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cheri-translates · 4 years

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[CN] Victor’s Delicacy Date (Eng Translation)

🍒Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for a date which has not been released in English servers!🍒

Note: This is a cancelled date which will unlikely come to EN :’(

More from this Collection: Gavin // Kiro // Lucien

The date begins with MC sitting in for a negotiation meeting between Loveland Financial Group (“LFG”) and Yuan Shan Company

The negotiation has been dragging on for 2 hours because both sides cannot agree on a price

Victor has been silent and no one knows what’s going through his mind

When he finally speaks, MC is startled because she has never seen Victor in full-blown work mode before

Lots of business jargon follow. Victor is basically really badass and shows he has done detailed research on Yuan Shan Company and knows that it’s not worth the money they are asking for:

Victor: You think LFG needs to rely on the little credit standing Yuan Shan has? Or do you think you’re in a position to discuss terms with me?

Victor: An LFG without Yuan Shan will still be LFG. Without LFG, what would Yuan Shan become?

Victor: I don’t plan to rescue a company that has decided to “commit suicide”.

Victor gives the representative of Yuan Shan Company another chance to re-consider, then leaves the room.

While MC is out for a breather, she overhears employees from Yuan Shan gossiping about Victor:

Yuan Shan Employee A: I heard early on that Victor is no-nonsense at work, but I never thought he’d be so…

Yuan Shan Employee B: He’s so domineering and arrogant, though you can’t deny he’s cool.

Yuan Shan Employee C: Sure, he’s cool, but if you were to live with him, the stress would be akin to shouldering an entire mountain.

Yuan Shan Employee A: What do you mean?

Yuan Shan Employee C: He’s basically an ice sculpture. I felt like I was going to suffocate in the meeting room… tch. His words are vicious! He’s so harsh! He clearly wants to swallow us up whole.

This lady… She actually gets it…

Yuan Shan Employee C: Also, I heard that last month, he fired an elderly worker who had been working here for five years because of some trivial reason.

MC: !?

Yuan Shan Employee A: Is that true? Don’t spread false rumours!

Yuan Shan Employee C: I already said I heard it from someone. Though… seeing him today, I wouldn’t rule it out as a possibility.

Yuan Shan Employee B: Just think about it. If he isn’t hard-hearted, how could LFG grow into what it is today in just 8 years? I also heard…

Their voices trail off, and I’m unable to hear what the employees say after this.

I originally saw Victor as just being plain overbearing, but I never thought…

MC starts getting flooded with memories of how Victor points out minor issues in her reports, his red-inked comments haunting her.

In the midst of her trembling, she sees Victor coming her way.

I panic and shift backwards, almost tripping because of my shaky feet. Victor quickly reaches out and steadies me.

At this moment, his black eyes, which look as deep as the sea, betray no hint of emotion. His frown, however, carries slight reproach.

Feeling shocked, I tear myself from his grip and jump to the side.

MC: S-sorry!

Before Victor says anything, he can only watch the girl’s retreating form as she hurriedly runs away.

Goldman: CEO, do you think MC is a little weird today, like she’s gotten possessed…

Victor doesn’t respond, only watching as MC grows smaller and smaller into the distance. He looks to be deep in thought.

MC continues to feel anxious as the afternoon goes on.

MC: Don’t think about it! Don’t think about it!

Victor: Don’t think about what?

Turning my head, I see a cold-faced Victor standing behind me.

MC: …!

Caught off guard, I am once again shocked out of my senses. With a ‘clang’, my lunch box falls to the ground.

Victor looks at the sight on the floor and frowns.

Victor: Why are you afraid?

MC: …Nothing…

I hurriedly squat to clean up the mess, but he reaches out to pull me up.

Victor: Come to the office with me.

MC: W-what do you want?

Victor doesn’t turn around, leaving me with the sight of his back.

Victor: There’s some wrong data in your report.

The curtains in the office are drawn and sunlight pours in through the window. The air is warm, but the only thing I feel is coldness.

The only sound in the room is the rustling of paper as Victor flips through the documents.

I stand in front of his office desk, like a child who has been punished.

After an inordinate amount of time, Victor finally speaks.

Victor: Do you have any questions for me?

I nod my head mindlessly, and then hurriedly shake my head.

In my heart, I mutter, “Weren’t you the one who came asking me about the wrong data…”

Victor: None? Very good. But I have a question for you.

Victor folds his arms on the desk and looks at me.

Victor: You’ve been avoiding me today?

MC: N-no I have not!

Victor: How so?

MC: …

I have nothing to say in response, and lack the guts to look at Victor. I stare at my toes.

I hear the sound of him getting up and his footsteps coming towards me. I feel his breath on my skin. I instinctively shift backwards, but he holds on to my waist to stop me.

I hear his voice from the top of my head.

Victor: Am I very scary?

I’m frozen to the spot, unable to answer.

The palm of his hand is slightly warm. The heat seeps through my clothes and onto my skin. I have nowhere to escape.

Victor: You look as if…

Victor pauses and lets out a sigh.

Victor: I let you sit in during the negotiation for you to learn. Not to let your wild imagination be used for things that serve no purpose. Ask me directly if you have any questions, instead of troubling your own IQ.

MC: …

Victor and his usual snarky comments.

I lift my head to look at Victor. His eyes lack the same coldness they had during the negotiation, but they carry an unreadable emotion.

This person… is he trying to explain himself because he can sense that I am avoiding him…

Victor: Do you still have any questions for me?

MC: …Yes, I have one question.

Victor: Speak your mind.

MC: …I heard that an elderly worker made a tiny mistake, one that could be ignored, but you fired him?

Victor: You’re very free today. You even have time to listen to gossip.

I duck my head slightly in embarrassment. Victor sees this and laughs in a low voice. I feel his grip on my waist tighten.

