December 21st, 2018
21 Dec 2018 · page 861 of 1306
Beyond Annoyed.
Gonna take next week off for the holidays, see you all the week after! Have a good one!
Cast: Eliza Swift, Parsley, Vincent Knott, Will Sharpe
Comments (47)
Events
ThoughtBubble
14 Nov 2026 – 15 Nov 2026
Harrogate Convention Centre
Manchester Megacon
31 Jul 2027 – 1 Aug 2027
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And that is how Sharpe escaped to the Ecuadorian embassy.
And, x months later...
Ecuadorian Ambassador: I am handing Mister Sharpe over to you voluntarily, officers. The constant levels of smarm that that... ass-monkey radiates have become intolerable!
Police inspector: Thank you, your excellency. And please be reassured - his sentence is still live, and will be carried out here, in London, immediately. And our hangmen are very good... unlike that lot in Widdershins.
Ecuadorian Ambassador: Oh good.
Will: Oh hell... :-(
---
Unless, of course, you are talking about the Ecuadorian Anchor-Consulate in Widdershins†. Far more accessible to Will Sharpe, but unfortunately...
Mal: Afternoon all. I am the Witch o' Widdershins, and as ye all know, I have a right o' entry ta all cons'lates an' diplomatic whatnots in Widdershins that soup... er...
Ben: (shouts from doorway) ...that supercedes all territorial and diplomatic protections granted by consular status!† (angry mutter) We went through it enough times!
Mal: Yeah, all that he said.
Will: smirk So you're taking me in? Well, don't expect me to come quietly! pose, limber-up
Mal: shrug starts scratching himself and shaking out his clothing, coating floor with dirt and dandruff
Ecuadorian Anchor-Consul: Enough! If we hand over Mister Sharpe, will you please remove your disreputable presence from my consulate??!
Mal: Sure. 'Thought ye'd never ask!
Will: is bundled out of door by consular staff, into waiting arms of Nicola and three constables Oh hell... :-(
>:=)>
† Existence totally unconfirmed, if not entirely speculative.
ELIZA: That's the Witch!? :produces notebook from thin air and starts writing:
She's got a point, Vincent
Doesn't make him wrong. We shall see.
Happy Holidays to all who celebrate any holiday at this time.
Enjoy your time off Kate, and we will see you in the new year.
Bode, bode, bode, bode, bode...
A fixed one, no less.
So weird... If you'd written one "bode" I'd've read it as you intended. But the with the several, I read it in Portuguese: "Goat, goat, goat, goat, goat..." (pronounced "bodgeh.")
Which is hilarious of course.
If that's supposed to be a visual pun on "foreboding", you've got one too many "bode"s.
Just general boding. Letting Sharpe off the cuff? Bodes ill as much as well. Giving (because lending to this guy basically means saying good-bye to the lent items) him those clothes? Bodes. Disengaging from scritches without consulting Parsley? Bodes strategic hairball.
Threw in a couple of extra bodes to cover any other bases. ;)
Just put the cuffs back on afterwards! Happy New Year to everyone.
Is this a low-key disclosure of Eliza's deadname? "Cousin Errol" seems to share her height and initials.
Nah, they were just expensive clothes and it'd be a shame to throw them away rather than pass them to a relative. No deadnaming will happen ever, though her previous sartorial choices may be justifiably critiqued
Plus we don't know what Cousin Errol was planning on doing with them. Maybe he works at some kind of charity. Maybe he's a clothier and wants to sell them. Who knows (other than Kate, anyway)?
The used-clothing market was a big deal in real!Victorian England.
So... Cousin Errol had these expensive clothes he could no longer wear (maybe because continued prosperity brought acquired portliness), and he passed them along them to his (pre-transition) cousin who was about his height and weight. After Eliza transitioned, Errol meant to take them back to do something else with them, but it wasn't urgent and he hadn't gotten around to it yet. Will is approximately Eliza's height, so they should fit him well enough.
Will, on the other hand, does not pick up hints. His sly grin crassly implies some disreputable reason she might have men's clothing on hand.
