noise."Story Notes: Have It Your Way · 2:48am Jul 26th, 2021
Burger King
There’s really not much to say about this one. Kinda got the idea while I was at work, not really sure why it came to me. Probably most of y’all know who Burger King, McDonald’s, and Wendy’s are.
Interestingly, I had to ask for help on Discord for this one. I was sure I’d made fun of BK before, but couldn’t remember where, so I asked FoME specifically. “It sounds familiar, but it wasn't where I thought it would be either. Doesn't help that literally half of your catalog has the Human tag,” he said (and I had the same problem). Dunno what he thought it was in, but my guess would be “The Trouble with Unicorns,” since that’s what I thought it was in.
Hawthornbunny used his programming genius to figure out that the only story I’d mentioned BK in was Silver Glow’s Journal.
To make a long story short, I did eventually find it, and it’s actually in something that’s never been published:
Trader Joe’s wasn't the first to discover this; they’d skipped the first wave and learned from Budweiser’s questionable advertising ideas or Burger King’s disastrous attempt at penetrating the nascent market. Lessons learned were whispered in private and word got around, and Trader Joe’s had a market niche which ought to have worked in Equestria, but it mostly didn’t. A couple stores were dismal failures, a few more were keeping their heads above water, and then there was Moria’s. A shining star in a sea of failure.
Even though it doesn’t come up in the story, BK’s got their Impossible Whopper which could conceivably appeal to ponies. And they’re not as morally questionable as beef, even if it’s not locally-sourced.
And that’s it for notes! Light on facts, but hopefully the pony pictures make up for it 
That Gallus picture makes me wonder, do griffon diets lean more avian or feline? Would a catbird have any qualms whatsoever about consuming a non-sapient bird? Personally, I doubt it.
I haven't read the story yet because I was woken up early by a deliveryman and am preparing to go back to sleep, but I think I remember that like the US, the local BKs only have one, maybe two (the new "vegetarian butcher") veggie safe burgers. The local subway, on the other hand, has four vegetarian options; veggie delight (same as US), veggie deluxe (probably same as US?), veggie patty (no idea), chatapata chickpea (exclusive to South and Southeast Asia).
I'm surprised you didn't mention the number 15 -- but maybe that would've been too memey.
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Also, IRL, many birds are generally merciless towards other birds not of their species. Eagles eat hawks, hawks eat chickens, and recently seagulls are starting to learn to hunt pigeons.
For some reason I always laugh out loud whenever I read this Dinosaur Comic.
qwantz.com/comics/comic2-2078.png
Twilight Zone?
Outer Limits?
To Serve Man
It's a cook book!
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and owls hunt anything they want.
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Either way, I wouldn't expect griffons to have any qualms about eating bird meat, as long as it's not from sapient birds. *Glares in Captain Celaeno*
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Unless the similarities are close like Earth/Equestrian ponies or cows, I think most species won't have a problem with the consumption of 'lesser species' that might be taxonomically similar to them.
Griffons eat chicken, Hippogriffs eat fish, Changelings eat beetles, etc.
Heck, we got humans in real life who don't mind eating monkeys, though that's admittedly a tiny minority.
If you're fine eating a burger then you don't gotta worry about part-birds eating chicken. Birds of prey and chickens are probably farther apart taxonomically than humans are to cows.
I actually looked at Silver Glow's Journal when you asked. Found the oblique reference but nothing like what you were looking for, for reasons outlined above.
bubger kirg
have it in a way
Y'know, I never quite understood why people like making cannibalism jokes with predatory birds eating chicken.
Predatory birds eat other birds all the time.
This reminds me of when I used to feed leftover Chicken Wings to the local bird population and watch as they ate there distant cousins.
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The griffons are canonically massive jerks who live in complete squalor. I would not be surprised if outright cannibalism was common enough for Gallus to be desensitized to it, except insofar as canon would never admit such a thing explicitly.
McDonalds has always been very canny about different cultures and more than willing to adapt. I remember getting a burger patty with rice when I was a kid in Hawaii.
Burger King... well, their general cluelessness is all in the name. King? Burgher? Make up your mind!
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Which isn’t really relevant, because chicken isn’t griffin. So it wouldn’t be cannibalism at all.
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True, but a) if you don't care about eating your own species, eating a similar species isn't going to register as a problem, b) the whole joke is that Gallus literally means "rooster" and c) this was also a response to 5560268, reminding them that the griffins we know about are so aggressively terrible in every possible way that
Peter would fit right insapience isn't the issue it probably ought to be.Since you keep posting Burger King related MLP images I might as well join the train:
derpicdn.net/img/view/2019/7/3/2081795.png
Source.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/6/9/344507.png
Source.
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Bunker birb - this is the way.
There's only one Burger King take-away here in Australia, and that's on the Gold Coast in Queensland. However, we have many thousands of a restaurant we call 'Hungry Jacks' that have a similar theme as the American Burger King...
Think about that...
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I’m assuming more avian, given that the part with the mouth is bird-like.
Normally, I’d agree, but there’s various bits of canon and comic canon that suggests a lot of animals that can’t talk are smarter than they would be on Earth, and closer to sapience. I think that would be factored in to what they would and wouldn’t eat, but where the line would be drawn, I have no idea.
That also raises another question; some predator birds will scavenge when they can’t find fresh food or when it’s available; would it be immoral to snack on something that’s already dead anyway?
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I think they used to have a veggie burger (like a gardenburger) which got dropped, and now they’ve got the impossible whopper and might have some other meatless patties (you also might be able to get the ‘impossible’ patty on other burgers). I don’t know, I really have no idea what’s on their menu.
