Dany’s discomfort with the Unsullied’s training was translated relatively well from the books to the show. Even so, I wish they had added more of Dany's emotional reactions:
“What is he doing?” Dany demanded of the girl, as the blood ran down the man’s chest. (ASOS Daenerys II)
~
“How can that be?” she demanded through the scribe. (ASOS Daenerys II)
~
“No names?” Dany frowned at the little scribe. “Can that be what the Good Master said? They have no names?” (ASOS Daenerys II)
~
Dany’s mouth surely twisted at that. Did he see, or is he blind as well as cruel? She turned away quickly, trying to keep her face a mask until she heard the translation. Only then did she allow herself to say, “Whose infants do they slay?”
“To win his spiked cap, an Unsullied must go to the slave marts with a silver mark, find some wailing newborn, and kill it before its mother’s eyes. In this way, we make certain that there is no weakness left in them.”
She was feeling faint. The heat, she tried to tell herself. “You take a babe from its mother’s arms, kill it as she watches, and pay for her pain with a silver coin?”
When the translation was made for him, Kraznys mo Nakloz laughed aloud. “What a soft mewling fool this one is. Tell the whore of Westeros that the mark is for the child’s owner, not the mother. The Unsullied are not permitted to steal.” He tapped his whip against his leg. “Tell her that few ever fail that test. The dogs are harder for them, it must be said. We give each boy a puppy on the day that he is cut. At the end of the first year, he is required to strangle it. Any who cannot are killed, and fed to the surviving dogs. It makes for a good strong lesson, we find.”
Arstan Whitebeard tapped the end of his staff on the bricks as he listened to that. Tap tap tap. Slow and steady. Tap tap tap. Dany saw him turn his eyes away, as if he could not bear to look at Kraznys any longer. (ASOS Daenerys II)
Even the part where show!Dany is horrified by the discovery that the Unsullied are forced to kill a baby while its mother watches (which at least the show writers rightly focused on) doesn't convey a lot of emotion like in the books... It doesn't seem like show!Dany is struggling to hide her revulsion or that her blood pressure is lowering because of her anxiety in the moment. I understand, however, that the directors never allowed Emilia Clarke to express too many feelings in her portrayal of show!Dany, so I don't tend to blame her.
I also want to take note of what is in line with the Unsullied's training in the books:
The Unsullied are forced to stand for a day with no food or water to prove their discipline and strength.
The beginning of their training, the drilling from dawn to dusk and the mastering of the weapons.
The Unsullied not being considered men.
The Unsullied not moving even after their nipples are cut off.
The Unsullied needing to go to the slave marts to kill a baby before its mother’s eyes.
There are some things that were changed or omitted, however:
Even more Unsullied die during their training: only one boy in four survives rather than one boy in three. (Which makes it even more disgusting that they will try to frame "conciliation" with and "mercy" towards the slavers as the better path in the later seasons)
No mention of the “wine of courage”, which the Unsullied drink in the books to feel less pain and endure any torture.
No mention of the puppies that the Unsullied are given only to be forced to kill a year later (and, if they don’t, they are fed to the surviving dogs).
No mention that their names are changed every day so that they lose their sense of individuality. This will be included on episode 3.5, however.
Kraznys is not shown whipping Missandei and other slaves.
Overall, the show gave us enough reasons to understand why show!Dany's rebellion against the slave masters is righteous.
The biggest problem of the scene was replacing Barristan for Jorah as the advisor who is with Dany when she meets the Unsullied: it gives room to the perspective of a slaver, who attempts to normalize the masters' treatment of the Unsullied. This undermines how abhorrent and unjust their training is. Right off the bat, we have our first sign that the show will turn into slavery apologia (to the point of later comparing Dany to the Nazis and the Ghiscari slavers to the Jews via subtext).
In the books, there is a Doylist reason as to why Barristan is with Dany when she meets the Unsullied for the first time: his presence and opinions emphasize how wrong and unacceptable the training of the Unsullied is.
“I call that madness, not courage,” said Arstan Whitebeard, when the solemn little scribe was done. He tapped the end of his hardwood staff against the bricks, tap tap, as if to tell his displeasure. (ASOS Daenerys II)
~
“You have lived long in the world, Whitebeard. Now that you have seen them, what do you say?”
“I say no, Your Grace,” the old man answered at once.
(ASOS Daenerys II)
~
Arstan Whitebeard’s face was still, but his staff beat out his rage. Tap tap tap. (ASOS Daenerys II)
~
“Bricks and blood built Astapor,” Whitebeard murmured at her side, “and bricks and blood her people.”
“What is that?” Dany asked him, curious.
“An old rhyme a maester taught me, when I was a boy. I never knew how true it was. The bricks of Astapor are red with the blood of the slaves who make them.”
“I can well believe that,” said Dany.
“Then leave this place before your heart turns to brick as well. Sail this very night, on the evening tide.” (ASOS Daenerys II)
That's not to say, of course, that he was the one who motivated Dany to begin her abolitionist campaign (that's her decision and only hers), only that his appearance influences the framing of the scene (just like show!Jorah's appearance does). It also has negative implications for show!Dany's characterization, since, as @yendany said here, Dany may have unconsciously desired to have someone with an anti-slavery stance (like hers) by her side when she chose to have Barristan accompany her to meet the Unsullied.
Also, having show!Jorah be with show!Dany when she sees the training of the Unsullied means erasing the fact that, in the books, Dany left Jorah on the ship because he forced a kiss on her and she no longer trusted him enough to be alone with him. Erasing this event from the books means that Jorah's creepy and disrespectful behaviors toward Dany are, in the show writers' opinion, irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, which is horrible. I will talk more about this issue in the post discussing the things from the books that the show completely left out, but I still felt the need to briefly address this here.
Replacing Barristan for Jorah also led to one of Dany's best assertions to be cut:
“Better to come a beggar than a slaver,” Arstan said.
“There speaks one who has been neither.” Dany’s nostrils flared. “Do you know what it is like to be sold, squire? I do. My brother sold me to Khal Drogo for the promise of a golden crown. Well, Drogo crowned him in gold, though not as he had wished, and
I ... my sun-and-stars made a queen of me, but if he had been a different man, it might have been much otherwise. Do you think I have forgotten how it felt to be afraid?” (ASOS Daenerys II)
In the books, this scene highlights a few things:
Dany is not looking for an army because she is "fiercely ambitious", but because she lived in poverty for years and saw her brother not getting the help he needed (something she also experienced in Qarth, despite having dragons). She knows it's not a good idea to rely entirely on others, which is why she went to Astapor. (besides her ignorance, which I already explained above and in this post)
Despite empathizing with the slaves' plight, Barristan did not go through what they went through (he is a well-intentioned ally, as you will). Dany, on the other hand, did. She was a sex slave once and does not need to be reminded that being complicit in the slave trade is morally wrong. She still remembers "how it felt to be afraid".
Show!Jorah would never say that it's "better to come a beggar than a slaver" because he is okay with slavery, making it harder for this assertion to be added. It wasn't impossible for the show writers to have added it, however - they could have simply had show!Dany be less confrontational and say, by her own initiative, that she knows what it is like to be sold and that she hasn't forgotten how it felt to be afraid. To be fair, as I already said, Weiss shows awareness that Dany's empathy is informed by the fact that she was a slave before, but there isn't any scene in the show explicitly making that point, which is quite a shame. Instead, most of the scenes seem to communicate Benioff's reading of the events:
Benioff: Idealism is wonderful, but it's not gonna happen if you're idealistic, you gotta be a realist. She feels like she has this almost divine mission and nothing is gonna prevent her from achieving it. (x)
~
Benioff: For Daenerys to win, ultimately, she's gonna have to be just as ruthless as the others, and maybe even moreso. (x)
This idea that show!Dany needs to be a "realist" makes it very likely that Benioff (and who knows which other writers) sides with show!Jorah on this discussion. This also explains why his perspective is being favored to the detriment of show!Dany's and show!Barristan's.
Also, I've already written an entire post about how Dany is not primarily driven by prophecies or destiny or, as Benioff puts it, a "divine mission".
Also, he misses out on the fact that Dany's idealism in the books (and even in the show) actually pays off. As I said here:
Like with Viserys and Drogo, Dany is influenced by both of their [Jorah's and Barristan's] recommendations and apply them in different ways while forging her own path: she will not help to maintain the oppression of the slaves like Barristan advised her, but she won’t play by the rules (because they view human beings as objects to be sold and invalidate her moral values, so they shouldn’t be acknowledged as such to begin with) like Jorah advised her: she will break the rules because of her moral duty (as she sees it) to free the slaves.
And yes, this act of rebellion will have negative (and unintended) consequences later in ASOS and ADWD, but it was still righteous and necessary for it to have happened for the reasons expressed in these links. To summarize them, ending the supremacy of the masters will always be a good thing, and this wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for Dany's idealism. The books validate her idealism instead of belittling it.
*
DAENERYS: How many do you have to sell?
MISSANDEI: She asks how many Unsullied are for sale. (Kraznys points eight fingers) 8,000.
KRAZNYS: Tell the Westerosi whore she has until tomorrow.
MISSANDEI: Master Kraznys asks that you please hurry. Many other buyers are interested.
I'm singling out this part of show!Dany's talk with Kraznys and show!Missandei because I don't think the show writers really understood why Dany asked "how many do you have to sell?" in the books. First, let's see the context in which she made that question:
“Tell her it is well she came to Astapor, then. Ask her how large an army she wishes to buy.”
“How many Unsullied do you have to sell?”
“Eight thousand fully trained and available at present.[”] (ASOS Daenerys II)
As I said in this post, Dany doesn’t ask how large an army she wants (though she admits she needs soldiers), but rather how many Unsullied he has to sell. This is one of the several hints that she wants to rescue them all (not her interest to buy an army), even she must go to extreme lengths to do so. See also this passage:
“I want to sail now, not on the tide, I want to sail far and fast and never look back. But I can’t, can I? There are eight thousand brick eunuchs for sale, and I must find some way to buy them.” (ASOS Daenerys II)
She doesn't have to find a way to buy eight thousand of them. Jorah himself had only advised her to buy a thousand. But then, again, it's because she wants to free them all.
In the show, this doesn't come across. Aside from her uneasiness about the training, the show cuts all of the other moments hinting that Dany will do against the slave trade rather than be complicit in it.
“The Good Master has said that these eunuchs cannot be tempted with coin or flesh,” Dany told the girl, “but if some enemy of mine should offer them freedom for betraying me …” (ASOS Daenerys II)
~
Dany knew she would take more than a hundred, if she took any at all. (ASOS Daenerys II)
It wouldn’t have been hard to have her say it out loud that she will take “more than a hundred, if any at all” or that she can’t leave the city now. It wouldn’t have been hard for her to ask Kraznys about what would happen if a hypothetical enemy offered freedom to the Unsullied.
*
To be fair, we also see show!Dany saying this to show!Jorah while they are going back to the ship:
DAENERYS: 8,000 dead babies.
Like the Dany of the books, show!Dany is also distressed at the systematic killings that allowed for the Unsullied to become who they are, so I can't say that they are only making her motivations be about the need to get an army (though, as I showed above, they overfocused on that need too). Anyway, this brings me to this part:
DAENERYS: 8,000 dead babies.
JORAH: The Unsullied are a means to an end.
DAENERYS: Once I own them, these men ...
JORAH: They're not men. Not anymore.
Unlike in the show, Dany is the one who reminds Jorah that the Unsullied are no longer men. However, the reason why she does so is completely different from show!Jorah's:
“How many men do they have for sale?”
“None.” Was it Mormont she was angry with, or this city with its sullen heat, its stinks and sweats and crumbling bricks? “They sell eunuchs, not men. Eunuchs made of brick, like the rest of Astapor. Shall I buy eight thousand brick eunuchs with dead eyes that never move, who kill suckling babes for the sake of a spiked hat and strangle their own dogs? They don’t even have names. So don’t call them men, ser.”
“Khaleesi,” he said, taken aback by her fury, “the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained—”
“I have heard all I care to of their training.” Dany could feel tears welling in her eyes, sudden and unwanted. Her hand flashed up and cracked Ser Jorah hard across the face. It was either that, or cry.
Mormont touched the cheek she’d slapped. “If I have displeased my queen—”
“You have. You’ve displeased me greatly, ser. If you were my true knight, you would never have brought me to this vile sty.” (ASOS Daenerys II)
I will quote myself on the significance of this scene:
Here, Dany recognizes that no human being should ever have to undergo the sort of systematic abuse and torture that the Unsullied were forced to experience in order to become as subservient as they are. Dany recognizes how dehumanizing and unacceptable that sort of treatment was for making them “like one man” meant for sale (or “not men” at all) - that’s why she tells Jorah to not call them men: she asks that he doesn’t erase their suffering and talk as if the way they were treated was, in any way, acceptable.
Jorah doesn’t understand any of this, though. While his advice for Dany to go to Astapor ultimately paid off because of Dany’s actions, we should remind ourselves that he did her no favor. I’ve already shown in another post how he still has no problem with slavery even after being exiled, and you can see that in the next passage below: he can’t understand why would Dany be angry at him for advising her to go to Astapor to buy them nor why would she be appalled by how they are treated, so he tries to normalize the situation by focusing on how effective as a force they can be (“the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained…”). That’s enough for Dany, who rightfully slaps him in the face.
She makes it clear here: if he were her true knight, he wouldn’t have brought her to Astapor. (And that he forced a kiss on her and looked at her breasts without her consent makes her anger even more pronounced, rightfully so.) Thankfully, Dany is a true queen, but not because of him.
Does any of this come across in the show? No. For one, as I said above, show!Dany is given less agency because she needs to be reminded that the Unsullied are no longer men and her righteous anger toward Jorah is erased. For two, show!Jorah's perspective is again prioritized and never called out as immoral like in the books. (Again, the show writers' bias in his favor is showing).
*
Their dialogue goes on like this:
DAENERYS: Once I own an army of slaves, what will I be?
JORAH: Do you think these slaves will have better lives serving Kraznys and men like him or serving you? You'll be fair to them. You won't mutilate them to make a point. You won't order them to murder babies. You'll see they're properly fed and sheltered. A great injustice has been done to them. Closing your eyes will not undo it.
While it's true that Jorah also gives arguments as to why Dany should buy the Unsullied, they are different ones:
“I saw King’s Landing after the Sack. Babes were butchered that day as well, and old men, and children at play. More women were raped than you can count. There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs. The scent of blood is all it takes to wake him. Yet I have never heard of these Unsullied raping, nor putting a city to the sword, nor even plundering, save at the express command of those who lead them. Brick they may be, as you say, but if you buy them henceforth the only dogs they’ll kill are those you want dead. And you do have some dogs you want dead, as I recall.” (ASOS Daenerys II)
We'll see some of these arguments from ASOS Daenerys II being expressed in episode 3.3, but that's not my point: my point is that the show writers prioritized show!Jorah's point of view so much that they created new arguments for him to make show!Jorah seem, as Benioff puts it, "realist". In the books, for instance, Jorah never acknowledges that “a great injustice has been done to them” - he only focuses on how they'll be useful to Dany and how they'll cause less collateral damage (which is what Dany wants). So, again, we had foreshadowing for the show's turn into slavery apologia right from the beginning of show!Dany's storyline, especially when one compares it to the books (which are far from perfect; I've already criticized, for instance, the books' lack of attention to the freedmen's perspectives. Even then, however, I doubt they'll be justifying slavery any time soon).
*
Then we get to the scene in the docks. Honestly, I don't understand why they changed it so much. I’m not even referring to the fact that it takes place in Astapor rather than Qarth, but rather to other two major divergences.
First, in the books, Jorah notices that he and Dany are being followed:
As they made their way toward the next quay, Ser Jorah laid a hand against the small of her back. “Your Grace. You are being followed. No, do not turn.” (ACOK Daenerys V)
Dany makes plenty of questions and observations about the followers as she observes them:
Dany let her glance sweep over the strangers. The brown man was near as wide as he’d looked in the platter, with a gleaming bald head and the smooth cheeks of a eunuch. A long curving arakh was thrust through the sweat-stained yellow silk of his bellyband. Above the silk, he was naked but for an absurdly tiny iron-studded vest. Old scars crisscrossed his tree-trunk arms, huge chest, and massive belly, pale against his nut-brown skin.
The other man wore a traveler’s cloak of undyed wool, the hood thrown back. Long white hair fell to his shoulders, and a silky white beard covered the lower half of his face. He leaned his weight on a hardwood staff as tall as he was. Only fools would stare so openly if they meant me harm. All the same, it might be prudent to head back toward Jhogo and Aggo. “The old man does not wear a sword,” she said to Jorah in the Common Tongue as she drew him away. (ACOK Daenerys V)
She also has a very funny scene with a merchant; he wants to sell a platter for an expensive price and she keeps asking for it to go down, but she is actually only using the platter to pay attention to how the two men following her look like and what they will do. It’s a scene showcasing both her cleverness and her sense of humor:
“A most excellent brass, great lady,” the merchant exclaimed. “Bright as the sun! And for the Mother of Dragons, only thirty honors.”
