November 10th, 2017
10 Nov 2017 · page 746 of 1306
I don't think you're gonna end up with a good reference letter, Ben.
Cast: Benjamin Thackerey, Ms Fairbairn, Verity Cunningham
Comments (107)
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All I want for Christmas is for Vee to actually shoot someone with those darts! :P
Well, she shot at the butler who used Wolfe as a meat shield. Does that count?
No!
She did shoot the prison guard
[http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-21st-2016/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-21st-2016/")
Oooooh, I forgot about that! Christmas came early! :D
Also, sweet baby jegus this may be your scariest looking villain design yet. o_o
It's just a lady in a blue dress with her hair coming loose.
And black pits where her eyes should be.
And blue flames at the back of them.
And an unhinged grin.
I want my mommy.
Walking alone in a dark fog carrying a single point of light. Oh yeah, this imagery is classic ghost story material.
I suppose that lamp is burning sloth-infused oil, hm?
Very curious about what Ms. Fairbairn is now.
If it is, this oil makes influence not only on wizards now.
I think the oil could effect anyone before, but it was being strategically placed where wizards were regularly casting magic. A normal person being a bit tired and dozing off might not be too dangerous, but dozing when working on a magic ritual a tad more dangerous.
I don't think so, because nobody other than wizards seemed to suffer the bouts of sleepiness and lethargy. If you look at the bakery incident, the wizard is having trouble staying awake but the non-wizard owner seems just fine.
No, the lamp oil in chapter 2 was definitely meant to only influence wizards. ([http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/august-17th-2012/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/august-17th-2012/") ) Whether it's lamp oil that's imbued differently now, or something else that's affecting them, I'm not sure.
Alternatively, perhaps Vee is one of those people who have such a faint amount of magical vibes that it only registers in Widdershins, but this is enough for the oil to affect her... (?)
It's not the actual same oil from chapter 2, it's just a thematic thing.
Whoops I am falling into the pit of crack theories amn't I facepalm
Hey, swapping theories in the comment section is a large part of the fun of having a comment section attached to the comic.
If I had to guess, I'd say she's... angry...
"Genuinely creepy" is not a descriptor I thought I would ever assign to Ms. Fairbairn. Well done.
I thought I recognized those sleeves!
I was right about her face... Brrr...
Alas, I was wrong about her craving for help... :(
Well, given the color of the speech bubble, it's entirely possible that's not Ms. Fairbairn speaking. Or at least not entirely her (she's not using the Deadlies' signature font, so I don't exactly know what to make of this).
Colored speech bubbles have been used to indicate someone under the influence of one of the Deadlies, too. Before Harry pulled Mal out of his recent funk, his lines were the same color as Fairbairn's here: [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-17th-2017/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-17th-2017/")
Aye, when the sins are feeding off someone, their font changes color. I guess this goes for if they are given over in whole to them as well. Sloth took all of Fairbairn's sleep, so possibly it's been feeding off her ever since. But since it also said that without sleep there is no life....that raises some very frightening implications.
Good eye! I didn't even notice that, somehow.
Oh good, she looks perfectly sane!
I guess going goodness knows how many months without sleep will do that to you...
I don't know. I haven't had a normal amount of sleep practically all year and I feel jus... zzzzzz
Hmm... Nevertheless she has taken off the glass from the lamp, to knock them down (pan. 5), and bluish swirls start to shroud them... But in the last panel the glass is on the lamp again... And Ben and Vee, though taken down, are not wrapped in mist... if I am not mistaken.
Aw. Ms Fairbairn is still carrying a torch (well a lantern) for Mr Thackerey after all this time.
And should we be worried that her name doesn’t appear in the cast list today?
Her name has never been in tags.
Hey, you're right. Well spotted. Could this mean she isn't really Ms Fairbairn?
And "never found the body" pays off gloriously at long last. Yikes, panel four.
Ooh. Well, her previous schtik was with lights too.
Well, that's not a little nightmarish. At all. o.O
That's before you think about the implications.
Back in chapter 2 I thought Fairbairn was gone because Sloth said "without sleep there is no life", but I realize now what it didn't say: "without sleep you/they will die". This suggests that Fairbairn is trapped between the living and dead, unable to return to the living because she cannot sleep, and unable to truly die for Sloth has taken her ability to rest. She's been stuck here, in between for months all while Sloth continues to feed off her, not only taking her sleep, but growing stronger from her desire to rest (the desire to rest is another aspect of Sloth). Now how strong might Sloth be if Fairbairn wasn't the only person so trapped? Though I think Eddie mentioned there was a limit to how much energy a person could provide to a feeding spirit before they expired.
