The chorps are the only things that like them because they suck out a kind of blood parasite they tend to be afflicted with
Out-of-Placers
A story of inconvenient changes
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OOPs now has a Russian translation which updates shortly after the English pages are posted!
Now also in French:
And Ukranian:
All praise Kassen, destroyer of horrible buggies!
YAY!!! *triple zhumbs up*
the previous page was funny and interesting, this is also interesting, but it makes me wonder what exactly a chorp is (was it mentioned previously?)
Here is zhe relevant page of zhe Field Guide! Zhey also appear in an earlier comic, zhe day after Kass’s clam binge.
https://www.valsalia.com/comic/out-of-placers/the-val-salian-regional-field-guide-flora-fauna/
looking at the field guide, it says chorps are dog sized. So are dogs tiny or are humans and yinglets enormous?
Unsure. I do not zhink we have ever seen a chorp up close, and via distance, with no reference, size is difficult to determine.
“The Chorp- named for its distinctly birdlike cry, this roughly dog sized predator is a common sight along the coasts”
I’m not sure where the confusion is coming from. Were you perhaps thinking the unnamed parasite Kass killed was a Chorp? They do have a similar appearance so I suppose this thing could be their larval stage (before becoming dog-sized). All that’s stated though is that they (parasites) have a “natural relationship” with the chorps so it could be a predator/prey one, like bats eating mosquitoes.
Quoting directly from the comic caption (copy & paste): “The chorps are the only things that like them because they suck out a kind of blood parasite they tend to be afflicted with”.
The mosquito-analogue bugs are not Chorps. Chorps are one of the various other species they parasitise besides (one assumes) Yinglets and Humans, and so we can assume they might be at least a couple sizes larger than the bug itself, maybe just a little smaller than a Yinglet. They’re just the only animal that seems to not mind being bitten, as it has a net beneficial effect and therefore results in a kind of symbiosis, or at least a commensal relationship.
The picture of the Chorp may suggest a kind of insectoid creature, which we would thus assume to be rather small … but this is either Not Earth, or it’s a very different far-future post-apocalyptic Earth, and there are many other Creatures Of Unusual Size (or just Unusual Creatures), such as the giant beetles that take the place of horses, and whatever the heck kind of spider-ant-thing Yannit is, so I’d say all bets are off on that front. Our own planet has hosted dog-size or larger flying insects in the past, and it may yet be some kind of rather twisted warm-blooded vertebrate being, of which there are plentiful examples existing IRL which are that size and capable of flight.
Does that work for you? 🙂
Kudos on finding that, I tried looking for more info myself before posting but came up empty other than the page linked above. The one thing I will add is a bit meta and that’s that, given the name “dog” and the sort of tongue in cheek way the author describes them (basically describing a real dog while showing something very unfamiliar) I’d feel it was a safe bet presuming they’re of comparable size.
On the subject of giant insects though, picturing the giant centipedes of yore always gives me the willies. Big enough to wrap a man like a python…
No probs… I’d add that it’s entirely possible for parasites to be a decent fraction of their host’s size. Not super common amongst already larger animals, outside of the ocean at least, but not impossible.
And yeah I was totally rolling with the assumption of “dog” meaning “something that’s about dog sized and fulfills the same role”, in classic Call A Smerp A Rabbit / Our Horses Are Different fashion, as that’s already established for other animals pretty much just without the name transfer.
Couldn’t remember what chorps were and figured they were in the flora and fauna field guide page. Couldn’t find it in the archives so just started jumping around and found it between 114 and 115. It’s not in the archive for whatever reason.
The field guides haven’t been appearing in the archives for a while now…
Kassen Akoll: Hero of the Battle of That Bug That Flew in the Window That One Time
Kassen now needs a song like the one sung by Maui in Moana. You’re welcome!
Comes an listens to a story ofs a yinglet named Kass.
Former human froms Dinnlan zhat fate bit in ze ass.
And zhen one day as she was writin’ somes stuff.
She snatched ze bug froms ze book and squeezed it intos fluff.
Pulp zhat is… crunchy squish… Blech-Icky taste!
What? O_o
THAT is just about perfect!
Big agreed! 🙂
And so Kass did tell this tale to the world.
Okay, I might have been more sleepy than I thought when I wrote that comment.