The platter was worth no more than three. “Where are my guards?” Dany declared. “This man is trying to rob me!” For Jorah, she lowered her voice and spoke in the Common Tongue. “They may not mean me ill. Men have looked at women since time began, perhaps it is no more than that.”
The brass-seller ignored their whispers. “Thirty? Did I say thirty? Such a fool I am. The price is twenty honors.”
“All the brass in this booth is not worth twenty honors,” Dany told him as she studied the reflections. The old man had the look of Westeros about him, and the brown-skinned one must weigh twenty stone. The Usurper offered a lordship to the man who kills me, and these two are far from home. Or could they be creatures of the warlocks, meant to take me unawares? (ACOK Daenerys V)
Second, in the books, a Qartheen offers Dany a jewel box:
A Qartheen stepped into her path. “Mother of Dragons, for you.” He knelt and thrust a jewel box into her face.
Dany took it almost by reflex. The box was carved wood, its mother-of-pearl lid inlaid with jasper and chalcedony. “You are too generous.” She opened it. Within was a glittering green scarab carved from onyx and emerald. Beautiful, she thought. This will help pay for our passage. (ACOK Daenerys V)
It makes sense for Dany to fall into this person's trap because she was receiving gifts from the Qartheen and people from other regions all the time during her stay simply for being the Mother of Dragons. (Which is not to say that they ultimately helped her; they did not)
In the show, a random child somehow captures show!Dany’s attention enough so that show!Dany follows her for no reason and then gets fooled. It doesn’t make much sense and actually portrays show!Dany as someone who is easily distracted by things. The only detail that is salvageable is that show!Dany is able to guess that the assassin was sent by the warlocks, just like Dany applies the knowledge she had previously received of the Sorrowful Men to correctly identify the person who tried to kill her as one.
*
Finally, we get to show!Barristan's introduction.
DAENERYS: You know this man?
JORAH: I know him as one of the greatest fighters the Seven Kingdoms has ever seen and as the Lord Commander of Robert Baratheon's Kingsguard.
BARRISTAN: King Robert is dead. I have been searching for you, Daenerys Stormborn, to ask your forgiveness. I was sworn to protect your family. I failed them. I am Barristan Selmy, Kingsguard to your father. Allow me to join your Queensguard and I will not fail you again.
First, as I said above, the show erases most (if not all) the moments in which Jorah attempts to isolate Dany from other men and make her distrust them. This moment is one of those:
“You know him?” Dany asked the exile knight, lost.
“I saw him perhaps a dozen times ... from afar most often, standing with his brothers or riding in some tourney. But every man in the Seven Kingdoms knew Barristan the Bold.” He laid the point of his sword against the old man’s neck. “Khaleesi, before you kneels Ser Barristan Selmy, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, who betrayed your House to serve the Usurper Robert Baratheon.” (ASOS Daenerys V)
Jorah's description of Barristan in the books is much less flattering than the one from the show because Jorah is hellbent on isolating Dany from other men.
Second, I know most fans think that having Barristan reveal his identity right away was ultimately a good choice for practical reasons (i.e., it would be too easy for the fans to remember Barristan's actor and figure out his identity), but I think this change ultimately did far more harm than good.
How did show!Barristan track show!Dany? Why would he think she was going to Astapor? How could he have known if he didn't have Illyrio's (or anyone's) support?
How was he aware that the warlocks sent an assassin after Dany? In the books, he saves her on a rush, after the manticore left the jewel box. In the show, he drops the ball before the manticore leaves it. For some unknown reason, he already knew that it had the intent to kill her.
In the books, Barristan is supposed to serve as a positive contrast to Jorah's negative behaviors when they are both put on trial for betraying Dany's trust. Because show!Barristan reveals his identity early on, the contrast is lost.
Barristan is the one who tells Dany about Jorah's betrayal in the books. Since it wouldn't make sense for show!Barristan to only tell show!Dany about this later on, the show writers had the Lannisters randomly think that Dany is a threat, that Dany and Jorah are a good duo that must be separated and that sending a letter pardoning Jorah would necessarily do the deed. Not only that's stupid (Jorah received and sent letters without Dany's knowledge in both mediums), it also validates the idea that show!Jorah is good to show!Dany (something that the showrunners think is the case). These are all unfortunate consequences that arose from the early reveal of show!Barristan's identity.
By revealing himself earlier, show!Barristan loses his arc from the books, which was partly about finding a liege who was morally worthy of being served after he spent years in the service of bad kings. (He might say later in episode 3.5 that he's looking for the right person to follow, but his actions don't show it in any way.) That Barristan hid his identity and only pledged his sword to Dany because he realized that she was more than Rhaegar's sister, but also a queen in her own right, speaks volumes to his character development and to how we're supposed to see Dany in a sympathetic manner. Unfortunately, the show writers (especially Benioff) don't like Dany very much. As this review hopefully shows (and others will make it even clearer), they go out of their way to undermine her intelligence and empathy and humbleness and all of the other traits that make Dany who she is, while GRRM goes out of his way to portray Dany in a sympathetic light, with this chapter review from @turtle-paced showing a perfect example of how he does so.
Third, I don't understand why the show made the question of whether show!Dany would accept show!Barristan's service as the episode's cliffhanger. First, book readers would already know that she would. Second, show!Barristan won't be treated any differently in the next episodes than he would be if they had met earlier (aside from show!Jorah's distrustful remarks). Third, I don't like how leaving this scene as the episode's cliffhanger makes us wonder if show!Dany will be merciful or not. We can point to her later actions and realize that she will be, but this shouldn't have been a question in the first place. It helps to mischaracterize Dany in the eyes of the public audience and doesn't convey that some of Dany's core traits are being open-minded and forgiving.
In the books, Dany doesn't really feel angry with Barristan. It's more that he becomes collateral damage after she finds out that Jorah, the person she trusted the most at that point in time, was lying to her from the very beginning:
“...And since the day you wed Khal Drogo, there has been an informer by your side selling your secrets, trading whispers to the Spider for gold and promises.”
He cannot mean ... “You are mistaken.” Dany looked at Jorah Mormont. “Tell him he’s mistaken. There’s no informer. Ser Jorah, tell him. We crossed the Dothraki sea together, and the red waste ...” Her heart fluttered like a bird in a trap. “Tell him, Jorah. Tell him how he got it wrong.”
“The Others take you, Selmy.” Ser Jorah flung his longsword to the carpet. “Khaleesi, it was only at the start, before I came to know you ... before I came to love ...”
“Do not say that word!” She backed away from him. “How could you? What did the Usurper promise you? Gold, was it gold?” The Undying had said she would be betrayed twice more, once for gold and once for love. “Tell me what you were promised?”
“Varys said ... I might go home.” He bowed his head.
I was going to take you home! Her dragons sensed her fury. Viserion roared, and smoke rose grey from his snout. Drogon beat the air with black wings, and Rhaegal twisted his head back and belched flame. I should say the word and burn the two of them. Was there no one she could trust, no one to keep her safe? “Are all the knights of Westeros so false as you two? Get out, before my dragons roast you both. What does roast liar smell like? As foul as Brown Ben’s sewers? Go!”
Ser Barristan rose stiff and slow. For the first time, he looked his age. “Where shall we go, Your Grace?”
“To hell, to serve King Robert.” Dany felt hot tears on her cheeks. Drogon screamed, lashing his tail back and forth. “The Others can have you both.” Go, go away forever, both of you, the next time I see your faces I’ll have your traitors’ heads off. She could not say the words, though. They betrayed me. But they saved me. But they lied. “You go ...” My bear, my fierce strong bear, what will I do without him? And the old man, my brother’s friend. (ASOS Daenerys V)
Before she knew about Jorah's deception, Dany is more puzzled and surprised about Barristan's identity reveal than anything else:
She was more confused than angry. He has played me false, just as Jorah warned me, yet he saved my life just now.
Ser Jorah flushed red. “Mero shaved his beard, but you grew one, didn’t you? No wonder you looked so bloody familiar ...”
“You know him?” Dany asked the exile knight, lost.
~
“Why are you here?” Dany demanded of him. “If Robert sent you to kill me, why did you save my life?” He served the Usurper. He betrayed Rhaegar’s memory, and abandoned Viserys to live and die in exile. Yet if he wanted me dead, he need only have stood
aside ... “I want the whole truth now, on your honor as a knight. Are you the Usurper’s man, or mine?”
~
“Quiet,” said Dany. “I’ll hear him out.”
In this sense, I think Emilia Clarke's expression manages to capture how the Dany of the books must have felt when Barristan's identity was revealed; perplexed, but also grateful that he saved her life.
Also, they have show!Dany ask show!Jorah if he knows show!Barristan without the proper context: in the books, she only makes that question because he made an unpleasant comment about Barristan. In the show, she asks if he knows who he is in a way that makes her seem more dependent on him than it would have been if they had been faithful to the books.
My comments on the Inside the Episode 3.1
Benioff: For a great leader who is doing something unpopular for a certain segment, whether it's the Warlocks or the slave masters or whatnot, she's creating a lot of enemies, and powerful enemies, and those people are going to try to stop her regardless of how powerful she becomes, and it's something she's actually, in a weird way, used to, because she grew up running from assassins with her brother, you know, from the time, from the earliest time she can remember, she was being spirited from one city to another one step ahead of Robert Baratheon and the assassins, because there were so many people who wanted to destroy the Targaryen family and make King Robert happy and now there are thousands out there for all sorts of different reasons because she's made even more enemies, but, I think in her mind this is just the price you pay for being Daenerys Targaryen, for being the last of the Targaryens, and it's not going to stop her.
Benioff is not entirely inaccurate when it comes to Dany feeling that she's always been on the run:
It was not by choice that she sought the waterfront. She was fleeing again. Her whole life had been one long flight, it seemed. She had begun running in her mother’s womb, and never once stopped. How often had she and Viserys stolen away in the black of night, a bare step ahead of the Usurper’s hired knives? But it was run or die. (ACOK Daenerys V)
ASOS Daenerys V is particularly heartbreaking in that sense when she decides to leave her tent and interact with her people only to almost be killed by Mero:
She had no enemies among her children.
~
“Your Grace.” Arstan knelt. “I am an old man, and shamed. He should never have gotten close enough to seize you. I was lax. I did not know him without his beard and hair.”
“No more than I did.” Dany took a deep breath to stop her shaking. Enemies everywhere.
However, Benioff forgets Dany's very first chapter:
They had wandered since then, from Braavos to Myr, from Myr to Tyrosh, and on to Qohor and Volantis and Lys, never staying long in any one place. Her brother would not allow it. The Usurper’s hired knives were close behind them, he insisted, though Dany had never seen one. (AGOT Daenerys I)
I've already written an entire meta on how Dany's PoV is not entirely reliable and this is one of the instances. I imagine her thoughts on the matter changed because of this:
“A letter to Viserys, from Magister Illyrio. Robert Baratheon offers lands and lordships for your death, or your brother’s.”
“My brother?” Her sob was half a laugh. “He does not know yet, does he? The Usurper owes Drogo a lordship.” This time her laugh was half a sob. She hugged herself protectively. “And me, you said. Only me?”
“You and the child,” Ser Jorah said, grim.
“No. He cannot have my son.” She would not weep, she decided. She would not shiver with fear. The Usurper has woken the dragon now, she told herself ... (AGOT Daenerys VI)
It seems that Dany unconsciously and retroactively changed history in her mind after Robert tried to have her and her child assassinated (something that I forgot to talk about in my meta), which is quite interesting. I guess it's a detail that is easy to miss, so that's forgivable.
What's less excusable is the way that Benioff talks about Dany's mindset.
Benioff: I think in her mind this is just the price you pay for being Daenerys Targaryen, for being the last of the Targaryens, and it's not going to stop her. (x)
It's true that Dany is aware that she is the last of her family:
With Viserys gone, Daenerys was the last, the very last. She was the seed of kings and conquerors, and so too the child inside her. She must not forget. (AGOT Daenerys VI)
However, I look askance at the possible interpretation behind this statement. One could switch "Daenerys" for "Viserys" and it would be just as fitting. It's left ambiguous on its own, but, considering how he overfocuses on how "ambitious" she is or how she wants "more than anything" to "reclaim her birthright" or how "the only threat she poses is her name" until she frees the slaves in Astapor... I have to assume that he wants us to think that show!Dany is both arrogant and entitled for being a Targaryen. All of these mischaracterizations have been exhaustively refuted by @rainhadaenerys in this meta.
My comments on Anatomy of a Scene: Daenerys Meets the Unsullied
Weiss: Dany spent the first two seasons of the show leaning on men - her brother, Drogo, Jorah Mormont, Xaro Xhoan Daxos. She came out of season two realizing that the only person that she can completely trust is herself.
Benioff: Dany has her lovable side, but she is also ruthless, and she is also fiercely ambitious. What she wants, more than anything, is to return home and to reclaim her birthright.
Clarke: She needs the manpower to go back and conquer the Iron Throne and to be able to right the wrongs that she sees going on around her.
Minahan: She's been brought to Astapor, where she's reluctantly going to meet with slave traders. Her quest in this is to build an army without taking slaves.
Comments from Charlie Somers (location manager) and Christina Moore (supervising art director) that don't have anything to do with the storyline.
Benioff: The Unsullied were kidnapped as babies from their home countries and brought to Astapor and trained in the ways of the spear and castrated.
Emmanuel: They won't do anything without the command to do so first.
Comment from Tommy Dunne (weapons master) that doesn't have anything to do with the storyline.
Clarke: She's being introduced to the Unsullied by Kraznys, the slave master in control of them.
Emmanuel: Kraznys is being quite insulting to Daenerys. And Missandei very cleverly smoothes out her translation, just her initiative doing that shows her intelligence.
Clarke: Dany sees a lot of herself in her and can kind of see that it's a young girl who's capable of much more than the position she's in. She's his No 1 slave. If you were in the UN, she would be the translator for everyone.
Weiss: Kraznys speaks a version of Valyrian that's been bastardized and mixed with other local languages.
Comment from Majella Hurley (dialect coach) that doesn't have anything to do with the storyline.
Clarke: She's struggling with the moral aspect of the way that these cities are run. And it's something she's been grappling with because they are an army of slaves, which she fundamentally has moral issues with due to the fact that she herself was a slave.
Weiss: The only way she can make the world a better place is to become the biggest slaveowner in the world.
Benioff: She's put into a difficult position, and she's got her advisors whispering in her ears.
Glen: Jorah encourages her to get over her moral scrupules, with taking an army that were duty-bound to follow whatever leader it was, and that could change in an instant.
Benioff: Idealism is wonderful, but it's not gonna happen if you're idealistic, you gotta be a realist. She feels like she has this almost divine mission and nothing is gonna prevent her from achieving it.
Weiss: What she wants to do isn't just conquest for the sake of conquest, but it's really conquest for the sake of making the world a better place, and she's a revolutionary in that sense.
Benioff: For Daenerys to win, ultimately, she's gonna have to be just as ruthless as the others, and maybe even moreso.
My comments about their statements:
Clarke: She definitely understands Dany better than Benioff and maybe even Weiss. My only nitpick is that there's no No 1 slave for Kraznys ... In the books, he repeatedly whips Missandei and has no problem giving her away to Dany as a gift. Even in the show, he still constantly disrespects show!Missandei.
Weiss: I've already said this above and will repeat: Weiss is wrong when he says that "Dany spent the first two seasons of the show leaning on men". Or at least that's certainly not what the Dany of the books (i.e. the character show!Dany's should ideally be based on) does, as my posts here and here showcase how competent a leader she's becoming and how much agency GRRM gives her. His comment about how Dany wants to "become the biggest slaveowner in the world" to make it a better place is also distasteful (though I don't think he meant it as negatively as, say, Finn Jones), so here goes @rainhadaenerys's meta disproving the claim that Dany is a slaver. As for "conquest for the sake of making the world a better place", I kind of agree with this, but I've already showed above how it does a disservice to show!Dany's character development to paint it as if she's always been aware of these injustices, because the Dany of the books was not. In hindsight, that change makes me wary because I know they will later try to sell show!Dany as someone who is morally inflexible, which she never was in the books.
Benioff: I've already criticized his claims that Dany is "fiercely ambitious" and wants "more than anything" "to reclaim her birthright" in many moments of this meta. I also condemned his opinion that Dany needs to be a "realist" when I explained how the show overfocused on Jorah's point of view. As for his point that "she's gonna have to be just as ruthless as the others, and maybe even moreso" to win... Considering how they made her choose the more ruthless option in the end only to punish her in the most traumatizing manner for that very choice (which made no sense and was completely OOC, no less) ... Fuck him, seriously. It's clear how the show made it impossible for show!Dany to win based on contradictory standards that only viewed her unfavorably. If she is merciful, she is stupid. If she is ruthless, she is a danger that needs to be stopped to save humanity.
