Tiffany Archer (or just Tiff) was part of Juniper Smith's Dungeons & Dragons group. She has very strong opinions on things, especially sex, gender, race and socioeconomics, and she often got into arguments with Arthur about them.[3] Her opinions inspired Juniper to invent both the aerbian versions of dwarves and unicorns, and her speedster character Hummingbird inspired velocity mages.[4][5][6] She dated Juniper for some time.
She grew up in Bumblefuck, Kansas, but used to live out in the country, with a different group of friends. It was only in the middle of high school she fell in with Juniper's group.[7] Tiff is a voracious reader, and once claimed to read three words of analysis and commentary for each word of actual fiction.[8] She didn't consider herself a feminist, which she repeated often.[9] Tiff was on the swim team of her high school.[10]
“Assuming that I have access to baby Hitler, I can just kidnap him and raise him not to be evil. Most of him being an authoritarian fascist probably traces back to his experiences in the trenches of--”
- —Tiff, Chapter 70: "Moral Agency"
Appearance[]
Tiff has long brown hair tied back in a ponytail. She has a small mouth with thick lips.[11]
Biography[]
Tiff once explained the concept of the Unspoken Plan Guarantee to the party. ELEVATOR facts
Tiff's justification for why people might choose to live in Barren Jewel led her and Arthur into one of their famous arguments about things like upward mobility and late-stage capitalism. Whys and Wherefores
Tiff was worried for Juniper after Arthur's death, concerned he was sinking into what he thought was righteous pain, wanting to show people how hurt he was at the cost of everything else, but Juniper couldn't tell her the lies she wanted to hear. After the conversation, she stopped showing up at Juniper's D&D games. Desert Course
Tiff was confused as to why Count Gardner was poisoning them if they were immune, but quickly realized the count was just not aware of it. She suggested collecting some proof of the poisoning instead of just killing Gardner. Siege
A conversation about sexism in D&D relating to how Tiff didn't want to fight regular 'unexamined' succubi led Juniper to conceive the aerbian unicorn. She also thought the Long Stairs campaign sounded neat. Friendship is Magic
Tiff wanted her character Flora to join back up with Reimer's Finch after Juniper explained why splitting the party wasn't such a good idea. Don't Split the Party
Tiff, Reimer, Craig and Arthur eventually fought Juniper's unicorn in his game. Strategic Reserves
After the game, while Tiff was driving Juniper home she asked about the justification for the unicorn's time powers, which she didn't get. Juniper said it was an attempt to mirror Gaslighting, which Tiff seemed to appreciate. The conversation led into Tiff hinting she had a crush on Juniper, and Juniper reciprocating. Tiff invited him to her house, where they kissed. Juniper slept on her couch after some stargazing together. Some time later, Tiff mentioned she was aware of Arthur's crush on her, but gave up on waiting for him to confess. Eventually, after Arthur's death, Tiff and Juniper drifted apart. A Pleasant Interlude in Kansas
Tiff, Reimer, Arthur and Craig once discussed the mechanics of Dungeon Master-mediated magic systems, which Juniper tried to disavow them of. Keep Magic Weird
Tiff and Arthur argued about the reason for the prevalence of virgins in fiction, which led Craig to mention his bingo cards. There were squares for Tiff mentioning she was not a feminist and Tiff and Arthur's long disagreements on gender, sex, race or socioeconomics. Eventually this went on for thirty minutes, ignoring the party's showdown with the Duke of Lagrange. At Arm's Length
Tiff didn't trust Arthur to speak for the entire party when her character was chaotic good and his was lawful neutral. She cried 'Objection!' in reference to Phoenix Wright. Somehow the argument went into the topics of abortion, and eventually the party just let Tiff's character speak. Animus
Once, when Juniper was at Tiff's house, before they were dating, he noticed most of her bookshelf was nonfiction, a lot of it layman's explanations of fields and subjects, but he also noticed ten notebooks of Tiff's diary, kept since she was twelve. Juniper couldn't figure out the code she used, though. Tiff mentioned she felt like the fifth wheel of the group, and her conversation with Juniper led her to say she found him interesting. A Kindred Soul
Tiff refused to kill an evil baby (even Hitler), because in her opinion it's not the right thing to do. She thought D&D having an objective answer to whether killing an evil baby was good was dumb. Moral Agency
Tiff confronted Juniper when he didn't show up to Arthur's funeral, saying she needed him. Juniper lied, saying he was okay. The Sacrifice
Tiff argued against Craig's intention to kill some guards, and tried to stop Maddie from helping him, saying it wasn't in character for Raven. The Great Train Robbery
Tiff was part of the Cannibal campaign, together with Arthur, Reimer and Craig. She explained horror movie rules to Reimer. Name of the Beast
In Juniper's dream at the burger bar, Tiff explained the concept of Women in Refrigerators, and argued about the importance of the Bechtel test and long lists with Arthur, though she was baited into letting Arthur win the argument. Deceptions
Tiff didn't understand the distinction of Dungeon Master Player Character, which Arthur explained to her. Ever Onward
Tiff was part of the argument about what made a chair a chair with Reimer, Maddie, Arthur and Craig. Piece of Mind
When the party got an excessive amount of loot after a fight, Tiff argued it was better for the loot to be given out in regular intervals instead of all at once. Monty Haul
References
- ↑ “Are your parents going to be okay with that?”
