Yes! There it is! Chapter 33 is posted! Now, to warn you. This chapter is considerably shorter than some of my other works. Sadly it’s part of what must happen to get three done this month. But I still like it and find it enjoyable.
In other news, man, you all are REALLY being responsive to my superhero question. Like… a lot. Wow. Thanks so much! It’s been a big motivator!
Let’s get another prompt going, shall we?
The prompt: What are the favorite foods of each of the main cast? I am looking for more Bland Name Products if possible. Here is a list:
- Junk food
- Soda-Robynne’s is already decided- She drink Pep MD 🙂
- Fast food restaurant
- Sit-down restaurant
BONUS QUESTION NOT RELATING TO MGP AT ALL!
What words do you always misspell? For me, it’s always opened (I always want there to be a 2nd ‘n’), restaurant (I spell it ‘restaraunt’ usually), and shield (It feels like the ‘e’ should come first to me)
Next chapter should be up on the 23rd!
Taralynn
Hmmm. Favorites for the cast, eh?
Junk food is tough. I could see Rob mainly indulging while playing games, and she would probably want something pretty mess free. Maybe a hard candy…something like skittles? (Skuttles? Might be too close/make people think of pests.) Something you can snack on without fear of it getting everywhere. Kara’ obviously gonna lean toward home made baked goods. Not sure what kind in particular. Viv…I can see her liking those Sno-ball things. Not sure why, but I think they fit for some reason. Mal and Ang seem the least likely to indulge in junk food…but Mal did take some of Kara’s cookies in an earlier chapter. Would that be her favorite though? Maybe something like beef jerky for quick protein? Is that considered junk food? Ang I can see going for Ice Cream. Again, not sure why. Maybe just the image of Vivian needing to console her with some ice cream after the meeting at the Standridge Stones as she did with Rob? Eli and Cory I can’t see being too picky. Eli would probably prefer something Kara made, though.
The rest…I’m having trouble thinking of at the moment. I’ll come back for them in another comment.
I’m going to be hungry from thinking this over.
Shadowmaster’s got the right idea for Rob. Hard candy is a gamer’s best friend; it doesn’t get your fingers (and by extent ,your equipment) greasy. Maybe you could call MGP Skittles “Dazzles” or something. It fits the whole rainbow color theme of the candy.
Mal, I could see as the pocky (or Poki, or however you wanna spell it outside of copyright) type. It’s a snack food that comes in small portions and wouldn’t even really need to be burned off.
Vivian… I don’t know. Gummy candy, maybe?
I’m out of ideas as far as favorite foods go, but restaurant names I can do!
Dick Arnold’s (sounds like McDonald’s, but isn’t McWhatever)
Mandy’s (Wendy’s)
Guajillo (Chipotle. It’s another mexican pepper name)
Swanson’s Steakhouse (Parks & Rec reference, but works as a name on its own)
Ethan’s Hotdogs (Nathan’s)
Accel (Sonic. Just thinking of catchy enough names about being fast)
how about a soft drinks like ‘mountain climber’ (mtn dew), Carolina tea (Arizona), K&M Root Beer (A&W), Calorie Water (vitamin water) , Kaiju energy drink (monster), ‘fruit’ Rush (Crush replace ‘fruit’ with specific flavors)
@bodug
Mountain Climber doesn’t really fit, the rest of those I think are good. For a Mountain Dew/Moon Mist riff, maybe Hill Mist and Lunar Dew.
Another for drinks. Sunkist riff could be Solsmakt.
Thank you for the chapter, it was great. two fast food restaurants Bueno Nacho and McSpankys bouns points if you know where the names are from 😛
Junk food
Soda-Robynne’s is already decided- She drink Pep MD 🙂
Fast food restaurant
Sit-down restaurant
drinks
Angela: cola light (Diet Coke)
Kara: k2 fruit twist (evion fruit flavored)
Mallory: orange crush (fanta orange)
Noriko: says she prefers water but secretly prefers pixie (sprite) as it reminds her of lamune (Ramune) from home
Robynne
Vivian: green ox energy drink (red bull)
fast food
Angela: skyrail (subway)
Kara: prefers to cook for herself
Mallory: tortilla chime (tacobell)
Noriko: (no clue)
Robynne: pizza from cards (dominos) s/he is a gamer its food that you can put next to a computer and grab a bite between raides
Vivian: commanders fried chicken (kfc) as the greasy food winds up angela who knows she will cheat to burn it off
junk food
Angela: chocolate (sorry i’m british i dont know american colet brands to make a name)
Kara: homemade cookies
Mallory: cup cakes
Noriko: picko (pocki)
Robynne: n&n’s (m&m’s)
Vivian: ice cream. it seams established she likes Caramel Fudge Brownie Cake Blast. maybe by bob & jonny’s (ben & jerry’s)
Wow, there’s a lot of great suggestions here, so I’ll just cover one thing I have seen yet: Hot Wraps (equivalent of Hot Pockets). I think it’s a stereotypical rushed gamer meal, especially when in college.
Phat Burger for fast food, or even Thug Burger(If these are real things that would be awesome)
As for sit-down, Aunt Jennie’s for whole style american food, and Jimmy Tsao’s Chinese restaurant. Halmabad Falafel, Masala Haven for Indian food, and the last restaurant I recommend is Hobb’s Bar and Grill. Every college has that one popular beer and sit down spot.
Junk Food, well the best I would recommend are Yowza’s, a cinnamon dark chocolate bar. Stork Peppermint Patties, McNair toffee crunch bars, and StickyFingers(Fundip).
