Webcomic / Leif & Thorn

Imagine how many international conflicts could be avoided if everyone communicated this clearly.

In the nation of Ceannis, a prophecy has been revealed. Dragonslaying hero Sir Thorn Estragon and his team of loyal knights must be tasked with the solemn duty...of standing guard outside a foreign embassy. And if they do it long enough, it'll save the world. Or something.

Leif is a gardener at the embassy, serving his native Sønheim in order to pay off a mysterious debt. Thorn doesn't speak Leif's language too well when they first meet, but he's about to find a lot of reasons to get better.

And they're only the main characters in an increasingly large cast, all facing their own variations on figuring out how to communicate across cultural boundaries, deal with traumas and scars, use magic for practical solutions, and pick just the right song for karaoke night.

An LGBTQ fantasy webcomic by Erin Ptah, Leif & Thorn shows that no matter the world, people are alike all over.

Updates six strips a week, with art pieces on Saturday.

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Tropes found in the comic are:

• Alliterative Family: Sibling pairs Thorn and Tansy...and Hyacinth and Hawthorn...and now Rowan, Rhodey, and Rosie.
• The Alternet: In-universe tech runs on spells and crystals rather than electricity and silicon, so they have the Internet, but magic. Complete with Cracked-type article sites.
• Amazon Brigade: The Embassy guards are all athletic blonde women, with Alruna as The One Enby.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: In the vampire-hunting AU. The fifth (and currently final) installment has Thorn turned into a vampire.
• April Fools' Day:
  • In 2016, interrupting a dramatic battle.
  • In 2018, revamping the whole series into a a Steven Universe fancomic.
• Artificial Limbs: Birch has a prosthetic leg from dragon-induced injuries.
• Badass Adorable: Ivy Muscade. Twintails, frilly skirts, poufy sleeves, most powerful water mage of her generation. Even more so in the "Magical Thorn AU" where she's a gap-toothed second-grader.
• Big Ball of Violence: Lampshaded.
• Bilingual Bonus: Two major languages are spoken in the comic. Not all characters understand both of them, but they're both written as English (in different fonts), allowing the audience to pick up on things the characters may not.
• Born-Again Immortality: Possible with long-runners in general. Acai, specifically, keeps getting reborn.
• B-Side Comics: There's a whole episode of Hedge & Grassie, the in-universe takeoff on of The Burns and Allen Show.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Or rather, Bunny Ears President Olive Romarin.
  Romarin: This is the Situation Room, right? Well, me needing to finish my pie is a situation.
• Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": Thorn's "cat" looks like a cross between a cat, a fox, and a blue Eeevee.
• Canon Immigrant: Erin has taken several characters from But I'm a Cat Person to use as extras in Leif & Thorn.
• Cast Herd: The cast page has bloomed into a multi-page wiki, spreading them across 8+ separate group pages (plus individual pages for the 2 title characters), some of them further divided into subheadings.
• Censor Box: When Leif lists the few Ceanska words and phrases he knows, half of them are censor-barred out.
• Child Mage: Holly is fourteen, while the rest of the team consists of adult knights.
• Cool Sword: Thorn and his team are from the subset of knights that can draw heartswords, Utena-esque magical weapons whose shapes reflect the owner's personality. They appear to be unmatched by any in-universe weapon besides other heartswords and other soul-based weapons.
• Cruelty by Feet: Manager Ludolf subjects Leif to this during the "Leif in Lockdown" storyline.
• Culture Chop Suey: Ceannis has American-based elections and media, Indian food, French and Gaelic names, Italian architecture, and English (Arthurian) national myths. In contrast with Sønheim, which is a more streamlined Norse by Norsewest.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Ivy versus Laceleaf's stalker. Takes control of all the water in the vicinity, so firmly that he can't even control enough to make a misguided attempt to placate her, much less actually fight back.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Sepia-toned desaturation for the Hedge & Grassie strips, mimicking the black-and-white TV version of The Burns and Allen Show.
• Disabled Character, Disabled Actor: In-universe version: the historical Brod had dwarfism, and so does the actor who portrays him in in Leachtric.
• Dreadful Musician: Thorn convinces Leif that he can't sing by providing a demonstration that cracks glass and makes flowers wilt.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: The vampire couple, Lady Stanczia and Lord Imri.