The chickpea sounds interesting. Probably the veggie patty is something like the old gardenburgers. I think Blimpie used to have something like that, too, dunno if they still do. Heck, dunno if Blimpie is even still in business.
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Someone already did it.
- MLP: FiM
- Romance
- Comedy
- Random
Twilight orders a salad at a newly opened Burger King in Ponyville, only to discover it tastes suspiciously like hooves.5560234
Not to mention that the little songbirds are absolute jerks to birds of prey.
And while we’re on the topic, donkeys will kill coyotes. (And hyenas and foxes and dingoes and mountain lions)
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That’s fantastic! I love the off-screen narrator
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It is indeed!
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Although apparently Owlowlicious is more restrained when it comes to diet (or is he?)
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Yeah, they’re probably fine with that. Heck, probably any number of Equestrians are okay with eating meat so long as it’s non-sapient by their standards (and I suppose they consider the creatures who don’t have that standard to be monsters).
It’s actual comic canon that a hydra will eat a minotaur.
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Equestrian taxonomy is probably VERY weird, and not categorized the way we’d do it. I think that some sapient creatures would see other, similar creatures as brothers and sisters (that was Silver Glow’s general view towards birds)
Of that list, I don’t see changelings comparing themselves to beetles, even if they are hard and chitinous.
That’s true, or horses or dogs or cats, the latter two of which are generally taboo for Westerners.
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Taxonomically, sure, at least by how we classify it, but by kinship it’s easier to see a relationship between two birds than between a human and a cow.
To be honest, how Equestrian taxonomy would even work is a mystery, especially since any number of creatures violate human rules of biology.
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I wasn’t thinking SGJ, I was thinking it would have been in one of the ‘Trouble with Unicorns’ stories or something tangentially-related, but it wasn’t where I thought it would be.
Kinda weird to not remember everything I’ve written for FimFic.
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And to think, they could have had Weedy’s Old Fashioned Hurgusburgus instead. Silly minotaurs.
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At least it’s not as directly horrifying as a hamster eating her own children.
Which gives me an idea for a story I should never, ever write.
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I assume it’s ‘cause birds of a feather ought to flock together or something like that. Some sort of feathery kinship in Equestria, or at least professional courtesy.
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That would be a twist. “Yeah, last Hearth’s Warming we didn’t have any food so we ate Grandpa.”
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Reminds me of the man-eating giants of Harfang, from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair.
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Yeah, as any multinational (or multi-dimensional) company ought to be. I feel like they’d be the ones to take their time, do their research, and have a good product launch rather than a marketing disaster.
I kinda postulated the same with Disney World, basically falling all over themselves to make sure that ponies also had a good time.
Plus, let’s be honest, the King is kinda creepy, too. He doesn’t look like someone you could trust.
Then again, I suppose Ronald McDonald isn’t exactly oozing credibility, either.
Mayor McCheese, though, that’s a guy you can get behind.
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That Chrysalis pic is adorable
Also, I suppose some ponies would be named after human brands and some of them might get themed cutie marks, which to take it in a darker direction could lead to some interesting lawsuits.
“That’s our trademark.”
“That’s my cutie mark.”
EDIT: related from an upcoming fic: “’Cessna, yes, that’s right. No . . . not, I’m not pulling your tail. . . . Do I identify as a Cessna? No, I identify as a mareplane. Cessna’s my name.’ A pause, then the distinct sound of a handset being slammed into the cradle. ‘Crackers, what a bunch of—’ she paused. ‘Is somepony here?’
Now was as good a time to introduce myself as any. I was still trying to work my way around what I’d overheard as I went down the short hallway, and seated at a desk which looked like it’d seen hard service in Vietnam was a pegasus.
‘I, uh, saw your ad.’
‘Right.’ She shifted in her seat. ‘You another one of those lawyers who wants to tell me I’ve got the wrong name?’”
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The story I heard was when BK wanted to come to Oz, there was already a Burger King there, so they had to use a different name.
Same thing happened in Lansing, there was a Papa John’s pizza before the franchise arrived, so they were called something else in Lansing (I honestly can’t remember what, though).
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Dinosaur Comics is great!
Alt text: "we cut up thousands of fish and pressed their remains into squares and we will sell you that here at burger king"
rss-title: burger king is where you can eat bread crumbs with a piece of meat inside
rss-title: at burger king we may consent to making a meat sandwich without ketchup on it
Also, some people may not realize Asterion was the name of the original minotaur in greek mythology.
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I was tossing popcorn chicken and watching the chickadee's fighting for them while waiting for a ride once before it dawned on me.
Thank you, as usual, for writing. :)
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Well, it wasn't quite that simple. The original Burger King on the Gold Coast had been there, as a family business, for nearly a decade, before BK-US tried to muscle their way in. They sued BK-AUS for the trademark, but the Australian courts sided with the locals and banned BK-US from using the name in Australia while ever BK-AUS is in operation. They've also tried other tactics, but so far have failed to close BK-AUS, and the latest generation of the family seem set on carrying on operating. So BK-US came up with the alternate trademark of Hungry Jacks, and honestly, I don't see that they've suffered from having to do so.
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Funny you should mention that, I picked it off a list of fictional minotaurs and it credited Asterion to the “Troy Game Series.”
Seemed like a good name for a minotaur king, and I guess I picked well.
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Chickens can barely fly, so maybe that doesn’t count in the bird pecking order. Or maybe it’s because they’re all descended from dinosaurs.
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I’m not sure I understand, and I’m not sure if I want to.
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You’re welcome!
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It’s just amusing because typically in US law, the big guy would win the trademark battle and the little guy would be the one who had to change the name (if the big company is being nice, they’ll offer money to get it done; if not, they’ll just sue). I always like it when the little guy comes out on top.