[TERMINATOR THEME MUSIC INTENSIFIES]
this is actuily really intersting becose im playing a yinglet in a D&D campain. now i can flail even more arund when the rest of the party want me into the deep water.
It is true that Yinglets in general have to constantly make concentration rolls, or else say or do dumb things. But do not underestimate being a yinglet, as there are advantages too. Our hearing, for one, our Sight, and sense of touch are good, and we are surprisingly quiet and stealthy as long as nobody makes a fart noise nearby. And in the water? Yeah we are made to be in the water, and swim a bit like otters or crocodiles. Also don’t underestimate our ability to eat things that others would not. Just no grains, please.
A creature almost constantly drunk because any grains eaten quickly ferment in its stomach would be…amusing. 😉
Ha, a workable way of playing a heavily ADHD character without simply RPing and shoehorning it, letting the dice take the place of your misfiring brain, nice. Perhaps doing a secondary roll to pick from a table of things that then happen (spacing out, saying something inappropriate, etc). Though maybe that would only really apply outside of joined combat, because I think hyperfocus would kick in (perhaps what Kass felt here is something similar? Massive dopamine rush…)
Though I’m thinking it could also be just like having an alcoholic goblin ranger (spot the reference :p) or the like. Something of a figure of fun and slightly annoying agent of chaos much of the time, and not exactly strong or generally courageous, but SCARILY efficient and precise in combat when the adrenaline and other focussing hormones kick in.
Yinglets are often compared to Kobolds, but to be honest, other than base similarities, we really couldn’t be further apart. Kobolds tend to be far smarter than their enemies, and clever. Unfortunately Yinglets very short lifespans and crippling attention spans tend to lead us to act more like Cute Goblins. I’d say We tend to be Chaotic Neutral in alignment (Kassen Akoll for example), varying from Chaotic Good (Mori-Rai from Learn to live) to Lawful Evil (Patriarch Narklet from OOP) for examples. For weapons, Yinglets would rely on stealth and poison, as Yinglets themselves are immune to all but the worst nature has to offer, and indeed “Soap” for Yinglets is for other races considered one of the more horrible ways to die. So a accidental cut for themselves would not harm them beyond the cut itself, but would likely be life threatening for other races.
There was an odd thread on a previous comic’s comments which seemed to be misgendering Kass / assuming the female body implied a female identity… Wondering if some of this may be a quiet refutation of that (he uses “Hero” not “Heroine” – though the setting seems to default to sex equality so it might not be a good indicator – and somewhat macho posturing in places which may be an active rejection of the feminine)…
(( I’d forgotten how to work the rather complicated comments log-in at the time, might go back and make a direct reply though it’s a little after the fact now ))
Oh also I’d meant to say that we’ve seen that (plus the Yingletisation itself) already cause some existential panic, so if he’s still figuring that things like this may lead to further such incidents, and is still fighting to retain some part of his established human (and masculine) identity … probably safe to say he’s *not* “getting used to / more OK with it”. Resignation is not the same thing, it’s just a complex trauma coping strategy in the face of a situation you’d dearly rather not be in but can’t currently see any way out of, once your energy to actively resist knuckling under has burned out. It’s how brainwashing and reeducation works, in a way. A breakdown, not a healing moment, and he seems to recognise and fear that.
Well, I don’t know how to refer to Kass correctly and everyone says “her”, so I just rolled with it. Kass himself even referred to himself as “her” at least once – when speaking to Vizlet back on page 27. He hadn’t been correcting others, either. Also doesn’t help that I’m really not good at picking up any sort of “gender vibes” or whatever, and need to be told directly.
With that said, good luck reasoning with SpecificYinglet, who wants Kass to do the do with a male ASAP, ships him with Brakka and doesn’t see any problem with any of that (see comments for page 135).