• Elemental Powers: Mages in come in magical domains (with corresponding spirits). Mentioned so far: water, nature, fire, and stars. Almost anything appears to fall under that last category, under the more science-based logic that all matter was originally star stuff.
• Elseworld: A few have been visited during Sunday strips, including Vampire Hunter Thorn and Leif & Thorn: IN SPACE!
• Empathy Pet: Tiernan, Thorn's soul-bonded cat, who helps him deal with PTSD symptoms. Same with Niamh, Kale's soul-bonded dog.
• Eternal Love: Vampires Stanczia and Imri. Started as a Mayfly–December Romance, then Stanczia turned Imri, and they've been together for 200ish years since.
• Even the Subtitler Is Stumped: When Katya signs too quickly for Thorn to keep up, the attached dialogue box is mostly question marks.
• Everyone Can See It: Hyacinth and Hazel are "technically not dating," but no one, except perhaps them, expects this state of affairs to last.
• Eyepatch After Time Skip: The brief appearance of time-traveling future Thorn. Who Holly first guesses to be "alternate-dimension evil Thorn."
• The Faceless: A recurring man-in-black type is always seen in convenient shadow.
• Fan Girl: Ivy is a gushing fangirl of in-universe magical-girl series.
• Fantastic Slurs: Thorn mentions to his niece Hyacinth at one point that the go-to word for people of their ethnicity (Iuilic) used to be "Iud", and Hyacinth's reaction demonstrates quite clearly that it's no longer standard, or the least bit polite.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Sønheim is closely based on Sweden and Norway, while neighboring Ceannis is more of a Culture Chop Suey.
  • Thorn and his family are ethnically Iuilic, which is more or less fantasy!Jewish.
• Floral Theme Naming: All the characters from Ceannis have plant-related names, including flowers (Violet, Tansy), trees (Juniper, Rowan), fruits (Plum, Olive), and so on (Thorn).
• Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: The characters answer reader questions on the comic's Tumblr.
• Fourth-Wall Observer: Tiernan.
• Freudian Excuse: Thorn starts out dead-set against getting into a relationship while in the military, because his mothers had marriage problems, and he blamed it on one mom's travel-heavy career. Eventually he accepts that he was using this as an excuse to let her off the hook for other issues.
• Frills of Justice: You can get a rough idea of a magical girl's power by how fancy and bejeweled their outfit is.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: In-universe mythology means they have shoulder imps (bad) and faeries (good). Seen for Thorn here.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: In-universe. Ivy is a Fan Girl of a lot of series from Sønheim, and will throw Sønska words into her dialogue (represented by a font change in the strip/a color change in the transcript).
• Halloween Cosplay: Every year some of cast dresses up as characters from in-universe fiction that they're fans of.
  • Halloween 2016, Violet and Rowan as characters from The Holger Saga, Holly and Ivy as famous magical girls.
  • Halloween 2017, Violet, Rowan, and Thorn as the main characters from Leachtric.
• Holiday Nonupdate: Christmas 2015, about in-universe winter holidays.
• Humans Are White: Averted. Most of the main characters are some shade of brown. The only ones with Caucasian skin tones are the people from Sønheim, who are also the only ones with nonhuman physical traits, and many of them have a pronounced epicanthic fold, a trait generally not associated with whites. Then there's the pale-skinned, blonde, blue-eyed Pascentia...her family is dark-skinned, she just has albinism.
• In the Name of the Moon: An in-universe magical-girl series has the catchphrase "In the name of the mountain, I'll punish you!" Ivy quotes it during battle, in the original Sønska.
• King in the Mountain: Variation in which Ceannis' Arthurian national hero Rhódon is dead — but reincarnation is a known thing, and she has come back several times. It's believed she will reincarnate again if and when the nation needs her.
• Language Drift: Invoked with both major languages. Ceannis has a national epic that was written in Middle Ceannic; most of its citizens have read it in school, but in a modern translation. The multi-century-old vampires in Sønheim speak modern Sønska, but their native language was a much earlier version, which would make them an invaluable resource for linguists...if they weren't also prone to making stuff up for their own entertainment.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: For the existence and appearance of the resident man-in-black type. She has to arrange for other characters to remind themselves that she exists.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: With background characters, who get names in the transcripts like not!Touga, not!Buffy, and not!Bella.