The other implication is that they might be trapped wherever Fairbairn is, as Sid and Ben's presence suggest it is not the Anchor. If that is the case, will they be able to get back? especially Sid and Wolfe who've already fallen under the influence of Sloth.
This thought had occurred to me as well: when Sloth took all of her sleep, that apparently included even The Long Sleep. She's apparently literally the restless dead....
I was kidding when I commented about how Horror-movie this situation was but Now I'm totally getting the jibblies! I don't like Zombies! D'8>
Love your first paragraph; I hadn't thought about the possibilities that she can't have "The Long Sleep".
It was stated earlier that the center of Sloth's influence was around the old Lamplight Factory building. So they aren't at the anchor, but (presumably) in Widdershins.
She is Sloths anchor, like the times before when spirits moved around the world they needed item and a body, ref [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/june-4th-2014/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/june-4th-2014/").
...I'll be honest, I just forgot to tag her and don't really want to go through Vol 2 tagging her in :|
shh shh let them have this ;-)
Sloth's influence gets everywhere! >:=)>
Here's looking at you, Blue-eyes!
>:=)>
No no, I love when people make guesses, and I'm usually a pretty deliberate storyteller, it's entirely my bad.
... and now the audience deliberates :)
Well that's terrifying.
...at least she remembers him? That's a... plus. I guess.
I this case, I think it's a definite minus.
Ben just can't win, can he?
"With a little bit of luck"... (c) Mr Doolittle
My associations are more in line with "Don't go into Africa, kids", but it isn't an option for our heroes, and never was. :/
Where are you going to place I'm an Ordinary Man or I could have Danced All Night?
"I could have Danced All Nigh" should sing Wolfe :) In the chpt5, with Florrie :)
And "I'm an Ordinary Man Woman Girl" - is for Vee, of course :)
Wolfe in Chapter 5 is perfect.
I suspect she remember it's Thackerey who is responsible for her present situation (in her view of things), even if she doesn't remember anything else.
That's the next book...
She's the Curtain Call.
I don't know how you took Sloth from being the comic relief to the most frightening of the bunch so far, but brava Ms. Ashwin for pulling it off.
The "comic relief"? Don't you remember how scary it was last time??
[http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/september-26th-2012/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/september-26th-2012/")
In the couple of panels of that page, you definitely have a point, but it (they? he? she?) read as a sort of sullen teenager in just about every other page.
Plus there's a big leap from straightforwardly intimidating and the current Nightmare!Fairbairn. :shudder:
re: pronouns for spirits, I tend to use "it" since they aren't human, but any will do, they're not picky about these things.
Well, Fairbairn looks good 'n crazy. :-/
Well, Sloth owns her now. Not sure if she knows that, but if she does it clearly doesn't bother her.
Or it does bother her heaps and that's why she's going to be SO NICE AND FRIENDLY to our heroes.
And Nicola thought she was mad here [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/september-7th-2012/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/september-7th-2012/")
Compared to today's strip she was merely mildly eccentric when Nicola last saw her.
And Vee's down! I wonder if her stepping in front of Ben in panel 3 meant she got a stronger blast from the flame. She intended to protect him by handling the fight herself, as she's been doing since they were kids, but maybe she (unintentionally) ended up protecting him in a different way by taking the brunt of Fairbairn's/Sloth's attack and leaving him awake to do something about it.
That's a sweet thought, and it seems plausible! It sure does look like she too passed out in the last panel there...and then there was one.
=== It sure does look like she too passed ==
She isn't a shadow shrouded in bluish swirls yet!
I hope she's still kicking, as well as Ben.
That's true, and when Mal gave in, he had blue outlines, and Vee has neither, so maybe!
The third panel suddenly has made me wonder what Verity's aura looks like.
Yep, definitely undead. I was afraid this was going to remind me of something from Darken, and I was right.
You feed somebody to the demon they summoned once, and I swear they never let you hear the end of it. :P
Technically, Ben was the one who summoned it. Although she was the one authorized it.
Also technically, Fairbairn was the one who authorized Sloth to eat someone.. she just didn't realize she was the only one still in the circle.
Touche, both of you. :)
All of our heroes are down.
And the Purple Hippo of Happiness is nowhere in sight.
This could be the end, Bat-fans!
(I really want to see the Hippo to save the day again....)
I just realised, this chapter is the literature equivalent of a video game boss rush
That's kinda true and kinda awesome..!
I think this is probably the most nightmare-inducing page since, well, the [last time we saw her](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/september-26th-2012/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/september-26th-2012/"). Well done.
AAAHHHHHH that is shockingly terrifying!!