Victor: What else?

I shake my head.

Victor: Listen well. I don’t have the time to bother myself with trivial mistakes. Furthermore, firing someone requires legitimate and reasonable justifications.

I feel Victor releasing another sigh. After pondering for a moment, he continues.

Victor: As for the negotiation earlier… that’s a necessary technique.

He really looks like… he’s explaining himself to me.

Right now, Victor may not be gentle, but he doesn’t come across as aggressive.

Victor: Are you still scared?

With my face beet red, I shake my head again. Satisfied, Victor retracts his hand.

Victor: All right. Make a reservation at a restaurant then.

MC: Huh?

Why does he suddenly want to make a reservation? I haven’t even corrected the data yet…

Victor, as though reading my thoughts, continues.

Victor: Even though your data is strange, it doesn’t stump me.

MC: …

Victor: Don’t forget the restaurant.

MC: How about Souvenir?

Victor casts me a glance.

Victor: I’m very busy today.

I nod my head vigorously. He spent the entire morning on the negotiation, and having to cook at night… Even King Kong would be tired to the point of paralysis.

MC: I didn’t ask what kind of restaurant Victor wanted, or who he was going with…

MC leaves the office and looks for a restaurant on her phone. She finally decides on one and notifies Victor, who doesn’t reply. After a successful negotiation with Yuan Shan, he calls out to her:

Victor: Let’s go for dinner.

He says this naturally, but I don’t know how to react.

MC: …Don’t you have plans tonight?

Victor: You picked the restaurant yourself, so I should like it.

The restaurant is in a rather inconvenient location, so they have to walk quite a distance to reach it. MC is wearing an uncomfortable pair of stilettos. He notices that her expression is off.

Victor looks at my stilettos, takes my hand in his, and slows down his pace.

Victor: Idiot.

The temperature of his hand flows into other parts of my body. Although only a mere second passed, both my cheeks are already flushed. I unconsciously wiggle my fingers but his hand simply grips even more tightly instead.

Victor: Such thin high heels, are you trying to sprain your ankle?

MC: Of course not!

Victor: Then be obedient.

He doesn’t continue, leading me to the restaurant slowly.

MC: Victor, why did you suddenly invite me to dinner? I thought you were going to eat with some important guest, so I specially picked this…

…exorbitantly priced restaurant with a meal that will take hours to complete…

Victor: What, do you want to go somewhere else?

MC: …No need!

They proceed to have an evening of fine dining.

Victor: I didn’t expect that you’d be competent at picking out a restaurant.

MC: What do you mean by “didn’t expect”? It’s just picking a restaurant. My work is so much better than this…

The corners of Victor’s lips waver, but he doesn’t speak.

Under the warm yellow lights, I suddenly feel that the Victor in front of me and the Victor earlier in the day are two completely different people.

I ponder for a moment and decide to ask a question.

MC: Are the reports I give you really that bad? Is that why…

Victor continues ladling his soup, lifting his eyes towards me.

Victor: When I pick out mistakes, it means you have space for improvement.

Even though his answer is short, he says it seriously.

Their meal takes hours to complete.

While walking out the door, Victor naturally takes my hand in his.

Victor: Why is your hand so cold?

MC: Maybe the food we ate just now was on the colder side?

Victor: Let’s find a place to have something warm.

MC: Huh?

Did Victor not have enough?

The portions just now were quite small, and easy to digest.

It’s already late, so most restaurants would be closed…

I think for a moment.

MC: How about going to a food street for supper!

As predicted, Victor’s expression reveals a look of distaste.

MC: It’s really delicious… I always have wonton and spicy stir-fried river snail there with Willow and Kiki!

[Note] Wonton is a type of Chinese dumpling

Seeing how my eyes sparkle excitedly, Victor can only give in.

Victor: All right.

Victor parks his car outside the food street and they go to the store.

MC: Boss, I want a big portion of spicy stir-fried river snail! And two bowls of wonton!

Boss: Yo MC, you’re alone today? Where are the other two ladies?

MC: They’re busy so they can’t come. I’m not alone though!

I introduce the boss to Victor, who is standing behind me with a cold expression on his face.

MC: This… this is my friend Victor.

Boss: Ah, this lad is not bad, rather serious hahaha~ Lad, spicy or non-spicy?

Victor: Either way is fine.

Boss: This MC – she can’t take spicy food but always wants maximum spiciness, and even adds a layer of chili powder into the soup hahahaha~

A little embarrassed, I stick out my tongue.

MC: That’s only because your wontons and chili powder are just so delicious that I can’t do without them!

Victor looks at me, his voice carrying with it a rare smile.

Victor: Wouldn’t have expected you to have such a quirk.

MC: What “quirk”? This is clearly an interest… No, a hobby!

Victor arches an eyebrow.

Victor: Quirk. It means the person has an interest that differs from other people.

MC: Fine fine fine, and this CEO likes collecting small toys!

Victor’s expression suddenly falls. Meanwhile, I continue treading these dangerous grounds.

MC: For example, a cute lamp…

Victor: …

The food is served and Victor tries them.

Victor: I’ve never had such… interesting food in a long time. It tastes very good.

MC: Ah? … Which tastes better – this or the food from the restaurant just now?

Victor taps the bowl of wontons and points to the food in front of us, probably saying that the food here tastes better.

I smile, my eyes crinkling in happiness.

MC: Come to think of it, the best things I’ve eaten would be the food you make, and the food prepared by the boss here would be in second place.

Victor laughs lightly.

Victor: You dummy. Food doesn’t exist solely to pander to one’s tastes or to fill one’s stomach. There’s something more important - “companionship”.

MC: ?

Victor: It’s okay if you don’t understand.

MC: I understand!

Victor turns to look at me, a serious look on his face. I think for a moment before speaking.