• Lilliputians: The doll-size Tamaputians.
• Magical Database: apparently a lot of them, including translation dictionaries, which can be queried from a distance using their magical Internet.
• Magic Staff: Carried by the most powerful magical girls (and boys). As seen here with Kudzu.
• Meet Cute: The title characters meet when Leif is pruning a tree, and a branch knocks Thorn in the head.
• The Men in Black: the Woman in Black (obviously). Rumors say there are multiple MiB types, but so far we've only see her.
• Monochromatic Eyes:
  • Kudzu when using his powers has Glowing Eyes of Doom, and the people he affects have matching Mind-Control Eyes.
  • Characters with crystal prosthetic eyes (usually hidden behind sunglasses), such as Dr. Glazier.
• Multicultural Alien Planet: The strip deals with, not only cultural differences between two of its fantasy countries, but ethnic differences within each country.
• Multiethnic Name: In both countries.
  • Birch Baker, a Ceannic citizen whose family comes from Getsun, has a mainstream Ceannic first name and a Getsunai last name
  • Violet Dupont, of mixed ethnicity, has a first name from one ethnic group and a last name from the other
  • Overlapping with Language Drift, the older vampires in Sønheim have first names, Imri and Stanczia, from a no-longer-extant culture. Their last name, Fågelson, is a mainstream modern Sønska name. This is because they were born before surnames were invented, and adopted one much later for legal purposes.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Astrid Rødlund, author of a popular children's fantasy series, bears more than a little resemblance to J. K. Rowling.
• Of the People: Averted. The Ceannic demonym, in its own language, comes from "the central people", and the Sønska demonym is from "the sun people".
• Ominous Visual Glitch: Whenever a dialogue bubble includes the Woman In Black's name or identifying information, that part gets glitched/pixelated until it's unreadable.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: Magical girls can get multicolor hair effects when they transform. Compare powered-down Holly (all dark green) with transformed Holly (light-green for the last few inches). Note that for a character like Ivy, who has the mundane kind of dyed hair, that color doesn't get overridden by a transformation.
• Power Incontinence: Mulberry is an excellent secret agent because she's magically unmemorable. To everyone. Including her family and friends. Whether she wants to be or not.
• Psychic Link: Thorn and his cat Tiernan, who can stop him from having dragon flashbacks.
• Punny Name: In-universe, the Sønska name Leif sounds like the Ceannic word for "leaf," in keeping with the Floral Theme Naming.
• Queer Romance: Slow-burn between the title characters, with other same-sex pairings in the supporting cast.
• Recognition Failure: Rowan unknowingly becomes internet friends with Archie Stavros, the head writer of his favorite crystal-broadcast show. When the two video chat for the first time, Rowan doesn't recognize Archie, somewhat to Archie's surprise. Rowan's a little embarrassed when he realizes it later and expresses annoyance that Archie didn't identify himself, but the two stay friends.
• Reincarnation: A few different types.
  • Some people are "long-runners," with their full Past-Life Memories returning at a young age. At that point they're legally considered adults, for everything from trials to labor laws.
  • Other people never remember their past lives, but can be identified because they draw the same heartsword. Ceannis used to have a law that any time their founding hero reincarnated (as identified by heartsword), she got to rule the country.
• Reincarnation-Identifying Trait: Some reincarnates can be identified by the heartswords they can draw, which are identical to those of their past lives'.
• Reincarnation Romance: Leachtric doesn't remember her past life as Rhódon, so she's not sure how to approach Rhódon's reincarnated lover.
• Sarcastic Confession: When Thorn asks why Kale is in therapy, he replies that he "killed a bunch of people." Thorn doesn't take him seriously, especially after learning his name and not recognizing it. In fact, he committed the murders under another name.
• The Show Must Go Wrong: The performance of Leachtric. At first the plumbing problems interfere with the on-stage special effects, then they force the entire building to get evacuated before the second act.
• Show Within a Show: Multiple sequences from from Hedge & Grassie, a sitcom Thorn is a fan of. Other referenced properties include Leachtric (musical), The Holger Saga (literature), Pretty Combat Mountaineer Geirskögul and Magical Storm Rune Svanhvit (magical-girl comics).
