1. [Video] Much Ranting to Be Had

[mostremaining]

[Gilbert is at the terminal again, a nutrition bar in his hand. A stack of them can be seen in front of him. He begins to practically shout into the screen, gesticulating angrily.]

Hey, everybody! Gilbert here, and I am PISSED! We've got these stupid bars again! And the restaurant is CLOSED! Definitely, surely, one-hundred-per-cent CLOSED! I checked around the area, in the area, around the area some more, and NOTHING! Maybe we should FORCE the restaurant open somehow! Like, I don't know, we could get in there somehow and maybe raid their ingredients... they've got to still have ingredients.

[An incredibly huffy sigh.] I have to eat bunches of these things before I feel full... [He reluctantly takes a giant bite out of the nutrition bar in his hand.] I've had a nutrition bar month before, but I'd still like to ask you guys: how do YOU survive the Nutrition Bar Lifestyle?

Comments

[video]

[spearsurfing]

Eve does not understand your complaint. The nutrition bars have all the nutrients and supplements that humans require, correct? If that is the case, survival should be made easier, not more difficult.

[what is taste, sure sounds nice]

[video]

[mostremaining]

The problem is that they taste like crap and they don't fill me up. [Nothing fills you up, Gilbert.] Sure, it might make survival easier, but it doesn't make it nice.

[video]

[spearsurfing]

Is taste that much of an issue? Eve has heard this complaint before, but she still does not understand... Does an unpleasant taste make food difficult to consume? How would one replicate a "good" taste?

[video]

[mostremaining]

Yeah, a yucky taste definitely makes food difficult to eat. I mean... I've been able to choke down nasty stuff before, but sometimes your body just gags and you can't even swallow it, you know?

As for a good taste... that depends on the food. It can be the right mixture of ingredients, or something tasty added to it... that's a tough question.

[wegotlucky]

It wouldn't be so bad if we had some juice to go with it. But it had to be water only.

I could really go for a lemonade.

[Video]

[mostremaining]

Oh, man! Why did you have to mention lemonade?! Now I'M craving lemonade! Thanks a lot!

[Video]

[wegotlucky]

Just... imagine how nice it will be to get real food again!

Or we could go hunting. Though I guess that wouldn't help with just water.

[Video]

[mostremaining]

No! Don't even go there with me! I don't need my stomach to growl any more than it already is! [He takes another huge bite out of his nutrition bar.]

Everyone suggests hunting, but actually doing it... hmm. It's been ages since I actually hunted. Probably literally ages.

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[plumesofdusk]

I don't eat.

[ If it's a month where there's nothing worth eating, then... it's a month where he won't eat. ]

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[mostremaining]

...Seriously? Do you just starve to death and then let the higher-ups revive you repeatedly or something?

[Maybe he's taking that a little literally.]

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[plumesofdusk]

No. I don't need to eat unless I want to.

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[unkindnessof]

they're not that unpalatable. [He has both had worse, and had to live on the blandest of soldiers' rations, so yeah. . .]

some days previous, there was a post listing various areas one could hunt for or otherwise gather food at. i'm supposing that's what most do.

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[mostremaining]

Yeah, yeah. They're just barely tolerable. [He's had a similar situation with eating worse food and having soldier's rations, but he's still a serious glutton who likes his food tasty.]

I'll have to look for that post, then. And maybe find a hunting buddy. I haven't hunted in... I don't know, more than decades?

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[unkindnessof]

tolerable all the same, at least. [That's probably where they differ then, because his sense of taste could really only be described as 'functional,' at best. Far too practical for his own good, really.]

haven't been around enough to verify everything in it yet, but most of its contents seemed accurate enough. should be roughly a week ago if you look back, by my count.

decades? spirit of some sort, then?

video;

[proteusmoon]

[ Ahhh... Yes. Yes, he does seem rather angry. She's not sure how to calm him down. ]

I've never had one before. We did not... bake? We did not bake such food on my world.

[ Actually, do you bake a nutrition bar? How does one make nutrition bars? They taste a little like really unusual bread to her. And plain and dry. ]

video;

[mostremaining]

Well, now that you've had them, what do you think? They're super-bland, aren't they? Dammit, I wish the restaurant was open so I could introduce you to some real tasty stuff.

video;

[proteusmoon]

[ Cecil makes a face. ]

I dislike them as much as you do.

[ But onto more pressing matters! ]

I didn't know there was a restaurant here.

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[ghostytrainer]

i just kinda...deal with it i guess. sometimes i look for mushrooms and berries on the forest floor.
they make it slightly more tolerable, provided i can find some that aren't poisonous.
anyway, yeah. nutrition bar month blows chunks, but it could be worse.
could be nothing but cake for a month.

oh wait. nvm, i take that back.
i forgot they took it one step further this month and made nutrition bar cake.

[It's like they're TRYING to make his life miserable. Oh wait...]

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[mostremaining]

Mushrooms and berries... I ought to look for those. And hopefully not eat the wrong one and die.

Wait, cake for a month? That sounds better than nutrition bars to me!

Yeah, what IS the deal with the nutrition bar cake? It barely counts as a cake. Weird.

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[ghostytrainer]

maybe there's a book in the library that could help you with that. my ghosts poison test them for me so i've never really looked for anything like that, myself.
no, trust me on this one: you don't want cake for a month. nobody wants that.
i think you underestimate just how much cake that is and how quickly you get sick of the stuff.
it may sound awesome, but it is actually terrible.

[John is probably the only person in the collective multiverse who would be upset at the prospect of cake month. But he has seen things. And eaten things.]

i am not really sure.
it's kinda funny though. last time we had nutrition bar month, one of my friends tried to make a cake out of the stuff for our friends' joint birthday party.
it...didn't work because he has no fucking clue how to bake.
but yeah, i couldn't help but find that a little humorous and...admittedly, a little weird.

Video

[ladygreensleeves]

A raid? I doubt you'd get very far.

[Part of her almost wants to try it, regardless. England doesn't really mind the nutrition bars that much, though they are becoming duller day by day. It's the water she's frustrated with. Or rather, the lack of teabags that go with the water.]

Video

[mostremaining]

Really? What makes you say that?

[He's just curious to hear what she has to say, really.]

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[warriorscribe]

I simply eat them. I hunt or find edible plants when I grow tired of them.

It's strange. I thought that the restaurant was deliberately set up by Jason to toy with us, but the lack of it this month only proves that Dax must have been asking him to give us more normal food.

*In text, nobody can tell when your hands are shaking.*

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[mostremaining]

What plants do you find? And can you take me hunting next time? I need to get back into practice, clearly.

Why would Jason set up a restaurant? That would probably interfere with his plans, somehow. Like... maybe the nutrition bars are there to give us JUST the right amount of nutrition so that wouldn't be a variable in his experiments? Eating from the restaurant would screw that up.

Re: text

[warriorscribe]

Whatever I recognize that others haven't already taken. My only reliable mundane weapon has rusted, however, so I will have to find or make a new one before I hunt again.

Did you not notice before that the restaurant - the twenty first level - was open in his previous months, and now it is not?