MC: It means that when you eat with certain people, even delicacies can become tasteless. And when you eat with certain people, even cold soup can become excellent!

Victor: Although the way you express it is a little lacking, the idea not wrong.

Must Victor’s agreement carry with it a flavor of ridicule as well…

When I look up again, I notice some sauce at the corner of Victor’s lips.

He doesn’t seem to have noticed, taking his time to finish the food in front of him.

Seeing him like this, I let out a laugh.

MC: Victor, come here a little~

Victor: ?

Victor leans towards me.

I reach out to help him wipe off the traces of sauce. He is stunned for a moment, then grabs onto my hand before I can retract it. His warmth travels across my entire body.

Suddenly, time seems to have stopped…

Under the luster of the lights, the steam from the food rises. Victor’s face seems to fill my entire vision. I can hear the faint noise from the crowd, food stall owners shouting, the sound of food being cooked…

These sounds tell me that time is ticking on…

It’s just… me…

I feel a thin layer of Victor’s breath slowly encasing my surroundings. I can almost hear his heart beat. It beats with strength.

He looks at my shocked expression, and slowly opens his mouth.

Victor: Just now, you asked why I invited you to join me for dinner. I think you already know the reason.

Through the steam, I can see a rare tenderness in his eyes. As well as the seriousness that has never left.

Victor: I know people think I’m unreasonable, or even scary. But the last thing I want is for you to be that person.

#mlqc #mlqc cn #mlqc victor #mlqc spoilers #love and producer #cncancelled

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newstfionline · 7 years

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How Online Shopping Makes Suckers of Us All

By Jerry Useem, The Atlantic, April 18, 2017

As Christmas approached in 2015, the price of pumpkin-pie spice went wild.

It didn’t soar, as an economics textbook might suggest. Nor did it crash. It just started vibrating between two quantum states. Amazon’s price for a one-ounce jar was either $4.49 or $8.99, depending on when you looked. Nearly a year later, as Thanksgiving 2016 approached, the price again began whipsawing between two different points, this time $3.36 and $4.69.

We live in the age of the variable airfare, the surge-priced ride, the pay-what-you-want Radiohead album, and other novel price developments. But what was this? Some weird computer glitch? More like a deliberate glitch, it seems. “It’s most likely a strategy to get more data and test the right price,” Guru Hariharan explained, after I had sketched the pattern on a whiteboard.

The right price--the one that will extract the most profit from consumers’ wallets--has become the fixation of a large and growing number of quantitative types, many of them economists who have left academia for Silicon Valley. It’s also the preoccupation of Boomerang Commerce, a five-year-old start-up founded by Hariharan, an Amazon alum. He says these sorts of price experiments have become a routine part of finding that right price--and refinding it, because the right price can change by the day or even by the hour. (Amazon says its price changes are not attempts to gather data on customers’ spending habits, but rather to give shoppers the lowest price out there.)

It may come as a surprise that, in buying a seasonal pie ingredient, you might be participating in a carefully designed social-science experiment. But this is what online comparison shopping hath wrought. Simply put: Our ability to know the price of anything, anytime, anywhere, has given us, the consumers, so much power that retailers--in a desperate effort to regain the upper hand, or at least avoid extinction--are now staring back through the screen. They are comparison shopping us.

They have ample means to do so: the immense data trail you leave behind whenever you place something in your online shopping cart or swipe your rewards card at a store register, top economists and data scientists capable of turning this information into useful price strategies, and what one tech economist calls “the ability to experiment on a scale that’s unparalleled in the history of economics.” In mid-March, Amazon alone had 59 listings for economists on its job site, and a website dedicated to recruiting them.

Not coincidentally, quaint pricing practices--an advertised discount off the “list price,” two for the price of one, or simply “everyday low prices”--are yielding to far more exotic strategies.

“I don’t think anyone could have predicted how sophisticated these algorithms have become,” says Robert Dolan, a marketing professor at Harvard. “I certainly didn’t.” The price of a can of soda in a vending machine can now vary with the temperature outside. The price of the headphones Google recommends may depend on how budget-conscious your web history shows you to be, one study found. For shoppers, that means price--not the one offered to you right now, but the one offered to you 20 minutes from now, or the one offered to me, or to your neighbor--may become an increasingly unknowable thing. “Many moons ago, there used to be one price for something,” Dolan notes. Now the simplest of questions--what’s the true price of pumpkin-pie spice?--is subject to a Heisenberg level of uncertainty.

Which raises a bigger question: Could the internet, whose transparency was supposed to empower consumers, be doing the opposite?

If the marketplace was a war between buyers and sellers, the 19th-century French sociologist Gabriel Tarde wrote, then price was a truce. And the practice of setting a fixed price for a good or a service--which took hold in the 1860s--meant, in effect, a cessation of the perpetual state of hostility known as haggling.

As in any truce, each party surrendered something in this bargain. Buyers were forced to accept, or not accept, the one price imposed by the price tag (an invention credited to the retail pioneer John Wanamaker). What retailers ceded--the ability to exploit customers’ varying willingness to pay--was arguably greater, as the extra money some people would have paid could no longer be captured as profit. But they made the bargain anyway, for a combination of moral and practical reasons.

The Quakers--including a New York merchant named Rowland H. Macy--had never believed in setting different prices for different people. Wanamaker, a Presbyterian operating in Quaker Philadelphia, opened his Grand Depot under the principle of “One price to all; no favoritism.” Other merchants saw the practical benefits of Macy’s and Wanamaker’s prix fixe policies. As they staffed up their new department stores, it was expensive to train hundreds of clerks in the art of haggling. Fixed prices offered a measure of predictability to bookkeeping, sped up the sales process, and made possible the proliferation of printed retail ads highlighting a given price for a given good.

