OOPs #367
Aug27
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.
Ooooo, and there it is! The Narklet hate is BACK IN ACTION!
Both from Kass, and from me, and probably from lots of people! I was at least willing to give him a chance, but HOOOO BOY.
Kass, you be underhanded with him, wring him for all he’s worth, make him regret existing one of these days. Match his energy, and give it back to him TENFOLD!
I’ve been willing to give Narklet the benefit of the doubt, but the doubt is shrinking. Either he’s stunningly unaware of how he sounds right now, or he’s as shady as the mossy side of the mountain. As long as he doesn’t use this “lesson time” to make a pass at Kassen, he might not have to get stabbed, but Vizlet REALLY needs to catch up and get an eye back on their conversation.
In other news, here’s the list I have so far of the yinglets who think Kass would make a good matriarch: Vizlet, Figgins, and Lopin. I expect that list to grow quickly from here.
Kassen will never make a good matriarch until he is ready to properly be a she and get pounded by yinglet D.
I know that’s a bit of a crass way of putting it, but the interpersonal leadership skills are only part of being a matriarch. The patriarchs have skill sets and run different parts of the enclaves. The females run the men, it would seem. At the very lease they attend to them and manage all breeding and the children beyond what the nurses attend to. They maintain the culture and develop themselves. They craft “beauty”, a thing of great importance when you have none, they encourage and direct others, and they have sex to make children.
Kass might be okay with picking up needlepoint. He definitely already runs people and with the proper care.
I don’t think “she” is ready to cross that last line yet and it aint optional.
Of course. Because nobody likes a narc. Or someone small enough to be called a narc-let. (:
Oh. OOOOH.
So THAT’S why yinglets as a whole are considered underdeveloped as a society despite having all the tools for population explosion.
At first I suspected overzealous eugenics but I feel there’s even territorial genocide at play here, by someone who wants to keep EVERYTHING under countrol.
Considering Kattajak’s reaction to Narklet’s mention of Zeska, I’d say that’s a pretty safe bet.
I knew there was something going on here beyond just him thinking that it’d be terrible for a female to have to live outside of an enclave; I have to wonder at this point if there’s some way that the central enclaves could actually DO something “swift and extreme” about a breeding yinglet population under Ivenmoth control or if Narklet is just vastly overestimating his position of power. The fact that he seems to consider it kind of the inevitable option makes me assume that at least HE is convinced that they could do something to take direct action against the Ivenmoths.
Something to do with that Yinglet poison resistance maybe? Central enclaves sending a Yinglet in with mustard gas or whatever.
The central enclaves see the female outside their control as the threat. Whatever they do would be aiming to kill her and any offspring that might be female. Other deaths would be lower priority targets or collateral damage.
So you can rule out any option where Yinglets are more likely to survive than anyone else around them.
I’m thinking they can muster 4 beizels with sharp pointy objects to deal with it.
Check page 229.
Subterfuge and infiltration seem more likely than overt military action. Rather than launch weapons of mass destruction which would demand reprisal, a few loyal yinglets sneak in and assassinate the target likely with hired help among the exiles. This would be plausible to deny and allow a stronger measure of verification the target was eliminated.
Honestly, Narklet even threatening this is stupid.
It wouldn’t need to be proven, that doesn’t matter. Nobody cares about that, the truth is what you force the press to print. The idea that Narklet could have Kassen killed & nothing happens is fantasy. It doesn’t matter what was proven. And infiltration & subterfuge can only get you so far.
It’s the same situation as if Viracroix had Narklet killed. It would be blamed on & create trouble for Vizlet regardless of her involvement.
It’s not in either’s best interest to press first, but the fact a shrewd guy like Viracroix was openly considered it to a foreigner speaks volumes on his confidence in answering threats & his trust in Vizlet personally.
Brakka trying to kidnap Kass to get back in Narklet’s good graces was a desperate last ditch attempt, and a stupid one at that, because had he succeeded, he would have caused even more problems for Narklet *and now Brakka is also be within striking distance*. He’s just short-sighted & selfish, like trying to force himself on Kass once he thought his plan failed. Which would have been a disaster too.