Show!Dany's clothes
This episode adapts events from three chapters (ACOK Daenerys V, ASOS Daenerys I, ASOS Daenerys II). The first is the only one with a detailed description of her clothes:
If the Milk Men thought her such a savage, she would dress the part for them. When she went to the stables, she wore faded sandsilk pants and woven grass sandals. Her small breasts moved freely beneath a painted Dothraki vest, and a curved dagger hung from her medallion belt. Jhiqui had braided her hair Dothraki-fashion, and fastened a silver bell to the end of the braid. (ACOK Daenerys V)
In ASOS Daenerys I, Dany is only described using a coverlet to hide her nudity when Jorah comes to talk to her.
In ASOS Daenerys II, we don't know how Dany dressed when she went to meet with Kraznys, only that her garment had a sleeve.
In the series, we see show!Dany wearing this blue dress:
It's meant to pay homage to the Dothraki, so it's at least spiritually faithful to how Dany looks in the scene on the docks ... Well, more or less. Not only blue isn't a special color for the Dothraki despite what Michele Clapton might say, look at how Barristan reacts to seeing Dany for the first time:
“I regret if we caused you alarm. If truth be told, we were not certain, we expected someone more ... more ...”
“Regal?” Dany laughed. She had no dragon with her, and her raiment was hardly queenly. (ACOK Daenerys V)
This little scene displays both Dany's frugalness and how she doesn't take herself that seriously, for she doesn't mind if her subjects see her looking less than regal. That doesn't come across at all in the show, to the point of some people thinking that show!Dany never allows herself to look anything but perfect, which is certainly not true of the character she is based on.
#daenerys targaryen#asoiaf meta#valyrianscrolls#a storm of swords#a clash of kings#asoiaf vs got#asos vs got#barristan selmy#jorah mormont#s3
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I used to rule the world
Chunks would load when I gave the word
Now every night I go stow away
Hide from the mobs I used to slay
They once were terrified
Every time I looked into their eyes
Villagers would cheer my way
For a hero I was, that's what they'd say
One minute we had it all
Next our world began to fall
Away from all that it had once become
They all cried for my help, but I stood there numb
I gaze off into the boundless skyline
Noteblock choirs playing in the sunshine
Turn 'round pick up my sword and wield
The blade that once forced evil mobs to yield
And hope one day that this chaos and
Destruction turns for the better
Never a bow in hand
That was when I ruled the land
It was the creepers and Skeletons
Blew down the doors and boxed us in
Arrows whizzing by like streaks of light
I tried all that I could to stay and fight
As the undead roamed the street
Families broken at my feet
Life itself suspended by a thread
Oh, why is it that I wasn't dead
I gaze off into the boundless skyline
Noteblock choirs playing in the sunshine
Turn 'round pick up my sword and wield
The blade that once forced evil mobs to yield
If this battle should leave me slain
I know Herobrine will call my name
Better to take a stand
That was when I ruled the land
I gaze off into the boundless skyline
Noteblock choirs playing in the sunshine
Turn 'round pick up my sword and wield
The blade that once forced evil mobs to yield
If this battle should leave me slain
I know Herobrine will call my name
Better to take a stand
That was when I ruled the land
There are many layers to digest when referring to King Bach's career, looking at his vine to youtube transformation, as well as his acting and singing career. However, I do believe that one element to King Bachs evolved humor is the vine 'Funny Vine - "Just a spoonful"
The pure raw essence of this video highlights the comedic genius behind King Bach's work, similar to the comedy of Jim Carrey and other famous comedic actors. Not only on a comedy side, but you can also look at the directing of this video. The way the camera pans back and forth between the 2 characters, highlights that the audience are focusing on just these 2 people. The build-up of tension between the 'back and forth' camera switches only goes to show the genius of Bach's directing, again, comparing to the likes of Kubrick and Tarintino.
The video starts off, with Bach (highlighting him as the main character), asking his friend for 'some ice cream', with no indication in his face or actions with what's about to happen next. In response, character number 2 says 'only a spoonful'. This is where the genius kicks in
Bachs' response to his statement is by pulling out a silver metal spoon, of unorthodox size compared to typical spoons you would find in a household. The unexpectedness of this spoon is what makes it so hilarious. Character number 2 is obviously shown to have no clue that when Bach asked for a spoonful, he would be pulling out a spoon of much larger size, nearly double him. This approach to comedy is one of the most initiative things to come out of the 21st century. Although the spoon is comically large, it still is technically a "spoonful", meaning he can enjoy the ice cream to a much larger extent, as the said scoop will be much larger.
The spoon brings a shock factor to the audience, as well as a barrel of laughs. Bachs' approach to comedy should be recognized for decades to come
Ingredients
2 fat, floury potatoes (Maris Piper, King Edward or Marfona are all good bakers)
olive oil
flaked sea salt
For the smoked fish melt filling
2 smoked mackerel or trout fillets
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley or chives
2 handfuls grated mature cheddar
1 tsp hot horseradish sauce or English mustard
2 large knobs of butter
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
Wash the potatoes well, dry them and prick several times with a fork. Pour some olive oil into your hands and rub over the potatoes, then scatter over some sea salt which should stick to the oil. Place directly on the shelf in the oven and bake for 1¼-1½ hours, depending on the size of the potato. When cooked, the potato should be golden-brown and crisp on the outside and give a little when squeezed. Serve split open with lots of salted butter or try one of the fillings below.
Preheat the grill to medium-high.
Split the baked potatoes in half and scoop out most of the fluffy flesh with a fork into a bowl. For the filling, flake in the smoked mackerel and add the parsley or chives, three-quarters of the cheese, the horseradish or mustard and butter and stir with the potato flesh until just combined. Season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Spoon back into the potato skins, sit on a baking sheet and scatter over the remaining cheese. Grill until the cheese is bubbling and pale golden-brown.
I am an avid Godzilla fan. I have a pet lizard that I named Godzilla, I've watched every Godzilla movie, played most of the Godzilla games, including "Godzilla: Save the Earth"(2004) for the PlayStation 2™, "Super Godzilla"(1993) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System™, "Garfield Kart"(2013), and even "Kaijū-ō Godzilla"(1993) for the Game Boy™. So yes, I am quite a fan of Godzilla. Because of this, you could assume how excited I was when I heard about a new Godzilla movie, "Godzilla Vs. Kong"(2021). My initial thoughts of the movie were that Godzilla would easily win, I knew that Lisard > Monke.
However, when I saw the trailer, I was... to say the least, disappointed.
The most important flaw that I will be focusing on is size. Even without doing much research, you can tell that Godzilla is much, much larger than Donkey Kong. Think about it, the most iconic part of the tale of King Kong is the monke climbing up a large building. However, Godzilla easily steps on and destroys these large building with ease. This should the first clear sign that Godzilla is larger than Kong.
In addition, Kong is smaller according to research! Godzilla, at his smallest, was 50 meters tall, or roughly 164 feet tall. Kong, on the other hand, was 45 meters, or 148 feet tall, at his ABSOLUTE TALLEST HEIGHT. So, even if we assume both of them were at these heights, Godzilla would still be a whopping 16 feet taller.
In conclusion, Godzilla will win in the famous movie Spiderman 3(2002), because he is taller than that monkey thing i think yes tanks for reading plz give reddit gold
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#3 with Sternclay? If you could, from Stern’s perspective? He’s one of my favorite characters and I love how you write him :)
Thanks, I love writing from his perspective! Prompt 3 was “Song” and went with SFW
Joseph Stern has more house than he knows what to do with. His father has given him this building on the coast of Virginia, no doubt in hopes of hiding his eccentric--and only remaining--son from polite society.
But the house may as well be a cave, a country full of strangers, a vast and cold space that Stern has no idea how to fill beyond the ghosts of the past it already contains. He has no lovers, no children, and the servants, used to his father’s temperament rather than his, give him a wide berth. And so he fills it with his books, his research into the strange and unusual, politely eats the meals the elderly cook prepares even though his eyesight seems to have given him the habit of mistaking one spice for another.
He’s also taken to having a nightly constitutional along the beach. It’s stormy and grey more often than not, but it suits his mood. Usually he’s perfectly alone. But tonight he must not be, because on the wind, he hears someone singing.
While the raging seas did roar
And the stormy winds they did blow,
And we jolly sailor boys was up, up aloft
And the landlubbers lying down below, below, below,
And the landlubbers lying down below.
It’s a rich baritone, longing and sad, and Stern wanders the beach up and down twice before he gives up on finding the singer. He resigns himself to it being a one time occurrence.
But the next night, the voice finds him again.
As we lay musing on our bed,
So early morn at ease,
We thought upon those lodging beds
Poor sailors have at sea.
This time he follows it through the second chorus of the song. And there, in the fading grey light of evening, a man is perched on an outcropping of rocks. He has shaggy hair, and even in the poor light Stern catches sight of copper within it. His beard is messy, and he’s bare-chested, a baffling choice in this weather.
As Stern makes his way across a nearby patch of rising tide, he loses his balance and splashes onto his knees.
By the time he looks up, the song is over and the man is gone, though he sees no sign of him upon the beach.
The third night, Stern is ready. He finds the outcropping, hiding himself down out of view of all but one side of the shore and sea.
Just as he’s starting to shiver and curse his poor judgement, a low, sweet humming begins. It’s the same melody, and he wants to dive into the voice, let it drown him if need be. The man hums a good portion of the song before his voice carries across the windy shore.
I'm sorry for my mother dear,
I'm lost in the salt, salt sea.
For last night, last night, the moon shone bright,
And you know that she had sons five,
Tonight she may look in the salt, salt waves
And find but one alive, alive,
And find but one alive.
The singing ceases, and in it’s place he hears a sigh. Cautiously, he sits so that the man can see him.
“That was wonderful.”
The man starts, turns to leave and Stern, in a moment of unusual impulsiveness, grabs his arm, “Wait, please, I just wanted...to..say…” He stares at the silver and blue tail that starts at the mans waist.
“Please let go.” The man says with the air of someone trying very hard to mask their panic with calm.
Stern drops his arm at once.
“I, I didn’t mean to alarm you. I’ve heard you singing the last few nights and I wanted to see who you were, I meant to show myself right away but I got caught up in the song.”
Brown eyes narrow, “Is that all you want?”
“Yes. I’ll admit I also have a multitude of questions based on this new development.” He gestures to the tail, “but-”
A wave crests, drenching them both.
“Damn it.” He shivers.
The merman chuckles, “yeah, that’s why all sensible humans stay off these rocks.”
“I’m plenty sensible.” Stern mutters, shivers again. The merman seems to reach for a coat that isn’t there, then sets his hands on the stones.
“Come back at midday tomorrow if you really do want to talk.”
“Should I bring anything? Something for your trouble.?”
Calloused fingers drum on the rocks, “Cake? Or even just bread?”
“I can manage that.” He holds out his hand and the merman shakes it, then dives into the rolling sea without another word.
-------------------------------------
“Uh, I don’t mean to be rude but where the hell did you get this bread?” The merman, who introduced himself as Barclay when they met at the edge of the waves, looks down at the chunk of bread skeptically.
“My cook made it. I, um, am trying my hand at it as well. For perhaps obvious reasons.”
“I could teach you. Or at least tell you what to do so you could write it down.”
“How on--are there ovens underwater?”
“No” Barclay tosses the remaining bread to a waiting gull, “I remember from, well, from before.”
“You became merman rather than being born one?” He wants to press further, but the sorrow darting across Barclay’s face suggests that is unwise.
“The ship I was one went down. I...well, I tried to save people. According to one of the few other mers I know, if someone dies at sea while trying to do a selfless act, sometimes that’s enough for them to turn into mer. Not really clear on the mechanics beyond that.”
“Incredible.”
“Glad you think so.” Barclay’s expression is turning glum, and so Stern tries a different line of conversation.
“Are sea monsters real?”
Barclay chuckles, “Gonna ask about those instead of sunken wrecks laden with gold?”
“Those are far less interesting.”
“Kraken is real, sort of. There are some very large squid down there. Fish bigger than you can imagine, sharks too.”
“Say more.” Stern offers him the flash of tea he brought and Barclay eagerly accepts it.
“Well, some of them are harmless--are you writing this down?”
“Just for my own records. Please, keep going.”
And so pass their first few meetings, Stern electing to bring Barclay food from town after the first time, reveling in his delight at the meals. They eat and talk, Barclay eventually comfortable enough with Stern to come fully ashore. On warmer, sunny days they even lay side by side on their backs, and sometimes Barclay’s tail will brush or tap Sterns leg.
He doesn’t mind at all.
One day, after Barclay bemoans his inability to trim his beard to his liking (“water and sharp metal aren’t friends), Stern comes down to the water with his razor, soap, hand mirror, and brush, swearing that if he can successful keep himself clean shaven in the terrible mirrors in the house, he can trim Barclay’s beard without disaster. And so Barclay lays, tail in the surf and head in Sterns lap, as the man meticulously sets about his task.
When he’s done, Barclay sits up and looks into the hand mirror.
“That’s much better. You got some clever hands there, Joseph.” He grins and Stern tries to distract himself from the double meaning by brushing stray sand from his beard.
This backfires harder than a mis-built canon. Barclay rests his hand atop Sterns own, rubbing his cheek against his palm with a sigh.
“You take such good care of me, Joseph. God, if I weren’t as I am, I’d take such good care of you right back.” His free hand traces the line of Stern’s cheekbone, dips down to caress his jaw.
“You, you’ve been wonderful as well, I’ve learned so much, and it’s so nice to pass the time with you, even if you cannot follow me home or takeover the kitchen.”
“I could be even better to you, if you’d let me.”
“I will let you do whatever you want.” Stern shuts his eyes to better feel the touch of Barclay’s hands, “I will follow you like a beacon.”
The hands leave his skin. When he opens his eyes to search for the reason, Barclay’s tanned face has gone pale.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No, no it’s, I, just, you reminded me of something.” He pulls away from Stern, turning to face the sea. Stern doesn’t follow, although he aches to.
“Would you feel better if I left?” He asks softly.
Barclay shakes his head, “No, but I’ll feel better, in a way, if I say this. I told you I was in a shipwreck. That much is true. I told you I was a cook before, that was true as well. But what I didn’t tell you was that I was a cook one town over, for a family who was, well, they had more than enough money but that didn’t stop them from wanting more. So once a month, at the new moon, they’d go to the cliffs by the rockiest, most dangerous part of the coastline and hold up lanterns.”
“They were wreckers.”
A solemn nod, “When the ship was sunk, they’d go down the next morning and plunder the wreck. I never helped them, but I knew what they were doing long before I tried to stop it. Then one night, I couldn’t take it anymore. I rowed out to the target, tried to tell them not to go towards those lights. They wouldn’t listen, held me prisoner thinking it was a trap. When she went down, just as the water covered my head, my legs twisted and changes into a tail and I could breathe beneath the waves. Making me the only man to make it off the Golden Willow alive.”
Stern gasps, covers his mouth in shock.
“The Golden Willow was the ship my brother was on when he died. A merchant, traveling with his stock.”
“I’m sorry.” Barclay’s eyes are wet, and Sterns turn that way as well as the mer dives into the sea, shame etched in his face.
-------------------------------------------
Call for boats, call for boats, my fair Plymouth boys,
Do you hear how the trumpets sound?
For the want of a long-boat in the ocean we're lost
And most of our merry men drowned.
“I don’t blame you, you know?” Stern stands in the sand, several books clutched to his chest.
Barclay doesn’t reply, but does turn to look at him.
“And, if I’m right, you think your being a merman is as much a curse for your inaction as it is a blessing for your attempt to save the ship and her men.”
A nod, accompanied by Barclay wiping a palm beneath his eye, “God, I miss so much. I, I’m glad I’m not dead, but I miss my kitchen, I miss the markets on summer mornings, food that isn’t fish.” He flicks his tail in frustration, “I miss sleeping in featherbed, not that I ever really got to being a cook and all, I miss my friends, my little sister, everyone.”
As he speaks, Stern hurries up the rocks to join him, guides him into his arms. He doesn’t cry, but he breathes heavily, holds tightly to the front of Stern’s coat.
“I looked through my library, did hours of research,” he inclines his head towards the books, “I found a few supposed means of transforming a merman into a human. I have no idea what is myth or anecdote and what, if anything, will work. But if you want to be human again, I’ll help you.”
“Thank you.” Barclay whispers, and Stern continues holding him, face stinging with salt spray, and stroking the planes of his tail soothingly until the other man is ready to let go.
Over the next several weeks, they try every potion, prayer, and process Stern was able to find, all to no avail. They’re sitting, dejected, side by side on the sand, when Stern spots one recommendation he dismissed as the stuff of fairy-tales.
“I have something to try. Um, please close your eyes, because I have a feeling I’m about to look very silly.”
Barclay obliges. Stern cups his cheeks, kisses him soundly, certain this will be the only time he gets to do so, no matter how much he longs to do it each day.
Barclay chuckles, eyes still shut, “Was that really a suggestion, or just an excuse to-”
Then he groans, head falling forward to rest on Stern’s shoulder, his whole body convulsing. Stern watches in awe as his tail slowly shimmers and dissolves, leaving feet and legs in it’s place.
