OOPs #218: Field Guide: Tunnels and Webs
Feb27
Baxxid grubs are highly socially conscious from a very early age
Colorists: Koof, Raptie, Oniontrain
Out-of-Placers
A story of inconvenient changes
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The information on Yinglet civilization’s sophistication is interesting, but… Baxxid grubs are adorable! I’d want to pet them, If I was one of the few privileged enough to know their existence.
Why would they be secret? Everyone must know that Baxxid have something like children. Most humans (and yinglets) would very rarely get to see one, but that’s only because the Baxxid have separate living areas. I don’t know if the Baxxid have the familiar human-like parental family structure or something more communal like the yinglets, but I would expect the children to get at least occasional supervised ‘field trips’ just to get them used to interacting with non-Baxxid from a young age.
Those humans who are hired as assistants by the Baxxid might interact with the grubs more frequently.
I could easily see Baxxid grubs as a plush.
Love all this clearly biased language in a state document, and looking forward to maybe, perhaps, seeing the reality of it play out in the story.
If our kid’s playtime did something useful like tilling soil, I think we’d see a lot more playgrounds on farms.
Every time a new Field Guide entry is published, I’m reminded that I don’t know how to pronounce Ran’s full name. Then it occurs to me that I’m not sure if “Ran” rhymes with “Stan” or “John.” Is there a pronunciation guide anywhere that doesn’t require Flash Player?
If it rhymed wiff John, would be written as “Ron”, cuz zat would be how za name would be said? Also the official Fan Dub it was pronounced rhyming wiff Stan. Listen it a hear on za you toobs? (youtu.be/M6DduG5fa1M?t=921)
Oh, hey! I didn’t know that was a thing that existed! Thanks!
And now I’m disappointed it got abandoned after 1 episode. So it goes. My instincts do generally match how they pronounce things, but my head-canon pronunciation of “Ivenmoth” is different. The fan dub pronounces the first two syllables as “even,” but I expect them to rhyme with “given.” Maybe the author would be willing to say what it’s supposed to be?
Hell, my internal pronunciation for Ivenmoth is generally something like “eye-ven-moth.” That first letter has plenty of potential pronunciations…
Same, though when the subject of its pronunciation came up I immediately considered iv-en-moth.
@Wilson
I always pronounce it Ron in my head, probably because of Detective Conan.
Ohoh. Here is a more definitive answer to your question. https://youtu.be/Cde2Iv26rxA?t=394
So he spells it “Ste Su” but pronounces it “Se Stu.” It must be Gaelic! 😀
3 hours an 16 minutes later… Holy Lore Drop, Batman!! I wish I knew how to know about these chats before they’re already several months in the past!
Yannit could probably get a job working in the vents, but since she doesn’t speak the baxxids’ infrasonic language, she probably isn’t fit to do the initial digging. Would she like a job keeping the vents clean and clear of varmint nests? I’d assume critters like rats, spiders, and those awful biting flies would love to clog the vents with their nests.
A good potential employment for yinglets, too: Few of them have any decent education, but vent-clearing (or, for the desperate, sewer-cleaning) is a position that utilizes their unique physical ability as the smallest known sentient species. It may not be dignified, but it’s a job that needs to be done and one they are ideally suited for.
They’d be far from the first lot to accept an underpaid, dangerous and undignified job, and just being able to demonstrate that yinglets can be depended upon to carry out /any/ form of organised employment would open up more doors. Their small size offers another appeal to employers: They eat little and need little living space, so their cost-of-living is tiny.
Now there’s an idea… Yinglet post. Small they are, but fast – and above all, dirt cheap to employ. Perfect couriers.
Here’s my business proposal: YingMail.
1. YingMail customers – any business or prominent individual – pays a one-off entry fee. This is just to cover the cost of putting a flagpole with a pully on the roof of their building and a logbook.
2. To send a message, customers pull on their rope and raise their flag.
3. Within minutes, a YingMail courier will arrive, drawn by the flag. Make sure to check they are wearing the approved YingMail postal uniform – you can’t trust just any Yinglet! Multiple carriers may arrive, but the first one gets the job. Record their courier number and delivery in your logbook – these records may be requested for audit.
4. Give the courier your letter and address. They run off, jumping rooftops and narrow passages to get it to their destination, and recording the delivery in their own logbook.
5. Each week couriers visit central office where their logs are collected and processed. Customers are billed monthly at a fixed fee per collection plus per-mile delivery cost.
As a YingMail customer, your business can benefit from the fastest on-demand delivery giving you the responsiveness you need to capitalise on trading opportunities before the competition.
The couriers are basically Uber drivers – racing to be the first to a pickup and earn their cut of the delivery fee. As the job requires no holding to a fixed schedule it’d be a great way for the exile population to earn a bit of income. It pays marginally more than begging. Marginally.
Lookie, birdy, we do work for humans doing demeaning zhings on occasion. Zhere are doze of us who do zhings we look down upon as dey demean us as a people. It is why we stay togezher in de enclaves. To fully submit to working only for humani, it is to become less zhan dey are. Would you want your friends and offspring to be slaves? Zhat is where accepting us being stoopids leads.
“This is one of the hardest truths; working at an organization where you’re in a minority group, or the sole person from a specific ethnic group – you tend to become the de facto ambassador of your entire people. If you respond to events at work in ways that align with cultural stereotypes, or reinforce negative connotations – you’re immediately labeled. You represent a group that has, by proxy, been labeled. The chances of opportunity are diminished, and not just for you, but for anyone else from your ethnic group, based on one bad day.” -Bianca Torres
Working in a miserable job for minimal pay sounds like a very human thing to me.
Sorry, but demeaning work is what most yinglets can hope for, for now. You’re starting at the bottom: Even ignoring species, your typical yinglet has no formal education and no more property than they can carry on their person. Equality means being equal to the most impoverished humans. You want better? That’s good. But it’s going to take work to climb the ladder, and the task will take generations. Yinglets aren’t stupid, they are uneducated – and that can be fixed, but not quickly.
On further planning, I think it works out. The advantage is the number of couriers. Hundreds of them, dotted around the city. There’s no way that could be affordable with humans, but yinglets are so, so cheap. Their minimal need for food and living space, and limited employment opportunities, make them a great source of exploitable underpaid labor. Better than children!
Soso cute giant stabby-bugs! Aaawwwwwwwwws…
And oh YesYes! Healzhy clam an oyster bedz… an sluggie an snailz farms… keeps Ze Matriarch… most of Za Patriarchs… an za Enclave feds an happies. *enzhuastic nod nods*
…but don’t tells Za Patriarch Narklet I saids zhat. O_o
(…an stills won’t do zhat for clams Ran.)
*Scratchies up zhen flips overs za glowies box while tryings to reads za backs ofs za important wordie paper… glowie box no glowie no mores…*
I didn’t dos it! O_O
Ummms… Looks a giant clam! —–>
*runs an hides*
But what to do with the shells? Worthless individually, but powdered and processed they can be turned into a useful agricultural chemical and construction material. As a surplus waste product, they may be a potential export. But not for the Val Salia enclave: The whole city is built on a mountain of calcium carbonate, so there’s going to be zero demand for more of the stuff! In an area of less convenient geology though, other enclaves may well be able to export the occasional cartload of shells to nearby farms or traders.
I’m gradually growing more and more convinced that the “dense, calcified” material of the Teeth is in fact the skull structure of the BIGGEST BAXXID EVER (which explains the baxxids’ initial reaction to finding their ultimate progenitor infested with humans, until they realized the humans weren’t doing any harm.)