Peonie Presumes, Part I
Check back next Tuesday for the second half of Exiern’s first Two Page Spread!
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Recent Comments
- Gorm on Insert Monty Python Reference Here
- elfguy on This will hurt more
- elfguy on I don’t get it
- JuL on The Night
- JuL on He’s Dense, But Grounded
Tiff needs to get out and cool off. Her blood temperature is rising.
That vein is about to pop.
Typhan-knee was gay?
The plot thickens!
…yum!
Is this supposed to be half of a double-page spread? or is something screwy going on?
This is the first half of a “Two Page Spread” but all of the dialogue above is for this page – by which I mean this dialogue is complete without needing to see the second half of the spread. (Not that there isn’t more to see on the next page.)
Look at that vein popping on Tiffany’s forehead… If that isn’t just from the heat, Peonie may be in danger.
@moirla. Barring major retcon, I doubt it. Typhan (as a female) has shown the idea of being attracted to men is entirely a post-switch phenomenon.
Peonie, if you value your life, you had best be quiet, NOW. Tiff is about to smash your face into the water so hard, it will feel like you’re kissing concrete.
And it looks like the plot is going where I thought it was. Isn’t this a bit of a retcon? Though maybe the Peonie Presumes thing is a hint that it’ll be thrown back in her face.
@Uhl: He could have been in denial. You know, teached that “a man should only love a woman” and such. It is possible he was a closet homossexual.
It’s perfectly possible that while the female Tiff is a virgin, the male Typh wasn’t. Anyway, the flashbacks indicate that Typh was still a boy when exiled, so maybe he was wandering that long.
And maybe the standard for unicorns is ‘be penetrated’?
I do hope we’re not going down the ‘gay Typh’ road. You don’t have to be gay to not have had sex. (An interesting take on this is the book ‘Blue Moon Rising’ where the prince rides a unicorn to ensure that there will be no royal bastards.)
@Uhl Nope. Typhan-knee never said one way or anther about having Girlfriends EVER..
@aborn Isn’t this a bit of a retcon?
And she was WAY WAY TO Homophobic Sister Teresa – aka, Brother Thomas
Mirrors are Ugly things.
It was a White Magic Spell Faden Had to use that was uncontrolled, Good magic not Evil. Meaning it Granted Typhs wish.
No Typh Never planned to marry the Princess admitted it, Even went so far as to say she was never Attracted to her.
I been here from the Beginning and was one of the first People to bring it up, Typhany Never LIKED GIRLS! In any sense.
I was wondering and asking why would Tiff not be a Lesbian at least not try if she was trying to Hold onto her Male Identity. the Original Author Would never say other than there a Reason.
@Nibelung Agreed!
@Quartz When asked Tiff was Offensive and refused to talk about it instead brought up that the Princess could not Ride the Unicorn.
This IS WHY Tiff did not try being a Lesbian, Why He never Committed Rape Despite Claiming at one point He had RAPED and Plundered.
Sorry to go on about it But I was Flamed by about 8 People when I brought it up years ago. One guy said “sexality dose not work that way”
Witch was stupid bc it exactly how it works.
Put a Straight man in a Girl Body with Female instincts He Might become BI in a few years but he try stay Attracted to Girls. For no other reason than Stubbornness. And Typh IS STUBBORN WILL OF IRON!
If she thought for one Second that Faden’s WILL was Making her a Straight Woman and Altering Her Personality to Lust for Men SHE WOULD Of Visited Every Brothel in the Land And Female Hooker And been trying to BED THE Princess 24/7.
No She Attracted to Men And She KNOWS Faden’s Spell Had Nothing TO DO WITH THAT!
To be clear I have gay Clients that Like being Male and would never change that but I also Had a Gay Client that got the operation She very happy now. Bc she was not happy as a Man. I think Typh is like her. Never Fit And the Dangerous White Magic was Dangerous bc it Granted Tyff Wish.
It also did this to the Water Spirit (that wanted to be female)And of the Clerics only Brother Thomas wanted to stay female and only she Did!
The Spell White and is Good by Nature so it only changing those Permanently that want and need to change.
Soo i did some digging into the old comics because the Tiff is Gay theory seems to have some credit. I myself never bought that Tiff was Gay because she never really acted like it. You’d think if someone was into guys, that becoming a woman and being allowed to actually be with a man by societal norms would be jumping at every chance they would get.