“They’re in Toulouse for the week, so I’m all alone,” said Tiff.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 42: "A Pleasant Interlude in Kansas" - ↑ She was sixteen or seventeen years old, with long brown hair that was tied back in a ponytail
—Worth the Candle Chapter 88: "The House of Solitude" - ↑ And that led to Tiff and Arthur having one of their famous “discussions” where they argued about upward mobility and late-stage capitalism, or something like that. They were a staple of what I’d call the Tiff-Arthur epoch of our D&D group, because Tiff had strong opinions and Arthur really liked arguing about things.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 15: "Whys and Wherefores" - ↑ Velocity mages probably have their roots in Tiff’s speedster character, Hummingbird, which I helped make a lot of rules for.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 105: "Notes" - ↑ (Incidentally, I remembered making dwarves like that. It had come from a time after Tiff had joined our group, when her own interest in the role of sex and gender in society had led me down some interesting paths in worldbuilding. The dwarves-who-sculpt-their-children and dwarves-who-have-one-gender actually came from two different campaigns, but on Aerb they were just merged together.)
—Worth the Candle Chapter 29: "Greychapel" - ↑ “Oh, those unicorns,” I said, “At first I thought you were talking about a different kind of unicorn.” And though I was saying that a bit sarcastically, it actually was true, because I remembered exactly the unicorns that she was talking about; I had made them for Tiff.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 35: "Friendship is Magic" - ↑ Tiff always felt like she had moved to town around the middle of high school, but that wasn’t actually true. She’d grown up in Bumblefuck, Kansas, same as the rest of us, it was just that she lived out in the country and she had mostly kept to herself, cloistered within her own group of friends. That group of girls had collapsed at some point freshman year, first with Laurel, a keystone member, moving away, and then with two of the girls dating boys a few grades ahead of us. Tiff was adrift for a few months, until she fell in with us.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 20: "Desert Course" - ↑ Tiff was a voracious reader, which wasn’t unusual among our group, but her tastes turned more to non-fiction than was the norm, and she once told me that she read about three words of analysis and commentary to every one word of actual fiction.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 35: "Friendship is Magic" - ↑ “‘Tiff says that she’s not a feminist’, do I really do that?” asked Tiff. “I mean, I don’t consider myself a feminist --”
“Count it,” said Craig.
“-- I didn’t think that I said it that much,” finished Tiff with a kick under the table in Craig’s direction that hit me in the knee.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 47: "At Arm's Length" - ↑ She’d been on the swim team, the shirt had been free, from a conference or organization or something.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 88: "The House of Solitude" - ↑ It took me some time to recognize her, as the others shouted in surprise and moved into action. She was sixteen or seventeen years old, with long brown hair that was tied back in a ponytail; I had always liked the way it swished back and forth when she shook her head. She had a small mouth with thick lips; I could instantly remember what it was like to kiss her.
—Worth the Candle Chapter 88: "The House of Solitude"