Companies like General Motors found an up-front way of recovering some of the lost profit. In the 1920s, GM aligned its various car brands into a finely graduated price hierarchy: “Chevrolet for the hoi polloi,” Fortune magazine put it, “Pontiac … for the poor but proud, Oldsmobile for the comfortable but discreet, Buick for the striving, Cadillac for the rich.” The policy--”a car for every purse and purpose,” GM called it--was a means of customer sorting, but the customers did the sorting themselves. It kept the truce.

Customers, meanwhile, could recover some of their lost agency by clipping coupons--their chance to get a deal denied to casual shoppers. The new supermarket chains of the 1940s made coupons a staple of American life. What the big grocers knew--and what behavioral economists would later prove in detail--is that while consumers liked the assurance the truce afforded (that they would not be fleeced), they also retained the instinct to best their neighbors. They loved deals so much that, to make sense of their behavior, economists were forced to distinguish between two types of value: acquisition value (the perceived worth of a new car to the buyer) and transaction value (the feeling that one lost or won the negotiation at the dealership).

The idea that there was a legitimate “list price,” and that consumers would occasionally be offered a discount on this price--these were the terms of the truce. And the truce remained largely intact up to the turn of the present century. The reigning retail superpower, Walmart, enforced “everyday low prices” that did not shift around.

But in the 1990s, the internet began to erode the terms of the long peace. Savvy consumers could visit a Best Buy to eyeball merchandise they intended to buy elsewhere for a cheaper price, an exercise that became known as “showrooming.” In 1999, a Seattle-based digital bookseller called Amazon.com started expanding into a Grand Depot of its own.

The era of internet retailing had arrived, and with it, the resumption of hostilities.

In retrospect, retailers were slow to mobilize. Even as other corporate functions--logistics, sales-force management--were being given the “moneyball” treatment in the early 2000s with powerful predictive software (and even as airlines had fully weaponized airfares), retail pricing remained more art than science. In part, this was a function of internal company hierarchy. Prices were traditionally the purview of the second-most-powerful figure in a retail organization: the head merchant, whose intuitive knack for knowing what to sell, and for how much, was the source of a deep-seated mythos that she was not keen to dispel.

Two developments, though, loosened the head merchant’s hold.

The first was the arrival of data. Thomas Nagle was teaching economics at the University of Chicago in the early 1980s when, he recalls, the university acquired the data from the grocery chain Jewel’s newly installed checkout scanners. “Everyone was thrilled,” says Nagle, now a senior adviser specializing in pricing at Deloitte. “We’d been relying on all these contrived surveys: ‘Given these options at these prices, what would you do?’ But the real world is not a controlled experiment.”

The Jewel data overturned a lot of what he’d been teaching. For instance, he’d professed that ending prices with .99 or .98, instead of just rounding up to the next dollar, did not boost sales. The practice was merely an artifact, the existing literature said, of an age when owners wanted to force cashiers to open the register to make change, in order to prevent them from pocketing the money from a sale. “It turned out,” Nagle recollects, “that ending prices in .99 wasn’t big for cars and other big-ticket items where you pay a lot of attention. But in the grocery store, the effect was huge!”

The effect, now known as “left-digit bias,” had not shown up in lab experiments, because participants, presented with a limited number of decisions, were able to approach every hypothetical purchase like a math problem. But of course in real life, Nagle admits, “if you did that, it would take you all day to go to the grocery store.” Disregarding the digits to the right side of the decimal point lets you get home and make dinner.

By the early 2000s, the amount of data collected on retailers’ internet servers had become so massive that it started exerting a gravitational pull. That’s what triggered the second development: the arrival, en masse, of the practitioners of the dismal science.

This was, in some ways, a curious stampede. For decades, academic economists had generally been as indifferent to corporations as corporations were to them. (Indeed, most of their models barely acknowledged the existence of corporations at all.)

But that began to change in 2001, when the Berkeley economist Hal Varian--highly regarded for the 1999 book Information Rules--ran into Eric Schmidt. Varian knew him but, he says, was unaware that Schmidt had become the CEO of a little company called Google. Varian agreed to spend a sabbatical year at Google, figuring he’d write a book about the start-up experience.

At the time, the few serious economists who worked in industry focused on macroeconomic issues like, say, how demand for consumer durables might change in the next year. Varian, however, was immediately invited to look at a Google project that (he recalls Schmidt telling him) “might make us a little money”: the auction system that became Google AdWords. Varian never left.

Others followed. “eBay was Disneyland,” says Steve Tadelis, a Berkeley economist who went to work there for a time in 2011 and is currently on leave at Amazon. “You know, pricing, people, behavior, reputation”--the things that have always set economists aglow--plus the chance “to experiment at a scale that’s unparalleled.”

At first, the newcomers were mostly mining existing data for insights. At eBay, for instance, Tadelis used a log of buyer clicks to estimate how much money one hour of bargain-hunting saved shoppers. (Roughly $15 was the answer.)

Then economists realized that they could go a step further and design experiments that produced data. Carefully controlled experiments not only attempted to divine the shape of a demand curve--which shows just how much of a product people will buy as you keep raising the price, allowing retailers to find the optimal, profit-maximizing figure. They tried to map how the curve changed hour to hour. (Online purchases peak during weekday office hours, so retailers are commonly advised to raise prices in the morning and lower them in the early evening.)

By the mid-2000s, some economists began wondering whether Big Data could discern every individual’s own personal demand curve--thereby turning the classroom hypothetical of “perfect price discrimination” (a price that’s calibrated precisely to the maximum that you will pay) into an actual possibility.

As this new world began to take shape, the initial consumer experience of online shopping--so simple! and such deals!--was losing some of its sheen.