Okay but, I actually would really like to know what would happen if Vee had shot the Fairbairn-Sloth-Waith with her -sleeping- darts??? Would it only make her stronger?? If all her sleep is stolen would it be unable to do anything at all? HMM
Sleeping darts needs both the circulatory system and central nervous system to be in working order to have an effect. Somehow, I don't those two vital functions are functioning properly right now.
Fairbairn's not dead, she's unsleeping! And as soon as we find the cure for sloth we're gonna put her back in play and she's gonna be pretty pissed off, you know why? Have you gone a week without sleep? Well multiply that by fifteen million times, that's how pissed off Fairbairn's gonna be. We're gonna get Fairbarin, and Mrs. Sykes, and Lei Feng, and Thomas Macavity and a torch of sloth oil and rail down to Widdershins!
...Well played: the most obvious response would result in a quite humorous situation where one would have to then explain why said response was NOT, in fact, a direct insult.
To be fair, the REAL Mrs. Sykes was just one of Gluttony's victims. The one we saw most of the time was just Gluttony shapechanged to look like her.
Also, Sloth be all: "I can't be bothered to manifest my own shape, so Imma use this lady since she's right here and all."
NOT who I was expecting!
Yep, not alive. Called it!
I forget... who is Ms. Fairbairn?
She's from Chapter 2 (first appearance here: [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/april-11th-2012/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/april-11th-2012/") ). She arranged for Mal and Wolfe to work with Ben, then proceeded to use them for her own ends. She was going to feed them to Sloth, but it ended up taking her instead - hence her current state.
Ah, so this is not a rescue.
NOPE!!! NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE!
Did I ever tell you how I got these scars?
Just occurred to me: there's something interesting in the fact that, with the others, there's been some kind of mob, crowd, or group the Deadly was obviously feeding off of: the riotous mob outisde the prison, the theatregoers, the people begging for scraps of food, and the student body and faculty of the University. But Sloth? Sloth makes you feel all alone in the night; like there's no point because nothing can reach you and you can't reach anything. All of the people pinging on their map as being under Sloth's sway, they're each so very alone right now.
most are probably sleeping by now though
out of curiousity I went back to check the map we got and cross-referenced it to the widdershins map
first thought: "of course sloth hasn't moved from the lamplight factory"
second though= "oh crap, that's smack dab in the middle of a residential area"
idea: are the sins getting stronger the less of them there are?
after all severall of them counter-act each other
Not really sure how, though. I mean, take Wrath and Sloth: if you have Wrath alone, you might do something about it and end up less wrathful. If you have both Wrath and Sloth, your anger just sort of festers and simmers, becoming resentment.
But wouldn't Wrath immediately find something else to target? I don't think the sins (or spirits in general) really work like human emotions in that they don't fade like how you are describing- they are after all the manifestation of one emotion, so if Wrath became less wrathful, it would just... cease to exist, i guess. And resentment is, in a way, preferable to the angry-mob-burn-your-house-down brand of anger that Wrath seems to represent.
You've got a point that the spirit of Wrath would just retarget (as, very likely, a wrathful person would), but still, the point is that the resentment produced by mingling with Sloth is all the more pernicious for being both more difficult to spot and for likely bleeding out into other parts of the person's life. Wrath alone would give you drive and focus to stay on target: with Sloth you're no less focused, but you instead take out your anger on anyone with arms reach because you're not going to take the effort to act properly on your anger. Or something, I dunno what I was going for. Point is, they're not as mutually exclusive as you might think.
yeah, but long term resentment is much better for the victim then just lashing out
also I was purely speaking about the strength for the sin rather then the effect of the person
for example dealing with a very annoying costumer and you want to hit them but don't because you'll lose their patronage
that's wrath being countered by greed, if that person was purely under the influence of wrath then he'd just deck the costumer and damn the consequences
if my idea is true then we're lucky that sloth was one of the last ones because sloth counters nearly everything, sloth OP, please nerf
Normally I would side with those saying no, but my mind keeps going back to Lust. It's been working on this plan for a long while, and watched our group go off with a smile. And yet, It's done nothing to step in and help as the sins keep getting bound one after another. Which makes me think that's also part of the plan, and I keep waiting for that particular shoe to drop.
For such a lazy spirit, Sloth sure seems to have built a lot of avatars.
It's great at delegation so it doesn't have to do anything for itself.
"Stay back, Benji, I've got this!" aims a shaking arm
Sure, Vee. Sure you do.
Haunted by my Psycho Ex-Boss. If that isn't a Horror Movie/Play in Future Widdershins I will be Greatly Disappointed
I can relate.
How are you actually suppose to pronounce her name? Because all this time I've been saying it in my mind like it rhymes with "Care-bear".
"How dare you let me do this to myself!" The slothful woman said.