However upon examining the different stories / myths about tiffs past, added to the current situation on Tiff’s sexuality would seem to only cement Tiff formally being Gay. Based upon the evidence, I would actually guess that Tiff had “come out of the closet” moment that lead to a inner family fight resulting in the death of his mother and father over the issue and leading Tiff to “self exile” himself in shame and attempting to hide his nature even further by any means necessary, eventually leading him to rescuing peonie. The mishap with faden is as what others have suggested a result of Tiff wanting his sexual interest to be acceptable to others thus turning him female. Even after his transformation which would make lots in his position react like brother thomas, she continued to fight against her instincts. This thinking also would explain why Wyll-line’s name was said mean “He who restores the honor of family”, and why Tiff told the shaman that she didn’t feel broken.
the comic after Tiff made the statement what if she decides she isn’t broken, she also said she hasn’t been whole since she was born.
while the whole tiff originally being gay thing is possible I will be taking the wait and see approach.
I do however have no doubts that tiff was a virgin as a man. I believe that this was due to conflicting ideas on gender roles. On one hand he was brought being taught that women are inferior, and that obviously left a mark. On the other hand, after seeing how his mom was treated all those years, he could have easily begun to have doubts on those views. Doubts that he kept deep inside due to fears similar, but NOT identical, to those many people have about being outed.
Finally may I present a third/fourth option to tiff was either originally straight OR gay/bi. Keeping in mind that sexuality in complex it is possible that he would never want be with another guy AS A GUY, BUT would NOT mind doing so as a girl. I DO not know what the term for this “condition” is but I will admit it is something I have myself.
Just wanted to add that seeing how is mother was treated is another POSSIBLE reason why he would not want to take a bride that way.
This does seem to be a non-issue. People are obviously free to discuss and/or try to predict where this arc is heading, but in general — whether he/she was/is gay/straight doesn’t really matter. It changes nothing about the comic itself (beyond enriching the back story), and is thus completely irrelevant. Except, perhaps, for people that have strong real-life feelings for/against homosexuality, but that’s for them to deal with. Preferably in private. 🙂
So how come you don’t have a TWC votey button, whyfor not? As is I have to go to the TWC site for a manual vote and compared to other comics you are almost about to break the 100 mark. If you had a vote button Exiern would be doing far better (more viewers=more money, no?). Is there something I am missing?
@sob what about my theory that seeing how his mother was treated is a big part of why he was a virgin as a man as well?
Him not wanting to force an unwilling woman to be with him would go quite a ways to explaining both why he was a virgin as a man, if the chance he had to sleep with a woman would be to capture and enslave one during a raid, and why he didn’t want the royal hand in marriage, an arranged can be seen as selling your child into sexual slavery as they will have to have sex with someone they do not love out of political necessity
Then again, Tiff’s mother was a slave. Perhaps that had something to do with not wanting to enslave a person and bring them home as a wife. And another method of gaining a wife just wouldn’t really have been as culturally acceptable in that barbaric (literally) culture.
I would like to take a moment and say how much I like the new art-style. It’s wonderful. ^^
@Ga’Tor: Exiern was as high as #26 at a point on that listing; and we discovered that it really wasn’t impacting site views at all (in fact, viewership went UP the first month after we dropped the voting button). The return just wasn’t worth pandering for votes. I personally don’t like that sort of thing anyway… I’m not interested in a popularity contest. If people like the story, they’ll stay… if they don’t, no # on a Top 100 list is going to change their mind.
As for the topic of conversation, I have a long piece to say about all of it, but I’ll save talking about it for when I’m done talking about it in the story. This is going to be a fairly emotionally intense end of the year for this comic.
I just want to back up Chemiclord’s explanation for the missing button. It felt like a competition (because it was), and I’d rather find more inclusive and constructive ways to get the word out about Exiern that don’t make me feel like we’re trying beat other comics which have as much passion and love put in them as this one has. We are always grateful for people wanting to help get the word out about Exiern, but that didn’t feel like the right way to do it.
And as fun as these last few pages have been, there are a few coming up which have been hard for me to look at in my files. Some intense stuff coming…
completely different theory, for a change of pace:
Maybe Typh was a virgin because he was attracted to dragons? 🙂
Is it sick and wrong of me to want to see artwork of Male Typh with Dragon Denver? As I said above: Yum.
And something about your guys’ non competitive model must be working. I got here via word of mouth because someone over on Guilded Age name dropped you a couple months ago.
I think many of you are confusing sexuality with gender identity. These two things do not go hand in hand and a lot of people who are suffering from gender identity don’t really care too much about sex, it just feels wrong no matter what way they go.
If, and this is a big if, Typh was suffering from gender identity it would go a long way to explain a lot of the story. It would explain why she was a virgin. It would explain why she was exiled. It would explain why she behaves like she does in some situations.
