page 1270 – you said the magic word
Be careful when you serve that plate, Marshall. Layla just might bite your hand off.
Also, unlike a lit of the silly food we’ve seen so far, I feel like there’s probably gotta be some fancy, pretentious establishment somewhere that actually DOES serve snake meat presented as an ouroboros. Presumably not fired whole, but still.
Anyway, I’m really hoping to have at least one more batch of old TWC Voting Incentives re-posted over the course of this week, so keep an eye out for that. Convention season starts heating up this month, which mean I’ll probably have less and less time to do site stuff over the summer, so I’m gonna try to get as much extra things taken care up while I can. Same goes for Patreon stuff, too.
5/8 EDIT: First off, a new TWC Voting Incentive DID go up for Friday, I just forgot to say anything about it. Whoops, sorry. Second, there is a VERY real chance that page 1271 won’t be up until late Tuesday, if not Wednesday. Aside from coming down with a chronic case of Trying To Do Seven Different Things At Once, this has also turned out to be one of those cases where I wound up taking the original comic idea in a totally different direction, and in the process become much further behind schedule than anticipated (starting over will do that). As I write this, the comic art IS finished and scanned into the computer, but editing is nowhere near done and I’m fading fast. There’s probably gonna be an involuntary nap hitting me well before this comic is in a post-able state. SORRY!
“Cowasaurus”? Now I’m curious whether that’s an otherwise-normal cow somehow made to grow to dinosaur size or a cow crossed with some sort of dinosaur.
That’s an excellent question, which I must confess I haven’t decided yet. (I’ve kind of focused more on when they’re already in their “steak” form)
This?
https://animals.howstuffworks.com/dinosaurs/nigersaurus.htm
OK, not really – since we’ve established that time travel does not exist (sorry, Mooney) and notwithstanding hollywood nonsense, dino dna degraded entirely many many millions of years ago (even longer ago in FOT time) so no amount of future mad magic is going to bring it back – clearly the cowasaurus is nothing but Marketing Hype: they took a cow, spliced in some random reptile genes to make it look like the pop-culture image of Dinos (Feathers? what feathers??) and marketed it as “Cowasaurus” meat because that would sell 1000x better than “Cowsnake” or “Cowlizard” – who wouldn’t want to eat a dinosaur, right?!
In an ironic twist of fate, their marketing ploy unintentionally produced a remarkably delicious animal, so, of course, they did what any reasonable Marketers would do, they increased the price by another 10x and now it’s the FOT equivalent of Wagyu Beef. Layla probably had it every day when she was Rich, but it’s not likely available in the Cap’n’s vending machine junk food selection, so she’s extra excited now.
Maybe they can’t get dna from fossil dinosaurs, but who says FOT mad geneticists can’t re-create dinosaur genomes by modifying the DNA of the dinosaurs’ descendants?
Oh, I’m certain they can – if they can create a Xal-Gox, creating a fakeosaur should be child’s play. In fact, I’m 100% sure real-life genetics will eventually be able to that at some point. But that ain’t a real Dino! It will likely look like a Hollywood “dinosaur” (because people expect it!), it won’t act like a real one (because we have no idea how they acted), and it’s natural habitat will be “tacky theme parks” (because $$$$)…and nobody will get eaten in the theme parks as they will be genetically designed to be terrified of humans (because liability lawyers). Now that I think of it, FOT is probably the scifi franchise closest to our real future of any I’ve seen…..
That last part is the most tragic and terrifying statement I’ve ever read
I think this pretty much sums it up, especially that last part about people:
The future in a nutshell
Just think, you’ll be remembered as the 21st Century’s greatest Futurist! 😉
Also: fried Ouroborous =
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_girdled_lizard
Again, of course “Ouroborous” sounds like a far fancier dish than “Fried lizard” – this kind of food is 99% presentation and 1% actual food quality.
Ecstaccine, on the other hand, sounds like something that can only be served in deep space outside of any planetary system’s legal jurisdiction.
Honestly, I suspect that Ecstaccine is just a Vegetarian Pasta Dish (and the only reason I’m saying Pasta is due to the Ecstaccine being in the shot and looking a little like Pasta. Otherwise I would just have assumed that it was a specific type of Salad, or other type of pure vegetarian/vegan dish).