“Really? Really? That was the solution?” Stern giggles, “of all the nonsense I read, I didn’t think ‘kiss of a lover true’ was worth a second look.”
“Kiss of what now?” Barclay shakes his head to clear it with a woozy, yet knowing, smile.
“I, um, I-” Stern blushes, both from his admission and from spying that Barclay is now completely naked.
“Joseph” Barclay kisses his cheek and he melts into the sand, “you think that after all that talk of wanting to treat you well, I wouldn’t want you kissing me?”
“I didn’t want to presume.”
“You can presume whatever you want. Fuck, Joseph, I’m in love with you and you just gave me the one thing I thought I’d lost, you could ask anything and I’ll give it.”
“In that case, would you come home with me? Though we may want to get you some clothes first.”
“What? Not enjoying the view?” He rolls onto his back, and Stern gets a full glimpse of just how good a view it is before shielding his eyes.
“I didn’t say that.” He smiles, laughs when Barclays beard tickles his throat and his teeth nip his ear, “but I think it would be enjoyed even more in my nice, feather bed. Don’t you?”
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Rich Curry
Welcome Trainers! Have a seat! I’m sure, after a long day of battling your neighbors, running around in the grass, and catching some new Pokemon for your teams, you must be famished! Luckily for you, Trainers, you’ve stumbled upon me, your new favorite food nerd, and I have a nutritious, stick-to-your-ribs dish guaranteed to leave you satisfied and ready for your next gym challenge!
That’s right, I’ve made Rich Curry, and now, you’ll be able to make it too!
That’s right, I’m making Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield’s curries, each inspired by different international cuisines. For the Rich Curry, its seems (at least visually) to resemble Japanese curry. For anyone unfamiliar with Japanese curry, its thick, rich, sweeter than most curries and far less spicy than Indian or Southeast Asian curries, and, most importantly, its super versatile!
Most Japanese curries start out with a roux, a flour and fat combo used to thicken up stews and sauces. I know, it sounds like a lot of work to not screw up, but boy to I have a solution for you; Japanese curry roux cubes! These convenient little blocks of flavor already have everything you need for a good curry roux in it and you don’t even have to go to specialty grocery stores to get them!. All you need to do is add veggies, meat, and rice.
But, for health and creativity’s sake, lets whip out our rare candies and take our curry roux cubes to the next level. As I previous mentioned, Japanese curry is extremely versatile, lending itself to a variety of additional ingredients. Also, I would advise not to use as much roux cube as it says on the box. I will be doing it in this recipe, as those roux cubes pack a ton of salt! I know some of these ingredients are gonna seem unusual, but trust me, they only enhance the curry!
This recipe serves four Pokemon trainers, or two trainers and their Pokemon. (WARNING: Please don’t actually feed this dish to your pets, it has several ingredients that are toxic to dogs, cats, birds, reptiles, and other common household pets. If your pets happen to be dogs, might I suggest this recipe from Love From The Oven? https://www.lovefromtheoven.com/spoiled-dog-cake-recipe/)
TOOLS:
cutting board
medium stock pot
small pot (for rice)
strainer
steak knife
paring knife
measuring spoons
liquid measuring cup
small hand grater
small bowls
microwave
INGREDIENTS (for the rice):
Short grain rice (either arborio or sushi rice will do)
1/4 tsp turmeric (for color)
Water
INGREDIENTS (for the curry):
1 and 1/2 Japanese curry roux cubes
1 tbsp curry powder
1 and 1/2 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 Tbsp garam masala
1/2 tsp butter
2 medium sized carrots
2 small gold potatoes
3 cloves garlic
1-1 and 1/4 lb protein of choice (I used chicken thigh)
1 and 1/4 cup chicken, beef, bone, or veggie broth
1/2 cup red wine (use a richer one like cabernet)
1/2 cup dry sherry wine
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1 cup frozen broccoli
1/2 yellow or sweet onion
5 drops red food dye
1 tbsp cooking oil of choice
1 tsp corn starch
1 tbsp water
1 tsp smoked paprika
parsley (for garnish)
METHOD (for the rice):
Prepare rice according to package instructions, but stir in the turmeric to the water while it boils.
METHOD (for the curry):
Rinse, peel, and cube the potatoes. Par cook the potatoes in the microwave for 1 minute. Rinse, peel and cut the carrots into 1 inch long pieces.
Slice the half-onion into pieces. Cut protein into bite-sized chunks.
Break the roux cube and a half up into chunks, combine in a small bowl. Bring the sesame oil, cooking oil, and butter to medium heat in your medium stock pot. Add all the veggies and cook for 5 minutes.
Add the protein chunks (or in my case the chicken) cook until they start to change color ( or if you’re using tofu/seitan, cook until the meat substitute starts to brown). Add the liquids and the food dye. Stir all together and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low. Grate the garlic cloves and stir them into the curry. Stir in the spices, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.
Stir the corn starch and water together. After the 15 minutes are up, stir the cornstarch water into the curry. Let the curry cook at medium heat for 5 minutes. Serve side-by-side with the turmeric rice.
#savory#dinner#chicken#tofu#shrimp#fish#beef#seitan#pork#veggies#curry#japanese curry#rich curry#pokemon curry#pokemon swsh#pokemon sword#pokemon shield#pokemon sword and shield#pokemon gen 8#video game food#video game#video games#video gaming#game#games#gaming#nintendo#nintendo game#nintendo games#gamefreak
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Half Moon
Time to see where Catra’s mended bridges lead.
The 7th and final part of the Mending Bridges series. Start from the beginning of the series here.
Story under the cut. ~2300 words. Link to AO3 through here.
Catra, Adora, Glimmer, and Bow hurried down a tunnel that had started under Bright Moon. They doubted that the terrain above them was still anywhere near the castle though. Shadow Weaver had escaped--long story--and had done what she always did. She went to the most powerful force that had not actively spurned her recently and offered her services. Where Glimmer and Catra had spent their time with Horde Prime bluffing and giving as little away as they could, Shadow Weaver had clearly told him everything, and that had emboldened him to increase the aggressiveness of his assaults.
Etheria’s best hope laid with them rendering the Heart of Etheria useless as a weapon. Entrapta and Hordak had figured out how doing so should be possible. The Sword of Protection had been reforged and was now back on Adora’s arm as a bracelet, the stone projecting a path for the four to follow. The rest of the Rebellion had stayed on the surface to try and protect what they could.
It was hard not to run--everything felt urgent--but they did not know just how far they would have to go. They couldn’t tire themselves out too quickly. As they traveled, pure glowing crystal had given way more and more to rough stone, the light turning from day-bright to something much dimmer.
A shadow broke away from part of the tunnel wall ahead of them and stood in their path, squinting at them with slit-pupiled eyes that reflected green.
“State your business,” said the shadow in a voice that sounded male.
Catra found herself focusing on his ears. There were several feline species on Etheria. The ears were the quickest way to tell most of them apart. Lion and tiger people had rounded ears. Lynx people had ears tipped with tufts of fur. The one time Catra had spotted ears as pointed as her own in a crowd, they had turned out to belong to a fox woman. The shadow had ears the same shape as Catra’s.
It was Glimmer who answered first. “Just passing through.”
The shadow stepped forward, the darkness resolving into brown fur and deeper brown hair cut to chin length. From his belt hung a coiled whip on one side and the hilt of a light sword on the other. “No one just ‘passes through’ Half Moon.”
His gaze lingered on Catra as she fingered the whip at her own hip, and she tried to see herself through his eyes. She had mostly stopped wearing black. More red suited her better. She had cut her hair so that it was scarcely longer than her fur now. It seemed silly to say that, with the weight of all she had done, it had felt good to remove the weight of all that hair, but it was true. More than one person had said that the change called attention to the delicate features of her face. Given that the man seemed to have been literally living under a rock, there were good odds that when he looked at her he didn’t see the person who had conquered a sizable chunk of Etheria. That was a relief.
Adora broke Catra’s line of thought. “Any way we could arrange passing through? We really are headed elsewhere.”
“You will have to meet with Queen C’yra. She will decide what to do with you. I am Captain Percival of the Half Moon guard. Your introductions can wait for the queen.”
---
They had been following Percival for less than a minute when the tunnel curved and opened up to an immense cavern. Orange stone walls had been carved into buildings stacked on top of each other rising about ten stories above where they had entered and descending perhaps twenty stories down to the shores of semi-circular lake that reflected the warm light of the crystals that illuminated the underground city. The lake really did look like a half moon.
“Felix!” Percival called out, grabbing the attention of a young cat man whose black fur and hair were interrupted by white markings on his face, neck, and hands. “I have a message for you to carry.”
The rest of the conversation was too low for Catra to hear until she could make out Felix’s concluding “Yes, sir.” He took a long look at the visitors before beginning to climb a nearby building.
Percival returned to them. “We have to go up two levels. I’ll be taking you the long way. Magicats are skilled climbers, but we do remember that not every species is.”
The long way was a spiral along what could be thought of as the roofs of the buildings below or simply the wide path in front of the buildings they passed. Climbing did seem to be a much more common means of passing between levels than the route they were taking.
They ascended the first level mostly in silence, now and then nudging each other to point something out.
“This place is beautiful,” said Catra.
Percival smiled at her. “It does my old heart good to hear that you say that about our home.”
Once they were two levels up from were they started, Percival said, “I hope you all will forgive the staring.” Catra had, in fact, lost count of the cat people--Magicats--who had stopped what they had been doing upon catching sight of them. “We have kept to ourselves for a very long time, and we cut off what little contact we kept with the surface years ago.” He lead them into a building, passing from an antechamber to what was clearly a throne room. “The last time anyone from Half Moon had any significant interaction above ground, it ended with us loosing our most prized artifact and, more importantly, one of our children.”
A female voice came from the head of the room. “The artifact was known as the Mask of the Magicat Queen, and the child was my daughter.” The Magicat woman had charcoal gray fur and salt-and-pepper hair fell in a wild mane halfway down her back. Everything else about her was intimately familiar, right down to the brilliantly blue right eye and equally bright yellow left.
She continued to speak as she walked towards them. “I had brought her along on a diplomatic mission to discuss Half Moon adding its forces to the Rebellion against the Horde--I knew several members of the Alliance had children roughly her age--but our party was attacked before ever reaching Bright Moon, and we were overwhelmed. The sorceress who led the attack gave me two choices, I could surrender my people and our knowledge to Horde control, or I could give up my daughter to her care to buy Half Moon’s continued secrecy and freedom. The Horde would never attack Half Moon while Shadow Weaver coordinated its forces. I weighed one life against all of Half Moon and have prayed everyday since that my daughter might live long enough to forgive me. I gave her the Mask in the thin hope that its enchantments might aid her.” She came to a stop in front of Catra. “Today, I know my daughter lives, but my entirely unearned forgiveness is still very much in question.”
There was no question who her daughter was, not when looking at those matching mismatched eyes.
The air vibrated between them--literally--as they purred. Not every purr meant pleasure. Catra saw the queen’s wide eyes and tight face, feeling the same expression on her own, and knew that it was an attempt to self-soothe and get a grip on this situation. Forgiveness was so often hard to ask for. Catra knew that painful reality so many times over.
Queen C’yra raised her hand a fraction, clearly fighting the urge to reach out and touch her. “Catra,” she said in a tone she must have also used for all those years of prayers. “To say I’m sorry does not begin to be enough. I--”
She was cut off by Catra throwing herself forward to wrap her arms tightly around her. The tenor of the vibration that filled the air changed as the two purrs shifted tone and harmonized. The queen returned her daughter’s embrace, and they each felt their shoulder grow damp with the other’s tears.
They stayed like that for an eternity that could never be long enough before C’yra stepped back. She ran a thumb over the edge of Catra’s mask. “You do wear the Queen’s Mask well. But you didn’t come here for this, or you would have said as much to Percival. What could possibly bring you all the way down here?”
“Have you ever heard of the Heart of Etheria?”
C’yra blinked. “We guard it. It’s a history that would take too long to tell standing here. Our knowledge of it was part of what I was determined to keep away from the Horde. If you are here to activate it...” It would clearly give this reunion a turn she didn’t want.
“We’re here to disarm it. Dissipate the energy back to the planet and its people before the Heart can be used as a weapon.”
“You would need a She-Ra for that.”
“We have one.” Catra turned to Adora, who in turn waved somewhat awkwardly. Behind her, Bow and Glimmer were clearly fighting back their own misty-eyed reactions to the reunion they had just witnessed. “Adora and I grew up in the Cadet Corps together. She joined the Rebellion when she found the Sword of Protection. I... was stubborn and stayed longer. I made it all the way to second-in-command before I left.” She couldn’t resist a little boasting. It wasn’t like it had been easy.
For the moment, C’yra’s attention was on Adora. “I want to see.”
“Of course, your Majesty.” At a touch, the bracelet transformed back into a sword, which Adora held up. “For the Honor of Grayskull!”
There was a time when Catra could easily think of Adora and She-Ra as two different people. That had been made easier by the fact that, aside from having the same face, She-Ra had never looked like Adora to her. That time has passed.
The person who stood before them was obviously She-Ra, all in white and gold with touches of red, larger than most humans, and radiating power. The differences were in a dozen tiny details, the way the spun-gold hair now stayed pulled back, the loss of the cape, its color transferred to the lining of the coattails, the tiara that now looked to be one solid piece rather than disjointed elements that happened to be near each other. The tiara, in fact, now had a shape that echoed Catra’s mask. Everything was subtly more solid, more practical. This wasn’t the She-Ra the First Ones sought to use as a tool. This was Adora at the height of her power.
C’yra had no way to know about the changes, but she clearly knew a She-Ra when she saw one. “The power of the Heart flared several months ago.”
“I stopped it.” Adora powered down. “Now we’re going to stop it for good.”
Bow spoke, “Catra was actually the one who figured out that the Heart had been collecting power from people as well the planet.”
“People on the surface anyway,” C’yra said. “One of the reasons the Magicats went underground was because it turned out the there was such a thing as being too close to the Heart to be affected by the collection field.”
Catra conjured a globe of amber light. “I had to be off-planet for a few days. Hordak’s big brother has come conquering, and he brought spaceships.”
“How did he get spaceships into Despondos?”
“When the Heart’s power flared?” said Glimmer. “That was part of Etheria being pulled back into normal space. Everything else is kind of terrible, but the stars are beautiful.”
“I’ve taken you to see the Heart before, Catra. I don’t expect you remember the way.”
Catra shook her head. “I don’t know the way, but the Sword does.”
“At least let me take you to the mouth of the tunnel. It’s down by the lake shore.”
---
As they followed Queen C’yra, Catra’s mother, down the winding path to the bottom of Half Moon, they hung back. Glimmer had needed space after reuniting with her father. It was only right that Catra would need the same.
“Told you that mask looked like a tiara,” Glimmer joked.
“Yeah,” Catra smiled. “You did.”
“It’s a lot to take in,” said Adora.
Catra looked out over the city where she had been born. “It would be good to have a home base where I don’t feel like I’m living off some princess’s--some other princess’s--good graces. If it turns out I disappoint them here, I guess I could always go back to the Crimson Waste and take over another bandit gang. Actually, technically, I think I can still claim to have one answering to me, even if it’s only two other people right now.”
Bow put a hand on her shoulder. “You aren’t going to disappoint them.”
Glimmer said, “Their lost princess has just returned carrying with her friendly diplomatic relations with a half-dozen realms and a military record that would make any enemy of Half Moon think twice before attacking.”
“Any enemy aside from Horde Prime and Shadow Weaver,” said Catra.
Adora wrapped an arm around Catra’s waist. “Good thing we were already planing on stopping them. Together.”
The four friends exchanged glances, and Catra said, “Together.”
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Helena (1)
Some nautical krii7y written for my personal aesthetic mostly that I thought I may just share with you guys. In fact, I was so hyped that I didn't even really proofread lol :)
[BTW, if you like my writing (by whatever miracle) you can expect an unholy amount of BBS and GBG Christmas stuff incoming in the next month and a half:]
Ice cold. That's what Smitty's mind screams the moment he regains consciousness.
He gasps twice very hard, once as his face is flooded with the feeling and taste of salty seawater, and again when he feels the overwhelming pain in his chest. His eyes take a moment to adjust to the stinging and darkness, blinking chunks of mucus and foggy tears away, before they allow him to see the ship around him.
He registers quickly that the wooden splinters in his back prodding at his skin are from the deck of the ship, which is not even his ship he notices, and twists into a sitting position. He is lying face up in a slight divot, the boards pushed in no doubt from the force of his body slamming into them, if the already deep-set pain in his bones was anything to go by. It was also likely what knocked him unconscious, he realizes absently.
With some difficulty, he manages to completely pull himself from the creaky floorboards, but not without jostling a bloody gash in his arm. He pauses and tries to assess it, but it's more or less out of his field of vision, the only evidence of it being the spotty drops of blood staining the light wood red, just now beginning to ebb away. How long had he been out cold?
