It’s Only A Model
Teresa was first collared way back in this strip – http://www.exiern.com/?p=1410
For those curious as to the details of Teresa’s experience at The Church of Rem, Chemiclord has written a short story called A WOMAN’S PLACE, which is available in the ESCarchive.
Sllooowww burn
I’m pretty sure any burn at Tiffany is quickly turns into a fast burn.
Now that she’s back to ‘normal,’ perhaps the King has decided to make his move. I’m still a fan of the King+Tiffany pairup!
And Tiff is now wearing the “official” protector armor. As for the “pairing up,” remember, she’s got to keep Peonie safe for one year before she can collect the “reward.”
Oh, Theresa, haven’t you learned by now to NOT provoke the barbarian?
Theresa’s too stupid to NOT provoke the barbarian.
That’s a priest costume that Teresa is wearing, right? (Altered for a female figure with great abs and boobs, obviously.) Can we gather from this that the king told the Priesthood, “You WILL take off Teresa’s collar and you WILL fully reinstate her into the Priesthood”?
As for Teresa and Denver, hopefully he asked her to meet with him because he’s too classy to give her a “I’m dropping you” message by letter.
I think the expression is “…pillow over her FACE.”
A new day dawns, and old rivalries reemerge.
Theresa’s not being dumb, she’s just expressing her affection for the big dumb barbarian. She’s hoping to get Tiff to express her own feelings for Theresa back – usually along the lines of ‘Graah kill you!’ or something, but Theresa’s good at reading subtexts.
Me, I’m all for the Tiff/Theresa pairup. They’re so cute together! Plus, we know there’ll be lots of clothing destruction and violence, so I’m happy.
Wait, “His Highness”? Shouldn’t it be “His Majesty”? “Highness” is usually reserved for princes and princesses. Unless Peonie’s got a younger brother… or unless Peonie’s been hit with the gender-switching curse, too?? Oh noes!
the Teresa vs Church thing was explained in a story that Dan wrote and posted in the esarchive, it is pretty good and gives some interesting back story on the Church and King.
I’d love to take credit for the story, but I feel compelled to mention that it was Chemiclord who wrote A WOMAN’S PLACE.
But thanks for attributing it to me! 🙂 Nice to think someone believes I can write that well!
@deanatay I used to think that too, but apparently Majesty used to be for emperors only until Henry VIII of England fancied a better title than Highness and nabbed it. Created a bit of a scandal a mere King calling himself majesty, but then it became so mainstream.
I guess Majesty and Highness could both be correct.
Personally I’m miserable because I can’t afford to get an archive membership for a Teresa/King story which I would love to do. My car needs bits replaced and until I work out how much that would cost I’m scuppered.
Is it just me or does it seem that even though Tiff is back to “normal” she still looks more feminine than she did before all this crap started, kind of in between she kick your a!s but she is so much more beautiful while doing it. She can kick my butt any time.
I’d just like to congratulate the scribes over this latest arc, since I’ve just noticed something rather important. And also apologise for not noticing sooner, and being late to the party on this.
The symbolism of this last arc was brilliant, with the night and breaking of the dawn being such a wonderful illustration of Tiff’s character. We started the arc with the party in the early evening, and Tiff was plunging into despair over her sense of self, it fading as the evening light itself faded. Eventually Tiff’s sense of density disintegrated over the course of the evening, with midnight and the moments before the ritual being the nadir, Tiff almost becoming the fragile little court flower. Midnight passes, and Tiff begins to reaffirm her identity, or perhaps find a new one, and as her sense of self grows stronger the night slips towards the dawn. As dawn broke we saw Tiff still standing in the rags of her dress from the previous night, having triumphed over the witch and saved her friends. Now the sun is rising high in the sky for the new day, and Tiff is resplendent in her armour, her new identity and ready to face the new day.
Brilliant. Well done, and marvellously executed.
Okay apologies also for some wonderful typos and bizarre word substitutions there, darn auto-correct! I blame it being only 5degreesC indoors and my frozen fingers.
@CrypticMirror: You can actually thank Shipeng for that. He thought it made better artistic sense… Dan and I just agreed with him.
@Azure – hmm, I forgot about the year thing. But that just means it makes MORE sense for Urtica to make his move now – while she’s incapable of outright rejection by leaving. Regardless of what she thinks of the initial proposal, she’ll have to stick around.
In the immortal words of Black Mage from 8-Bit Theatre, “But that’s when I stop being ‘Mr Wrong,’ and start being ‘Mr Good Enough!’
note to self don’t post too soon after taking meds. I get a little confused.
Apparently Tiffany has forgotten that Teresa was going to help her with her curse (before she was collared).
Annoying that the “extras” in the ESArchive aren’t really “extra” if they explain things not in the public comics. Is there going to be a short version of how the church let her “herself” for those of us not interested in the normal “extras”.
I love how Theresa is collared and being prevented of utilizeing her songcasting with a choker, yet her “special” priest(ess) version keeps the choker + plunging neckline and ever important bare-midriff. Ah the vagaries of videogames and comics since the the 90s on female sexuality… not that any guy (and some girls) would be upset about a little more skin.
Tiffany needs to take dressing advice from Theresa.
That armor doesn’t flatter her at all.
Would someone explain the title, “It’s only a model,” to me?
Monty Python reference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3dZl3yfGpc
@GrimGhost how can you be a fantasy fan and not know of Monty Python? That’s it, we’re revoking your “nerd card”!