It’s not that consumers hadn’t benefited from the lower prices available online. They had. But some of the deals weren’t nearly as good as they seemed to be. And for some people, glee began to give way to a vague suspicion that maybe they were getting ripped off. In 2007, a California man named Marc Ecenbarger thought he had scored when he found a patio set--list price $999--selling on Overstock.com for $449.99. He bought two, unpacked them, then discovered--courtesy of a price tag left on the packaging--that Walmart’s normal price for the set was $247. His fury was profound. He complained to Overstock, which offered to refund him the cost of the furniture.

But his experience was later used as evidence in a case brought by consumer-protection attorneys against Overstock for false advertising, along with internal emails in which an Overstock employee claimed it was commonly known that list prices were “egregiously overstated.”

In 2014, a California judge ordered Overstock to pay $6.8 million in civil penalties. (Overstock has appealed the decision.) The past year has seen a wave of similar lawsuits over phony list prices, reports Bonnie Patten, the executive director of TruthinAdvertising.org. In 2016, Amazon began to drop most mentions of “list price,” and in some cases added a new reference point: its own past price.

This could be seen as the final stage of decay of the old one-price system. What’s replacing it is something that most closely resembles high-frequency trading on Wall Street. Prices are never “set” to begin with in this new world. They can fluctuate hour to hour and even minute to minute--a phenomenon familiar to anyone who has put something in his Amazon cart and been alerted to price changes while it sat there. A website called camelcamelcamel.com even tracks Amazon prices for specific products and alerts consumers when a price drops below a preset threshold. The price history for any given item--Classic Twister, for example--looks almost exactly like a stock chart. And as with financial markets, flash glitches happen. In 2011, Peter A. Lawrence’s The Making of a Fly (paperback edition) was briefly available on Amazon for $23,698,655.93, thanks to an algorithmic price war between two third-party sellers that had run amok.

#online shopping #online retail #online pricing #variable pricing #list price #cost of pumpkin pie spice

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comicteaparty · 4 years

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December 4th-December 10th, 2019 Reader Favorites Archive

The archive for the Reader Favorites chat that occurred from December 4th, 2019 to December 10th, 2019. The chat focused on the following question:

What comic ended or went on indefinite hiatus that you miss? What about that comic do you like?

AntiBunny

An old one I enjoyed was Mindmistress. It was very interesting to see the combination of futurism and superheroes. It not only looked at what superhero tropes would and would not work in reality it took those tropes and looked for a way to make them work when they seem impossible. It wasn't exactly realistic, but it was believable and consistent within its self. The comic stopped very suddenly in the middle of a story arc.

carcarchu

Pao Ge Huang Taizi - https://www.kuaikanmanhua.com/web/topic/840/ i loved the funny and lighthearted tone of this series and really wish i could know how was supposed to end

Phin (Heirs of the Veil)

My mind immediately jumps to Hannah is not a Boy's Name, which was one of the first webcomics I've ever read (that were not on the German site I was mostly reading where everything was manga inspired). Especially what Tess Stone did with typography in the comic pages was just...top notch (also one of the first comics I've seen that made used of vertical scrolling. It's pretty sad bc it ending had nothing to do with the creator, tho I'm glad Tess went on to create other really cool comics.

Q @CecilieQMT making WAYFINDERS

Oohhh seconding Hannah is not a Boy's Name. That story inspired me to no end, and then it just disappeared :8(edited)

Cronaj

For me it is almost always Grand Spirit. (https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/grand-spirit/list?title_no=6608) I fell in love with it back in 2015, and then it disappeared for 3 years until it returned unexpectedly in 2018. Aaaand then it disappeared again this past July without a word. So who knows, it could be another 3 years before they return... Or it could be forever. I mainly loved it because the idea was really something. When this comic was originally published, it was for the Webtoon sci-fi contest back in 2015 (which I didn't participate in because I didn't have a solid idea to work with). But naturally, the story is about... fairies. XD Robot fairies created by the humans with one program in mind: protect the grand spirit of nature that humans have destroyed. The main character, Wang Min, is one of these programmed fairies, but he realizes when he is injured and taken by a human to be repaired that he is a machine created by humans for their own purposes. I mean, beyond the amazing concept, I thought the whole comic was excellently done: good character designs, excellent pacing, beautiful artwork. All this things falling into place for the author. They actually got past the first round of the contest, which is pretty amazing, but they didn't go any further past that, even though I was rooting for them. And then after that... They went on their hiatus. It makes me wonder if maybe the creator wanted to make money from the comic, and once they discovered they weren't going to in the immediate future, they gave up. Very disheartening. There are plenty of other comics that I love that have either gone on indefinite hiatus or that have ended that I still think about, but Grand Spirit is the one I think about the most.

Erin Ptah (BICP 🎄 Leif & Thorn)

I still miss No Rest For The Wicked

Not to mention What Happens in Carpediem, which was on Smackjeeves, so I bet even if the artist wanted to come back they'd decide it was more trouble than it's worth.

Eightfish

It makes me sad how quickly people responded to this question ): I too know of several comics I wish would be continued. Such is the world of webcomics though. Also, you guys, stop with the descriptions. They're too good! You guys are tempting me into reading these comics but I know if I do it will only end in disappointment edit: what is that thing below this vvv(edited)

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Oh gosh, where do I start? So many over the years. One that stuck with me the most was an old, old comic from the early '00s called Fallen about a fallen angel of death. The humour was so quirky and good, but it also hit the drama and emotional beats really well. It's long since vanished after going on perma-hiatus, but 10+ years later, I still miss it. Another was Off-White. The art in that one was incredibly gorgeous. I'd link the site as it's technically still 'there' but the archives are either broken or missing. And finally, one that hasn't been officially announced as dead, but probably is, is White Noise. This comic has such great writing and atmosphere. Like Fallen, it really hit all the emotional beats so well and the build-up to big reveals was always pulled off superbly. Fortunately, the website for this one is still up and functional, and you can read what there is of it here: http://whitenoisecomic.com/(edited)

