All right, looks like everything’s up and working! I’ve been sitting on this site redesign too long, and just needed a couple days to get everything remade. And in a strange bit of good (?) timing, my Wacom tablet died a few days ago, which I assumed was the universe’s way of telling me to get off my ass and update the site already. Thankfully Wacom made a speedy repair and delivery back, so I’ve already sketched up the first few panels of the next OOPs page.
And a special shoutout to Xandispin, who first suggested a site update several months ago, then set up this snazzy new WordPress layout for me to customize (which I then sat on until this past week). Thanks man; it took me long enough to get around to it, but without you the site would still be looking like something from the early 2000’s!
Seriously, I was manually creating pages and re-entering every altered link when there was a new page, using a long-defunct version of Dreamweaver 2001. That gets tiring real quick.
Anyway! There’s some new stuff in the Art & Extras section now as well, which you might not have seen if you don’t frequent Deviantart and such.
‘Ze Great Society’, eh?
Hehehehe, ohhh Kass, you have THINGS you can do!
And things I wanna hear about! This is SUCH good information.
And yesss, Kass, pull his threads good! He’s got secrets that must be uncovered!
taking bets that this somehow ends with seduction
Not likely from Kass. The patriarch might try seduction on Kass, which would fail completely.
yes but have you considered that it would be really funny to watch
as a traditionalist wouldn’t he be fielding that question to Matriarch Vizlet?
He SHOULD have, but apparently he’s not as savvy as he first appears.
Kass is playing off his ego and convictions by pretending to largely agree with him, so he wants to milk that for every drop of understanding that he can get. Which is why this angle works so well at manipulating him.
My bet’s on not so much seduction as a meaningful, emotionally intimate connection. In a way, they’re both outsiders to this enclave who are struggling to fit in. And in this page we’re starting to see why; someone people cared about was taken away, and then Narklet was dropped in her place. Whether a spy for the Central Enclaves or not, Narklet was pigeonholed from the start and never stood a chance at forming positive social relationships with this community.
And the way Narklet’s talking about it… this is someone who deeply recognizes the pain that they’re associated with, and has spent a lot of time talking themselves through those feelings in a search for purpose. I’d originally thought that the scavenging was some kind of secret mission, but now I’m thinking it might have been the job Narklet learned as a way to be useful while spending time alone.
Then in walks Kass, and even if Kass tells himself it’s just to gain intel, he’s paying close attention to Narklet’s feelings, remembering what is important to Narklet… Kass is making a friend. He might be Narklet’s -first- friend.
I’m shipping them so hard. It doesn’t have to be in a breeding sense, I just want to see Kass put his arm around Narklet like he did on Page #366, a lot!
Wow that’s a deep shade of rose tint on your glasses…
Kass is lying to Narklet and tricking him, you know.
Kass lying does not change how Narklet interprets this interaction.
Yeah, well, a true friendship is a two-way thing.
And none of this prevents a friendship from eventually forming.
Yes it does??? Kass doesn’t consider Narklet a friendly face, neither does Kass act like a friend.
No? Opinions can change, character development can happen, people are capable of the novel concept known as “changing their minds”. You’re speaking in “does”, we’re speaking in “will”. What Kass feels now doesn’t preclude feeling differently later.
Yesss Kass’ feelings -become- real! It is all about the rivalry between boys blossoming into true love! *tosses sakura petals into the air*
this is /j i assume?
Well that answers a question we’d been wondering about the elders. They’re either male or a mixed group, not super matriarchs or “he” wouldn’t have been sent to deal with it.
Not really.
The central enclaves would not have sent a superior elder to deal with a remote enclave, and certainly would not have sent a female given their rarity and position in yinglet society. The elder they sent would perforce have been a subordinate elder male given the nature of the mission. Any female would have been sent to replace Vizlet, not merely correct her. The male elder they sent would have been high ranking enough to admonish Vizlet and the Valsalian Enclave, but low enough ranking to risk taking the dangerous trip to get there. It’s like how the Secretary of State for the real world United States gets sent to deal with international kerfuffles instead of the President. They’re ranking enough to have authority, but not the pinnacle of the hierarchy sending them (which I still believe are yinglet matriarchs).
Aside: this makes me wonder why Figgins is just a patriarch of a remote enclave instead of being considered an elder, given his age. I’m beginning to suspect the central enclaves have been using Valsalia as a dumping ground for their awkward oddballs lest they spread “dangerous” ideas to the central population.
And they dumped Narklet there because he’s annoying.
We do not know if there are levels of Elder or not.
If there are ranks, one of them is male and therefore some of the elders are male. You’re arguing with math here for reasons I cannot fathom. Its right there on the page. This is at least the second time you’ve asked me to agree with your say so over my own eyes and.. that’s a no.
I’m confused, what are they asking you to believe that contradicts the page?