Pre Christianity many groups had no problem with homosexuality. It wasn’t till Christianity that same sex pairing became really taboo. Even today though gender dysfunction is not looked on in a good light and considered wrong by most people. In todays society ‘just’ being gay would be a weight lifted off the shoulders of someone who is gender dysfunctional, just think what it would be like for someone in a time when women were thought of as less that cattle?
ScottHicken: thank you, didn’t think there was any missing dialogue, just thought it was the browser not working properly (still stubbornly using IE7)
To ChemicLord and Scott Hicken. As a first time poster I just wanted to thank you for taking up the reigns (apparently a while ago) and keeping this comic running. I have been reading for a long time and I look back weekly for updates. In my mind you made the right decision about that votey and I felt you should know that there are webcomic readers out there that hold Exiern up as a weekly must.
Also I love the direction the story has been taking lately.
Okay so it does appear true that there were no indications one way or another, so I guess we’ll see next strip.
Also yes, thank you to whoever it was that discussed the difference between transgender and gay (I admit it’s something that I often neglect myself). As far as, was Tiffany a gay man? or Transgendered? I don’t know. It’s still possible she’s neither, though either theory has it’s merits and it’s not really easy to tell since the spell’s mental effects could have started effecting her very early on in the comic. I will say though, it is white magic. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s shaped her into what she desires to be.
@ Jonathan Wint
Well reasoned. Your argument fits the facts and is logical. I still think it’s something of a copout to go that route but I can see how it fits the facts now.
@ That one guy
This I agree with as well. There is more weight to the argument of Tiff being Gay than I thought, reading the comments above, but it’s still a cop out to me.
One thing that isn’t pointed out above is that Gender roles are not gender specific in hunting and gathering cultures. I took my degree in Anthropology and some of the cultures I’ve studied have Women as warriors and Men as homemakers. The Apache culture is one. A man who dressed as a woman and did woman’s work was not only called a woman but actually thought of as one. Though fewer in number, women frequently became warriors and were always treated as, AND referred to as, Men. Of course this is not common knowledge and our writer has the right to make his own culture instead of basing it on historic ones.
What I find disappointing about this is that it’s the easy way out. If true, Tiffany isn’t struggling against unwanted change but against an unwanted realization of her own beliefs. It removes a lot of the tension and motivation in my opinion.
@Ben : love is nice in a marriage, but the most important thing is respect. Love is what brings people together, but mutual respect keeps them together. With that in mind, an arranged marriage doesn’t have to be bad.
Tiff did not agree with father, father is dead. Tiff may have liked mother. Saw mother’s place as doing housework, making babies, pleasing man but still may have felt you treat mom well like you treat hunting dogs well. Tiff not grabbing a woman and raping her on a raiding trip may be a difference from his dad, rather than a lack of attraction to women.
Princess is probably not an attractive mate to a barbarian. Barbarian wants a woman who can gather food and clean the skins, rather than a useless mouth to feed.
@Keldaria: No. Gender identity and sexual orientation (sp?) are different things. Tiff might identify as a male, but still only have sexual attractions to other males. El Goonish Shive touched this subject a bit during the Birthday Party story arc with Justin (and Susan, a bit), and it was also quickly noded at the finale in Glee season 3, with the comparasion between Kurt and Unique.
(Barbarian tribe has also supposedly to a degree changed for better – no more raiding parties, under TIff’s brother’s leadership, so both sons may have had similar outlook)
“Look at that vein popping on Tiffany’s forehead… If that isn’t just from the heat, Peonie may be in danger.”
can’t it be both? barbarians were supposed to have “the fire”/”pyro” as a racial trait after all…
“Tiff did not agree with father, father is dead. Tiff may have liked mother. Saw mother’s place as doing housework, making babies, pleasing man but still may have felt you treat mom well like you treat hunting dogs well. Tiff not grabbing a woman and raping her on a raiding trip may be a difference from his dad, rather than a lack of attraction to women” raiding stopped under brother afterall and typhon seemed to like mom
“Then again, Tiff’s mother was a slave. Perhaps that had something to do with not wanting to enslave a person and bring them home as a wife”
_____
pcups is jumping the gun on assumptions even for a barbarian(who may or may not have killed said father) no rape =! hating pussy
nope. fayden seems like a guy who studied *everything* about magic and knows what hes talking about. When he grabbed the wrong book he had still intended to cast some white magic spell but overloaded with a ton of juice to attack….I got the impression healing spells can give rapid cancer if you try hard enough.
White magic does good? how about white magic does no harm. Changing someone is not harming them if they can still be a person. As for tiff gender/ sexuality maybe she did not agree with the Barbarian norms she could have been enlightened and as such choose not to have surprise sex with unwilling partners. She also could have choose not to act like her dad. She also could have had a bad relationship with her mother and seen her as weak for not fighting harder or being a weak southern.
