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:
2 updates in one day?! is this xmas??
Maybe there should be a holiday called Yingmas, to be celebrated on April 0th?
Yays! Do I gets to drives Mister Fudderman’z traktor zhis times?
What? O_o
combining two yinglet stereotypes! mischievous, because it’s close to april fools, and stupid, because it’s one day before
I’m getting the feeling that Ves is an offspring of the one transferred out. That scenario would be an entire can of worms that you can only pray hasn’t been opened.
i’m pretty sure Ves is the offspring of the very old patriach and vislet. they had a discussion about her quirkiness.
No, that was Lippie. Lippie’s the one who’s apparently a genius but held back by her debilitating anxiety, which Vizlet blames on the age of her parents (page 150)
oh you’re right. thanks so much!
Due to yinglet’s unusual genetic mixing, while each yinglet has exactly one mother, they will have many fathers. The importance of each one diminished accordingly.
Sad. 🙁
But maybe when she’s right? A very cheerful girl now, but that’s no reason to think she won’t be when she matures a bit.
*But maybe she’s right? A very cheerful girl now, but that’s no reason to think she won’t still be when she matures a bit.
…she wasn’t chosen to help another enclave, was she.
There’s gone, and then… there’s gone.
Over on the Patreon post for this page, the author indicated she actually is living happily in another enclave.
Thanks for that.
Oh. Well, then I do feel better. But it certainly came across as… drama confuzzles these old branes sometimes…
That’s good to hear. I was definitely reading that as “exile, or whatever passes for exile for an irreplaceable female.”
But the difficulty suggests it was not a routine transfer. Perhaps the enclave suffered severe shortages prior to establishing good relations with Val Salia, and the council ordered most of the females transferred elsewhere to halt population growth. Or perhaps it was the beginnings of the political differences – it might be that the council realised even then that Vislet’s beliefs were at odds with their own, and used a pretext to separate her from allies so that she could not threaten their own power.
Yinglet politics isn’t as brutally back-stabby and manipulative as human politics, but that doesn’t mean they are above a few such gambits.
If the council wanted to separate Vizlet from her allies, they would have done better transferring out Beizel and Kattajak. But I don’t think they are actually hostile to Vizlet. They might be concerned about how friendly she is with the humans in the Teeth, but if they really wanted to thwart her goals, they could just transfer the matriarch herself out to an extremely rural enclave with no humans around, transfer in a super conservative matriarch to replace her, and be done with the matter. But they haven’t, so I don’t think there’s a true, deep political conflict here yet. There is reason to worry, but I don’t think even Narklet, who was sent to keep an eye on her, has any problems with her at this point.
Perhaps, but we have yet to see the elders take any action – and given the communication delay, they are probably quite ignorant of the situation in Val Salia, and entirely aware of their ignorance. That’s why they made sure to get a firm loyalist among the Patriachs. They need someone on the scene to ensure accurate intelligence and alert them should Vizlet go from merely being a matriarch of unconventional views and become a real source of concern.
The Val Salia enclave has a unique complicating factor: It could, in theory, abandon the elders entirely – having secured the support of a new and more powerful sponsor. Something that Vislet does not want, true – and it may well be the first recorded Yinglet civil war if the Patriarchs are divided – but it’s an option that other enclaves do not have. So the elders must be more careful: If they treat Vislet as an enemy, and try to depose her, then they might lose control of the entire enclave. They are doing the sensible thing: Not taking any direct action, but monitoring the situation closely and making sure they have means of acting should they choose to in future. Specifically, they have Narklet.
This is a sort of Yinglet cold war. No open hostilities, but plenty of distrust and subterfuge, and awareness on all sides that relations could quickly deteriorate.
Though Narklet seems to have his own plans, and it’s not at all apparent if the elders are aware of them. Plans which involve Zhat Zhing. He referred to it as a ‘sample’ so he must know something – but is that because of a secret mission from the elders, or something on his own initiative?
Ooh, I’d forgotten he called it a “sample.” How mysterious can one guy get?
Perhaps also, the Central Enclave has influence, but not total power. They can apply pressure and ask for volunteers, but generally need to have a super urgent and compelling case to compel and decree unwilling relocation . Bearing in mind za Enclave system is primarily designed to reduce conflict between different groups of yinglets, and minimize violent use of force. Feena’s old fren certainly seems like za type who would volunteer to be relocated to protect her Matriarch and to reduce pressure and conflict between za enclaves. Relocating a Matriarch against her will would be nearly unzinkable and every Matriarch including and especially za most traditional would be concerned at letting za Central Enclave get away wiff zat for fear zat it could happen to zem, short of clear and present zreat of acting to endanger all yingletkind.
Seeing Feeeena on the brink of tears but using her motherly skills to put a smile on Vesaria’s face is really touching! Now we all want to know more about the person she misses: was she Feeeena’s sister or Vesaria’s mother? Is the gray female in Ran’s illustration of the caravan, which we all suspect is a real caravan on its way to Valsalia, related to any of them?
Oh yesyes! Goods on Feeeeena… workings past za hurtz to brings happies to Vesaria.
Would still gives hugs and clammies zhough…
How much would they care? Yinglets keep rigorous track of genetic relationships because they need selective breeding to counter their high mutation rate, but other than that there’s no hint of caring about family in that manner. They don’t need parental or sibling bonds: The whole enclave is their family, and the rest of the Yinglet species beyond that. They are remarkably unified, aside from the exiles who comprise a very small part of the population.
That’s a fair point. As a human reader, I’m still interested. 🙂
Now it suddenly occurred to me that none of the yinglets we’ve met seem to have last names. What if there’s a Feeeena or a Vesaria from another enclave, and they happen to meet? Would it be “Feeeena of Valsalia” or “Vesaria von Valsalia”? Would Kassen have to try to explain where “Akoll” is?
Considering it’s Yinglets, it’d be “Dis Feeena” and “Dat Feeena, ya know da red haired one.”.
Now zhat’s just mean, Birdy! Of course we care about where we come from. It’s one reason the Patriarchs are revered, zhat almost all of de enclave is zheir kids, and are proud of zhem! When we assimilate newcomers, we hope dey will fit in, and become family too, as zhat is what a Enclave is, de equivalant to a Tribe for us. De role of parent for us is filled in by de nursery staff, and for most of us later we get a mentor, someone we learn (and hopefully survive) a trade or skill by copying, de same way we learned to speak common from humani.
De outcasts do make us sad each time one leaves us, I hope you know dis, Birdy. We are short lived beings compared to humani, so social ties are less ridgid for us, but we grieve too. Humani zhink dat we don’t, but we don’t get to live decades understanding zhings like death, and loss. We become adults before de age of four, and doze of us who care too much, break under it. Doze are mostly de ones dat are exiles, de ones who broke because dey care too much about zhings, and dey lose demselves to de voices we all hear as nozhing fixes having lost somezhng, or someone minus taking a break from sanity for us. If we are lucky, doze who are lost find zheir purpose, and rejoin us. Doze days are zhe best days.