Erin Ptah (BICP 🎄 Leif & Thorn)

@Eightfish: the server has levels for every user based on how active you are -- the more you post, the more you level up! There's not a whole lot to it tbh, but there's a list of ranks and what comes with them in #rules

SAWHAND

Oh shoot! I remember Fallen @Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios) ! And I don't have a great memory for stuff like that, but that one really stayed with me.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Oh man, White Noise was one of the first webcomics I ever read, but I still have never made it through the whole archive. I lost it for a few years when I switched computers and I think when I remembered it again it had gone in that hiatus. I think that made it to hard to try and reread again :(

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

For sure. I never start a comic that’s already on hiatus. It’s too sad to get invested in something that might never continue.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

So for me I guess my White Whale of indefinite hiatus comics is this one called Scarecrow Lullaby. It was also one of my really early first webcomics and it wasn't like, the best comic in the world but it hit a lot of the spooky but cute notes that I like in a story. There was also something about the art and character tropes that really resonated with me and my own comics I was making at the time. So I felt kind of a kindred spirit connection with the comic in some ways. I've felt that for other comics too over the years, I figure that's probably not uncommon for folks but I don't really know? But anyway, the hiatus for this one just really haunted me almost because the creator just kind of disappear. Like there wasn't any goodbye post or anything. The comment section got wild on the last page with people speculating that she had died or something. There were people saying they were real life friends confirming that the artist was dead and then others saying no, she was still alive but wasn't planning to continue. I still go check in on it every few years just to see if there's any news. I think what makes me most sad about it isn't that the story didn't finish but just that the artist vanished. Like I wish I could follow her on Twitter or Instagram and see how she's been doing the past 10 years but if she has accounts they aren't under the same name. Just a big weird mystery! https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/ScareCrow_Lullaby/

RebelVampire

The comic I miss the most is Chronicles of Oro http://www.chroniclesoforo.com/ . I really loved how languages were handled in the comic, the character designs, the interesting world, etc. It was a really great start to a good fantasy story that really just hit all the right notes with me. It's only been 2 years since the last page was posted, but its been agony. However, unlike some of the other depressing tales, the creator does occasionally pop in to give a "It's not forgotten" status update, so maybe it will return one day.

mathtans

I'm gonna show my age here. "Elf Only Inn". http://www.elfonlyinn.net/ It started as a comic about internet chatrooms in 2002. After a few years it went on hiatus and rebooted itself as a comic about an MMORPG. As if the same users were using a new medium. Brilliant. It's been on indefinite hiatus since 2008. I still get a kick out of the "Nimoy" character being mistaken for an elf.

keii4ii

I too remember the comic Fallen @Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios) though I don't remember much of its humor, so not 100% sure if we're talking about the same Fallen? Is it the one where the human MC has a pet snake? I don't quite miss this comic, at least not in the sense of longing for its unlikely return. But it left an impression on me. Taught me an important lesson in writing character-driven stories. See, at the time I was chest deep in Chosen One stories and the likes, so I thought central twists had to be about what a character was. But Fallen showed me that a story could revolve around who a character is. It's such a basic lesson, and sometimes I feel dumb for not having learned it at an earlier age, but better a little late than super late!

It was a good comic, and I super appreciate what it did for the Younger Me.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

@keii4ii It must be the same Fallen, because I def remember the MC having a pet snake.

keii4ii

Woo!

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

The humour wasn’t terribly prevalent, but I remember when it surfaced, it always made me laugh out loud. The author also left snarky and often hilarious comments under the pages.

Erin Ptah (BICP 🎄 Leif & Thorn)

Oh, man, Elf Only Inn takes me back. Such a perfect distillation of free-for-all tween chatroom roleplaying. She's a princess mermaid elf who is also a vampyre(half)!! I'd love to see someone do a sequel/homage with present-day kids. Same kinds of jokes, but it's on a Discord server with 2019-style memes.

"Not everyone uses a 1024x768 screen size, so we're shrinking the comic." #just2002things http://www.elfonlyinn.net/d/20020705.html

Kabocha

Comics I miss... So, it's not even online now, because the author pulled all mirrors and was going to redo the site back in 2012, but I really miss Picatrix. It was kind of fundamental to getting me into webcomics at all, and I became friends with the author. It was kind of an isekai sorta deal - Main character ends up in another world with magic and stuff, finds out there's a prophecy that she's gotta fulfill. Only she wasn't reincarnated or anything. But also the whole, "oh crap arranged marriage to a king?!" plot? I was kinda into it. Especially with how Az and Winnie started off hating each other.

AntiBunny

I'd forgotten about Elf Only Inn. Really takes me back to those late nights of chatting on IRC.

€heshire777

Dr. McNinja is my first thought

Q @CecilieQMT making WAYFINDERS

Did that die?

AntiBunny

Dr. McNinja finished. The creator works as a pro in comics now, but he occasionally does a short. Like "Never Enough the Wario Diaries" that he's posting on Twitter right now.

Kelsey (Kurio)

What sorts of comics does he work with nowadays?

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #reader favorites #comic tea party #ctp

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thatsnotcanonpodcasts · 5 years

Text

Mandalorian, Wormholes & Two Shitties

Welcome back to another fun filled episode from those irascible Nerds we all look forward to each week. Oh, and what a show we have for you all, let me tell you. What, hurry up you say, well then. First up we have DJ giving us an update on the Marvel movies failing to impress and the arguments have continued. This week we have some delusional moron, believe me you will agree that they are a moron when you hear what they have done. Oh right, well this delusional moron says what has got to be the dumbest thing and the biggest lie in history. It sets Buck off like all the fireworks for New Year’s Eve in one go. My goodness, he really tears into this one like nothing before. If you listen in just to hear him rant about some misguided fool then you will love this one, plus you might learn a few new insults.