@jmucchiello It is an extra, we already know what would happen from this comic:
http://www.exiern.com/?p=1349
Urtica bitch-slapped the Deacon in the ego and told him exactly what was going to happen. The extra comic is just how the deacon sold it to people to save face. It isn’t essential to the comic, it is nice to know, but it is really just detail that in the main comic would interfere with pacing so probably would be there anyway.
@Cryptic — no, not my nerd card! Do you know how much money I rake in as technical consultant for McGee on >NCIS<?
Okay, I get how they let Teresa wear the priest robes again. But isn't there a uniform code for those things? I'm pretty sure that taking scissors to the brown cloth covering her upper chest and stomach muscles isn't allowed.
@MNH have you read the comic before or is this your first one? Because the more Peonie and Tiff get covered the more interested the method of removing the covering the authors devise.
I’m quite curious to see what shreds Tiff’s armor and leaves her naked. Since we all know it is happening eventually.
Tiff got her muscles back but kept the long hair. Hair that long has got to be a pain in the a** to take care of, though sexy as all get out. Interesting that Tiff referred to Teresa/Thomas as “that woman”. A subconscious sign of acceptance?
@Cryptic: What? Thomas/Theresa was not silenced until http://www.exiern.com/?p=1410 which happens after the poisoning scene. So how was it taken care of? In fact, at the point Theresa was silenced she was just about to explain to Tiff why she was so weak and the Deacon stopped her from explaining it, in direct contradiction to what he was told to do in 1349. So explain again how the resolution of this is “extra”. I am hoping since Tiff is about to see the King she will ask and he will at least give us the short version.
@jmucchiello
Tiff already sorted the weakness out on her own (for now at least, it is still a sword of Damocles), plus from what we can see here is not in the deleted scene, so any reaction to the exact reason on her weakness is still to come (especially since Peonie was in on it too). The collaring was just a restraining bolt, and put on Theresa until her “trial”. However the idiot that put it on her had no idea that the King had a use for her and was acting on the Deacon’s previous orders. Which leads to point one, the Deacon, after having given the orders to silence and detain Theresa[1], was found to have been holding info back from Urtica. Urtica then bitched slapped him in the ego, threatened his head on a spike, and ordered him to back off and have “priestess” Theresa sort Tiff. This is all in the comic. After that it was 100% certain that if Theresa survived the (k)night she would be reinstated and be the person to help Tiff if needed. We aren’t missing anything that was not already explained.
[1]Lets not call Theresa[2] by her former name, its pretty clear she has disowned it and is happy in her new identity. Its rude to call a trans individual by their old name. See here for a general overview: http://www.transmediawatch.org/guidance_approaches.html
[2]An argument could be made for Tiffany/Typhan-knee, particularly in the early stages of the strip, but since Tiff seems to be, if not happy, at least resigned to her current gender and name then it is probably best practice to use female pronouns and name for her. However in Theresa’s case there is no doubt at all how she feels (which is why her mere presence winds Tiff up so much).
One thing yet to be resolved is that one of the priests has recognized Denver as a proto-dragon and was only prevented from revealing it by being rendered unconscious by a timely blast from the Fractured. Presumably he was rescued by Tiff and has informed his superiors of the discovery, who have informed the King. What’s next for the dragon/scholar?
I think kingie probably already knew about Denver anyway after this strip: http://www.exiern.com/?p=976 he’s probably made a mental note to deal with it when and if it becomes an issue.
Ok,
This discussion leads me back to a point I made before and was called out on this before, but the strip above points back again to my question about spells that @Windsinger called on before on this http://www.exiern.com/?p=1749 ‘Focused’. From @Cryptic’s posting and the link to http://www.exiern.com/?p=1349 ‘Pig tailed Peasant Girls’, I have to reaffirm my belief that it was two spells that caused Tiff to briefly turn into the shorter; longer-haired; more “femininely-submissive” personality.
As the King says to the Deacon in these couple of pages he (Urtica) DOESN’T want a passive female as his bride. Which means that the songmages must have cast a spell (the 2nd then) to cause this personality shift; the end cause to make Tiff/Typhan accept “her” new feminine identity (always referred to Tiff as a her since I started posting – only a few weeks ago, but taking your cues @Cryptic). This implies that Faden/Peonie/Urtica/Theresa – other songmages expected the person who was to save Peonie from Faden in the VERY 1st five pages to have said savior turn into a woman that Urtica would bed and crown (lets be honest here and considering the “sexy” nature of this comic, come on”) which would then imply that Peonie was expecting to be defenestrated as it were.
True, I haven’t reread the whole comic to verify this; but I have in fact read every single strip (heh, 😉 since page one when the narrator 1st introduces the story and you realize that the old guy likes to speak aloud, but he is the only one to break the 4th wall as it were.
@Khamya
Have read for a while. I don’t care about the destruction of unsexy armor, I want sexy clothes destroyed.
Looking back, my biggest confusion is the cast of characters has grown significantly since the strip entered the city. The comic really needs a cast page. I thought the deacon was among the confessors who were escorting Teresa out of the ball. He wasn’t.
In any case, it’s a free comic. The “new day dawning” transition was a bit abrupt. Hopefully it’ll all make sense in the next few comics.
Huh… I might be misreading the clues after going back through the archives, but I am beginning to suspect that Tiffany’s “Male” form was NOT her natural form, and that the “Protection” from hostile magicks she’s manifested since the unicorn appeared, and Faden’s errors in the Asylum have combined to create the arcane contamination.
Camalot!