The reason I’m assuming that it’s called Ecstaccine is pure marketing. It’s marketed as a “delicious vegan/vegetarian dish, suitable to replace any meal”, with the implication that it could be a full-diet replacement. It can’t… for periods longer than a month or two, but it’s effective for celebrity diets and surprisingly tasty, so it has some level of lingering market appeal.
If it’s that, it’s probably something invented recently by some super trendy chef at some super famous restaurant, and not really better or for that matter even distiguishable from any ordinary pasta dish by anything other than the name – generally the more overhyped the name the more underwhelming the item – it’s included in todays course because, being trendy, all “professional” chefs feel obligated to include it until it goes out of style in a few months.
What I was thinking, though, it that it looks like either some sort of kelplike substance, or possible small squid tentacles from a creature that, due to a special chemical, tastes unbelievably good for 1/10th of a second, but with a super strong bitter aftertaste, making it less popular than it would otherwise be and just an overpriced novelty item for foodies, except for the .0001% of the population that genetically can’t taste the bitterness element and eats themselves to death, that being why it’s banned in most jurisdictions.
Meanwhile, I’m just sitting here, reading all this brilliant speculation about a world that was literally created from browsing a thesaurus and looking for two words that sounded funny mashed together.
Ya’ll are way better at this than me.
Of course. You come up with a throw-away line without thinking about it because you’re making dozens of them for each potential page. Particularly if you include the pages that don’t get made and the pages that turn into three pages for art & pacing reasons.
On the other hand, we just need to find something that catches our fancy that you presented to us, and suggest what came to mind from that. A throw-away line about Avatar crawling through some energy (or other substance, I’m not bothering to go back and check at the moment) that stinks becomes an idea that it’s a purposeful safety precaution for when there’s an energy leak.
And that’s not even getting into the fact that you would need to find a way to work it into the story cleanly, which is much more difficult than just giving suggestions without having to place it into context.
Basically, you’re creative “juices” are spent ensuring that the comic is being run smoothly, while we get the freedom to apply them to making up random trivia about minor details that are unlikely to ever be brought up in the comic proper, due to the difficulty/unreasonableness of doing so.
plus if he went into this much detail we’d only get one strip a month! I still miss the good ol’ days of 3-per-week strips! 🙁
Well, Ed8, in relation to your second suggestion, if you’re suggesting that, I’ll have to invert it. The primary ingredient does have a hidden taste, but only 0.001% of humans can taste it, and it’s otherwise completely flavourless. And of those 0.001%, whether or not it’s found “tasty” is up to personal opinion. Which results in about 65% of those who can taste it not liking it.
However, the primary ingredient is popular in certain cooking styles due to the fact that it’s near absolute lack-of-flavour makes the flavours of what it’s mixed with be more prominent. Nobody, with the unlikely exception of that 0.001% of people, eats the primary ingredient alone. In dishes like Ecstaccine, where it’s the primary ingredient, it’s there to make the sauce taste INCREDIBLE. In dishes where it’s a supporting ingredient, it’s utilised more like a seasoning or stuffing than a proper ingredient, allowing the dish itself get the benefit.
The issue with utilising that primary ingredient, though, is that it is an amplifier. It takes good cooking and makes it amazing. So if you have bad cooking, it makes it horrific. So it’s only really used in professional kitchens.
Here’s hoping it replies to the comment I want it to, instead of Blitz’s again.
Ah, ok, so in that case, where almost nobody can actually taste it, the explanation of why it’s so popular is because quadrillions of self-proclaimed “foodie” snobs across the galaxy claim they can taste it in the mistaken belief that it makes them superior/special/better than everyone else or gives them some sort of foodie cred, and are willing to vastly overpay for it as “proof” that they really can taste it (because otherwise why would they pay 100x its normal cost if they couldn’t) Probably more than half the food served in restaurants that claims to have the ingredient doesn’t really, but people rave about how great it tastes anyway! Naturally, space-foodies will invite each other over for dinner to try to out each other as false-tasters, so they all carry expensive detection devices to detect the chemical, so as to know when to pretend to taste it.