He shakes his curiosity away and stands, finding a much better vantage position on his feet. Right now, what he needs to focus on is strictly getting back to his ship and helping his crew with the recovery. He couldn't remember much, but he could at least gather that this fight must have been a nasty one. They were probably strung somewhere worried and furious at his disappearance. He needed a compass, but right now he would have to make do with using the north star.
Above him, the sky is a mess of puffy clouds, dim yet plentiful stars, and their weak light competing with the reflective moon. He catches himself staring for a moment, and realizes that the lights were slowly getting further and further away: he had to be falling very slowly.
He runs over to the rails and looks over to discover that yes, the ship is sinking, and the nearest island is too far to simply swim to if he wants to live. He plops down right where he's standing, panting in a panicked sweat. This was how it would end for him, lost aboard an enemy ship with an island just close enough to be a blue blur off to the distance and nothing more. His heart hammers inside his chest so hard he thinks he might be able to hear it.
Suddenly, a harsh wave strikes the ship, almost knocking him overboard as it forces it into a near-horizontal tilt. His fingernails split and his knuckles go white as he grips the rail for his life, fear lacing his blood like oxygen. The severity of the wound in his arm is still unidentified and screams sonic protests that he is forced to ignore. There must be a whirlpool just off the distance, spinning and sucking water into it and causing some sort of backlash pulling system, his brain supplies weakly, but it does little to quell his rising panic. He forces himself to catch his breath as the ship is uprighted and left to rock in place. He needs a plan and he needs it fast.
Smitty looks over at the island again, really eyeing the distance and chewing his lip in thought. Brown eyes flicker back between the railing and the dense line of trees, counting paces, praying to deities he hasn’t thought of since childhood. After a moment, he decides that if there is anything he needs to do, it's try. It seems like the only chance he has at surviving right now, but even the thought makes him swallow thickly.
Well, the very least he should do before he goes is to search the ship.
He dashes over to a ladder and hatch near the wheel, but pauses short on the steps. The second floor had long since begun to take on water, and now was over halfway full, still rising. The only things still visible were the barrels that this crew had used to likely store food, and a chest full to the brim with riches. He toys with the idea of wading through the water, but ultimately shrugs and settles for a bag hanging haphazardly from one of the ceiling beams. A quick rummage inside shows a few gold coins and a beaded necklace, but nothing overly personal. Perfect.
Next, Smitty makes to run into the navigation port and pick up something like a compass and a map, but he quickly realizes that those are useless after they’ve been wet, and there are no small rowboats in his vicinity. They would be ruined after the swim.
And that’s where his mind is when he sees the man.
It’s not until he turns back to cut his losses and head down the ladder that he spots another figure, slumped in half on one of the planks leading up over the edge of the ship. He can’t see much from this angle, but the body spasms and twitches with life even though it appears so dead.
Carefully, he approaches and watches for any sudden movements, but the person, distinctly male he can see as he nears, is completely unconscious. He can’t help but feel a tug on his heartstrings.
Smitty winces, but drops his bag and reaches down, dragging thin arms around his shoulders to hoist the body up onboard, but stops short. God, the guy is heavy.
It’s odd, considering how normally sized the person seems, but he just shakes his head, squints down at the rising water levels, and pulls with all of his available strength. The body follows, and he gets the wind knocked out of him under the force with which it comes crashing onto his chest. He lies there for a moment, panting and staring up at the sky again before he rolls himself free, only to gasp at the creature lying next to him.
The upper half was just as he had become well acquainted with, curly brown hair and oddly bare chest aside, the figure looked strikingly human. But the bottom half consisted of a long, thick, and shimmering tail where legs should have been. What he had thought before was a man had turned out to be a merman!
It's a slight wrestle between Smitty’s self-preservation instincts and his inner curiosity, but in the end, he knows that he cannot bring himself to leave the being there to die, no matter the species
He finds himself chewing his lip again, but there is really nothing he can do in such little time, but jump and hope for the best. Unceremoniously, he leans over and angles the torso to rest over his shoulders and around his neck, perhaps his best option for transporting it. Then, he pulls the string within his bag and secures it to the threadbare loops in his pants so that it safe while he swims. With that done to the best of his bloody and shaky ability, there is only one thing left to do.
Smitty feels the wooden planks with an awakened sort of clarity as he climbs off the edge of the hull. The soggy rope, frayed and waterlogged, threatens to tear under his weight as he rocks with the waves. His eyes bounce between the restless ocean and still unconscious face next to his as his nerves spike again. He feels another deathly tilt, and this time the boat really does tip so far that there's no going back: it's going to capsize for sure. It takes more strength than he sure he has in all of his body to gather his faith in himself. The deep breath is not nerve-steeling enough to reassure him, but he leaps off the ladder and plunging into the water anyway, the lifeless figure gracelessly falling from its perch around his neck and following him down, the rope tethering him to the bag dancing wildly in the air.
He begins sinking the moment he hits, the sudden temperature change being the first to register on his skin. It is surprisingly therapeutic, even as it breaks him out in gooseflesh and instates the urge to shiver himself right off of his bones. The salt burns across the deep wound in his arm, pulling a hiss from his parted lips, but the sound is swallowed up by the bubbles in the ocean. He pries his eyes open and heads to break the surface, but just as he gasps, he feels an agonizing impact from above. Through the fireworks exploding throughout his vision, Smitty sees the distorted image of the prone figure come crashing down onto him before the world goes black.
Overhead, a flock of birds split apart from their formation and slowly drift until they're all going their own directions.
🕸 🕸 🕸 🕸 🕸 🕸 🕸
The ship was going down very quickly now, taking his last hope of survival with it. If anything, he was lucky to be alive after that encounter but was doomed because of it, and maybe he had done more bad than good "rescuing" this man. If he perhaps had more time to salvage what he could maybe gather some food, he may have had a better chance. The real question was how quickly would he this end for them.
John feels every muscle in his body screech for relief, but he forces himself to keep going. The wind is foreign on his soft skin, and his very bones seem to creak under the weight they are forced to support, bent akimbo to hold the body over the water.
However, he ignores the pleading and continues above the surface. The pirate is limp and heavy in his arms, even heavier when his muscles are so weak, but he knows that the creature is a human, and too much water inside them kills. His lips fall open idly and he squints to see the hazy alcove before him. Hope rises in his chest the closer they manage to drift towards it, but they're still too far to make it before he succumbs to fatigue.
With wobbly arms and a slight prayer to whatever would listen, John straightens his arms into the air and sinks below the surface, hoping the angle is enough to keep the human’s head out of the water. Immediate relief bustles through his system as he gasps heavily. His muscles thank him as the water eases the load, but he knows he can't stay like this. Nothing above the water is visible, and he can't navigate around the pesky schools when it's so dark. The air bites harshly at his fingertips, which have long since lost sensation aside from the fiery heat of the pirate's rough, dirty flesh. He takes a few more labored breaths before his arms threaten to buckle and he's stuck breaking out above the waves.
John doesn't know for sure how long he does it, or how he does it at all, but eventually, he's flapping his tail in short, sharp movements to carefully maneuver through the entrance to the cove. Dragging the lifeless body felt lighter than the bag locked between his teeth with all the euphoria thrumming through his blood. He felt like he was on fire, and he didn't need to touch the clammy skin of his comrade to know he was probably stone cold. In a sweep of pride and pure unadulterated joy, he swings the body past his own and onto the black sand. His shiny green eyes roll back as he sinks into the water to just stop and breathe. He'd saved the human!
He rises up to look at the figure, triumphant grin still locked in place, but the person is still and lifeless in the sand. Fear traces John's features, and he pulls himself up onto the shore to get a better look. He runs a hand across the face and presses his head to the cloth clad shirt, but the human is indeed breathing, if shallowly and in small pants.
That alone makes him feels grateful, but the thought doesn't last. The human is cold, injured, and perhaps even starving. He’ll need a fire if he doesn't want to freeze to death, and desperately needs something to cover that vicious cut for the night. The only thing the human has to protect himself is a short, dull dagger, chipped and dirty from what must have been years of use. John's teeth clench; it seemed like just when he thought he was out of hell another gate opened up. In a somewhat childish fit of rage, he curls his still hot fingers into a fist and slams it onto the human, hoping to will him awake.
And, it works. Sort of.
Water spouts out of the pirate's mouth like a geyser and his brain snaps into consciousness. John watches in slight fear as the human coughs and sputters more and more murky water filled with mucus and other fluid slime, dragging himself onto his side. It seems to help, as the human's fit comes to an end and his eyes finally fall open.
🕸 🕸 🕸 🕸 🕸 🕸 🕸
Smitty flops bonelessly onto his back and stares wide-eyed and shocked at what must be the roof of a cave. His chest burns just like his skin in that way that suggests it's from extreme cold, and a subconscious groan escapes his lips. He takes a moment to just breathe and feel his heartbeat hammer away at his chest. A shaky hand raises to wipe the salt caking the area around his eyes push his hair out of his face. Well, it looked like he’d survived anyway.
A shuffling off to his side brings him to the present, and a quick glance over makes him do a double-take. Laying next to him in the dark sand is the gorgeous merman, sprawled out with arms protectively curled around Smitty's own form.
"You're a mermaid." He says, voice hoarse and scratchy, and it sends him into another coughing fit. The merman pulls himself away from his prone figure but holds a hand out to help steady him, even after Smitty's natural flinch in response. He allows himself to be dragged into a proper sitting position, which also gives him the ability to properly breathe.
The creature watches him take a few breaths before deeming him not on the verge of death and nods hesitantly. A closer look reveals familiar wisps of brown hair and moonlight pale skin. It was indeed the merman he'd dragged off the enemy's ship before he blacked out.
"You saved me?" He asks, but it sounds less like a question and more like a comment. The merman's eyebrows draw together at the words, and he shakes his head.
"I was only returning the favor. It was you who saved me first." He says quietly, but his voice reverberates heavily through the empty cove, although it is just as scratchy as Smitty's.
"Well thank you anyway." He concedes, clearing his throat and running a hand through his knotted hair, but the merman only shakes his head back.
"You don't need to thank me.” He says, voice much clearer now, as he re-positions himself into a crawl. Smitty watches delicate hands find purchase in the dark sand and begin dragging his ill-suited body back into the pool. “What you need is to get out of those wet clothes and get a fire started."
"You're right," Smitty says and winces into a stand. He makes it a good twenty seconds of attempting to shuck off his lone boot, having long since lost the other one in his impromptu trip, but finds that he’s not quite ready to be entirely upright just yet. He sits back down and his head thanks him as he slips his jacket over his shoulders and pulls his shoe off. His ripped brown shirt is next, but he hesitates with pants.
When he realizes why the human is staring at him so expectantly, the merman feels the strong desire to roll his eyes.
"Alright. While you do your thing, I'm gonna go find us something to eat." He sighs, face darkening slightly as he speaks. He opens his mouth as though to add something else, but gives up and turns to dive into the shallow pool.
"Wait!" Smitty calls, and he pauses for a moment, confusion crossing his subtle features as he twists back to face the human. Smitty crouches into a seat at one of the higher edges of the shoreline.
"What's your name?" He asks softly, now that they were so close. The merman stares up at him for a moment in consideration before seeming to mentally shrug and cock a brow.
"You can call me John."
Smitty nods lightly and brings a calloused, bruised hand to grip at the cold stone. "Well John, I'm Smitty," he conjures up what he hopes is a charming smile, "And I really do mean it when I say thank you."
John's eyes widen ever so slightly and fierce violet rises into his cheeks. He nods once before finally sinking into the water and taking his leave. Smitty watches him swim away until there is no trace of him in the cave, before he finally allows himself to attend to the agony of his cut.
All that aside, however, he can’t seem to wipe the grin off his face. He’d met a real mermaid today.
:)
#krii7y#SMii7Y#KryozGaming#mermaids#pirates#stress relief#i am actually pretty happy with this one#and other fun stories to tell yourself#blood on paper
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A love that never leaves (9)
Summary: Sometimes when you go looking for the past, you find things you never expected. When an accident brings him face to face with something he never knew he lost, Bucky Barnes begins to understand an age old truth – it’s so easy, sometimes, to love the things that destroy us.
Characters: Bucky Barnes x Reader
Warnings: Bad language. Mentions of torture.
A/N: Finally, we learn more about the Reader. Hydra sucks so hard and love has so many different forms. This chapter also features a cameo from the greatest woman in the MCU and this is my first time writing her.
Links don’t work, so if you want to access the full ALTNL Masterlist, just click the MASTERLIST header on my blog.
Previously...
“When I was 12-years-old, a group of men came to my home. The - blond man. He was looking for me. They arrested my Father and I ran. As far from Berlin as I could get.” Closing her eyes, the memory of that black night burns fresh. “I made it to the coast and bought the first ticket out of Germany I found. In March of 1929, I got to London.”
Bucky imagines her as a little girl, alone, penniless, mourning her father and hiding from an unknown horror. It makes him want to raze the world for her.
“That was brave. You were really brave,” he tells her, still rubbing her skin, but she shakes her head.
“That’s where I met him.”
*****
Late June - December, 1942
London, England
Night time in the hospital is peaceful.
Every bed is taken, housing occupants with injuries ranging from broken bones to missing limbs. During the day, a steady stream of chatter and cries of pain will fill every nook and cranny of the sterile hospital, but at night, silence reigns.
Beside a small metal table, she dumps out a basket full of clean clothes. Picking each individual strip, she stretches out the wrinkles, smooths them down, folds it in half, and rolls it into a tight ball. Each bundle goes carefully into the empty basket. Her fingers find a rhythm and the basket begins to fill.
Stretch. Smooth. Fold. Roll.
Out in the rows of sleeping soldiers, the occasional squeak of a bed spring pings as a patient shifts, trying to get comfortable. There’s a disgruntled sigh of failure and the place grows quiet again.
On and on she works, until she hears it.
From the rows of broken men, comes a whimper. The sound of a child holding back tears. It is so lost, it cuts to the bone.
She knows that sound.
Slipping back into the ward, she walks silently through the rows of beds, passing men with shattered limbs, men drowning in plaster casts, men who’s faces have been scorched away. There in the corner, she finds him. Locked in sleep, his head thrashes back and forth, terrified whimpers pushing past his lips. Bending over him, she sees tear tracks streaking down his cheeks, a sheen of sweat glistening across his forehead.
Tugging a clean cloth from the starched pocket of her pale blue dress, she runs it down his face, wiping away sweat and tears. Still, he makes those hurt noises, and she hears the words “no, please, no, sorry, sorry, sorry,” in a panicked whisper.
Out of habit, she glances over her shoulder, but no matter. She is alone with nothing but the soldiers and their nightmares for company.
As she’s done so many times before, she can help.
So, she does.
Placing perpetually cold hands on his face, she hums softly, hushing him. The broken whispers stop, but fat tears still leak from his closed eyes. Closing her eyes, she concentrates on what she finds, feeling the strangeness of warmth tickling her palms, no more than a mere second -
Instantly, the tears stop. Still fast asleep, the man sniffles and those hard lines carved into his face relax. In sleep, he looks so young, and really - isn’t he? No more than eighteen. Cursed to live in a time when men his age are dying in bunkers and battlefields.
Navigating around the clean white beds, she goes back to work.
The tragedy, is that those dark memories will haunt him all his life, but at least tonight, thanks to her, he finds solace in a dreamless sleep.
Sometimes these small acts of mercy, they are enough.
*****
Late one night, she sits at the front desk filing patient reports. Absorbed in the task, she doesn’t hear the man approach until he clears his throat.
“Excuse me, miss.”
Looking up, she sees a tall, lanky soldier. Curly black hair frames a broad forehead and deep brown eyes. Dressed in a crisp military uniform, she sees the Lieutenant insignia on his shoulder. Clutched in his right hand, is a knobby cane, and with his left, he doffs his hat and tucks it under his arm.
“I’m sorry to startle you.” His accent holds a hint of east London. “I’m here to retrieve yesterday’s patient files. Would you know where I might find them?”
“Of course, Lieutenant,” she says. Rising to her feet, she smooths the front of her dress and steps to the file cabinet.
At her words, she sees him touch the gold pin at his shoulder nervously. Leaning the polished wooden cane against the table, he tries to stand up straighter.
“Not much of a Lieutenant these days,” he says wryly.
“An injury doesn’t change that,” she states. Locating the file, she hands it over.
“Perhaps,” he agrees. “Pardon my poor manners. My name’s Henry Lewis.”
When he offers his hand, he gives her a shy smile and she accepts it. It feels warm, but then again doesn’t everything feel warm to her?
*****
The next night, she recognizes the sound. Hears the click-tap of a cane, and the gentle shuffle of a slow gait. The door opens, and Henry steps through. He sweeps his hat from his head and tucks it neatly under his arm.
“Good evening,” he says.
“Hello Lieutenant,” she replies.
A routine is born.
Each night he stops by the hospital, collecting files to return back to his office. Each night they exchange a few words before he tips his hat and ambles slowly away. She finds herself looking forward to his visits, discovering she likes having someone know her, as friends are a luxury she often foregoes.
It is much easier to hide the past when there is no one to ask.
*****
After a month of conversation, brimming with awkward stops and starts, Henry asks her to dinner.
