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:
OOPs now has a Russian translation which updates shortly after the English pages are posted!
Now also in French:
And Ukranian:
well..shit.
Oh my. This isn’t an ominous cliffhanger at ALL. No sir.
Looks like the perfect time to switch to a slightly unrelated perspective that’s also on a bit of a cliffhanger, learn some more info that makes things worse there too, then come back to this a few pages later once everything starts to go wrong.
Go back to Isher and then Yannit, then maybe a slightly silly Viracroix intermezzo, then a longer storyline making Brakka sympathetic, an anti-hero, then sudden cut to Elim’s funeral.
i was thinking this wasn’t the kind of comic to just kill off a major character, but now i’m not sure
… maybe he’ll turn into a scav as well? i’d much prefer that to Elim dying, poor kass doesn’t deserve a loss like that
We did get a what-if of Elim being ying-ified on the artist’s dA, it was pretty wholesome.
When Kass got hit, he TF’d very quickly. Elim’s been dragged halfway across the city by now. It’s unlikely.
I dislike plot immunity much more than I dislike killing characters just to get an emotional rise. You may think that killing character is bad but once fatal wound has been inflicted “on-screen” to downplay it and decide it wasn’t all that bad is even worse
Thankfully, Val seems immune to the public pressure, but I’ve seen quite a few webcomics devolve into choose-your-own-adventure when public was not pleased with some decision by the author and the author caved in.
I don’t mind plot immunity, but i also don’t mind “GoT-style” killing of established characters.
I DO mind “killing off characters just for emotional button-pushing”, but thus far this story seem genuine to me.
I also truly agree that the worst thing is budging to “public pressure” when it comes to webcomics, as i once saw two very promising webcomics devolve into … well, almost utter drek after twitterers and/or tumblrinas attacked it and the creators seemed to not get enough support elsewhere.
They tried to salvage some of the intended storyline, but … yeah, it is clear that too much was “corrected”, and that the storyline in a crossover between those two was originally set to be pretty good.
This is far better, i’m still in for the ride.
ok, as an example, would you mind mentioning the comics?
Killing characters for drama is one of the worst things a story can do. Waaaay worse than plot-immunity. Like, you take a story with both, like Game of Thrones. You can start to tell how things are going to go by narrative structure. You can see when someone’s character arc is coming to a close and then they are free game. Because it is desperate for drama, and is too incompetent to get it from anything remotely subtle, they will just off anyone they can. It pretty quickly becomes apparent that the story is completely empty. The characters exist solely to add emotional weight when they die and are killed before the narrative can actually get any sort of expansive world with any sort of potential from external factors. Deus ex machina is often derided, but knowing that your setting is so utterly tamed that no part of it can possibly pose any menace without being formally announced? Terrible! So what could have been a vast array of background characters worthy of consideration is instead a mound of expended drama-chum. What could have been a mystery over what will happen to someone is instead completely predictable because dramatic timing is methodical and death is universal.
Let’s not get me started on the common deadmeat archetypes. Those are all just abysmally mismanaged.
I strongly disagree with your point about Game of Thrones. The character’s deaths are natural consequences of their decisions, and every single one (at least in the early seasons) advances the plot in some major way. Ned needs to die to get the story started. Rob needed to die. Cat needed to die. None of their deaths are pointless. Some of the later seasons start to slip a little, but the earlier seasons and the books were all very deliberate about how they handled death.
If you are looking to Game of Thrones expecting to get attached to individuals, you’re doing it wrong. The story is about the whole collection of characters. It’s about the political world they live in. And deaths change that world dramatically.
There is still a chance for survival here. Val is deffinatly not downplaying the seriousness of the injury. Though, if he does survive, I would expect him to be bedridden for a while in recovery.
Maybe even crippled. The wound its self might not be of the permanently crippling variety, but we have no clue what kind of crap Brakka is in the habit of poisoning his shivs with. Honestly, I think that’s what the nurse was referring to when he told the head surgeon to come look at what he was seeing, infection was setting in much faster than you’d expect from a clean knife.
The title of the comic itself “Out of Placers, A Story of Inconvenient Changes” alludes to Elim not dying, but being changed by his experiences. Death, that’s not convenient, that if anything boring as its a waste of investment in character building to date. I just wonder what the changes will be?
I wouldn’t put it past Brakka spitting on it (or worse) right before attacking, it is establish that yinglets do use their saliva in that way
That’s a limb.
noooooOOOOOOoooo
The teeth are wrong?