Have I got that more or less right?
it's a little simpler, she just has some pre-transition clothes that she wants rid of and a slow-moving cousin laid claim to but hasn't picked up yet.
But the real important question is, why is she keeping her old clothes in her shop? Surely her cousin knows where she lives and not just where she works.
Maybe for her "where they live"="where they work", as it is was for Harry and the malform busters.
"Get upstairs and change" would seem to support that theory.
Because she probably does live there. Most store owners in that day lived and worked out of the same building. Cheaper than trying to pay rent on two different places....
Even if she lives somewhere else, the shop could be a more convenient location. Also, what time of day would he be free to drop by? No good going to where she lives when she's not there.
Living above/behind one's shop was quite common back in the day. You still see it sometimes today.
Yes, but then her flat would be above/behind the shop, not in it. There's still a wall and at least one lockable door separating the two.
I think it's upstairs, which is where he's been sent to change. The clothes were in the shop proper because they're slated for imminent pickup. ^_^
Fair 'nuf, I s'pose. If nothing else, I hope that drawer was locked.
I feel like I missed something. I'd just assumed that he'd left some of his clothes behind when he went to visit her because that's the kind of thing that I would do. Did Eliza transition?
Yep! Relevant page: [link](https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/september-11th-2018/#comment-4089620856 "https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/september-11th-2018/#comment-4089620856")
Right on! Very rad. Thanks for the link!
Will: coming back downstairs I’ve just realised these are your old clothes and may I say I am disgusted.
Eliza: ...
Will: Your taste in suits was horrifying. Your taste in dresses however... wink
If he was smart, he’d be out the upstairs window right after changing. That said, I fully expect him back downstairs presently.
Well duh, he's gotta get that essay back so he can further demonstrate how awesome he is!
Merry Merry to all! Lots of love and yummies!
I'm trying to figure out what's going on with the panel-to-panel colour shifts which are even more pronounced here than in the previous page. I can't make up my mind... though part of that may be old eyes. It's almost like it's being colour-coded by which person dominates a panel: violet for Will Sharpe, amber for Eliza Swift, turquoise for Vincent Knott. Whatever it is, it's not just a physical wall colour that I somehow missed, because the violet, in particular, is getting much stronger.
I think it's related to sins and emotions. Pride is a kind of purple color, which fits for Will.
Q: how does transition work in the magical world of Widdershins? Is there a magical gender-change spell? Magically-enhanced surgery? Or just new clothes and padding?
to be honest i don't really want to give a definitive answer on this since there's a lot of possibilities and none of them are really plot relevant! feel free to headcanon as you wish :)
Thanks!
Hey, just wanted to say thanks for this! And for the above "no deadnaming will happen", and just generally doing a good job with this aspect of her character. I like the representation of your other trans characters where it's never especially brought up, but it's good to have something more explicit too!
It really depends on the capabilities of magic in terms of permanent bodily alteration etc.
Lacking any specific evidence, the most reasonable conjecture in my mind is that it still involves surgery, though with magic to prevent infection, speed healing, etc. So less painful than in our world, but still not a trivial matter. All sorts of other possibilities occur to me, but I'm not sure how to lay them out tastefully. So I won't. :)
headcannon: she paid a magician to offer all her testosterone in a magical ritual. Probably for something trivial like imbuing her teapot with deliciousness.
I could be wrong, but I think removing all your testosterone would just blow your endocrine system to hell. IIRC from high school bio class, it still plays a (very minor) role in a woman's body. Likewise with estrogen in men, again IIRC.
Now, making a major adjustment to one's natural hormone production with magic--under the supervision of an endocrinologist--THAT sounds very promising, and is now part of my headcanon. <3
I love that she has her old boy clothes tucked away for someone else to use.
Waste not.
It just occurred to me, especially in that 2nd-to-last panel that Sharpe perpetually looks like he's expecting everyone to worship/flatter him. "Ah yes, look at me. Am I not perfect?" I wonder if we can see him anywhere in Pride's chapter. He would have been affected instantly.
i really wanted to have him in the pride part of curtain call, but i hadn't worked out his design at that point unfortunately. him and knott took a lot of wrangling for me to work out!