They find a cafe with a table by the front window. Over watery lagers and small bowls of salted potatoes, they talk. She learns he grew up poor on the east side of London; when war was declared, he signed up the same day. Rising quickly through the ranks, he was a clever soldier in the field, until an unexpected bomb drove a chunk of rusty shrapnel through his knee in Belgium. Several surgeries later, the doctors declared it the best they could do.
Now, he walks with a heavy limp. Working in one of the Westminster war departments, he’s resigned himself to a stationary life.
Sitting across from her, his fingers draw patterns in the condensation of his pint glass. He speaks wistfully of war. Of being part of a team. Doing good in the world, fighting for what’s right. It kills him, sitting here while his friends are still out there.
“After all,” he says sadly. “Who needs another broken soldier?”
Shaking her head, she reaches for his hand and squeezes tight. His dark eyes light up at her touch.
“The world always needs good men,” she says.
“Tell me about you,” he answers instead.
She speaks of her life in London, of her work in the hospital. But those details of her past, her father, Berlin, her ability - she reveals nothing, offering only the black and white sketch of her life. There is no color she wants to provide.
Because, well. Being different is hard.
*****
The months are filled with a low simmering courtship. A drink in the pub after work, the occasional picnic in the park, dinner at the few restaurants still open in the midst of war.
Henry is an easy man to like. Gentle and unassuming, he has dimples in both cheeks that follow his shy smiles. When he gets excited, he talks with his hands and he stutters just a bit, and she finds herself charmed.
One night, he walks her home and quietly asks if he can kiss her goodnight. She hesitates for only a moment before saying yes, and he wraps an arm around her shoulders and presses warm lips to hers.
It feels nice, this closeness. She basks in it.
Time drifts along, and there, surrounded by the frantic pace of war-torn London, they fall in love.
There is no earth-shattering event, no wild racing of the heart; it’s not that kind of love. Sometimes love comes barreling in, fierce and wild and full of fire, but other times it arrives slowly and without fanfare. It may not be what she expected, but love is love and she accepts it.
Having someone feels so nice.
*****
December 1942
London, England
Rain has been falling steadily for the past three days.
Inside the cafe, the radiator works over-time and the hot air coats the windows in a thick fog. At their customary table, she waits for him, cold fingers curled around a cup of tea. Milk is hard to find these days, so she drinks it black, stirring absently to cool the scalding liquid.
When they were walking home last night, Henry asked her a question.
“I’d like to marry you. If you would have me.”
Perhaps she’s been naive, but it took her by surprise.
Growing up, she remembers her father spinning a world of fairy tales, about a beautiful princess and a handsome prince, so in love they could overcome all odds. That was the love he knew, the love he had for her mother. It was what she hoped to find when she grew up, that wild, soul consuming love. The kind that could move mountains and bring you to your knees. The kind that always gives more than it takes.
The kind of love that never leaves, no matter what happens.
That was then. In this world, she long ago abandoned those sweet dreams; the nightmares of the present and the horrors of her past make everything so bleak.
But with his question, Henry’s given her hope. She knows that while she may never have the powerful love her parents shared, she can still have this. A gentle life filled with contentment.
So, she said yes.
Maybe it’s not true love, but it’s a deep affection all the same.
Maybe that’s enough.
After two hours of waiting in the bustling cafe, she decides to go home. Henry’s been buried at work and likely lost track of time. Shrugging into her coat, she drops a few coins on the table and waves to the woman behind the counter. Stepping into the crisp December night, she glances down the empty street, fiddling with the clasp on her purse.
A black car turns the corner and she squints at the dim headlights.
“Waiting for someone miss? May I keep you company?”
The voice at her shoulder is polite, but something makes her flinch. Goosebumps prickle up the back of her neck, biting into her skin and she forces a tight smile as she looks up, intending to brush the man away.
“No thank you, I’m - ”
Recognition comes like a fist to the face.
His brown hat is pulled low, but a tuft of white blond hair peaks beneath the brim. Time has carved tiny lines beside his pale eyes, but the cruel curve of his mouth is shockingly familiar.
Tonight, she sees it all up close, instead of from a hidden spot inside the wall of her living room.
A vicious smile curls his lips. Darting his hand out, he catches her wrist in an iron grip and she sucks in a breath as he leans close, his breath hot and sour, smelling faintly of whiskey.
“Hello little girl. I said I’d find you.”
The black car rumbles to a stop. Panicked, she opens her mouth to scream, but her deep breath does nothing more than inhale the fumes wafting from the damp cloth he suddenly shoves against her face. Speckles of black dance across her vision and she feels herself thrown into the backseat.
The door slams shut with a sickening finality.
The world tilts and goes black.
*****
December 1942
Location Unknown
The bare cement walls are slick beneath her palm. She presses her hand against it, feeling the rough grit of crumbling mortar; it has a vaguely tomb-like smell and she can’t stop shivering.
Rolling over, she pulls the flimsy wool blanket tighter, keeping her eyes locked on the door.
Where is she?
Her head aches and her mouth feels cottony dry, a lingering taste of the drug they used. Dammit. All those years of being cautious, of keeping her eyes open, and this is how it happens.
With a harsh, whining screech, the door bangs open.
Sitting up quickly, she recoils from the throbbing ache behind her eyes. Yellow light spills into her cell, before a bulky silhouette fills the frame. Dressed head-to-toe in black, from the tips of his boots to the thick black gloves to the high-necked collar of his shirt, every bare inch of skin is covered.
“Stand up,” he orders brusquely, “back against the wall. Hands out front.”
Defiance fills her, but exhaustion follows just as swift. Climbing painfully to her feet, she leans back against the cold stone and extends her arms. There’s a clank of metal and heavy shackles clasp her wrists, binding her hands together. Lifting her hands above her head, he presses himself flush against her, pinning her to the wall. She turns away and his mouth is hot and wet against her ear.
“You’re nothing but a fucking freak,” he sneers. “If you try to touch me, I’ll shoot you in the face.”
With that threat, he jerks her from the wall and shoves her into the bright hallway. Leading her down a narrow corridor, they pass by an open room where there’s a brief glimpse of shiny metal, and then she’s climbing a winding staircase. Up and up she goes, circling until she’s dizzy.
Finally, a wood door with a brass knocker appears. Three hard knocks and he shoves it open.
The room is small, with one wall made entirely of glass. It looks down upon a bustling laboratory filled with doctors in white coats, and through the window, she sees in full the glimpse of metal she passed moments ago.
It looks like a chair. Attached to the back, is a rudimentary hook, holding the thick metal halo hanging above; wide leather straps are affixed to the arms and legs, their silver buckles gleaming, while two round spotlights shine down, illuminating the entire contraption.
Even from behind the thick glass, the device pulses with a sinister aura. The chair emanates torture, destruction.
Death.
Seated at the table, is the man who grabbed her. Sipping coffee from a delicate china cup, he looks up at her entrance and bestows a congenial smile.
“Hello. Thank you for joining me.”
Shoved unceremoniously into a chair, the guard who brought her departs without a word. Still smiling, the man leans back, folding his hands over his stomach.
“You have questions, I expect.”
Looking around the room, she waits a full minute before she responds with the only thing she can think, her voice still husky from the drugs.
“Who the hell are you?”
At the question, a spasm of anger flits over his face. “My name is Colonel Wilhelm Richter. Someone you should have met a long time ago.”
“I don’t associate with Nazis,” she spits out.
“Oh, come now,” he chuckles. “Nazis? No.” Fingering the pin on his lapel, he unhooks it and sets it on the table. She sees it clearly now, the silver skull with eight protruding tentacles. “Hitler and his thugs are welcome to whatever they want, but Hydra are interested in more.”
“Hydra,” she says slowly and the name tastes like acid on her tongue. “And what do Hydra want?”
“The best for everyone,” he breathes. “Order and control. In the future, these wars will be unnecessary. We simply need people to follow our path, it’s so easy. But to get there, we need soldiers. That’s why we’re here,” he gestures to lab below. “Creating a new breed of super soldier. Strong and obedient. A fist to destroy what we command.”
Considering his words, she bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes blood.
She knows what’s coming.
“Why am I here?”
Leaning forward, he rests his elbows on the table.
“Years ago, I knew a young woman. Beautiful. Indescribably talented. When I discovered what she could do, I wanted her. More than anything. Hydra was just starting, we could have had such a bright future together, but no,” he sneers, lip curling in disgust. “Instead, she ran off and married some worthless piece of trash, and a few years later, she went and had you. I knew you’d be just like her. Able to wipe a man’s brain clean with the touch of your fingers.”
Piece of trash. The words send her blind with rage.
She thinks of her handsome father, his dark eyes sparkling as he watched her mother shuffling a deck of cards. It was late at night and they sat across from each other at the kitchen table, trading warm smiles and sweet words. They never knew she was hiding behind the armchair in the living room, hugging her baby blanket, a sleepy smile on her face as she listened to the sounds of love. It was one of the last nights they had, before a fever stole her mother like a thief in the night.
If she could summon up the saliva, she’d spit in Richter’s face.
“Don’t you ever talk about my father that way,” she snarls. Her fingers flex rapidly in the shackles and he watches her fury with amusement.
“I’ll say any god damn thing I want. He took her and then hid you from me for years. He was a thorn in my side until the day I killed him,” he says, and a fervent gleam lights up his eyes. “That night I came, you did it to him, didn’t you? Wiped him?”
All these years, and the wound is still fresh.
A dark November night. The smell of snow in the air and a dark apartment. The touch of childish hands on a gray stubbled face. Removing every last memory from her father’s head. Knowing he would go to his grave without remembering he had a daughter he loved beyond anything in the world.
“Yes,” she says through clenched teeth.
“You know,” Richter says confidentially, “he was so confused at the end. Had no idea why we took him. Every time we sliced off a finger he just screamed. I finally figured it out though, knew you’d taken it all and we weren’t getting a fucking thing from him. Should’ve just killed him straight away, but I was angry.”
Testing the restraints, she glares at him. “He asked me to do it and I did. But I don’t do that now. Not anymore.”
“That’s where we disagree,” he replies. “Because you certainly will do it again. For as long as I require.”
Laughing hollowly, she slumps in her chair. “There’s no way I’ll ever help you.”
“I thought you might say that.” Rising elegantly, he walks over and pulls her to her feet. “I’ve brought motivation. Let’s have a look.”
Dragging her to the large glass window, they look down at the lab. Richter pushes a red button on the wall and speaks.
“Soldier Lewis, please.”
A door bangs open and two guards march forward, a tall, dark haired man between them. At the sight, her knees buckle.
“No,” she whispers. “Oh my god, no.”
“You will notice we fixed him,” Richter says clinically. “With just a few experiments, we solved what his previous doctors were unable to fix.”
She sees the truth in his words. Henry walks confidently, his limp disappeared. He seems taller now, broader even. Something about him is different.
“What did you do to him?” she chokes out.
“Nothing he did not request. He wanted to serve again, and we gave him the opportunity. We need a perfect soldier, and he is a prime test subject. Natural talent on the battlefield, eager to please. Exactly what we need. There’s just one small problem.”
When Henry sees the chair, he stops short.
“Jesus, no. Please, no. I can’t do it again, please!”
Even through the plate glass window, she hears the fear in his voice. The guards ignore his plea and motion toward the chair. Henry shakes his head vehemently, trying to back away.
“They all resist the chair,” Richter sighs.
Backpedaling now, Henry bumps into two more guards, who grip his arms and drag him forward. He struggles briefly, before sagging in their hands and letting himself be manhandled into the chair. Reluctantly opening his mouth, a gag is thrust between his teeth.
“What is this?” she demands. Her fingers are splayed on the glass, as though she can touch through the window.
“It’s called a memory suppression machine. Our first prototype. Electric currents are used to scrub their minds.” The whirring hum of electricity begins and the halo above the chair twitches to life. “Unfortunately, the effects don’t seem to last. The machine destroys the memories for a brief time, but they reappear.”
The halo rotates and lowers over Henry’s face, locking in place. It makes a loud, vibrating noise and then, with every bit of breath in his lungs, Henry begins to scream. On and on, the bloodcurdling screeches fill the room, heartbreaking sounds of unimaginable pain.
“Stop!” she screams, beating her fists against the window. “You’re going to kill him! Stop it! Please, please stop!”
“As you can see,” Richter says dispassionately, speaking over her screams, “it appears slightly painful.”
With a final lurch, the machine goes silent and Henry’s screams fade away. When the halo lifts, he remains in the chair, shivering uncontrollably. The guards unbuckle the straps and haul him to his feet. Blank and docile, he appears to wait for instruction. It takes nothing more than a sharp request from the guard, for him to spin on his heel and march through the door from where he came.
Panting in the observation room above, she feels sweat dripping down her temple.
“Why are you doing this?” her voice breaks on the last word and she swipes tears from her eyes.
Richter retreats to the table, shuffling a thick stack of paper and tapping the edges even.
“Our research began years ago, that’s why I wanted you then. Our newest trial is starting now.”
“And what the hell does this have to do with me?”
“You know what I want. We’ll continue using the chair on our soldiers until we get it right. Or - you can make it easier. Painless for them. It doesn’t have to be like this. Make the right choice to help them. It’s selfish to say no.”
Closing her eyes, she gives the glass a weak smack.
“You don’t understand. What I do - people don’t come back from it. Whatever I take, the memories are gone. Forever.”
Tilting his head, he observes her with a curious smile.
“I know.”
“No,” she says softly. “I won’t. I won’t do that to people against their will.”
“Haven’t you been doing that exact thing to those poor souls in the hospital?” he says. “Didn’t you take things from them?”
“That was different,” she argues, tears now spilling over. “I was helping them. I only took the bad things, I always left behind what made them who they were.”
“And now you’ll take more. It really is simple.”
“I won’t.” Finally finding that saliva, she spits at his feet. Raising a lazy eyebrow, he looks down at his shoes. When he speaks, his voice is bitterly cold.
“So then - our little game begins.”
*****
Every morning he comes for her. Drags her into the observation deck and forces her to watch while they put a parade of men through the memory suppressing machine.
It spins and sparks and fires bolts of electricity through screaming, writhing bodies. Sometimes they go into convulsions. Sometimes blood streams from their eyes. Sometimes they foam at the mouth.
Every evening, she tells him no.
Every night, she stuffs her fist in her mouth to muffle her sobs, the screams of the tortured soldiers running on a loop through her brain.
And the next morning, it begins again.
*****
On and on it goes.
Until finally, it happens.
Until finally, she says yes.
*****
One morning, he drags her into the room. They open the door and there’s Henry again, his dark eyes rolling in panic. The moment he sees the chair, he begins to cry.
“Please,” he sobs and his voice breaks. “Please stop.”
The crack in his voice reminds her of the soldiers in her hospital, whimpering as the darkness closed in and the nightmares descended. She helped those men, gave them a measure of peace, but taking away nightmares is not the same. This is more, this is so much more.
The guards are holding him in the chair, strapping his arms in place, cinching the buckles around his legs and she can see Henry’s tears dripping down his cheeks, soaking the ragged collar of his shirt and suddenly it’s too much.
“Wait.”
Richter turns to her, triumph in his face.
“Yes?”
Will she really do this? She looks again at Henry’s terrified face, and her stomach rolls when she sees that the constant bursts of electricity are turning his hair gray.
Will she really do this?
“Take me down.”
When the door to the lab opens, a low moan comes from the chair when Henry sees them dragging her closer. Even with his scrambled brain, through the murky fog of half-formed memories, he recognizes her.
“No! Oh my god, no. What is this? Why are you here?” he asks in anguish. He fights the straps, a fruitless endeavor.
Reaching for him, she wipes away his tears. Everything inside her is screaming, begging her to refuse. She can’t do this again, she can’t destroy a man’s life.
But if this is the only way to end the pain - then she must.
“It’s okay,” she soothes. “It’s okay. I’m okay, please don’t worry. They said they’ll let me help you.”
“Help me?” he repeats, tear-filled eyes searching her face.
“Yes, I can - help,” her voice hitches. Desperately holding back tears, needing to make this moment as painless for him as possible.
Cupping his wet cheeks, she takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. There’s a moment of nothingness, and then a soft glow appears. Heat flows through her fingers and he relaxes. The white light glows brighter and brighter and brighter, until - she lets go. His eyes roll back and his head droops.
Stepping back, she feels the wave of cold pulsing through her.
Everything, nearly all his memories, wiped away with a touch of her hands. All those pieces that made him who he was are gone. Obliterated from existence, never to be recovered.
Well. Nearly all.
Inside his head, she leaves a few sparse memories. Because as selfish as it sounds, she cannot fathom the pain of being forgotten again, by someone she loves.
*****
It never gets easier.
With the gentle press of her fingers, each man goes limp as she scrubs their brains fresh and clean, ready for whatever Hydra wants to put in place. Strangely, their individual abilities, those that put them on the Hydra selection block - how to obey commands, how to shoot a gun, how to speak a foreign language - those remain. She comes to realize that some things are so deeply ingrained in a person’s DNA, those strips of muscle memory cannot be taken.