Elim’s a girl!
That was my guess. Surprised you’re the only other one to say it.
I doubt the surgeon would have said ‘Fit him with a mouthguard’ if they found he was a woman. We’ve already seen that the Val Salian armed forces have no qualms with female soldiers/guards so it wouldn’t be to protect ‘her’ status or anything like that, nor would being female intensify the difficulty of the surgery.
That’s not quite right. Due to the placement of the stab wound it’s not as likely, but if a wound pierces both the gut and the vagina it dramatically increases the chance of an infection. In such a case, you’d want to immediately cauterize. Mind you, I think this is a case where it is a gut perforation, as that alone might require serious measures.
Yeah, pretty sure where that knife wound is at, his/her vagina isn’t at xD
Considering where it went in, there’s a good chance he’s got a perforated bowel or stomach. Those are very, very nasty, and before more modern medicine, very fatal. Toxic shock is still really scary.
TWO UPDATES IN ONE WEEK!? QAQ
Inb4 Val leaves us on this nail biter and doesbt get a new page out for 2 weeks. It it’s another month before its fully resolved.
If Elim goes, the entire tone of the comic changes. You don’t get to have Happy Funtimes with Kass and Friends after the sole anchor keeping Kass from dissolving completely dies horribly in the aftermath of an exile scav ambush. That’s a Cerebus Retcon moment, and one I honestly don’t expect from Val.
Which is not to say I’m SURE about that, and Val’s done a good enough job of setting this up and making his world *just* foreboding and frightening enough in snippets here and there that I’m a little queasy thinking of what might happen if Elim goes. Mark of a hell of a story there, and an excellent piece of storytelling. Bravo, Val.
Now do me a favor and don’t friggin’ kill Elim, pwetty pwease?
That better not be Elim’s death. Not yet, at least. He deserves to die *in* battle, not on a surgeon’s slab.
The cliff hanger on the surgery is expected; it’s the mystery-thing the nurse wanted the surgeon to look at that has me on edge with curiousity.
If Elim dies, we riot.
Possibly the blade has nicked Elim’s descending aorta. Not sure how bad the chances are, but I’m imagining 50/50.
If that’s the case, the nurse would have known what to call it. Also, hes been on his feet for like an hour. I think he would have bled out by now if he hit an artery.
Yep @ Anon, but its almost certain he’s ruptured his intestines leading to sepsis, which is pretty damm serious, even if the blade wasn’t poisoned. Traditionally a gut wound was a recipe for a long painful death, but Elim has recovered from a similar wound in the past, so who knows?
I’m not saying that didnt happen. Just that what they “this” the nurse is referring to likely isnt that
I think the it’s his old injury from the war complicating the surgery.
It’s just a flesh wound
Given where the slicing is happening and the head surgeon’s position of looking over the other surgeon’s shoulder my money is on some sort of tattoo or other marking that carries significance that even very busy and studious medical workers would have heard about
Hmmm. What would be serious enough to concern the head doctor, but also be descrete enough that he’d approve of vague “this” terminology? Based on how he’s been portrayed, we know three things about him:
1) He’s very direct and to-the-point.
2) He has no tolerance for slang, vagueness, etc. Aka he expects and *demands* that other people are also direct and to-the-point.
3) He’s not afraid to tell the patient what’s going on. We saw that with the appendix guy.
Now, his assistant used a vague term. And at first he admonished, but then approved of the vagueness and agreed that it complicated things.
A few options:
– There’s a complication with the weapon.
— The knife might have punctured an organ. I think we can rule this out, the doctor would not have approved of vague terms for this, even if it was serious. Additionally, I don’t think they’ve opened him up yet, not without putting the mouth guard in first.
— The knife had the same “TF-juice” capabilities as the thing that got Kass. I think this is unlikely, the TF happened quickly. But it would be strange and unexpected for the doctors.
— The knife was poisoned. This would definitely justify moving quickly to surgery, but not really the need for hushed tones. I think this falls into the “would not have approved of vague terms for this” category.
— Perhaps the knife broke in half, or shattered. This falls into the “would not have approved of vague terms for this” category.
– There’s something unexpected about Elim’s body.
— Someone suggested that elim’s actually a girl, and they just found out after removing his shirt. Hushed tones would make sense.
— Someone else suggested there might be an old war wound in the same spot as the knife, though I think this falls into the “would not have approved of vague terms for this” category.
