Events
ThoughtBubble
14 Nov 2026 – 15 Nov 2026
Harrogate Convention Centre
Manchester Megacon
31 Jul 2027 – 1 Aug 2027
Manchester Central
Different time, same place, but still at a baking contest.
But of course!
Hotel Gula:
gula - eating to excess (personified as one of the deadly sins)
[http://www.thefreedictionar...](http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Gula "http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Gula")
Gula also means sugar in Bahasa Melayu
I didn't know that, but it fits wonderfully, thanks for letting me know!
Haha I love how she runs away.
for a second I imagined that there was a sound effect that literally said "scamper"
Hm, fascinating. Alexa tries to get the maid's name twice, and both times she doesn't answer. So either the author wants to drop it as a bomb on us, or she is ashamed of it. Possibly both.
Maybe Ms Ashwin has been taking lessons from Prof Foglio in not telling the readers what is going on. (Not a complaint - it's good storytelling and makes sure the punters turn up for the next exciting episode).
Right above comments is a list of who appears in the strip that time. So the maid is Nora Fenton.
As a point of interest, it took me about 2 years to notice this.
The hotel ATE her from the FUTURE so that it could get a GREAT CAKE here in the past.
Interesting that Ms King addresses Ms Fenton as 'Miss' when everyone in the 1830's uses the politically correct 'Ms'. Ms Fenton was wearing a wedding ring on the cover page so presumably she is a 'Mrs'.
All younger-appearing maidservants are "Miss" until proven otherwise. Notice she uses "Ma'am" rather than "Ms" to address Ms King; that is also standard maidservant speech.
Good catch on the ring. Now, is that a wedding ring or a magic ring? Does she take it off for most of her work, or is it acquired later in the story?
Good points on the forms of address. Re: the ring: certainly in a modern food manufacturing environment you have to remove all jewellery - and that includes facial piercings, take note Ms King. Biting into bits of stray metal in your cake always makes a bad impression, even if the metal in question is real gold and the cake tastes really good.
Alexa honestly doesn't know the first thing about 1830s terms of address, history was never her favourite class.
It's the maid who used "Ma'am" and the maid would know because she lives there, as far as we know. I figure Alexa probably used "Miss" because that is still the standard polite term for a reasonably young woman in a service industry, especially in a hotel.
Ooh, I just got a good look at her tattoos! Those are gorgeous! <3