Each time she wipes another man clean, she grows colder, the rush of their memories like ice in her veins.
Most of the Hydra guards are disgruntled with the new procedure. They enjoyed listening to the screams, laughed at the writhing bodies as they fought the electric currents shooting through their brains, burning their memories to ash. Torture was what they wanted, that was what they signed up for, not this quiet destruction.
How boring, they mutter glumly to each other. Where’s the fun in this?
*****
Early one morning, she lays on the flimsy mattress, hands folded over her chest, counting the bricks in her cell. She reaches 200 when the door bangs open.
“Get the fuck up,” Richter orders furiously. “Now.”
Rolling her head to look up at him, she sighs tiredly.
“No.”
She keeps counting.
“What did you do?” he snarls, stomping forward. Reaching down, he grabs the chain linking her metal bracelets together, hauling her to her feet. “He’s fucking asking about you. Has a fiancée, he says, needs to tell her where he is. What did you do? It’s supposed to be absolute!”
Swaying slightly, a heady rush of triumph sparkles through her and she shrugs. “Perhaps I was wrong.”
“No, you weren’t, now get the fuck out there and finish the job,” he orders.
Shaking her head slowly, she sinks back to the mattress.
“No. I’m done doing your dirty work.”
“This is your last god damn warning, I mean it.”
Exhausted laughter bubbles up. Her last warning? What else was he going to do?
“I said no.”
The struggle is clear, twisting his features into something ugly. She watches him, curiously detached.
Suddenly, his face goes eerily calm.
“Alright. Remember you said this.”
Turning sharply, he storms away. She resumes counting.
The faint red glow of sunset peaks through the small bars of her tiny window when he returns. Opening the door slowly, without his customary bang, he says nothing. Instead, he leans in the doorframe and crosses his arms. She pays him no attention, staring at the ceiling.
“I wanted to let you know, we increased the power on the chair. Had to find a way to get rid of those pesky memories you left in his head.” His words caress like the smooth slice of razor blades on her skin. “It’s a shame, but he didn’t make it. Voltage was too high, blood vessels in his head exploded. Brutal. Such a mess to clean up.”
She should have expected this. She should have known.
“Maybe next time you’ll listen,” he adds.
Next time, she thinks numbly. There won’t be a next time.
*****
January, 1943
Location Unknown
One morning they take her to a new room. Dark shelves line the walls, cluttered with silver tins and glass vials full of colorful liquid.
The guards hoist her onto the table in the middle of the room and chain her arms above her head, fasten her ankles to the edge of the table with smooth leather cuffs.
This is new.
She kicks and squirms, tries to reach for them. They trap her easily, laughing at her weak attempts and in retaliation, cinch the cuffs so tight they tear her skin.
A short, bespectacled man arrives. Leaning over her on the observation table, she sees her reflection in his thick glasses, before the light hits them and they turn an opaque, milky white.
“Hello, Fraulein,” he murmurs, stroking a finger down her cheek. “I am Dr. Arnim Zola and I am very glad to meet you. So much we have to learn together. Let’s see what we can find.”
Her mouth is forced open, a gag between her teeth so she can’t bite through her tongue. Pulling a tray closer, Zola rubs his hands excitedly and picks up a syringe full of a glowing yellow liquid.
The gag does little to muffle her screams.
*****
For three straight weeks, they experiment.
Strapped to the table, liquids of different colors and textures and variations are pumped into her veins. They burn and twist and rip apart her insides bringing incoherent screams that shred her voice, leave her throat so raw and swollen she can barely speak.
Not that it matters. They don’t care what she has to say.
“We will magnify you,” Zola whispers in her ear, while her body vibrates and flails against the restraints. “Such a simple power, we can take it further. You will help us wipe the slate clean for the masses, build an army for Hydra. So easy to restore order to the chaos.”
Every night, they release the straps and drag her back to her room. In the darkness, she huddles under her little blanket and thinks. She understands what they want.
But the weeks pass and the tests continue with no results.
There was no expansion of her ability. It was impossible, something that could not be touched, because it was born inside her, a power sourced directly from her soul. A part of her that was unalterable, no matter what they tried to do.
And so, with nothing else to be done, the experiments simply strung her in a new direction.
Age, the natural progression of life, fell to the wayside. It would come eventually, but for now, their sick experiments simply extended her life.
What a waste, she would think in later years. What’s the purpose of a long life, when you’re all alone?
*****
In the middle of the night, she hears the guards talking outside her door.
“They’re moving everyone next week, sending us to a new base. More of a work camp I guess.”
“Yeah? Hopefully warmer than this shit-hole. Where’s this fancy new place anyway?”
“Some place in Italy. Azzano, I think.”
Dread fills her. Somewhere new. Somewhere with more men she will be forced to destroy.
The night ticks along and that elusive goal, sleep, finally wraps drowsy fingers around her aching limbs. Floating toward that blessed unconsciousness, she’s on the precipice when it happens.
There’s the sound of a soft, cajoling female voice. It’s a stark contrast to the rough, guttural tones she normally hears and her ears perk.
There’s a pause and she hears the sickening crunch of bone on bone. Scrambling upright, she clutches the blanket, keeping her back to the cold wall. Keys jingle, scraping with a muffled curse and suddenly the door opens. Light floods in, illuminating a strange sight.
A woman steps inside, wiping blood from her knuckles and grimacing.
“Imbeciles. Dammit, that hurt quite a lot more than I expected,” she says to someone behind. She is strikingly beautiful, with thick brown hair falling in fat curls to her shoulders and a sunny, wide-lipped grin.
Pulling up short at the sight of a dirty, disheveled woman crouched on a mattress, she throws her arms out, stopping anyone else from entering.
“What is it?” a man’s voice inquires impatiently, and the woman shakes her head.
“Stay there. Give me a minute.” Raising her hands slowly, she opens them wide, showing she holds nothing dangerous. Her voice is kind when she speaks. “Hello love. My name’s Peggy Carter. Let me help you.”
*****
Flanked by a small, covert group of undercover agents led by SSR Agent Margaret Carter, she escapes. The agents were clearly not equipped to support a captive, they were simply there for intel, but it doesn’t matter.
When Peggy Carter insists, everyone listens.
As they make their way out, she asks the date and then does the math.
Between December 1942 and January 1943, she spends 44 days in Hydra’s grasp. She will remember every second until the day she dies.
*****
The trip home to London takes a week. In transit, she learns the base was deep in the countryside outside Krakow, Poland.
Peggy never leaves her side. She appreciates the warmth of a protective arm around her, lets herself be lulled into drowsy comfort by the rolling English accent. One evening, as she sits huddled under a thick blanket, Peggy takes her hands and rubs them encouragingly.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?”
There is such obvious gentleness there, but she refuses.
“Thank you, Peggy, but no. I just want to forget this ever happened.”
What an ironic comment from her. Forgetting.
“I understand. What will you do next?” Peggy asks carefully. “I can help you find a job at the SSR if you like. We always need good recruits.”
There are good intentions there, and frankly if she still had the capacity to trust anyone in this world, she would trust Peggy Carter. But she knows how the world works and in the end, they’re all the same.
Hydra. The SSR. Once they know her ability, she would become nothing more than a weapon. Something to be primed and aimed at whatever target suits their interest. She can never allow herself to be in that position again.
And above all, she knows he will come searching. Whatever happens, she cannot let him find her again.
Normalcy is all she wants, a quiet life away from everything. A small house, somewhere safe to lay her head. Somewhere hidden.
“Please, I just - I want to disappear. From everything and everyone. Please help me.”
Peggy wraps her in a fierce hug and she buries her face in those thick brown curls.
“Of course. Whatever you need.”
*****
In the SSR records, there is no mention of an enhanced woman discovered at a Hydra base in Poland.
*****
In the stuffy space of her tiny London flat, she quickly packs everything into a worn carpetbag.
Treasures she cannot live without, tangible memories she keeps close. While her memory will never allow her to forget, there’s something beautiful in feeling the shapes and textures of her past; she holds tight to those little objects, no matter the cost.
A soft baby blanket. Photos of her and her father. A silver hairbrush and a jewelry box that belonged to her mother. And once again, in the middle of a black night, she disappears.
Finds passage on a ship and sails down the coast of France, weaving through Royal Navy blockades and nests of Nazi gunners. Takes a train and walks miles to a small village in southern France. Buries herself in the rhythm of the town, creating a new life for herself.
She finds a comfortable house. A small kitchen with a bathroom off the back, a tiny bedroom with a little fireplace upstairs. She trades her sewing skills for two chickens and then barters the eggs for a chipped white vase. Every day, she fills it with something fresh.
And she lives a quiet life, alone again. Forgotten by everyone she’s ever known, except the one man she wishes with all her heart would cease to remember.
She mourns for Henry and the tragedy of his fate. Loving a soldier was one thing she never expected and the experience nearly killed her. The war trudges on, and sometimes soldiers pass through the village; while she always puts her nursing skills to good use, she keeps her distance.
Sometimes she sits by the creek, washing clothes in the cold water and thinking. She wishes she had the power to scrub her own brain clean, but no.
This is her penance, the one she will pay from now until the end of time.
To remember.
*****
Next Chapter
*****
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Top 9 of 2019
@crazyrandomhappenklance had the good idea to do a top 9 for writers the way that artists are doing. Since all of my writing was collaborative with @yuzuling, I decided to highlight times that I enjoyed their writing in particular. Sail always writes Lance and I always write Keith, so these are small moments where I either had Feelings of some kind for their Lance, or was just generally really proud of us and our teamwork.
Several of these are from works we have yet to publish (and are already like 100k+ into) but they will be! Something to look forward to in 2020?? :D??
Seriously, though - before this year, I had forgotten how much writing meant to me, and it’s thanks to this fandom, but most importantly to Sail, that I got that back. And now they’re somewhere gagging because I’m a sap. Whatever, fucking choke on it.
So, Sail’s Greatest Lance of 2019:
Oh no, Keith was hot. Keith was a hot ghost, Lance knew that now. That was knowledge he had, but no idea what to do with.
"You look…"
Hot. Sexy. Like a vampire I want to kiss.
"Alive."
Good one, Lance.
The House with the Red Front Door by SailUnchartedWaters and AutumnIgnited
Lance shook his head. “It’s just.” He gestured to Keith’s....everything. Mostly his hair. “I thought you died in the 90’s, why do you have a mullet?”
Keith’s hand flew up to his hair indignantly and he scowled. “It’s not a mullet, asshole - I like it long and it just grows that way!”
“Then I hate to break it to you, but it grows in a mullet. Rough afterlife facts, buddy.”
The House with the Red Front Door by SailUnchartedWaters and AutumnIgnited
“Lance,” Keith whimpered. He had never sounded truly frightened before - not when he was caged, or magicless, or even locked in a root cellar with only the darkness, Lance, and his own vulnerability.
“Don’t watch.” Lance pulled Keith toward him by the hand. Familiars all around them buried their heads or covered their eyes if they weren't already covering their ears. He wanted to run away. To take Keith far from here, back to their cottage, back to their simple life. “Look at me. Don’t look up there,” he commanded, but couldn’t tear his own eyes away.
The Sorcerer And His Dragon (tentative title) by SailUnchartedWaters and AutumnIgnited
It wasn’t until Lance was well into retelling individual stories within the Annals of the Embrace that he realized Keith was only vaguely listening as he undid their bedrolls on top of their brand new and extremely depressing bedding. Clearly, his dragon was less interested in the wondrous happenings and miracles of the Nine than he was in the base, spooky stories meant to scare the young. He had devolved into giving occasional, disinterested grunts by the time he was stacking kindling in the remnants of the fireplace.
“-and then the sea monster swallowed Maiess whole and all hearths were left unprotected. Thousands died that night. Including me.”
“Oh, really?” Keith asked blandly, reaching his hand into the burgeoning flames to rearrange a few logs. “Huh.”
“Yep. The whole world went dark and we all exploded. We don’t exist. It’s over. Poof.” Lance glared at the back of Keith’s head.
“Mmhmm.” Blowing on the kindling helped coax the embers into small licks of flame. “Go on.”
“You’re not listening.” Lance threw a pebble at Keith, hitting him square on the back of the head. “Salamander.”
Keith’s head snapped around. “Hey! I was, but this stuff’s boring! I liked it better when there was dismemberment.” He chucked a piece of ancient coal half-heartedly towards Lance.
The Sorcerer And His Dragon (tentative title) by SailUnchartedWaters and AutumnIgnited
His Master was exactly where Keith had left him: staring holes into pondwater, looking as if he was rethinking every choice that had ever brought him to this point. Keith nudged him with a toe.
“Food,” he said.
“Thanks.” Lance took a pie without looking and tore off a chunk. He threw it into the lake.
They both watched it bob at the surface.
“I stopped a criminal,” Keith said conversationally around a mouthful of handpie. “He was stealing salt from the baker.”
“That’s nice. Why isn’t it biting?” Lance tore off another chunk and threw it. The filling oozed around his fingers.
“Hey.” Keith snatched the pie back from him and sat down beside Lance, giving him a grumpy look. “If you’re just going to feed the pond monster, you’re not allowed to hold the pie. I’ll feed you myself if I have to.”
“That’s it.” Lance undid the laces of his tunic and threw it off. “I’m going in, hold my pie.”
The Sorcerer And His Dragon (tentative title) by SailUnchartedWaters and AutumnIgnited
Keith sighed, but nodded in reluctant agreement. “Fine. Permission to change forms, or are we still pretending to be incognito?”
“I think subtlety has been thrown out with the carriage.”
“Good.” Bending forward, Keith roared as his back split and his human form rippled, giving way to a red-scaled beast three times the size of the bear. When he swiveled his gold eyes on the hooded attackers, more than one took a step back.
“Yeah, that’s right,” he sassed at them. “I see your bear and raise you one I’m a fucking dragon.”
Okay, Lance could see that he wasn’t needed. That he was being stupidly stubborn to want to fight when his real skill was bending over a cauldron. But they’d taken on a water hag, a selkie, an unusually amorous manticore and a giant together. Well, okay, the giant didn’t turn out so well, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that they’d done it all together. Lance wasn’t going to stop now.
He drew from Keith’s almost endless pool of magic and created a bubble of water around the bear’s face.
“Oh good,” Keith observed. “You take the bear. I’ve got the humans.”
“Oh goodie. One whole rabid bear, all to myself. This isn’t going to be hard at all.”
The Sorcerer And His Dragon (tentative title) by SailUnchartedWaters and AutumnIgnited
Once they were seated, Lance slung his arm around Keith's waist and dragged him to his side. "Did he hurt you?" he whispered, ducking his head so he wasn't looking at Keith.
“No,” Keith whispered back, smoothing his pants. “But I’d like to hurt him. Thanks for the save.” He accepted the plate of fruits and cheeses passed down to him by a servant.
"Don't ever do that again." Emotions flooded and overflowed, twisting his heart and balling his fists. "I've never asked anything of you before. Give me this; never again."
Keith’s eyebrows shot into his hairline. “Which part specifically?”
"The part where I had to watch you gladly rub against other people-" Lance turned to face Keith. "-and watch them greedily rub against you."
Keith gave a visible, full-bodied shiver, and goosebumps prickled along his gold-dusted skin. He picked up a plump orange berry and held it up to Lance’s lips, lashes falling to half mast as he pushed just a little, seeking entrance. “I was only ‘glad’ to rub against one of those people.” His tongue snuck out to wet his own lips. “Lance.”
The Sorcerer And His Dragon (tentative title) by SailUnchartedWaters and AutumnIgnited
"Love? Seal? I--" Lance clamped his mouth shut. It didn't matter if his magic came from rocks, nothing mattered if he didn't hurry. Lifting his chin, he squared his shoulders. "I will do whatever you want. Use me, if I'm so powerful, to destroy your enemies. I don't care." He folded, bowing low. "My life is yours if you let me save his."
Allura’s face softened. She hovered a hand over him, uncertain, before finally placing it on his hair. “I was never going to stop you from leaving. I just thought you needed to know. Your magic may be unpredictable from now on.”
She switched her grip to tug at his chin and urge him to standing. “I won’t let him die. Be swift.”
[...]
“We can stay no more than three days. We will carry him with us, but longer than three days and you will need to track us.”
"I won't be late." He bowed and kissed her knuckles. "Take care of him. He's all I have."
“You have my word.” She nodded. “Go.”
The Sorcerer And His Dragon (tentative title) by SailUnchartedWaters and AutumnIgnited
Lance swallowed. “Uh, Keith? Where did you find my jacket?”
“In a small room. In the long room.”
“Did you also happen to find any underwear?” Lance wasn’t sure which answer he wanted to hear. Either Keith was completely naked under that jacket or he was wearing a pair of Lance’s underwear. He should’ve escaped when he had the chance.
“I do not know that word,” Keith said blithely, pressing closer to take in Lance’s body heat.
Okay, different question. “Are you wearing anything else besides my jacket?”
Keith nodded. “Legs.”
“Give me strength,” Lance murmured to no one in particular.