— There might be a tatoo or other marking of “hidden rank”. We got a brief mention of being authorized for anesthetics; this implies that there’s a tiered system for medical treatment. If there’s a secret “this is a war vet” or “this is a VIP” tatoo/brand, it would definitely be put on the chest, and that would explain their move to start surgery immediately. Hushed tones would be somewhat justified, depending on the rules around the markings.
We’ve been given enough backstory and information about the surgeon to know that something out-of-the-ordinary has happened; if it were ordinary, we would expect Mr. Direct to be direct.
I doubt the surgeon would have said ‘Fit him with a mouthguard’ if they found he was a woman. We’ve already seen that the Val Salian armed forces have no qualms with female soldiers/guards so it wouldn’t be to protect ‘her’ status or anything like that, nor would being female intensify the difficulty of the surgery.
Well, being a woman might be important for a surgery, considering there are different organs one must worry about (don’t feel the need to listen to this because I have no medical knowledge whatsoever. Just an idea)
It’s not a groin injury, dude. He’s been stabbed above the belt.
Women have uteruses, you know.
We don’t know much about Elim’s past, who knows he might be Drinnish royalty, and had hoped to keep it a secret but marked at birth by a tatoo or birthmark, who knows? Would be hard on Kass, as he gave his backstory to pretend to be a commoner, similar to how royalty even today likes to join armies (Prince Harry of UK for instance) but not figuring on losing the war and having to use the Alias he had created to avoid capture and possible execution.
I doubt he’s a woman, but it could be possible(someone made a very good point of the doctor calling him he even afte the newfound problem. My thoughts are that Elim could very well not be human. (or half human)
That is a very interesting possibility, but I kinda doubt it.
If its poisoned, it may be causing a very odd type of damage, like fast necrosis.
Good point. We don’t actually know how deadly poiains can be in this world, so it could be doing something worse than we could know right now. (I’m imagining the surrounding flesh turning black, a puss slowly flowing from the wound, and the smell of rotting carcasses leaking into the room.) Valsalia could have very well been hiding a scary world outside from what is shown.
That knife may have shattered given how low quality it looked.
Gonna hope for his sake that L stands for Ladnum (an early opioid painkiller)
Laudanum, you mean. It contains almost all of the opiate alkaloids in it, including morphine and codeine. Hopefully they filtered out the noscapine, though… it’s an emetic (makes you vomit).
In panel 3, it’s the right color for it… laudanum is a reddish-brown color. And as you point out, they even have a big “L” on the side.
This might turn things to a whole different direction.
Don’t you do this to us, Val…
The blade might be in a position where they can’t simply remove it without some sort of consciences to it.
I find myself worrying about elim
Two points:
“Fit him with a mouth guard” may not have nothing to do with what the nurse found other than “we have to begin immediately” before the anaesthetic has time to set in. It also tended to be standard procedure in the old days given the rather rough-and-ready nature of pre-modern surgery.
If it is related to the mouth guard, whatever the nurse spotted might be something that would prevent the anaesthetic from working properly, like signs of hybridization or an allergic reaction.
Elim might be showing some other form of transhumanism other than Yinglet — like possibly saurian? Isher’s appearance, behavior and her initial interactions with Ran imply that Isher is half human by either transformation or birth. If demi humans are possible there’s no reason to believe Elim doesn’t have signs of non-human ancestry underneath his clothes. He might not even be trying to hide them, they just haven’t been apparent so far. Non-human ancestry might explain why he was still functional after being stabbed in the gut and why he might yet survive.
Obviously Elim’s survival is possible, otherwise the notoriously utilitarian House Ivenmoth would just let him die without bothering to fix him, unless they were intent on making a show of trying just to encourage loyalty in their guards. They don’t seem the types to do that, though.
The Doctor referring to Elim with male pronouns after the reveal tends to discount the “Elim was female all along” hypothesis because the doctor does not seem to be the sort that would buy into social niceties like self-declared gender. He could surprise us, though.
Whatever the ultimate solution turns out to be will probably be more novel than any fan theory posted thus far given the nature of the setting and the creativity of the author.
> They don’t seem the types to do that, though.
I disagree. The head of the house literally executed a guard for selling off excess grain, because that excess grain is used to win the loyalty of the populace. I think they are very utilitarian, yes – but they also understand that not all costs and benefits are material. Morale and loyalty are very real resources. So they might be bound to attempt the surgery, even if fairly hopeless, because the loyalty of the guards is more important.
‘The Doctor referring to Elim with male pronouns after the reveal tends to discount the “Elim was female all along” hypothesis because the doctor does not seem to be the sort that would buy into social niceties like self-declared gender.’