As Nikary notes, Kassen (or, as used unchallenged a few pages ago, ‘Kassie’) has not just used, but corrected herself to using ‘she’, in accordance with her sex: https://www.valsalia.com/comic/out-of-placers/oops-27/
Unlike many parts of our own world (and perhaps the human world of the comic), female yinglets seem to have a higher status than males – see positioning in https://www.valsalia.com/comic/out-of-placers/the-val-salian-regional-field-guide-entry-7-yinglets-revealed-part-22/ – so there’d be no stigma attached to becoming one; many might consider it an upgrade. Perhaps this influenced Kassen’s choice of words with another scav, or acceptance of it as a change. Coincidentally, Kassen-the-female also has a higher status with Ivenmoth…
Naturally, ‘she’ is used by others for her as well: https://www.valsalia.com/comic/out-of-placers/oops-137/
Because, you know, she’s female, and so that’s the correct pronoun… >_>’
Language-wise, while “heroine” exists, “hero” can be used for women as well as men, at least in our world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero – it is rooted in “protector”, a role that can be taken by anyone. Indeed, one person *called* “Hero” was a priestess: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_and_Leander
Honestly, a change in sex is relatively small beans compared to species. A change which Kass has also largely come to accept – or at least tolerate/adapt to: https://www.valsalia.com/comic/out-of-placers/oops-132/
[Reposting this without links since posts with URLs are getting moderated and not approved.]
As Nikary notes, Kassen (or, as used unchallenged a few pages ago, ‘Kassie’) has not just used, but corrected herself to using ‘she’, in accordance with her sex in OOPS 27.
Unlike many parts of our own world (and perhaps the human world of the comic), female yinglets seem to have a higher status than males – see positioning in entry 7 of the field guide, part 22 – so there’d be no stigma attached to becoming one; many might consider it an upgrade. Perhaps this influenced Kassen’s choice of words with another scav, or acceptance of it as a change. Coincidentally, Kassen-the-female also has a higher status with Ivenmoth…
Naturally, ‘she’ is used by others for her as well (OOPS 137).
Because, you know, she’s female, so that’s the correct pronoun… >_>’
Language-wise, while “heroine” exists, “hero” can be used for women as well as men, at least in our world; Wikipedia suggests it is rooted in “protector”, a role that can be taken by anyone. Indeed, one person *called* “Hero” was a priestess (see “Hero and Leander” on Wikipedia).
Honestly, a change in sex is relatively small beans compared to species. A change which Kass has also largely come to accept – or at least tolerate/adapt to – per OOPS 132.
I think “Kassie” is just an affectionate nickname. Isher probably called Kass that even as a man.
Indeed, she does so on page 8 of the prologue.
(1) Woo, that’s a pretty nice researched response. Thank you for doing all that … though I guess it’s now my job to pick it apart if I can, in defence of my own point. I’ll probably break this into multiple posts covering one or two parts each.
In the early case (#27), that seems very much like a contextual / masking thing given the discussion that was going on, where it was and who it was with. That Kass started out saying “him” then caught … uh … *themselves* (I’m gonna have to go with NB pronouns in this post for the sake of not confusing things further I think) suggests that their self image / gender identity is still male but they’re playing along for the sake of diplomacy, clarity, and maybe Vizlet’s comfort. As well as making a point about how the perceived slight they’re responding to could be considered greater because it’s against someone who appears to be a female diplomat rather than some random male drone-level Yinglet. In the previous comic pages, it’s clear they’re EXTREMELY uncomfortable with the situation and its implications, especially being leered at and propositioned by the males on the council, due to being unknowingly dressed up in what seem to be provocative clothes (as there are literally such things within Yinglet society). Like PTSD flashback levels of uncomfortable. Referring to the diplomatic unit they’re piloting as “her” may itself be a level of dissociation from what’s going on, if that’s unaligned with their core identity.
As far as the status upgrade/downgrade thing… whilst that’s an accurate observation, I find it to have troublesome implications. Actual trans people don’t act and try to pass as, then physically and socially transition to the sexual appearance that matches their gender identity because it confers some kind of status upgrade, or because they’re actively seeking a downgrade … quite the opposite a lot of the time. It’s just something that comes along with (and one thing Kass doesn’t have to deal with at least is the additional stigma of being recognisably trans, though I’d posit that looking Yinglet in a typically human society and job, as well as acting too human to properly fit in with the Yinglets, is meant to be an allegory for that), and is borne as a problem to endure or, rarely, enjoyed as a free perk, that’s an unavoidable partner to the actual intended change.