At Water’s Edge by SailUnchartedWaters and AutumnIgnited
“Keith, no!” It was already too late. Keith was sitting up to his waist in dirty fountain water.
Black iridescent scales were already popping up across Keith’s legs as he looked at Lance from his contented place sitting on the bottom of the fountain. “Legs are itchy,” he explained.
“No, no, no, no.” Lance grabbed at Keith but he wiggled away. “Get out of there. You can’t do that. What if someone sees you?” He leaned over as far as he could and swiped for anything to grab hold of. Even in shallow water, Keith was fast. There was no way he’d get to him without getting dirty.
With a few choice cuss words, Lance kicked off his shoes and rolled up his pants to trot in after Keith. “Get back here right now and put your legs back on.” He splashed in the fountain, his pants soaking up to his thighs.
At Water’s Edge by SailUnchartedWaters and AutumnIgnited
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Things Once Forgotten
An Elsewhere University graduate struggles to remember the reason behind a deep-seated phobia of theirs.
on AO3
Your fiancee wanted a dog. That was where it had all began.
On the face of it, her argument was reasonable enough. She’d had dogs all her life up until the year before you two met, when her last one had passed away and she wasn’t sure at the time if she was in a good place to take on another. She was ready for one now, though, and while you’d never had a dog of your own, you were fond of cats, and the two weren’t all that different, the false binary of “dog people” and “cat people” aside. It’d mean going out for walks with the dog now and then, but you liked taking strolls through the neighborhood anyway, and bringing along a companion shouldn’t be too much of an issue.
All of which would be all well and good if you weren’t utterly terrified of dogs.
Your fiancee had persevered. She was determined to get a dog, but also determined to find one that wouldn’t frighten you in the process. She had you meet her parents’ dogs, her friends’ dogs, found the tiniest puppies imaginable at a local shelter and arranged a personal introduction, but big or small, wild or tame, all of them scared the wits out of you just the same.
(Actually, that wasn’t entirely true, as a bit of directed trial-and-error discovered: somehow, it was the little pipsqueak dogs, tiny bundles of fluff and energy that could realistically do you no harm, that freaked you out the most.)
After a few weeks of struggling with the issue, you resorted to meeting with a therapist.
Dr. Stein was a petite lady whose long blonde hair was turning silver with age, her gold-framed glasses making her dark blue eyes stand out that much more. She’d started with a reasonable enough question, the kind you had anticipated her asking: had you always been afraid of dogs, or was there some incident in particular that had been the impetus of your phobia?
The trouble was, you weren’t quite sure what the answer was.
You hadn’t grown up with dogs--your father was deathly allergic to them--but you didn’t remember being afraid of them at a young age, or having any feelings towards them stronger than a combination of idle curiosity and vague worry of having inherited your father’s allergy. But you couldn’t recall exactly when it was that your fear of dogs sprang up, let alone whether there had been a specific incident that had caused it.
You met with Dr. Stein several times more in the following months, went over your life in the hopes of finding some less-than-obvious connection to your phobia that you had overlooked, uncovering a few unsettling facts in the process that only led to more questions instead of the answers you so desperately sought.
First: nobody you could get in touch with remembered you encountering any particular problems with dogs that might have caused your fear; in fact, back in high school you’d became friends with the next door neighbors largely through befriending their large, slobbering hounds, though your visits with them had slowed to a stop after you went off to college.
Second: there are a number of long, dark scar lines across your back, reaching from near your shoulder blades down to your waist; you have absolutely no memory of where these scars came from, but you’re pretty sure you got them either during or after college.
Third: a good chunk of your college life has been reduced to little more than a blur in your memory. You remember bits and pieces, especially when it comes to your actual studies--reading books whose age could be measured in centuries, listening to lectures about those long dead coming from professors who often didn’t sound far off themselves, forming a tight-knit study group with a handful of your fellow history majors--but what you did in your down time, what you did for fun during those four years? You have only brief snippets and vague ideas left of that. Even some of what you do remember seems off a bit--you don’t know what the name of that one professor with the frizzy hair and the freckles and the refreshingly accommodating policy about late work was, but you’re pretty sure it’s neither Taffy nor Toffee, though your memory waffles between the two, and whatever the name of that tall guy in your study group who only ever wore graphic t-shirts and faded jeans, it definitely wasn’t Pineapple Pizza.
The conclusion Dr. Stein reaches, that something happened to you in college that caused your back scars, your fear of dogs, and your lack of memory of your college years, makes sense, given the evidence, but all attempts at unearthing the repressed memories behind your phobia fail miserably. Nothing Dr. Stein says or does helps you remember even the slightest bit about what might have happened to you back in college to make even the smallest of dogs utterly terrify you. For all the progress you make, you might as well have been running headfirst into a brick wall and expecting something other than frustration and pain.
Eventually, you, your fiancee, and Dr. Stein reach an agreement that perhaps the only way to unearth those repressed memories is to go back to your college and see if stepping on campus once again after all these years helps to jog your memory. Elsewhere’s Homecoming is coming up, anyway, and it’s not an unreasonable drive from home. At worst, you burn a little gas money and waste a weekend at an unremarkable college event. At best, you find the missing piece of the puzzle, and all those questions of yours will finally be answered.
Most of the drive is downright mind-numbing, the scenery changing little as the hours pass by, and once you start getting close you’re surprised that Elsewhere University managed to find a foothold and survive for so long while being located in, well, the middle of nowhere, really. You vaguely remember the highway near campus once you turn onto it, but it’s not until you cross onto the campus proper and your fiancee pulls into a school parking lot that you remember anything more significant.
The memories flood you all at once, and you struggle to wade through them, to find what you’re looking for amidst recollections of so many other things.
That professor with the frizzy hair really did go by Taffy--Saltwater Taffy specifically for the first few weeks of her employment, before she decided that the “Saltwater” part was both unwieldy and a bit bolder than she cared to be. She was an Elsewhere alumna, naturally, and well aware of the wide variety of circumstances that could lead to a student having to turn in late work, including those that wouldn’t (and couldn’t) happen at any other university. Taffy wasn’t her actual name, of course, but then, nobody went by their real name at Elsewhere, so she fit in just fine.
That tall guy with a fondness for graphic t-shirts really did go by Pineapple Pizza; he had a nasty combination of food allergies that meant he would never get to taste the stuff himself, but he liked the looks he got for choosing the name, liked how it led to arguments breaking out in his midst as often as not.
And as for what you did for fun while at college?
Well, that study group wasn’t just interested in history, or at least, not the kind of history that could be studied from old books and boring lectures. Your little group devised experiments and deals, ways of gaining knowledge from those who had witnessed things that no human had been alive to see, weighed pros and cons regarding what to learn and how. You were also a Knight, on the side, spending hours upon hours helping other students who had made poor decisions...
...except, of course, for the time when the one who had made a poor decision was yourself.
It had seemed harmless enough, to go pet the dog that was sitting nonchalantly a few feet away from the path you were following, big eyes watching you from that tiny tuft of fur and bones laying there. You missed your neighbors’ hounds, missed your family’s cats, and petting a dog that had wandered onto campus seemed like an innocent enough way of soothing that particular bit of homesickness.
(An ingenious trap, really.)
You hadn’t noticed that the dog was dangerously close to the edge of the forest, hadn’t noticed that its shadow shifted and swayed with the setting sun, hadn’t noticed that both its shadow and its eyes were far too large for the small form it had taken on.
You only stopped approaching the dog upon sinking one hand deep into its fur, which was soft and luscious and thick, far thicker than it should be given how small the dog appeared to be.
It was only then that you realized what you had done, realized what the small and unassuming form of this “dog” actually concealed.
The rest remains a blur even now.
Turning your back on the “dog” and running, sprinting towards campus as if your life depended on it, because you knew it very well might.
Hot breath pressed against your back, and then claws ripping into your flesh, tearing it apart with ease.
A cluster of people gathering around you, one making shoddy salt line after shoddy salt line in the ground before you.
A well-tossed iron chain finally forcing your pursuer to turn away and allowing you to stop moving, sinking into the ground as the pain you had ignored in your terror returned with a vengeance, agony burning into you as you felt warm blood run across your back and your vision faded into nothingness.
You feel your fiancee’s hand brush against your own and recoil, realizing only then how tense you had become, how you had been sitting in silence for some time now.
“So?” your fiancee tentatively asks.
Your initial response is just a single, shaky laugh.
“What is it? Did you remember something?”
You shake your head and say, “Dr. Stein is never going to believe this.”
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Cheap, low spoon cooking
My cooking tends to start with protein, and because of my food issues, that protein is generally meat, and if you argue with me about that, I’ll block you, because if you want to do a thread on low cost vegan cooking, go right ahead, you’ve got your own blog right there.
Holler if you want more specific instructions for any of these, and let me know whether you just need a basic recipe or “how to for a complete noob to the kitchen” or anything in between.
1. Chicken
Chicken is at the top of the list for cheap and easy, because it can often be had for less than $1.50 per pound, and because many preparations of it can be done with less than 5 minutes of work (oven time not included.)
Basic: get whole chicken. Preheat oven to 450. Pull out giblets. Sprinkle salt on skin. Roast at 450 for 1 hour. Enjoy crispy skin, tender meat. Same method (shorter cooking time, about 45 minutes) works for bone-in skin-on thighs. With the whole chicken, you can usually make one bird into several meals, by using the meat for one meal, and making soup out of the bones and whatnot for the next meal.
If you get skinless boneless thighs, they’ll usually be a little cheaper than skinless boneless breasts. Don’t roast them, cut them up, drench them in a marinade, and pan fry the pieces. Serve with pasta or rice and stir fried veggies.
2. Pork
Pork tends to range in price from $2.50 per pound up to $8 per pound. I’m usually getting pork shoulder for about $3 per pound. Shoulder and “country style ribs” are incredibly cheap and can be pressure cooked (instant pot) or slow cooked into pulled pork with seasonings, or you can get slightly fancier, make a marinade of coconut aminos and orange juice (or apple juice and apple cider vinegar, or rice wine vinegar, mirin, soy sauce, whatever, just make sure there’s some salt and some acid and some sweetness in the marinade to help tenderize the meat), and cut the shoulder roast into 3/4 inch thick steaks, cutting across the grain, then put in a bag or bowl with the marinade overnight. We add onions and garlic and shallots to the marinade because I can digestively tolerate them only if they’ve been soaking in acid of some sort for a while.
My favorite is to marinade in orange juice, coconut aminos, chilis, onion, garlic, etc. overnight, then pan fry the steaks, turning often, until golden brown. The resulting pork shoulder steaks get cut into strips and served a variety of ways--tacos, sandwiches, lettuce wraps, whatever. We usually use about 8 oz per person if there’s no fancy sandwich toppings, and 6 oz per person or less if making wraps or tacos. I have to have a little more energy for this method, and will often have someone else prep the aromatics.
3. Eggs
Even farm eggs, if you live anywhere near a rural area, can be had for less than 50 cents an egg, and regular conventional eggs have been $2 per dozen or less basically as long as I’ve been alive. Basic egg recipes can go from fridge to table in about 5 minutes. I usually get eggs from a friend whose neighbors have backyard chickens, for about $4 per dozen. A good nonstick egg pan + eggs is a fast way to get protein into you without spending all your energy doing it. Over easy, scrambled, omelet, or my kid’s favorite, egg in the hole... all cheap and incredibly fast.
4. Beef
Most beef is not cheap, and has been getting steadily more expensive for years. That said, if you understand how to cook various less fancy cuts, and shop at a local butcher, chances are you can get your meat for far less than a typical grocery store. I rarely go for things like ribeye or filet. We’re all about the round roast, chuck roast and flat iron here. Also like the shank. I rarely spend more than $7 per pound on beef, usually closer to $6. But again, we’re shopping at a local butcher who sources meat locally and does all breakdown themselves.
Tricks: Look for a whole flat iron and ask the butcher to cut it. The method I ask for is “Please cut it off the silverskin and then into 6 oz portions.” This eliminates most of the gristle layer, leaving incredibly tender meat with a ton of flavor. The flat iron is from the chuck, but is a specific muscle that doesn’t get used a lot, so it’s very tender.
Round roast, tip roast... these can be just salted and roasted very slowly (like, 200 F) if you have a meat thermometer with a probe that can stay in the meat, so that you roast it at very low temp until it comes up to about 110-120 degrees, then you take it out, turn the oven up to like 450, put a rub on the meat, and blast it at high heat until the probe is at 140. Then you let it rest for a while and come up a few more degrees, and what you get is a roast with a crust, as tender as the cut is likely to get while staying pink, which, cut thin, will be fantastic roast beef. If you don’t have a fancy thermometer, we usually start it high, then turn it down without opening the oven and let it go for an hour or so before checking with a cheap thermometer. But you can also cut into smaller pieces, marinade, and stir fry. You can ask the butcher to cut your roast into chunks for stir fry, if you aren’t up to the cutting.
Chuck, shank, and other tough cuts can be pressure cooked into super tender pot roast very quickly. Wine, mushrooms... We use cheap sulfite-free wine and whatever mushrooms are most affordable for this.
5. Lamb
Lamb can be pricey, but we get a boneless leg roast (grass fed) at Costco for about $6 per pound, which is one of the best prices out there for grass fed meat. We use the roast in one of two ways: We either roast it low and slow like beef, serving it rare, or we cube it and pressure cook it with savory liquids and then serve it with coconut milk and curry paste over rice. So good.
6. Duck
Our local Asian markets usually have whole duck for $3.50-ish per pound. It’s outrageously expensive literally anywhere else. Duck doesn’t cook like chicken, exactly... you must score the fat if you want it crispy, which means poking the fat without poking the meat. We roast at high temp, flipping as needed, to get a very crisp duck without drying out the breast. SAVE the drippings and use them in soup, or to cook eggs or potatoes in. Duck fat is like gold. So much flavor. 1 duck feeds 3 of us an indulgent amount of duck.
Cooking gadgets for reducing the amount of physical energy you need to cook things:
I never, ever use slow cookers because even used properly they seem to create less flavor than the pressure cooker methods. Pressure cookers are like slow cookers for procrastinators. Things that normally would take all day take an hour. Things that would take a couple of hours will take 30 minutes. The amount of money you can save in cooking beans alone vs. canned will pay for it. Pressure cooker is often the difference between me making homemade stock and throwing the carcass away. They’re also about as efficient at transferring heat into meat as any form of cooking you can get, so the energy savings are not irrelevant. Instant Pot is $70-ish at Costco right now, I’m just saying.
An oven is helpful, but if you don’t have a full sized oven or can’t bend that way, a toaster oven can do a LOT. If you can get one that is large enough to cook a chicken in, you don’t need a larger oven if you aren’t doing large scale cooking. If you have a child who wants to learn to cook, a cheap toaster oven costs about the same as an EZ bake, but is an actual real kitchen device which can do real cooking. Spend a little more and get one with air circulation and a little more interior space if you can afford the counter space and the money.
I know people like air fryers, I’ve not seen the point. Very few things an air fryer can do that a convection toaster oven can’t, and the form factor is better for the toaster oven for cooking a reasonable amount of tater tots. (priorities!)
Food processor: If you find chopping things a barrier, food processors can slice and grate very quickly, and rinse off nicely without a lot of elbow grease. I don’t usually bother, but I have minions who will do chop prep for me. If you don’t, even a small food processor will be less taxing on sore joints than most chopping. If you want to make pastry, a food processor is a must if you have energy issues.
Knives and a means to sharpen them: dull knives make cooking incredibly exhausting and tedious. Sharp knives make it all work so much better. The base price of the knife is less important than the condition you keep it in, as youtube will be happy to show you in a variety of mesmerizing videos.
Meat thermometer: Sort by reviews, ignore any where the reviews are suspicious. My strong preference is for digital quick-read ($10ish) OR probe-style leave-in. ($20-ish) You want this for food safety AND so that you can avoid overcooking roasts.
Cutting board: ideal is something with a groove (prevents juices from flooding the counter and contaminating everything) that runs around the edge. Cheap plastic boards can be convenient, I guess, but are harder to get reliably clean than wood, which tends to kill off germs. My favorites are bamboo. Not terribly spendy, super pretty, work very well.
The pans I use: 9x13 pyrex baking dish for most of our chicken stuff
dark enamel roaster (not huge unless you’re going to do turkeys) for beef roasts (very cheap)
large baking trays lined with silpats (both bought at costco, idek, they’re ideal for tater tots and such and don’t get problems with sticking and are easy to clean)
Nonstick PFOA-free egg pan, sautee pan and 11 inch griddle. I think I spent $22 at Target on three egg-type pans of different sizes? Not particularly spendy, but you do need to replace them every 5 years or so.
variety of saucepans and pots in stainless (I have cuisnart and Kirkland and they’re fine and last kind of forever barring disasters and sometimes even then. Can be bought second hand.)
We use a lot of pyrex stuff because it’s convenient for leftovers and mise en place. If you have someone helping with chop prep, little dishes full of prepped things make the cooking go so much easier. But you can do that in regular dishes too, we’re just fancy that way (and I stg the pyrex breeds in the cupboard.)
I’ll talk starches if people want.
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