• Signed Language: The Embassy staff communicates with hand signals when they want it to go unnoticed. Leif thinks of it as "servants' code", but when he encounters an actual deaf person it turns out they can communicate fluently. (The cast page refers to it as Sønheim Sign.)
• Silent Scenery Panel: First strip of the "Leaves That Are Green" storyline, and again in a view of Leif's hospital room, doubling as a bittersweet Identical Panel Gag.
• Slave Brand: The back-of-the-neck tattoo seen on Leif and other Embassy servants. Marks the location of a microchip that causes pain if they break the rules.
• Something Else Also Rises: When Cedar (nature mage) talks about a fellow actor he crushed on as a kid, the flower he's holding grows into a branch.
• Space-Filling Empire: Some regions of the World Map have lots of small (and mostly-nameless) countries, but the whole polar region is simply labeled "Sønheim." In addition, the southeastern part of the continent is mostly covered by a space-filling desert.
• Speculative Fiction LGBT: And how. Part of the fantasy-culture worldbuilding is that "same-gender relationships are seen as unremarkable, and sex-related dysphoria is seen as a medical condition to be treated without stigma," one or both of which is demonstrated with most of the characters.
• Speech Bubbles: Different fonts represent people speaking different languages. For vampires, they're outlined in red.
• Squee: Ivy has been seen expressing high-pitched excitement approximately once every other sentence.
• Stronger with Age: Vampires. Making an enemy of Stanczia in her late 700's is considered a really stupid idea.
• Sunday Strip: Including alternate universes, worldbuilding details, double-sized weekly strips, and one-shot extras.
• Super Wheelchair: Iona has a chair that hovers, although, notably, it doesn't fly.
• Swiss-Army Appendage: A rare leg-based example. Birch's foot can be swapped out for other attachments, like a clamp.
• Teens Are Short: Pointedly averted. Teenage Hyacinth is about half a head taller than her uncle.
• Tongue-Tied: If the servants in Leif & Thorn try to say anything that would incite conspiracy against the Embassy, they get zapped with pain.
• Transformation Sequence: For the magical girls (and boys, women, men, etc). Teenage girl Ivy gets a lavish one; so does an adult male character earlier in the same storyline.
• Transformation Trinket: The mages use brooches, apparently all brightly-colored crystals in metallic settings.
• Translation Convention: Everything is rendered in English, distinguished by font. Sometimes there are author's notes or fourth-wall-breaking strips addressing things in the original languages that don't exactly translate.
  • Sønska doesn't use singular "they", but translated-from-Sønska dialogue uses "they" for a person of unknown gender because it sounds more natural in English than a literal translation of "ze."
  • Ceannis has a t-v distinction (different pronouns for the formal "you" and the familiar "you"). Ceannic dialogue uses the English "you" for all of it.
  • Puns, wordplay, and Thorn's awkward mispronunciations of Sønska words are translated literally, even when the English words don't have the same similarities.
  • The first line of Pride and Prejudice is apparently a tongue twister in Ceannic.
• Troubled Backstory Flashback: Rowan's teenage traumas are explored in the Time and Tides storyline.
• True Companions: All of Thorn's surviving team that now guards the embassy.
• Unicorn: The steed of choice. Thorn's unicorn, Caiomhe, reacts badly to Leif, giving both of them different ideas about how he might be "impure."
• Undead Tax Exemption: Inverted. Vampires have legal identities under their original names and real ages...and have so much collective wealth that they're subject to an undead-specific ''tax'' to keep them from unbalancing Sønheim's economy.
• Undercover as Lovers: Thorn needs a ride in an ambulance; friends can't ride along, only family; Leif is obviously not a blood relation. The solution: claim Leif is his husband.
• Unsound Effect:
  • WALL.
  • Exit stage left!
• Video Phone: The spelltech includes magic Skype.
• Visible Silence: Makes regular appearances. Consider guards giving Sigrún meaningfully-unimpressed silences or Duke Andsvarr wordlessly realizing how boned he is.
• The VJ Day Kiss: Mata and Pato, celebrating an engineering success.
• Voluntary Vampire Victim: Imri as a human enjoyed feeding Stanczia.
• Yonkoma: Used during the 4koma in Black storyline.
• Your Magic's No Good Here: Ceannic magic doesn't work within the borders of Sønheim, so a Ceannic spell backfires within the walls of the embassy.