Next up, after he catches his breathe Buck tells us about how some scientists believe they have figured out how to identify the existence of Wormholes. That’s right we said Wormholes. Those supposed mythical sci-fi tunnels through time and space purportedly linking us to the farthest reaches of the universe? Multiverse? Dimensional gateways? Well who knows, the gravity is more then we can fathom at this time. But it is something to do with that….Ahh, almost had me there. You will have to listen in to hear what and how the physicists think they can determine whether or not a wormhole exists.

Then we move to a legendary tale for inspiration in what we have crappily dubbed “A Tale of Two Shitties!” Sorry, couldn’t resist the sloppy pun, messy though it is, haha, that just plopped out. Anyway, we look at two epically bad mistakes from two different games studios and have a laugh and cry at the stupidity and hubris involved. These tales of woe and calamity are similar but different, and for one we will cheer and hope. The other we will jeer and poke, fun of naturally. Now, since we have you so excited to know this tale of misfortune we invite ye to listen further to the tale in yonder episode.

Finishing off as always with the regular shout outs, remembrances, birthdays, and special events of interest. We also wish to invite you all to come join us at Supanova in Brisbane on Saturday 9th November. We do not have the faintest idea of which table we will be at, other than it is the TNC productions booth. So come along and say hi, join us in our game and meet the goofballs that are the Nerds. As always take care of yourselves, look out for each other and stay hydrated.

EPISODE NOTES:

Scorsese update and The Mandalorian details - https://collider.com/martin-scorsese-marvel-movies-theyre-a-new-art-form/

- https://boundingintocomics.com/2019/10/24/jon-favreau-on-star-wars-and-the-mandalorian-through-stories-we-express-our-values-to-the-next-generation/

How to find a wormhole

- https://www.technology.org/2019/10/28/how-to-spot-a-wormhole-if-they-exist/

- https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.100.083513

A Tale of Two Shitties

- https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-01-28-the-fall-of-swedish-game-wonder-starbreeze

- https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2019/10/24/fallout-76s-premium-private-servers-are-not-private-its-scrap-box-is-deleting-scrap/#4999a5257386

Games currently playing

Professor

– Call of Duty: WWII - https://store.steampowered.com/app/476600/Call_of_Duty_WWII/

Rating – 7/10

Buck

– Call of Duty: WWII - https://store.steampowered.com/app/476600/Call_of_Duty_WWII/

Rating – 8/10

- Warframe - https://www.warframe.com/landing

Rating - 3.5/5

Other topics discussed

Disney CEO Bob Iger responds to Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola’s comments

- https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2019/10/disney-ceo-bob-iger-response-scorsese-coppola-marvel-comments

Disney buys Marvel Entertainment for $4 Billion

- https://money.cnn.com/2009/08/31/news/companies/disney_marvel/

Pirate of the Caribbean (Disneyland tourist attraction)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_the_Caribbean_(attraction)

Game of Thrones directing duo David Benioff and Dan Weiss leave Star Wars for a $250 million Netflix deal

- https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/why-star-wars-didnt-work-game-thrones-duo-1250798

Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990 TV series)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Planet_and_the_Planeteers

Radio signals from Jupiter could aid in the search for extraterrestrial life

- https://scitechdaily.com/radio-signals-jupiter-aid-search-extraterrestrial-life-moon/

Speed of radio waves traveling through space

- http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/projects/vss/docs/Communications/2-why-does-it-take-so-long.html

Distance from Earth to Jupiter through Light or Radio

- https://pages.uoregon.edu/jimbrau/astr121/Notes/Jupiter/jupiterradio.html

Wormholes in relation to Time Travel

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole#Time_travel

Facts about Black Holes

- https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/seuforum/bh_whatare.htm

Bobby Vinton – Mr Lonely

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djU4Lq_5EaM

Starbreeze Studios (Swedish video game developer and publisher based in Stockholm.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbreeze_Studios

The Walking Dead (episodic, graphic adventure video game series developed and published by Telltale Games and Skybound Games, based on The Walking Dead comic book series.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walking_Dead_(video_game_series)

Death & Revival of Telltale Games

- https://au.ign.com/articles/2019/08/28/telltale-games-shut-down-and-revival-explained

The Saboteur (Playstation Game)

- https://www.playstation.com/en-au/games/the-saboteur-ps3/

WARSAW (PC Game)

- https://store.steampowered.com/app/1026420/WARSAW/

Heston Blumenthal’s rocket explosion

- https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/mar/05/heston-blumenthal-chef-cooks-astronaut-tim-peake

Shoutouts

27 Oct 1962 - Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov saved the world, the Russian naval officer who, refused to fire a nuclear torpedo at an American aircraft carrier, thus averting the probability of a third world war and thermo-nuclear destruction across the planet. The confrontation was part of the Cuban missile crisis that had the world holding its breath for nearly two weeks. - https://www.onthisday.com/articles/the-man-who-saved-the-world

27 Oct 2019 – League of legends turn 10 years old. Its launch on Oct 27, 2009 was just one memorable moment in Riot Game’s 10-year journey down a road punctuated by terror, wild leaps of faith, and powered by an army of interns and a lot of luck. - https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2019/10/27/league-legends-is-now-years-old-this-is-story-its-birth/

28 Oct 1726 - The novel Gulliver's Travels or Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships is a prose satire was published. It satirises both human nature and the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre. It is Swift's best known full-length work, and a classic of English literature. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver%27s_Travels