Of course I don’t know what a typical Yinglet would say on that front, especially as the usual IRL patriarchal setup is reversed. The males seem to be at least a little genderfluid a lot of the time. Maybe they’d be totally fine with having a sex change if it meant a serious social upgrade…? Perhaps some of that would leak in to a human psyche imprinted onto a Yinglet brain? There’s hints of it when the Yinglings briefly hijack Kass’ new mothering instincts.
But, let’s look at it this way. You’re a regular dirt-tier human, and for the sake of this argument, part of the cis-het majority (as Kass appeared to be). You’re given the chance to magically become royalty. But as with all such deals there’s a price – a reversal of sex. You are still you, but if you’re male you become a princess, and if female, a prince (not queen/king here, as the younger and more likely to be married off by force position is closer to Kassen’s), with everything that entails. Now, I’m a bit GF anyway, so I think I could probably hack it (court life is more likely to do my head in), but I’m not sure so many would say the same after the novelty of the first couple days wore off. You will have, effectively, been turned into a pre-transition, pre-therapy/surgery, closeted trans person, with a need to stay in that closet…
In fact, rolling forward into the 30s… Kass freaks out at possible loss of identity and the possibility of even losing control over it, from the experience of eating a clam (“who AM I any more?!”)… talks of considering the experience so far as a dream they were waiting to wake up from, and goes a little hysterical when having to face being stuck in their new form as actual reality… ditches the fancy clothes and lipstick as early as is practical… Rages at Lopin for having caused the change which means nobody recognises them any more… really hates being called “Sopretty Lady”… gets called “man” by Elim (and acknowledged with “yessir”, though I know that can itself be unisex – but it’s not “yes’m”) and reminded of their soldiering past… considers the future to be “dread madness”… and has a meltdown at Ran for “wanting” this situation to continue and be carried through to its ultimate end (IE, mating and producing eggs).
So on and so forth. TBH I only went that far because I was checking out the nail paint thing for the second part of the main reply, but ran across all those other bits on the way…
((but yeah, that sort of sequence is in fact what played into my consideration of Kass as still psychologically male in the first place … it smacks of dysphoria all over the place))
(2)
#137 is not really the best piece of evidence, I would say. The medical orderly is a rank stranger, and just another random worker within the house, who probably wouldn’t have known Kassen by name, or in any way other than maybe as some guy they passed a few times in the canteen or whatever. The story that the house leaders will have spun around the sudden appearance of a female Yinglet in officer’s clothes would likely have been stripped of all but the most vague and essential details – that is, this person used to be human, so treat them with a little respect, as well as some additional sensitivity due to what they’re going through. The assumption would probably be that “she” used to be a female officer.
People seeing a seeming female, or someone they’ve been told is such, and using default female pronouns for them in the absence of any evidence or advice to the contrary, is not really what I’m talking about here. It’s natural for people to make those assumptions or roll with what they’ve been told as a way of making life and conversation easier, because you can’t go around getting direct confirmation for it every ten seconds, and the greater majority of the time you’ll be right anyway. It says nothing about the actual internal state of the person you’re talking about, it’s literally an assumption, and they may have their reasons for maintaining a masquerade over the top of that anyway (upto and including protecting themselves from being murdered) even if that causes a lot of psychological conflict and stress. It’s one of the reasons IRL trans people go to such lengths to create an appearance conforming with the social norms of their identity, beyond mere dismissal of dysphoria. If someone takes a glance at you and assumes your “true” gender without question or correction, that’s kind of what you want (and before that, you need the opposite, for safety if nothing else).
But that’s not the case here. Those close to Kassen, and more importantly, we as the audience, aren’t the subjects of that kayfabe and can see behind the curtain. We and they have an inside line to the character’s past life and intentions, their private difficulties, horror and trauma, and on this side of the fourth wall we even get to see more of their thoughts, emotions and turmoil than is even spelled out in the written reports.
Continuing to misgender someone in that kind of case is much like deliberately doing so (rather than slipping up then apologising) after you’ve made an innocent assumption but have been corrected by that person or another that already knows them. It’s a complete dick move. If you know someone has a particular identity or self image, regardless of how they currently look, you go with that, it costs you nothing other than your stubbornness and prejudice.