If Kass vanishes or dies for *any* reason, it can/will be blamed on Narklet, if need be. The safest alternative for Narklet would be for him to claim Brakka was a rogue agent trying to ransom Kass for coin, after he has Brakka killed so he can’t dispute the story & return her to Viracroix.
Once the open possibility of assassinations of diplomats & officers on the table, the expense & risk of continued air in the lungs of the leaders in those enclaves skyrockets. How much worth is in this fragile non-alliance with an enclave that actively hates you and is sending hitmen?
How much of a reputation loss is doing nothing going to cost you?
Can you afford this new price of business? Especially if the bext target might be yourself?
If no, assassination might become the cheaper option *for Viracroix*, as might the extermination of an impoverished uneducated nation full of a species almost all of your trade partners want dead or consider literally vermin, who subsist off literally salting & rendering poisonous, valuable land. Might even get paid for the service.
Lot of cost analysis that doesn’t look good for Yinglets will be going on in Val Salia. How much are mostly anecdotal antiquities & this personal desire for the truth of the matter actually worth?
Even if they have a better spy network, the enclaves have an address & flammable holdings. You’d have a casus belli & easy propaganda avenue.
No, the smart thing for Narklet’s faction is to continue to be cheaper to handle than whatever value Viracroix has put on his need to fill science books.
We’re rapidly approaching the “Narklet is extremely dangerous and needs to be disappeared” arc. Not that he himself is going to do any shanking, but between his gregarious personality winning him hearts and minds(or true believers as it were) that will functionally erode Vizlet’s ideals over the long-term, and what his reports back to Yinglet Central might contain. He’s the sort to mention anything that seemed odd to him even if slight, and that means that sooner or later someone in the primary enclave leadership that knows Dark Secrets is going to put two and two together and send the hit squad. I’m not going to be surprised in the slightest if this eventually turns into Vizlet having to choose between taking a bullet, or schisming her enclave from the rest of the ying-o-sphere to formally join Val Salia.
There is another path of course, that Narklet is going to get crisis of faithed so hard his toga catches fire. Whether that hypothetical translates into a homicidal crashout or face-turn is vastly too far into the future to speculate on.
I do like that Narklet is a small king.
Can someone please rid Narklet of his ‘nads already, preferably without anesthetic
Zally just needs to makes him an offerz he can’t refuze… an everying wills says it was naturals causes…
Please don’t tellz za Yingstopo ons me… O_O
Oh, so the females are capable of asexual reproduction?
Very intradesting.
I’m not sure I quite see it that way. I mean, there is NO shortage of males in Val Salia, and heck, even The Teeth themselves at least have Lopin, and sometimes Beizel.
It’s not outrageous for Narklet to think that Kass may have already done something with the extreme plentitude of options available to him, given what he knows.
I don’t remember where (possibly on one of the other websites where the comic is posted), but I believe that the author has stated that female yinglets do not start to lay eggs until the first time they have mated.
No, I think its that narklet thinks its odd that she’s 3 (yinglet 18-20) and hasn’t had sex yet given their species’ reproductive casualness and focus. Even in human controlled val salia she could just wave a reed of carnal beckoning out her window and have 12 offers in 6 minutes.
Vizlet was horribly concerned her friend had been sexually assaulted, but also seemed to have another reason to need to know if Kass was carrying eggs at that point. Apparently that reason involved unsanctioned breeding and a mallet…
Once she starts, would she stop? A mallet would do little if the eggs keep coming. Obviously among Yinglets some females have a very high libido. The same is true of humans, of course, but one woman does not a kingdom make.
I’ve been toying with a species idea. Similar male-female balance and egg laying, but a twist. What if a female could both self-replicate, with rapid genetic degradation, and also store male genetics permanently with a mix and match option. Children with maximum genetic diversity come from high quality females with large male harems but the harem structure becomes a protective marriage system in order to prevent a sort of pump-and-dump harvesting which would use males disposably and minimally. Low class females can clone a few generations to get by, but unless they can rise through the ranks they’re going to start fighting wonky jaws and eyes the wrong distance apart… and then the organs stop acting right.
But a small army of replicant genetic failures hoarding a small number of males might save itself.
Or it might genetically engineer a dynasty of Habsburgs a million strong.
I’ve been working on the world-building and it’s been fun, but fast-breeding species in limited environments with fast-mutating biologies necessitate control rather quickly and rather strongly.