28 Oct 1965 - Gateway Arch construction completed, it is the world's tallest arch, the tallest man-made monument in the Western Hemisphere, and Missouri's tallest accessible building. Built as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States, and officially dedicated to "the American people," the Arch, commonly referred to as "The Gateway to the West" is the centerpiece of Gateway Arch National Park and has become an internationally recognized symbol of St. Louis, as well as a popular tourist destination. It is located at the site of St. Louis's founding on the west bank of the Mississippi River. - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gateway-arch-completed

29 Oct 2019 – Shigeru Miyamoto is being awarded the Person of Cultural Merit by the Japanese government on November 3, which is recognized nationally as Culture Day in Japan. The award is the highest honour a person in a creative field can receive in Japan, and Miyamoto is the first person in the video game industry to receive the honour. - https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/29/tech/shigeru-miyamoto-nintendo-trnd/index.html

Remembrances

21 Oct 2019 - Josip Elic, American character actor. He was best known for his role as Bancini in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Despite having few lines in the film, his major scene came in the form of an improvisation by Jack Nicholson for the patient's basketball game. He later became more nationally recognized after two appearances on The Twilight Zone, including in "The Obsolete Man" with Burgess Meredith. He died from complications off a fall at the age of 98 in River Edge, New Jersey - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josip_Elic

28 Oct 1703 - John Wallis, English clergyman and mathematician who is given partial credit for the development of infinitesimal calculus. Between 1643 and 1689 he served as chief cryptographer for Parliament and, later, the royal court. He is credited with introducing the symbol∞ to represent the concept of infinity. He similarly used 1/∞ for an infinitesimal. John Wallis was a contemporary of Newton and one of the greatest intellectuals of the early renaissance of mathematics. He died at the age of 86 in Oxford, Oxfordshire - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wallis

28 Oct 2005 - Richard Smalley, the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry and a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University, in Houston, Texas. In 1996, along with Robert Curl, also a professor of chemistry at Rice, and Harold Kroto, a professor at the University of Sussex, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of a new form of carbon, buckminsterfullerene, also known as buckyballs. He was an advocate of nanotechnology and its applications. He is credited as the “Father of Nanotechnology”. He died from leukemia at the age of 62 in University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center , Houston - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Smalley

Famous Birthdays

28 Oct 1982 - Matt Smith, English actor. He is best known for his roles as the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor in the BBC series Doctor Who and Prince Philip in the Netflix series The Crown, earning a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for the latter. Smith's first television role came in 2006 as Jim Taylor in the BBC adaptations of Philip Pullman's The Ruby in the Smoke and The Shadow in the North, while his first major role in television came as Danny in the 2007 BBC series Party Animals. Smith, who was announced as the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor in January 2009, is the youngest person ever to play the character. He left the series at the end of the 2013 Christmas Day special, ‘The Time of the Doctor’. In film, he starred in Womb (2010) and portrayed the physical embodiment of Skynet in Terminator Genisys (2015). He was born in Northhampton - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Smith_(actor)

28 Oct 1967 – Julia Roberts, American actress and producer. She established herself as a leading lady in Hollywood after headlining the romantic comedy film Pretty Woman, which grossed $464 million worldwide. She has won three Golden Globe Awards, from eight nominations, and has been nominated for four Academy Awards for her film acting, winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Erin Brockovich. Roberts was the highest-paid actress in the world throughout most of the 1990s and in the first half of the 2000s. Her fee for 1990's Pretty Woman was US$300,000; in 2003, she was paid an unprecedented $25 million for her role in Mona Lisa Smile (2003). As of 2017, Roberts's net worth was estimated to be $170 million. People magazine has named her the most beautiful woman in the world a record five times. She was born in Smyrna, Georgia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Roberts

28 Oct 1955 - William Henry Gates III also known as Bill Gates, American business magnate, investor, author, philanthropist, and humanitarian. He is best known as the pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, and the principal founder of Microsoft Corporation. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of chairman,CEO and chief software architect, while also being the largest individual shareholder until May 2014. Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. He has been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive. This opinion has been upheld by numerous court rulings. Later in his career and since leaving Microsoft, Gates pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors. He donated large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, reported to be the world's largest private charity. In 2009, Gates and Warren Buffett founded The Giving Pledge, whereby they and other billionaires pledge to give at least half of their wealth to philanthropy. The foundation works to save lives and improve global health, and is working with Rotary International to eliminate polio. He was born in Seattle,Washington - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

Events of Interest

28 Oct 1971 – Prospero becomes the only British satellite to be launched by a British rocket. It was designed to undertake a series of experiments to study the effects of space environment on communications satellites and remained operational until 1973, after which it was contacted annually for over 25 years. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospero_(satellite)

28 Oct 1994 - Stargate was first aired, the film is the first release in the Stargate franchise. The plot centers on the premise of a "Stargate", an ancient ring-shaped device that creates a wormhole enabling travel to a similar device elsewhere in the universe. The film's central plot explores the theory of extraterrestrial beings having an influence upon human civilization. - https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Stargate_(film)

28 Oct 2014 – A rocket carrying NASA's Cygnus CRS Orb-3 resupply mission to the International Space Station explodes seconds after taking off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia. This flight, which would have been its fourth to the International Space Station and the fifth of an Antares launch vehicle, resulted in the Antares rocket exploding seconds after liftoff. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_CRS_Orb-3

Intro

Artist – Goblins from Mars

Song Title – Super Mario - Overworld Theme (GFM Trap Remix)

Song Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GNMe6kF0j0&index=4&list=PLHmTsVREU3Ar1AJWkimkl6Pux3R5PB-QJ

Facebook

- Page - https://www.facebook.com/NerdsAmalgamated/

- Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/440485136816406/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/NAmalgamated

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6Nux69rftdBeeEXwD8GXrS

iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/top-shelf-nerds/id1347661094

RSS - http://www.thatsnotcanonproductions.com/topshelfnerdspodcast?format=rss

General Enquiries

Email - [email protected]

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