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.
OH SHIT
Can’t start a new thread so attempting here…
Put my 5 clams of Vizlet tried one male per female in an attempt to get a 50 50 balance between the yinglet sexes..
I’ll take that bet. Put my clams down on “One of Vizlet’s modernization efforts in general”; for a more specific bet, “Vizlet got humans to tutor her enclave (including at least some of the enclave females) in human trade skills, and the Val Salian government was somehow involved or at least approved.”
I wrote an essay on why further below.
It’s not her FAULT, it’s the system that she has to work with being so dang stifling, and bad in the long run.
Poor Vizlet, suffering at the clawed hands of the contemptable Central Enclaves.
Don’t leap to defend her before we even know what happened
Nah, considering the fact that She’s been desperately trying to modernize yinglet civilization and receiving so much pushback by the central enclaves, I think Darian is correct here. I highly doubt Vislet did something heinous, and it’s probably something like encouraging the yinglet women to be independent rather than be part of the patriarchy harem.
Whatever it was, I’m sure it had to do with taking away some of the power/control the Central Enclaves had.
The thing is she’s still doing this, and openly. She walked right in in a literal parade procession and sent Pecket off to gather books and establish trade with the trade master. If thats what brought down the punishment why is she still doing it?
I’m with Faefox on this one. We’ve been getting a very one sided look at Vizlet’s leadership. The yinglets who we see backing Vizlet are the ones who were allowed to stay, not the ones who were relocated. For whatever reason, the Central Enclaves have actually removed all Vizlet’s opponents.
Ohh no!
… is Zeska, isnit. Did te Matriarch ever stop tinkin about dis? She didn’t, did she.
(TLDR at end)
I will bet hard that it is NOT Zeska, at least not directly. Narklet blames Zeska’s desertion on Zeska herself, as encouraged by Kattajak’s family favoritism for her (he says so when he talked about it with Kattajak and Poak in #229.). And yet his response to Kattajak also favoring Zally is just a lecture about the dangers, no threats about transferring Zally out or crippling the enclave.
This is much bigger than Zeska, and much more directly Vizlet’s fault. In #368, Narklet says this enclave “violated some foundational tenets of the Great Society” and consequently the Elders removed many of their females, imposed sanctions, and then sent Narklet up to keep an eye out for any hint of it happening again.
It’s almost certainly due to one of Vizlet’s modernization (#26) /human collaboration efforts (#178FG).
I’m going to guess humans were directly involved–maybe Vizlet sent some of her girls out of the enclave to get trade lessons from humans,like the ones Vizlet got when she traveled, with assistance from the Val Salian government. That hits several alarm bells for the Elders (females routinely outside of direct enclave control, direct importation of human knowledge, strong diplomatic connections with a foreign state holding a sizable military–possibly even stronger diplomatic connections than to the central enclave) all at once while being something Vizlet might think she could get away with, since she herself still became a matriarch despite having previously traveled and learned some trade knowledge from humans. Then the Elders sent all the females who’d learned to rural enclaves, which Vizlet notes “hoard all their females” when Kassen first meets her in #prologue-36.
Though…that feels a bit TOO serious for Vizlet to remain matriarch, even with Narklet watching. Maybe Viracroix offered, and she merely accepted instead of proposing it herself (or at least that’s what they told the Elders). Maybe a few boys got to learning stuff independently and that inspired Viracroix to do so. Maybe the humans came to the girls instead of the other way around. And I’m guessing Vizlet herself usually didn’t go, because she was too busy managing the enclave. That would be a bit less “wildly out of control matriarch->depose her” and more “enclave succumbed to human corruption attempts->expunge the influence, tighten leash and watch for further incident.”
==========================================
TLDR;–I’m confident it’s due to one of Vizlet’s modernization/”globalization” efforts, not Zeska. I’m guessing it involved females learning from humans, with the blessing of the Val Salian government.