Given that the male is almost by definition the low cost high gain contributor of genetic material, you need a biological or absurdly strongly enforced mechanism for males not sneaking off to the females
If you want some irl inspiration look at kangaroos who have a pause button, and some turtles who can have one mating and then crank out fertilized eggs for five years.
If yinglets worked like that, I would imagine those eugenics little weirdos would just break out a yinglet sized sack kidnap the female until x amount of time ran out and then het them on the breeding scheduel.
I believe I know what you think you’re saying there, but what happens when a female uses literally the color of your eyes and exactly nothing else she gets from you? You’ve kinda lost there. It’s low cost, zero gauranteed returns. You could be with a girl for your whole life and she could tell you she’s totally using mostly your stuff but in reality that scale color that looks like yours is from some dude who died before you two met. Same with the musculature and the teeth. In fact, she’s not even using anything from you.
And if you’re the provider in that relationship? It’s not just that you have to make sure she’s never with anyone. You’d have to know she never was with anyone at any time ever, and if a group of males tried to go all females in chains, they’d just breed it out over a few generations. Hell, they could simply refuse to make eggs, or refuse to have male children… Or Make male children that were basically clones of themselves except for the sex chromosome. Only problem with that is winding up with self-culling clones when all those genes mutually delete. It’s like a living genetic time bomb.
The real psycho-power in this idea is in the claws of the females.
I do have more than a little evolutionary biology, and what you do for a realistic outcome is set up the system and then devise the tactic that wins the game of reproduction for an individual, and that becomes the new normal.
Note: yinglets are artificially, not naturally selected by self driven evolution so understandably would not be expected to follow these rules.
Well, see that’s the deal. You get both. Once you introduce SOCIETY to a species you start having the individual fight with the political structures.
Hold on, before I get further, I like what you said about the individual. I’m gonna have a conniption about that later, THANK YOU!
So, when you have self-cloning, effectively you could have the genetic force of a HIVE, a small army of individuals that are all basically the same original able to compete martially against higher biodiversity groups. If they happen to be well adapted to this, strong and well organized, then they might win regularly… But the minute they do each clone wants their own family because that was the point of the war.
The key seems to be to me that sex, as opposed to asex as it were, is about adding diversity to your biology so that rather than go stale and die completely you risk half of each time so that if there was a problem with the other half, at least this half is safe.
Of course with mix and match, youve got each female as a little eugenicist, not just picking her mate carefully but specifically making one designer baby after the other. And you think, “She can just clone herself infinitely.” And genetically that seems to be in her best interest… unless she gets sick and dies. Then all her daughters and sisters will get sick and die and then she’s gone forever. And that’s to say nothing of the greater species genetic, the greater super-organism which must compete against her singular clade for resources. She makes herself a target to every other multi-faceted line.
Also, the way I wrote that last reply doesn’t sit right with me. Felt kinda jerky re-reading it and I don’t want that. I just can’t edit it. Please, friend, talk with me about this really cool shit. Maybe I’m missing something big.
Where did you get the idea of yinglets reproducing asexually? Females need males to fertilize their eggs.
“Runt”. Told ya Narklet’s tiny.
So are yinglets capable of laying eggs without fertilization, similar to poultry? It sounds like Narklet is concerned with whether Kass has reached maturity or not. I’m concerned with if Narklet is hinting that unauthorized eggs could result in omelets being made. Involuntary population control could end in a violent revolution.
Val has said as much before. Egg production isn’t directly tied to actual fertilization, just the… right stimuli at the right time.
That also includes alone time.
I am not sure if that is correct. I think that what the author said is that females can lay unfertilized eggs but that they don’t start laying until the first time that they have mated, but I don’t think they indicated that non-reproductive sex could trigger egg laying.
The last time Viz visited val salia she asked if Kass was…carrying eggs after their incident in the alley. While she seemed genuinely relieved her friend hadn’t suffered such a fate, she also seemed relieve that no other action had to be taken as matriarch. I think such action would have involved omelettes.
What people in this thread read: Yinglets have the ability to reproduce asexually
What I heard: Kass hasn’t been fertilized yet
Folks, you have to remember that this guy is backwards. Old Yinglet culture is based on the females building reverse harems with patriarchs, and anything outside of that is heresy.