One thing I note is that Kassen hasn’t changed their name, and usually writes it out in full. I don’t know how gendered names work in this world, if they’re even a thing, but if we make an assumption that Kassen is considered a “boy’s name” (and ignoring the affectionate use of “Kassie”, given that alterations like “Johnnie” for “John” exist), and probably a characteristically human one, might they have adopted a more clearly female and/or Yinglet name for their new life, if they were that accepting of it?
Clothing is another thing … the Ivenmoth uniform is essentially unisex and Kass doesn’t seem to typically wear anything but that or very basic underwear most of the time. The one time they dressed up in feminine garb was for the initial visit to the enclave and clearly they didn’t like it at all, right down to the nail polish that wouldn’t come off afterwards and the noticing of which by Isher pretty much drove them to tears. The image constructed at least by that scene is one of a young boy who’s been dressed up and given an unwanted “makeover” by his older sisters…
(oh, and the fact that Elim didn’t correct them also doesn’t mean much – he didn’t refer to Kass in either way, just asked some very general questions more to find out what the orderly thought and felt, as a way to get an idea of how much the other Ivenmoth residents knew about the situation and their reaction to it … he’s not stupid and would know that it’s best to follow the official story on this front, so, if his superiors are placing Kass as female in their minds, then … well, maybe he isn’t reinforcing it, but he doesn’t need to contradict it either, where it doesn’t harm)
(3) … right I’ll hit the last few things a bit quicker as I’ve a phone interview coming up shortly…
I’d say the change in sex (which itself still doesn’t imply an automatic change in gender identity) vs change in species thing is sort of a matter of opinion and context. Kass hasn’t been turned into a dog. They can still walk bipedally, have hands with opposable thumbs, can talk with nothing more than a slight lisp, have human level intelligence/understanding and a similar sensorium, and may be smaller, weaker, and have less stamina, but are within the right range of all three to be able to function reasonably effectively and safely within the society and environment they were previously used to.
There’s probably not so many situations where the sex change outright dominates the species change and indeed the latter may negate and/or replicate some of the more pertinent parts of the former – e.g. ability to have intimate relations and children with an existing partner, physical ability, social status effects etc (maybe, say, if you became a neanderthal or something, as they seem to have been genetically/reproductively compatible with homo sapiens sapiens… does the story world have half-races?), but here it could be that each are about as significant as the other. There’s probably enough people who wouldn’t be too stressed about becoming a weirdly shaped furry version of themselves if they were still a “guy” (or “gal”) at the other end of it and could act as such without it seeming double-weird.
English words that are people’s names in other languages … irrelevant, I’m afraid. There’s no particular reason they’d be linked – I doubt the name used for that kind of character was the same at the time, and if it was, calling your daughter that would likely have been considered extremely odd. Japanese people called Hiro aren’t any more or less likely to be heroic. And the unisexualising of various previously male-specific words is a modern equality-driven thing (all well and good, and hopefully the masculine includes the feminine purely because it tends to be shorter rather than being considered the “default” or “correct” version – but we shouldn’t take it as being present in our own past beyond a couple decades, or in other IRL societies, let alone fictional ones) … rewind forty years and it would be considered as odd to label a female protagonist “hero” as it would be to call a male one “heroine”.
Funny that “protector” is what you used as an example, too. As that’s roman in origin, “-or” is a specific male suffix to the genderless root. The specific female form would be “protectrix”, but that sort of thing fell out of favour even earlier (like more mid 20th century rather than late 20th thru early 21st).
Plus, tolerating and adapting to an undesirable situation or forced change in appearance – or even “accepting” it as a therapeutic and coping strategy – isn’t the same as liking it, or integrating it fully and wilfully into one’s identity and psyche. It’s merely, well… tolerating it. Certainly isn’t identifying with, appreciating, or much less celebrating it. Misuse and misapplication of such terms is a particular RL controversy within e.g. the neurodiverse and disabled community, where I can report from the inside… awareness is even worse, but we’d prefer to be appreciated than merely accepted or tolerated. And whilst I have to accept and tolerate that I might overall be a bit less capable than the average person, and need to find support and workarounds for stuff I want to do that is more difficult or simply impossible, I’m never going to be happy about it or enjoy that part of my makeup… and it makes appreciating, leveraging and celebrating the things I can do (especially what I can do better than others – and Kass does still at least have SOME racial advantages over humans from the species change) rather difficult as a result. Really, a lot of the time, I’d just prefer to be ISO human (as well as having a more secure and bimodal gender identity in myself), things would be so much easier and more comfortable.