Some ideas for Noriko: her favorite sweet is liquorice flavored gum (BlackSap Gum) for its unusual taste and high quality. (It’s a real thing, look it up)
She harbors a secret love of Japanese-Mexican fusion food, and thus eats regularly (and in secret) at the local South Border Kitchen, which serves Shrimp and White bean nachos.
First thing I thought of for a bland name product Soft drink was Stoca zola (Or Stoke), Which is actually a bland name product made by someone else. The guy probably wouldn’t care if you used it if you really wanted to though.
Well, I can’t possibly pass up mentioning the lemon-lime soda brands 1up and Spritz. (The former of which was originally styled as “One-Up”, but then video games happened.) {7up and Sprite, of course. Also, comments in curly braces are out-of-universe.}
The most well-known highly-caffeinated soda is Moonlight, a reference less to Moon Mist than to Mountain Dew (‘mountain dew’ originally being Scots/Irish slang for homemade whiskey, i.e., moonshine). It has obvious, and perennial, ad campaigns involving staying up late. Its most notable competitor is Midnight Oil—a cola, unlike Moonlight. [1]
Pep MD’s been mentioned, of course, but its primary competitors Hero Cola and Poma Cola haven’t. (No, Hero Cola never had heroin in it. The sugar-free variant was almost going to be “Heroine”, back in the 80’s, but since a lot of people can’t spell worth a damn, they went with “Hero Light”.) {But that’s still where the name came from. On the other hand, Pepsi ultimately derives from πέψις “digestion”, so Poma comes from πῶμα “drink; draught”.}
Probably the most popular root beer is Miao’s: first marketed in 1891 in San Francisco by Li-xing “Luke” Miao (苗利幸), an American-born son of Chinese immigrants, it’s used cats (猫) in stereotypical Chinese dress as advertising from day one. In the late 90s it sold out to a major bottling company, though, and it just doesn’t taste the same nowadays. {Barq’s, obviously. 利幸 is just a random Chinese forename.}
Alternatives to Miao’s include Stein Root Beer {a play on Mug Root Beer} and the independent-and-marketed-as-such Boot Rear (“A Real Kick In The Pants!™”) {nothing in particular, it’s probably been independently reinvented several times}.
[1] {I am amused to realize that Sierra Mist is a real-world Bland Name Product—a direct thesaurus-substitution for Mountain Dew.}
—===≡≡≡===—
Fast-food places include Burger Palace {Burger King, White Castle, BtVS’s Doublemeat Palace}, Softy’s {Hardee’s, but also Wendy’s or possibly Sandy’s}, Fish-Fil-A {Chick-Fil-A}, Captain Nemo’s {Captain D’s, Long John Silver’s}, Big Jack’s {Jack in the Box, McDonald’s (via Big Mac)}, Cardinal {Red Robin… or was that Red Robynne?}, Mach 2 {twice as fast as Sonic!} and Alleged Burger (an unaffiliated greasy spoon adjacent to the campus; maybe near the law department, maybe just a weak Douglas Adams reference) {definitely just a weak Douglas Adams reference}. Alleged Burger may possibly have an attached bakery named Tart Reform. {Or Torte Reform… but no, I go for the highbrow jokes too often as it is.}
Pizza delivery places include DeeDee’s Pizza {CiCi’s, Double Dave’s}, ZED Pizza {zpizza, MOD Pizza}, Little John’s {Little Caesar’s, Papa John’s}, Pizza Hostel {Pizza Hut, Pizza Inn}, and Pizza 21 {Blackjack Pizza, Pizza 73, Domino’s Pizza (look at the logo!)}.
Sit-down restaurants include the Olive Grove {guess}, Adobe {Qdoba—but it’s a pretty generic name}, United Pancakes {IHOP}, Down Under Steaks {Outback Steakhouse}, Chicago Pizza Kitchen {California Pizza Kitchen}, Katy Lang’s {P. F. Chang’s, by way of k.d. lang}, King-Post {Starbucks}, the Soft Rock Café (owned by the same company as Softy’s) {Hard Rock Café}, Benigara {Benihana, possibly Bennigan’s; 紅殻 “red iron oxide, rouge”}, Max & Nester’s {Dave & Buster’s; also an obscure Nintendo reference}, Orange C’s {Orange Julius, Applebee’s}, Moon Maid {Big Boy (via Dick Tracy), Hooters (indirectly, via the verb ‘moon’)}, Victory Station {Victoria Station, now largely defunct}, Route 66 {Hwy 55, Ruby Tuesday}, Rock Ridge {Roy Rogers, El Torito}, Poe’s {Joe’s, Moe’s}, the Chocolate Mint {the Cheesecake Factory}, and Lettuce Feast (a local vegetarian place) {not a reference}.
—===≡≡≡===—
“shield (It feels like the ‘e’ should come first to me)”
As they may have said in school: I before E except after C.
Just ignore Brian Regan’s bullshit; the rule works better than 99% of the time if you limit it to the “long e” sound. Exceptions do still exist, but the only *common* ones are (seize, weird, [n]either), and for some writers (species, caffeine, protein).
Turns off Taralynn’s overwatch 😉
Not a stretch at all, Taralynn. You have Robynne’s views and opinions of the party down pat. Great job! I love your dialogue too. And “the wave” at the end -perfect.
My favorite nugget of this chapter:
Robynne rolled her eyes. “Because she lives in an alternate state of perception where reality flows, not in the direction of increased entropy, but in whatever direction she feels would be more narratively amusing.”
I truly love how you bring up topics that really make people think – introvert vs extrovert, lettermen jackets, social attitudes and graces, interactions, perception, friends, enemies, way of speaking, over use of words like like. I also love reading everyone’s comments too.
On to your next entries; I am almost caught up – woot woot!
Sigh I accidentally posted this in the wrong area. Re post!