Tiff seemed to spend a lot of time with the shaman this could have shown her possibilities out side her barbarian world and it could have been likely that she would have left regardless if her parents died(after all she said she didn’t want to lead the tribe). Most likely she would have never returned if she didn’t have to.
At this point for all we know the fight that killed her parents could have been over Tiff leaving and her dad insisting he had to man up and lead the tribe causing the other 3 to attack and kill his dad to prevent this.
Another first time commenter here:
@Seedling: I’d argue men need respect and love and women need love and respect, in that order.
@DanStanding and Chemiclord and any other talent. This comic is awesome.
One way to flip this around is to take what we have already observed, which is that Tiff’s curse was making her into what she considered was an ideal woman (or words to that effect). This was observed at the recent events at the palace. Taking that into account, wouldn’t it make sense that the ideal woman for a red blooded barbarian type would be a) a virgin, and b) attracted to guys like the aforementioned red blooded barbarian? Unless male Typh was into girl on girl action, I see both as a side effect of the curse and not some pre-existing orientation. Likely, Peonie is about to assume the same, that she was like that before.
Of course, we can speculate to our hearts content…the rest of the chapter will tell the tale.
Well Tiff. There is only one way out to prove Peonie the otherwise. A long passionate kiss. Sadly you`ll maybe notice that kissing another girl is only half so good like kissing Faden. xD
People seem to think that because Typhan was turned into a woman by white magic because he was gay, but it is also possible that (if his desires affected the spell at all) it was his desire to avoid leadership that led to the change.
Many barbarian cultures had little or no problems with homosexuality, but (to the best of my knowledge) no barbarian culture would accept a female chief – unless it was a matriarchal society, which this clearly is not. It is possible that the spell latched onto this as the only method (short of killing Typhan) to exclude any possibility of him becoming chief.
I wonder if we’re reading this all wrong and jumping to conclusions? What if this is Peonie trying to get Tiff and Denver to be a couple? Perhaps she’s trying to get Tiff emotional enough to do it?
I am just glad how ever it turns out that I am not getting blasted for saying it. But I think as a Man Tiff was very unhappy and the General Abuse of women he was told to Practice by his dear Dad warped Tiff and was probably at least in part responsible for his lack of Girlfriends.
@Shadestryke barbarian culture I do not think was ever the Problem. they kind of made it clear that was Dads doing. But for the record the wear Dozens of barbarian cultures that had women as Leaders. In Pagan Ireland the High Queen it was required.
edited that all wrong no idea why.@Shadestryke The barbarian culture I do not think that was the Problem.The Macho crap and rape women and prove your a Man, they kind of made it clear that was Dads doing(He remade the customs). I think he was a Homophobic redneck wife beater ahead of his time,The book never showed him as Homophobic but lets be honest it would fit with him being a all around Sh#$HEAD.
But your right most Primitive cultures had no Problem with gays. In fact several encouraged it. Thinking it made better Warriors .(Spartans required it to the point Men only married women to have children and made them dress as men on there wedding night,And still had a Male husband Life partner.)
But for the record the wear Dozens of barbarian cultures that had women as Leaders and chiefs. In Pagan Ireland the High Queen it was required. And then there was Britain’s Boudica, There were also several Native American tribes that were Always Led by Women as they were thought to have cooler heads. PS No idea why it did not turn out right when I first posted sorry.
I’ve just been back to the first few comics, and really, Typhan-Knee doesn’t look that old, late teens at best. But Tiff looks rather older, early 20s.
Typhan Knee was 16 when he was exiled. He was 19 when our story begins (although reached the Alliance a bit before that), and is 20 now. Once in the Alliance, he worked mostly as a mercenary or heavy laborer, until the call for heroes regarding Peonie’s kidnapping by Faden caught his ears.
He’d been wandering the wilderness for about a year and a couple months. Never established an EXACT time frame because it wasn’t an element of his life I plan on fleshing out into too much detail.
@chemiclord Dose his/Her View of Women Affect His her Age as it dose his/her Appearance ?
I think what’s being pointed out is that Tiffany would have simply been a mindless person had he remained a “he”. Now that she sees what it’s like on the other side she has developed empathy and and revised her set of ethics (to appreciate both sexes).
Remember, in the palace, all could have been lost because Tiffany saw women as weak and meek. The fact that she could kiss Denver and still remain strong enough to fight means that Tiffany is finally accepting that being strong and skilled, and being a woman are not contradictions. The princess has realised this.
It peony pressumes, Then it will be Peony get bruised