Vizlet, that is the power of *schmoozing* at work.
Maybe she should consider creating a “patriarch of schmoozing.” It’s too bad the local expert isn’t eligible!
Patriarch Poak is the one responsible for schmoozing.
Where Kassen may be underhanded, Poak’s approach is to be overhanded (i.e. lavish the other with goodwill), and he is crazy effective.
Actually, I think it should be Patriarch Figgins? He’s the Patriarch of Trade or something.
What if Narklet is a barren female?
I doubt it.
What would that mean for the story?
…Actually what would that mean? What would be the implications of that? I’m struggling to think of anything this would actually do for the story, any way it would impact it.
Well… it would mean Narklet has no children, despite having access to the females.
It would also make him a hypocrite. Look at what he’s been saying about the females, sane females don’t speak like that.
It would also make the Elders really, really weird, sending a trans male to uphold traditions.
In short, it would simply make no sense.
Women can be pretty suppressive towards each other, more so than men at times. I don’t think Narklet is the best candidate for that story arc though. A new character would be better
If Narklet were a female, then they would be an extremely effective crossdresser.
There are very distinctive traits for females, and Narklet would need to shave his tail for this ruse to work, among others. Although, he typically wears trousers that could make it work. But ehhhh don’t think that is so.
I’m quite sure that Yinglets would be able to tell who he really is, and there would not be some strange cabal to claim he is a patriarch when he really is a female. Vizlet and her spy chief would certainly know, and probably not keep it a secret.
It looks like my prediction was wrong, but I still expect there to be a Kass journal page soon.
Maybe not until they return to the mountain.
Oh…there’s an OMINOUS pause there… Kess COULD probe by mentionign ahving access to males, but imply having been too buys with other duties…but that could be a DANGEROUS road. Also not me ahving obsessively read and am said i am now caught up. I NEED MORE
I guess humans could select for human subservience and just breed a servitor race. Ran might be the only human with the know how and desire to do something like that though…
War were declared.
I feel like Vizlet might want to take lessons from Kass about how to shmooze at some point, now. She’s seen the power of a REAL double-talker.
Nobodies expects za Yingquazition…
<__>
*goes to hides unders his box*
*Places a large rock on the box.*
The rock has a sign.
The sign says “Time Out”.
*Shoves a cookie under the corner of the box*
Guess who just painted a nice large target for Ivenmoth should anything untowards happen to our Ambassador.
So does this mean the central conclave is kinda like a dictatorship over yinglet kind
Sounds like it.
the mentioning of Kassen as a matriarch candidate seems like a dangerous foreshadowing to me, remember down the road there will be a problem of who will be the next matriarch of the enclave, and I suspect Kassen has just accidentally nominated himself or is it herself to that position should something ever happen to Vizlet
Wow. The implications here are grimly magnificent.
What impresses me is the forshadowing all the way back in FG02 with the reference to an incident with a ‘Lesser Yinglet’, and how it ties into the ongoing political intrigue to continue expanding the worldbuilding even eleven years later. With one sentence Narklet lends character to himself, his government, and the history of the species all at once.
Murder isn’t good, but the idea of humans breeding a subservient or even enslaved population, given how easily led even independent yinglets are- should be terrifying for the species.
It wouldn’t take mouch to turn them into house-elves, breed them into complete compliance, and declare feral yinglets a nuisance to be eliminated.
Well thats a rather low view of humanity.
Accurate, but low….
You aren’t wrong, Professor Narbon…
That thread isn’t very veiled. Kass has his work cut out for him with Narklet.
Just wanted to say I found this series through the incredible work of CaptainStroon, the creator of the sandbiters that look remarkably similar to your Yinglets, and have been absolutely hooked! I read the whole thing over the past couple days and just couldn’t stop reading! The characters and species, the world and its environments, the mystery of the Antiquities and the origin of the Yinglets, IT’S ALL AMAZING! I am captivated and incredibly impressed by your storytelling (I suppose I’m similar to Yannit in that regard) and can’t wait for more! So, thank you Valsalia!
Hello and welcome to the enclave
Just testing if registering for an account worked properly, also testing profile pic upload.
Sweet, it actually worked