I’m not sure about this take. Vizlet still has an open relationship with House Ivenmoth/Val Salia that I don’t think would be permitted if the fear was human corruption / modernization in general. I don’t think she’s popular because of that, probably has more trouble then most because of it, but in and of itself they are still permitting too much unless A. the decision has already been made and Narklet is just waiting for backup to drop the hammer, or B. Something in his search efforts is so important that he can’t afford to upheave the Hive right now. But if she was still directly violating the edicts set down that resulted in the punishment last time, I don’t think they’d let that stand this long. Plus, the tolerance of Kas remaining with the humans, even if he’s now under the impression it will only be temporarily, feels like it’d be too unacceptable to happen, especialy here (though I imagine if she was laying eggs he might have been more insistent)
This, I think, is about SECRETS. Whatever Vizlet was doing, it was determined that it was potentially exposing something about Yinglets/the Enclave itself. Probably more than she herself realizes. The Artifacts are invovled. This is why she references telling Kas about this could be “her end.” The “Old, isolationist ways” (#27) aren’t just about keeping yinglet culture “Pure” (Though I’m sure most if not all of them do sincerely beleive in this as well, such as in #119 where we can observe Narklet’s thoughts directly), they are about making sure things aren’t apparent.
My guess: It’s about artifacts. Yinglets can find artifacts with far, far more reliability then anybody else can, because they are drawn to them. “Ze Guiding spirts” aren’t simply a faith, they actually are receiving input from something or someone. Probably can do more than just locate artifacts. Narklet has a particular talent for this (#370), which is why he’s so uncannily successful (#220), and knows things he straight shouldn’t ( but he’s not the only one. That’s why direct cooperation, or worse, Yinglings born under human control, is so dangerous. Inevitably they’ll get a Narklet, somebody who can hear whatever Ze Guiding Spirits are saying, and they’ll let the secret out, casually. “Wait, can’t you hear zem? Zis is where zey say to go. See, zere it is!” In the enclave, when somebody can hear it, the system makes sure they get sent over to the scavenging/elder/priesthood (if they have one) teams and either let in on some “higher truths” or, if they can’t be trusted, put someplace where that wont matter. Maybe in the ground.
And a lot of yinglets probably can’t be trusted to keep a secret though, right? If your culture encourages isolation, that doesn’t matter that much. Yinglets have all sorts of crazy ideas and thoughts, one guy saying he can hear some voices, whatever. He’s always been weird like that. But Vizlet’s cooperation efforts were intense. Maybe even offering services for artifact retrieval because Yinglets have such a good success rate (having no idea of the true purpose of artifacts, probably assuming the teaching and resources she’d get from humans would be greater value than whatever points she’d get back south from indulging the vague interest the Elder’s)? Oh, as soon as that got back to the Elders, there was a PANIC. She was really going too far with the culture dilution in the first place, but this COULD NOT STAND. They came in, emphasizing that first part about the culture, this is too far, this Enclave needs correction, and oh, by the way, REPORT ALL ARTIFACT FINDINGS. CAUSE IT’S HOLY THAT’S WHY, YOU REALLY WANT TO QUESTION MORE EDICTS WHEN YOU ARE ALREADY IN THIS MUCH TROUBLE? (31-32).
At some point, by luck or his own connection Brakka found something BIG. One of the things that makes finding the artifacts so important in the first place, likely related to “the sampel” aka “zat zhing” (#121). For whatever reason, he knew the importance of it, and now he had leverage. Leverage enough that an exile he should never bother with (#112) is suddenly being talked to. Brakka was smart enough to realize they might decide to do something other than nicely work out an arrangement where he gets whatever he wants, so he made sure to hide his leverage (#45), as a security measure. “You ice me, you never get what I found!” Why he reacted the way he did when that plan went wrong. I’m sure we could talk about artifacts themselves for a long time, but as I secondary theory related to my main one: Artifacts work better for and/or are more easily understood and repaired by Yinglets as well. It’s instinctive understanding of the tools that were made for them.
I’m feeling it’s the other way around. Like, Zeska fled because she refused to go back South.
Vizlet and her enclave have probably paid dearly for her attempts to modernise their civilisation. I imagine several patriarchs were not pleased with this. What they have is working, right? Why put work into something that will cause so much pai?
But this runs on the assumption things will remain fine if they stay in their old ways. Vizlet has very good reason to believe this is not the case. She believes it’s worth the effort. But how much can she and others endure to make that happen? Is that even possible?
Oh, Vizlet… 🙁
How much of this was a setup for Vampire Vizlet?
Lukeska… I am your mozher… *funny breazhing soundies*
O_o
Time for Viz to come clean. LORE DROP! (:
Heavy Lore drop?
OH NOES! WATCH OUT FOR DEETAS FOOTSES!