Comic for Wednesday, Dec 27, 2023

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Comic for Wednesday, Dec 27, 2023

I am torn between, "Aw, Dan, give yourself a break" and "Yeay! New comic!"

Mysterious Hope is way too savvy about this card game. How does she know she needs that stuff? Do they have Internet in the Immortal realm? Why did she pick the cards she picked (that we have not seen, yet)? And why is she so painfully shy?

Justin is spot on a bored clerk who has had too little to do for the past hour. And he's good at customer service. I suppose flaming customers in the back room might change his priorities.

I am curious about how Hope plans to fun this purchase. Is she going to poof essentially counterfeit currency into existence? It would be more legitimate if she paid by magically extracting existing natural resources like gold or silver from the ground and formed them into bullion. It would be bad if she paid with iron and nickel and has an asteroid crash. (I hate when that happens. I would put up a 'No asteroids' sign in my shop.)

[Amiable Dorsai 70]

Wondering about this too. Has she got a cache of gold and silver somewhere? Does she plan to become invisible and just leave? Does she even grok the concept of money?

[Darth Fluffy 302]

57 minutes ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

Wondering about this too. Has she got a cache of gold and silver somewhere? Does she plan to become invisible and just leave? Does she even grok the concept of money?

'Grok' is probably too strong a word. (Honestly, people who grok money are not generally likable. People who are aware that there are other aspects to being human, and money is a means to an end, tend to be in a healthier place, A Christmas Carol being a readily available illustration.) ((The analogous concept of 'money-brother' to 'water-brother' seems gnarly, not the least of which reason being some folks function like that in real life, to the detriment of many; entitled, class-centric, exclusive. I'm not a fan.))

So far, there is not a clear indication of her level of understanding. She seems to have an awareness of value, but that may be feigned. She might be out of touch with fair prices and have no idea if Justin is offering a fair deal or not if money comes too easily (like a little kid who is handed money.)

 

[ijuin 572]

“As much as some new video games” sounds like fifty bucks or so. Definitely a big expenditure for anyone who is too young to have a job. How old would you say Hope looks like at this point? Fourteen?

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

 

Justin, you don't want to be a modern k-nig-ht.  A lot of social and financial obligations with no compensation.  Then the only thing the royals give you is a medal and a set of initials to tack on the end of your name.

 . . . . .

Counterfeiting is a potential problem that could make mortal governments actively oppose Immortals.  

While a single Immortal can easily deal with a small group of mortals, if every cop and soldier arround the world knew who they were facing & how to deal with them, Immortals would be reluctant to enter the mortal plane.

Mx guess is that Pandora established some sort of hoarde, stash or account to which Hope still has access.

 

[Amiable Dorsai 70]

I'm slow today--Hope's list in the third panel is in her 'notes from a previous life' voice (yeah, okay, font). This is a memorized list, not one she's actually reading off the sheet she's holding. Whatever she's doing, it was set in motion by Pandora. Who probably was savvy enough to make sure her new self had some sort of cache of cash.

[mlooney 3,417]

Given that Pandora knew she was going to reset soon, I'm fairly sure she put away some cash.

[ijuin 572]

And given that Pandora was able to predict events so accurately, such as timing a week-long nap to an accuracy of 53 seconds , she could probably have made a killing on the stock market over the last few years, negating any need to get money illegitimately. Buy ten thousand Bitcoins back when they were a few cents each? Those are now worth over a hundred million dollars.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

22 hours ago, ijuin said:

“As much as some new video games” sounds like fifty bucks or so. Definitely a big expenditure for anyone who is too young to have a job. How old would you say Hope looks like at this point? Fourteen?

Sixty to seventy USD would be typical for a big name release for the PC; fifty is a nice round figure in the ballpark. I read this as 'under $100 or not much over', allowing for some padding.

I thought Hope looked mid-high school teen, around 16-ish, but small stature. I wondered if stature was not passed on, because Pandora appeared taller, but recall, she was sometimes a very short young looking girl. In any case, the appearance age does not seem to correlate to the time since reboot. Zeus appeared to be in his twenties. I wonder if it reflects an emotional state, something like self perceived maturity?

 

20 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Counterfeiting is a potential problem that could make mortal governments actively oppose Immortals.  

I had this same thought. Counterfeiting be stepping across a line that would be opposed however possible.

 

20 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

My guess is that Pandora established some sort of hoard, stash or account to which Hope still has access.

&

14 hours ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

I'm slow today--Hope's list in the third panel is in her 'notes from a previous life' voice (yeah, okay, font). This is a memorized list, not one she's actually reading off the sheet she's holding. Whatever she's doing, it was set in motion by Pandora. Who probably was savvy enough to make sure her new self had some sort of cache of cash.

&

11 hours ago, mlooney said:

Given that Pandora knew she was going to reset soon, I'm fairly sure she put away some cash.

 

Why would Pandora have had a stash of human cash or valuables? Why would she have cared? What need would she have for wealth? Are you thinking this is something all immortals would do prior to rebooting?

It seems clear that Hope has an agenda, but not what it is, nor if it is her own thing or directed by Pandora.

 

14 hours ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

I'm slow today--Hope's list in the third panel is in her 'notes from a previous life' voice (yeah, okay, font). This is a memorized list, not one she's actually reading off the sheet she's holding. Whatever she's doing, it was set in motion by Pandora. Who probably was savvy enough to make sure her new self had some sort of cache of cash.

The notes from the past suggests this is Pandora's idea. That makes sense, that Pandora would have had an opinion, vs Hope seems clueless. But why a card game?

 

 

[AFNB 39]

As a 38 year old male who still likes pointy ears, and has a 36 year old female friend who feels the same, I fail to see how that makes a worthy judgement that she's "a kid with a generous allowance."

[ijuin 572]

Her choice of words and choice of cards scream “I am not buying these for power-gaming”, which lends credence to the hypothesis that she is buying then on a whim as opposed to saving up more than a month’s spending money for them.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

On 12/29/2023 at 9:08 AM, AFNB said:

As a 38 year old male who still likes pointy ears, and has a 36 year old female friend who feels the same, I fail to see how that makes a worthy judgement that she's "a kid with a generous allowance."

She looks young. I don't think Justin is judging her liking pointy ears.

On a re-read, I think you're right.

Edited December 30, 2023 by Darth Fluffy
CHanged mind.

[ChronosCat 155]

On 12/28/2023 at 9:55 AM, Darth Fluffy said:

Sixty to seventy USD would be typical for a big name release for the PC; fifty is a nice round figure in the ballpark. I read this as 'under $100 or not much over', allowing for some padding.

Same thing for big name releases on the Switch (and many not-so-big name releases).

[ijuin 572]

On the next page, the stack of twenties that Hope hands to Justin looks to be four or five bills, and her change comes to $7.83, so a total of about $65 or $85 plus sales tax seems right.