(tl;dr tolerating some change to your life doesn’t mean you like it, and even accepting, say, an amputation meaning that you’re never going to get that leg back, doesn’t mean that you now happily take on the persona of a one-legged person who doesn’t routinely wish to have two once again)
I think I had some other last point to bolt onto that but the phone call came a little earlier than expected and it’s wiped my brain out… lucky you 🙂
(oh yeah … that last part ties back in to the outward appearance and what other people assume you to be, going on looks and either obvious physical or publicly assigned characteristics; masking, covering up, and playing along with the normies is a big part of all manner of “hidden disabilities” or neurodivergent states. Well meaning but ignorant and dismissive statements such as the classic “but you don’t look autistic?” are treated ambivalently at best if not with outright revulsion, as on the one hand it’s taken as a sign that you’ve masqueraded well enough – with considerable mental effort, stress, and discomfort – to be assumed neurotypical … on the other, it reinforces the concept that someone with such a difference will have to stand out and look weird… as well as not looking weird being the preferable state and that you’re probably happy to not be standing out, and consider yourself fully one of them. Rather than it being an act you’re putting on simply in order to survive the world (much like any closeted member of the LGBTQ+ community), and that you’d much sooner drop and be allowed to behave in your natural way without prejudice.)
(…and I think we see a parallel with Isher. She’s definitely not happy in her own skin, and tries to make herself look as much like a human woman as possible when going out off-shift, rather than accepting her as-yet-unknown race and its particular build and other characteristics. She doesn’t have the gender thing to bother about so much – unless indulging in the girly-girl stuff is an overcompensation from an idea that women can’t be butch – but being 8ft tall and built like a bomb shelter with thumbclaws that can be used as scythes don’t really help cement the intended picture of traditional femininity within the eyes of her intendeds. They see her more as a conquest, a mobile set of bragging rights… guess what I survived last night, lads… She can’t escape that either, and it’s really more a problem of other people’s perceptions and assumptions and trying to live up to them, but it’s still making her unhappy and, I would expect, at least a touch dysphoric.)
(In contrast, Vizlet probably isn’t super happy about being a Yinglet overall, but she’s used to it and seems to be far more comfortable and happy in herself… being in a position where her intrinsic nature is accepted and appreciated by those around her. She might maybe have occasional fantasies of experiencing the opposite change to Kass, but it would come with an equal amount of discomfort, biological and behavioural unfamiliarity, AND a loss of status. Then we can consider Lippie, Chakki, Zally, and Poak… the former may actually appreciate a transformation as being a junior yinglet female doesn’t seem to be doing her (?) mental state any favours, and merely operating within a less overpowering sea of neurotransmitters could be a great help. She certainly doesn’t seem keen to attract male attention, and whilst a fantastic learner, is just stressed and jittery all the time, maybe from not actually enjoying a lot of the things expected of her and so finding it difficult to concentrate … as well as, yknow, just being a yinglet on top of that. Chakki would probably take to being a human woman quite happily, though might find his particular skills and experience of little value in familiar fields (literally) of work, so it’d be a mixed bag. And I figure the latter two would absolutely hate it and be in much the same state as Kass – they appear very content in who they are and the life they lead right now, and experiencing such a swap would kick their psychological foundations away in catastrophic fashion. Little that they currently do and enjoy, or consider as a core piece of their being, would exist, or remain open to them, without being rather conspicuously “different” to almost all of their seeming peers…)
…wait, is that inset photographic looking picture a canon part of the report or not? Do photos (and the ability to modify them or set up the camera such to emulate the change in vision Kass experienced… with a fake yinglet nose in the frame…) exist in this setting? Has he either got really good at painting with those wonky fingers (the quality of written text and sketches is certainly better than before), or found that Ivenmoth have an artist on staff who can make such things? Or is it just for the elucidation of readers beyond the magical fourth wall who might not otherwise properly understand?
(I love those first-person moments btw, both visually and long-form description … there’s not enough instances of really literally getting inside a character’s head… it’s something that e.g. Prequel was good at before the update rate crumbled)