March 1st, 2016
2 Mar 2016 · page 568 of 1306
Chekhov's slightly-out-of-date Samsung.
Cast: Catherine Barber, Florence De Montfort, Isabelle Holt, Nicola Barber, Nora Fenton
Comments (62)
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the incredible value of a one-of-the kind item from the future.
I always wonder about that "You'll know when the time is right." trope. Is there ever a point where any person doesn't have some form of self-doubt?
Nora seems better acquainted with self-doubt than any of her siblings, so this seems relatively confident for her. Yay Nora! Here's hoping someday you can say "Ta-da" without a question mark after it!
> Nora, Avatar of Courage
> confident
Ah, but Alexa already knew that Nora would get it right.
See? Time travel solves all problems.
Except for the problems [it creates](http://gastrophobia.com/index.php?date=2009-07-13 "http://gastrophobia.com/index.php?date=2009-07-13"). ([Paradoxes](http://gastrophobia.com/index.php?date=2013-10-29 "http://gastrophobia.com/index.php?date=2013-10-29") being the least of them.) Oh, and except if you are [a lungfish](http://dawnoftimecomics.com/index.php?id=20 "http://dawnoftimecomics.com/index.php?id=20").
Those aren't bugs, they're features!
Actually, I think you're giving Alexa's foreknowledge too much credit. According to this comic [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/march-5th-2014/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/march-5th-2014/") Alexa wasn't sure whether giving the phone to Nora would break history or not. She knew that Harry had been involved in something important but had to look up the exact details after she left Widdershins. Presumably the conclusion of this story will be public enough that people in 2013 will still recognize Harriet Barber's name.
"Out of date?" Looks to me like it's absurdly ahead of the curve!
I'd almost forgotten that thing. It's good to see it again.
Never said which direction in the flow of time it was out of date.
It was almost a year old. From Ms King's point of view, it was virtually an antique.
For the love of Widdershins, do NOT let Florrie have that phone. You have no idea what could happen if she had a modern cell phone.
Well, there aren't any antennas so...
This is from the future... Widdershins future as magic is not so much an unkown, but a force that is known and can be utilized so if you get a strong enough charge of magic it may retain MOST of it's functions. So yes be terrified at the horror that soon may come... especially if it has a wikipidea or fanwiki about them still on the phone.
They don't use magic to make electronic devices work. Quite the opposite in fact. They have to be shielded from magic or they fry and short-circuit into destruction, which is how Alexa used it to ignite her flour bomb. It's not until the 2030's that they can shield buildings from magic.
Plus it is broken. It was used to summon an orange bush.
She'd be like:
Florrie @florencedemontfort 3 min
Geez seven deadly sins all at once, who'd have thought
Florrie @florencedemontfort 3 min
THE WORLD IS ENDING
Florrie @florencedemontfort 2 min
Does this mean i get to see WOLFE again???
Florrie @florencedemontfort 1 min
OMG did Harry cast a sideway glance at Sid?????? #ust #adorableharry #teamsid
I need to be able to push the upvote twice.
I'll push it for you.
(EDIT: Oh man, I accidentally upvoted my own comment - sorry . . .)
aaa i love this
I am a very happy person now
Don't worry, we're pretty sure the phone is broken. But it is nonmagical, so if it's just a cracked screen, Florrie could totally use it. To talk to... the zero other phones currently in existence. That... doesn't seem that bad actually.
Reminds me of an advert outside a mobile phone shop a few years ago - 'Be the first to own a video phone!'
But I'm afraid that even if there is another phone in 1834, Mrs Fenton's won't be any good. The magic fried the electrics. Perhaps Ms Harriet will use it as a door stop.
Now we just plug this into a USB port to recharge it....
Even with a charger, the phone's broken anyway (looking back in the comments we have it from Kate, in fact: "As a phone it is entirely useless, yep!") - but we're interested in magic rather than electronics. I'm guessing its significance as an object - as a symbol of connectivity - is more important than its actually functioning as a phone.
I was wondering when that would make a re-appearance!
Can someone explain to me just why Nora is being so coy about her (clearly important) adventure at the Hotel Gula? It rather seems to go beyond a mere "valuing her privacy" and it's not like the rest of the family would have a hard time believing that such events are possible. And neither Nicola nor Harry seem the sorts to just let her half explanations go by when the stakes are so high.