While I don’t think the theory is at all likely, everyone refers to Elim as ‘he’ and being inconsistent with that would only confuse matters. I’d bet he’d think that pronouns are totally irrelevant to the task of understanding Elim’s condition and fixing it- so I don’t see why he’d bother to switch.
Fading to black with people telling you how good you did regarding your duties performance is ALWAYS A GOOD SIGN.
There’s nothing abnormal about this. The doctor is protecting us, the readers, from knowing how bad it is. We shouldn’t even BE in this operating theater, people. Think about the contaminants we’re bringing to the table here. We were just out bearing witness with that scav scuffle too, you know. Has ANYONE washed their hands since Brakka went flying? I know I haven’t.
We’ll find out what the complication is. What we do know is this: Elim will be FINE. He’s FINE. We know for these reasons:
1) He hasn’t received his promotion to officer rank yet
2) He hasn’t been seduced by Lopin yet, who is absolutely irresistible and it’s only a matter of time.
3) Kass needs him or whatever.
4) Been there done that, he’s been impaled before. This would in no way shape or form cause problems for future operations involving more stabbings in the same region in the future. This is all humdrum to the Mighty Elim, soon to be officer-enforcer of house Ivenmoth.
5) He might not be inhuman like the rest of the crew, but he’s still out-of-place as a refugee. This story’s about him, too. Plot armor or somesuch drivel.
Everything is FINE. It’s FINE. And if he’s not fine, or at least a continuing presence in the story… And I hate to resort to threats here, but… I’ll cry. I swear I will.
Great story, Val. Great tension. :’C
I just found this story like a week ago and I’m already in love with everyone. I even love Head Surgeon Merrs, who, as a head surgeon might not be qualified to operate on abdominal injuries.
Having experienced this scenario personally three times in the last year (almost exactly), I am a bit uncomfortable.
The lack of a description worries me.
I only just started reading this story, and now is when a character may potentially get killed off?
And now Val takes a 2-month hiatus, while we all squirm, right?
I’m thinking there is something to do with the old-war woulds. Kass having flashed back to the during the whole ambush and everything. Of course it might not, but seems probably it will get referenced, if it’s not relevant.
Legitimately no idea if Elim will die or not. Could go either way. Lopin has been setup as a potential person to step-in and help Kass. Isher was always there but maybe she’ll get more spotlight now. Hard to say.
Elim’s death would hit Kass so hard, I suspect he would contemplate suicide… possibly after revenge. Though he doesn’t strike me as a vengeful person; merely a more just one.
And now for Lopis: “Oh Elim, you iz one of de bests. Don’t dies now.”
Revenge on whom? Elim did a pretty good job of taking out everyone reasonably-closely involved in him getting that nasty wound.
Oh no.
Here’s my guess: it’s nothing weird or astonishing. It’s an ordinary, though life-threatening, surgical complication. The nurse doesn’t say it out loud to spare the patient’s feelings, and WE’RE not being told because it puts us in the exact same state of dire suspense as Elim is feeling when he goes under.
I agree with this assessment. Still wish the best for him though
(Fading text doesn’t reassure in any sense. Natural or writing)
I would normally agree. However Val has gone to great pains to give us the character of this doctor. And everything we’ve seen indicates that this *particular* doctor does not mince words, not even for a moment. I do not think that this *particular* doctor would “spare the patient’s feelings” at all.
And yet he was still vague. And that is what has me most concerned.
Something weird has happened, and weird well beyond a boy becoming a girl. They pretty much have no idea what it is. In theory it could even be good for Elim, but the doctors are taking no chances. Since he already has a couple of nasty holes in him, it likely looks terrible, and is not something to just hope it gets better.
Changing species is possible. We know scavs pick up very strange junk. Still, things like this are usually one-time events.
Good news is that the medical care looks to be of 1900 quality. 2000 would of course be way better, but we still get anesthetic and doctors who can do internal medicine without being more dangerous than the original wound.
I dont think it’s some kind of transformation. That one scav (can’t remember his name) who brought in that shiny thing that changed Kass knew it was special. I doubt he would have wasted another artifact to take out a guard.
The Transformation to a Female may be rare, but the male version could be much more common. Think its possibly made from the eggshells of hatched (or failed to hatch) Yinglets (the same color as Zhat Zhing when Kass was transformed) so females are that much rarer anyway.
Still, it wouldnt be this slow.