That we don’t know that some if not all of the elders are male. The elder that came to deal with …whatever the enclave was doing .. was called ” he” . Some people have theorized that since local politics seem matriarcal the trend would continue up through society and the vague elders would turn out to be females.
I think its like a lot of irl societies like the Iroquois? Iirc where locally you have a matriarchy and female household ownership but theres a male dominated ” national” or regional government , but a sample size of one elder doesn’t get us there yet.
There’s a field guide that covers the “ranks” within Yinglet Society.
It’s between No.27 and 28 in the Archives. But basically it’s the Matriarch and Patriarchs are in charge.
That only covers locally. There’s more to yinglet society than that.
I agree, although I think the two of you were really on different pages about the notoriously messy term ‘matriarchy’. The Haudenosaunee/Iroqouis are a famous example of why we can’t always fit power structures into a hierarchical model, or label societies as matriarchal or patriarchal. It’s a popular high school essay assignment to have students try to justify calling them one or the other, which helps students understand that reality can be simultaneously both and neither.
Gendered power is often an organic question of “who do we think to ask?” In a lot of multi-generational cultures, there are wise women who teach the younger ones how to give birth, nurse and raise babies etc., and therefore become familiar with all of the clan’s children. Those women end up being the natural people to look to for decisions about which clan members make good leaders and representatives. But with medieval technology, it’s often safer to pick people who you’re certain can’t be pregnant to travel over bumpy roads to meet other clans, so males end up appearing to have more power from an outside perspective. The truth is much less absolute; only leaders of specific genders can make certain decisions, while leaders of another gender can give or take those decisions from them.
And going back to yinglets, the caption when we were first introduced to the local Patriarchs confirms the “who do we think to ask” side of the male roles: “There are no universal positions for Patriarchs; they are simply those who have shown some sort of useful ability, who then the other yinglets begin to look to for guidance in their area of expertise. If this goes on long enough, they not only grow stronger in their special skill, but also begin to develop a more leadership-oriented mind, and start settling into the role of a Patriarch.” That doesn’t mean that females are in charge or males are in charge, it’s more that their influence comes from different sources.
He really said :3
I feel like Kass’ employers are going to be shocked and amazed to find out he’s actually good for this job in more ways than shape plus loyalty.
Funny how much he sounds like a Terrestrial god squadder.
Do we believe that the forced exile of females (not that that wouldn’t be bad enough!) is the worst that happened? No massacre?
He didn’t say anyone was exiled. But people were forced to move to different enclaves. And it sounds like there was a cap on the number of females that this enclave was allowed to keep. That explains why there seems to be an age gap between Vizlet and Feeeena and the younger generation, and why the male-female ratio in this enclave is higher than what Ran described in his Field Guides. It sounds like they’re still recovering from what the Elder did. I want to hear Vizlet’s side of this story too.
Yeah, when Viracroix offered Kass’s service as a diplomat to Vizlet, she outright mentioned that it would be great to have another woman, as theirs tended to get sent to the rural enclaves.
I’m thinking you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs and in the case of their perfect society it was literal…
Is this the first time inner!Kass takes form of a yinglet?
I tink dat de “innerKass” behind hims is repre-… uhh, representing de face he stopping himself from makings.
Methinks he could’ve made that face as a human too, though ^^”
What such threads do you have, Kassen? Do you consider them to be vulnerabilities?
Keep him taking Kass! I want the next journal entry to be a huge lore dump of Narklet’s teaching about the “foundational tenets of the Great Society,” the life and legacy of the “Great One,” the work Narklet is doing in his “mission” as a patriarch, etc. It’s probably what Viracroix would most want to learn about, but also what I most want to learn about! Maybe ask the patriarchs to give a tour of their work, so you can go see what the patriarch of scavenging is up to on the beach?
OMG as a Narklet x Kass shipper I would fall right over if they went on a beach walk together >,.<
Vizlet previously thought that Kass might make a dangerous Matriarch candidate.
I think she’s underestimating the Ambassador a bit.
I zhink he would turn down the position if offered. He doesn’t want to be dragged all zhe way into complying wizh centrally-coordinated eugenics, but he does want to help Vizlet modernize her people, and knows zhat can’t happen if zhe elders are alienated too abruptly. Being matriarch of an openly-recognized enclave (being Lopin’s Matriarch isn’t a problem if Lopin stays gay and Narklet never regards it as a real enclave) would necessitates choosing between zhose priorities. I zhink he’d prefer to fight zhat war from outside, wizhout having to get pregnant or choose breeding schedules personally.
And I zhink he has enough on his plate trying to get Brakka alive for questioning about zhe artifact – wizhout Brakka finding and killing him first – and looking for ways to get his true form back. And while Ran is taking responsibility for Yannit, Kassen still has to live with zhe anxiety of not knowing how a friend’s fate will turn out.