She's shy, and therefore doesn't like being the center of attention. Being coy is, in this case, the means by which she strives to keep her time speaking short.
Besides, people usually don't even think to let shy people speak. If they need some more time to gather what they want to say, they're often just interrupted before they begin to speak, or after their first sentence. So they just get used not to try to speak. Maybe this doesn't apply to Nora inside her family, though. Even the rude ones are kind enough.
Hey caribouchat, I want to thank you for the heads-up in an earlier page chat to [linguee.com](http://linguee.com "linguee.com") for idiom-translation! Most excellent resource and an immediate add to my "Metaweb/Informational" bookmarks folder! (talking-face emoji, ear emoji, thumbs-up emoji, purple-hippo-of-happiness emoji)
(wistful wish-i-could-actually-insert-emojis emoji)
You're welcome, language and comics lover here...
I'm sorry - there's shy, and then there's "I'm not going to mention that i was abducted through time by one of the Seven Deadlies, along with loads of other people, and was intimately involved in the ritual that eventually defeated it. And it seemed to be particularly interested in our family. Because, that couldn't be important or anything."
Also, I see no evidence that her family members don't pay attention when she is speaking or interupt her - her dialog has all been complete sentences with people looking right at her.
See, there, you said it:
For sufficiently shy people that alone is enough to interrupt them. They just wanted to say something, they didn't want to be seen!
Largely because I don't want to break tension and waste panels by recapping a thing the audience already knows! They'll get the full story offscreen.
I think Mrs Fenton's reticence to explain to the rest of the family is all part of her Evil Plan to Destroy Civilisation as We Know It.
Honestly? i think its cause shes the heavenly virtue of humility and doesn't want to brag. Given the nature of the sins and how closely tied they are to the barbers, it just seems natural that given enough time the universe would balance the scales by creating human avatars for the virtues that oppose the sins. I only bring this up cause I run a table top rpg where the sins are the major bad guys and to beat them the players need to gather symbols of the heavenly virtues to weaken and banish them. It seems to me that much the same thing is happening here, the barbers (plus wolfe) are the heavenly virtues.
that battery life doe
It's been dead since it exploded the flour.
seems to me all seven are accounted for here. Chastity, Temperance, Charity, Diligence, Patience, Kindness, and Humility. The sins don't stand a chance
That's… a very interesting idea. Nice call there.
Congratulations! You have a witch - who is completely unprepared for what he has to do, and has relevant handicaps that will make teaching him difficult.
On the other hand, we're definitely looking forward to finding out how Alexa's dead phone is helpful in this situation. (And given Alexa's "I can live with that" when she read up on how this all turned out after getting out of the Gula it seems safe to say that it will be helpful.)
Alexa already knows that Harry will do something with a mobile, and she already knows what. We don't know, unfortunately.
holds up her hands in a loose triangle Time Travel.
Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey.... Yeah that metaphor got away from me.
Did Alexa have the Doctor on speed-dial?
I wonder... Alexa, did you ever look into your family tree?
I wasn't the only one thinking it!
"Out of date" is certainly one way of putting it.
"he'll need some powerful conduits" = Wolfe?
I would love to see Mal meeting Izzy. She would sweetly bully him into learning from her.
Yep. I'm incredibly excited from that "I'll have to teach him myself." line. Should be interesting to watch.
I hope the battery is charged.
No, Florrie, not "What on Earth is that?", it should be: "What in Time is that?"
headdesk
"look i got you a thing!"
"...what is that thing"
"it's... IT'S A THING, OKAY."
"i see..."
Hello! today's update will very much be a tomorrow thing I'm afraid. Look for it late on Saturday. Sorry for the delay!
Apropos of nothing, but I applaud your innovative announcement method! Very clean.
Time manipulation leaking out of story into real-life?
I'll be streaming while I ink this page for a little bit, drop in and say hello! [https://picarto.tv/Widdershins](https://picarto.tv/Widdershins "https://picarto.tv/Widdershins")
In which we learn that O'Malley is not the witch you were hoping for, but is in fact O'Malley. Heaven help you all. munches popcorn and eagerly awaits throwing O'Malley into this mess
Awesome page, but shouldn't Nora and Izzy have wedding rings on?
Whoops, Izzy hasn't had a wedding ring this entire time, so only Nora is missing hers. Cool.