And then, of course, at the other end of the spectrum is Ichabod, who subsists on a diet mostly of apples
I considered that angle, and discarded it as an option due to Marshall making it for a tasty shared meal. If the primary ingredient didn’t give SOME advantage to the taste, then it wouldn’t be something he bothered to use. Which is why I went the “It has absolutely no taste, to the point where the flavour of everything it’s with is amplified” alternative.
I would also point out that, if this option is run with, then for the vast majority of dishes that utilise the ingredient, the ingredient’s own flavour would clash with the flavour of what it’s paired with. The 65% not liking the flavour of it is based on tasting the ingredient on it’s own. 98% of dishes made with it tastes ABSOLUTELY FOUL if you can actually taste the ingredient, instead of getting the non-flavour amplification effect.
With Ecstaccine being one of the 2% of exceptions, because whoever came up with the dish was one of the 0.001% of people who can taste it, as is Marshall. Whether Marshall has gained super Taste as a birthday gift from his parents after picking up cooking is an option is up to Blitz.
Yeah, I suspect most distant future folks have had their taste buds genetically tweaked so often that nobody really knows what anything originally tasted like to begin with, so surely professional cooks get theirs adjusted to be able to taste nearly anything their clients would be able to.
Personally, I’d just get the adjustment that makes broccoli and kale taste like burgers and pizza, that’s pretty much all I need, never had much interest in “Fancy” food to begin with.
The problem with “everybody’s had their tastebuds tweaked so often that nobody knows what anything origionally tastes like” is on page 27. Mucking with the human genome, which is what would be the most effective and transferable way to adjust taste, is dangerous, has a whole set of icky side effects, and gives no tangible benefit. As such, it’s used purely as a personal fashion statement.
https://faroutthere.com/comic/page-27-that-tingling-sensation-youre-experiencing-is-culture-shock/
So it’s unlikely that anyone who isn’t regularly using their tongue or nose for work purposes, or who live in an environment where it’s practically necessary for, or a side effect of, long-term habitation, has messed with their sense of taste. Making your skin violet while colouring your hair indigo is an easier and probably safer fashion statement. If you want to go more extreme, you mess with your eyes, give yourself scales or something else along those lines. You know, something BIG and FLASHY. You only end up messing with your sense of taste if you give yourself a long tongue or something.
Speaking of prolific reader commentary…I’ve often wondered why the heck this strip doesn’t have more commenters? I mean, #2 strip on the entire planet Earth, according to TWC, which is the absolute authority on such things. So I’d think there’s got to be a fair number of readers. If you look through the other highly ranked strips they’ve got huge commenting communities it seems. We’ve got me and Darius, and occasionally Mauvecloud. Seros will poke his head up once in a blue moon, but mostly MIA. There used to be Stonefoot and Reynard, and there were a few others occasionally, but haven’t seen them in a while. But even if you count all those, tiny compared to most of these commenting communities. So why is that? Can’t really figure it out.
I think dedicated comment sections in general are kind of out of fashion across The Internet in general. It seems like anyplace outside of YouTube, most fanbases prefer to congregate on social media hubs… which for obvious reasons I have REALLY not attempted to cultivate.
That, and Far Out There has a major strike against it for having been on SmackJeeves for so long. I think any time anything changes platforms, a lot of community interaction gets lost simply from people not making the jump. Comics that put on their big boy pants and got their own hosting early on will definitely have an advantage in that department.
Yeah, there could be some huge discussion going on somewhere else and I’d never know about it – I’m waaaay too lazy to have to go to a 2nd web site just to talk about the first web site, I need my commenting opportunity to be on the same page as what I’m commenting on, dangit!
On the other hand, if a dedicated comments section isn’t retro enough for you, there’s always THE FORUM.
Looks like Seros was the last commenter there in 2019..hope he remembered to turn off the lights when he left! 😉
My mind kind of boggles over the fact that the comic’s old forum has essentially outlived the comic’s old host (Well, one of them. The Duck is still around)
Just noticed, of all the pages with tiny joke signs too small for us to read that were normal file size….this one that has no tiny details at all you loaded the GINORMOUS original file (I assume by accident) 😀
(Not that I’m complaining, because it does look super awesomely sharp in ultra-resolution! You should do all of them this way! 2024 internet supposedly has plenty of bandwidth to spare!)
Holy Crap, I had no idea the full-sized file got loaded this time! How did that even happen?