He’s got zhe knowledge, skills and abilities. But it would pit his priorities against eachozher. At best force him to forfeit some goals in favour of ozhers; at worst it would break him.
I don’t think kass considers yinglet made positions real. Like of a bunch of sugar addled toddlers handed you a burger king crown and said their you’re duke of the playground now you have to answer to the master of slides. Uh huh cool make believe kid…
I think he might be underestimating Narklet here, or how dangerous even his friends could be when that “made up” weirdo yinglet culture/religion demands HE be relocated somewhere under elder orders…
If that happens, he, or his bodyguards, could cause a full Diplomatic incident that might even split the colony off from the Central Colonies (If Vizlet stands with Kass instead of with Narklet.) Since they would at that point almost certainly ask for a formalized alliance with House Ivermoth in order to be able to survive, Kass may earn his pay in the most underhanded way possible, while having mostly no clue that’s what he’s doing.
I can kinda empathize with Narklet here. He’s clearly being painted as “fundamentally good person doing fundamentally wrong things because of upbringing”. He doesn’t like that punishment was deemed necessary. He’s justifying it to himself. He even seems a bit uncomfortable with it and is telling himself more than Kass that it won’t be necessary anymore because he’s here to keep them on the right path. Not “keep them in line”, but “guide them back towards the light”.
(also getting post glitches again involving captcha not appearing until I try to post and then it thinking I’m trying to post a duplicate)
I tend to agree. It would be easy to see him as the bad guy here, but I do think he actually wants to help the enclave. The fact that they don’t want his help, and that they probably think of his presence as part of the elders’ punishment, makes things awkward. What really makes me suspicious of him is that his “mission” along the coastline had him willing to get help from Brakka. I really want to hear his side of that story, but it’ll probably be a while before Kass has built enough rapport with him to mention that name.
I’m gonna mostly copy over my red yarn theory from FA because Keileon’s thoughts there made me think too, about how the Enclave might be projecting blame onto Narklet, and also why Narklet would work with Brakka, and what the scavenging map might hint at.
(See Page #229) What if not all of Vizlet’s people had gone along with the Val Salian Enclave treaty as readily as we’ve been seeing? Maybe Zeska actually hated humans, and became a bandit to rebel against Vizlet’s plan. Then other Enclave members who shared the anti-human sentiments threatened to follow Zeska into the mountains. The Central Enclaves might be against an alliance with humans, but they’re even more against yinglets deserting their enclaves, so the dissidents were rebuffed and relocated far from Zeska’s reach.
The remaining Enclave members are of one mind on Vizlet’s plan, but are also Zeska’s family, so they’re dealing with unresolved emotions about splitting up. Afraid to invite further conflict, they avoid talking about what happened (note the #229 caption). Regardless of whether Narklet was sent to the Enclave with an ulterior motive or not, being a perpetual reminder of those events leads to Narklet’s rejection by the community. Narklet deals with this in two ways: first, by finding a job that gives Narklet a function in the Enclave while staying politely out of sight. Second, by developing the sense of purpose that we’re seeing on this page, which helps make sense of all the negativity surrounding Narklet’s arrival.
(See Page #119) Vizlet views humans as the elder race. Through a mix of religion and archeological discovery, Narklet comes to believe that the guiding spirits were beings of antiquity from the Silent Ages, and that Humans and Yinglets are both young races compared to these beings. If Narklet could only convince Vizlet to look to the guiding spirits instead of to humans for wisdom, it might lead to reconciliation with Zeska and, by extension, acceptance for Narklet.
But Zeska is still somewhere in the mountains, raising an army. What if Brakka is Zeska’s son, born in exile? But Brakka has information about Zat Zhing, information which can only be found in bandit territory. However it works, whatever mysteries it’s a part of, Narklet believes Zat Zhing is linked to the guiding spirits, and hopes it could be the key to convincing Vizlet. For Brakka and Narklet, this is their chance to be redeemed for the events of the past which had always been outside of their control. A chance to finally belong in the Enclave.
(See Page #121) But it’s a gamble; as far as Vizlet is concerned, any contact with the bandits is already forbidden, and could trigger war with both Zeska and the Central Enclaves. So Narklet and Brakka hatch a plan to gather proof in secret.
I had thought the scavenging map would be relevant because of all the X marks near the beach, but what if the real relevance is that there is only one near the mountains? Could this be where Narklet met Brakka, a hint at a future return to the land of indrel and bandits?
(Semi-related, wild theory based on Page #220: What if the Traveling Moon is a communications satellite in highly elliptical orbit, Narklet found a radio, and during the Flyby Festival the satellite passes close enough overhead for Narklet to receive coordinates from some kind of looped transmissions?)
I’ve noticed that Narklet likes to pause before responding a lot.