D'awwww poor Kalgkur.

Aw, poor black-cloth.

It is empty

psyonic brainwipe?

No, you can see him "talk" a bit in https://www.furaffinity.net/view/56135760.

But there's sadly no more background about this character.

He is remote controlled

Or surgical. The baxxid version of a lobotomy.

More of a Dementor’s kiss-type deal.

So that's what the black flag on the back of the head means...

They just dispell all the complexity of their mind when they fail the trial?

I think it's more the 'Shriek of Sedation' becomes the 'Din of Death'.

possibly less "dispelling" and more "forcibly removing"

I'd ponder what they did to those who failed to render them in such a state, but the only person in a position to ask that question is Kalgkur, and I'm sure he does not want to know.

Probably some kind of lobotomy.

Is... is the one with the black cloth even alive? If so, did they go through the Baxxid equivalent to a lobotomy or something?

""""Yes""""

We're hitting th escary stuff.

Or rather, more scary.

Especially after the discussion of 'coalescing', I sometimes wonder if the Baxxid are the exoskeleton-clad creatures themselves or a cordyceps-like fungal infection controlling them.

Yeah I've been questioning that myself recently

Right? The line would surely still be blurred in any case, but hypothetically: Having sudden awareness that the seat of your cognition and sense of self resides in the biology of the parasite rather than the host would be pretty existentially unnerving and traumatic for a compassionate or gentle individual.

Might not be a parasite. Might be a symbiote—it gains a powerful body and it gives said body actual, powerful sapience.

Though that sapience only really seems to be useful now that they're working with humans. Before then, it seems like they were doing what they would have been doing anyway except with extra angst.

And to make any alliance possible in the first place. Animalistic man-eating boneworms would be hunted into oblivion.

Even if the parasite is what's in control of the Baxxid bodies, it seems it's intelligent enough to know that tool use is sooooooo important in how the world is developing that the Baxxids being big and tough isn't enough to survive a war.

Granted, I don't think it's a parasitic or symbiotic organism situation. I think the Baxxids are their own intelligent species. None of the lore pages included mention of even speculation about that.

Sure, the Baxxids could be concealing it. But I just doubt it.

...So those...

They're basically... lobotomized?

Damn, that is freaking dark and terrifying! Dang...

I guess my suspicions about the Black Cloths were correct. But the truth is more horrible than I had imagined. Poor.. things, they still have enough mind left to be ashamed.

So noble. So refined. So gracef-

...

I'm sure the artist from the market stall can buff that ding out of his forehead.

lol that actually got a laugh out of me

Dude's basically an entire head of dings at this point

Do not engage. Do not Approach.
Do not impede their business.

Divinity: Original Sin II? It's either that or you're referring to the Borg. or Mass Effect.

No, this is the exact description of the baxxid color code of their headcloth, in this case black.

I thought of Original Sin II because there is one NPC you're told to seek out who has lobotomized people dressed as plague doctors doing mindless work for him. And the Borg will pretty much leave you alone if you don't impede them (that is until they decide you need to be assimilated).

Those pore black flags. <~\/~>

That's what happens when ya raise the black flag in the QUEEN'S SEAS, YARRRR

I thought: Raid!? *poof*

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

H. L. Mencken

Single light is on, no one is home. Baxxid.exe has stopped working.

Heck of a lot more efficient than chaining them all down with the potential to escape or killing them outright which while 'maybe' would be more merciful, though it doesn't seem like the black flags are directly suffering if they're just locked in mental static. And hey it might even be reversible, though I doubt it, and they could be reintegrated back in some time later.

And I can't help but picture the Yinglets finding out about this method of punishment, but instead of having to actually do anything directly to their would be criminals their Matriarch just convinces them that having a black cloth over their faces turns their brains off and it just never occurs to them to disagree.

I love this concept.

Until a gust of wind blows the cloth off.

Yay!

I can definitely see Vizlet doing this as a prank on a pack of particularly dumb males. And I can't get the picture out of my head of one of the Black Cloths having their head covering blown off as SSJ3Mewtwo said above, and the yinglets furiously questioning a completely blank Baxxid now that he "has his brain back." Black humor at its finest.

Absolutely!

Okay you see,



I like this image

Awesome!

Bird brain

Dunno, that 'efficiency' has been used to some pretty horrifying ends irl, for basically the same reasons...
It's kinda just eugenics

True, does make me wonder if they have a formalized breeding policy compared to the relative chaos of humans and the by necessity match making of Yinglets due to very low numbers of female offspring. Being so naturally inclined towards collective decision making it is possible the Baxxid developed a form of community pairings in some sort of middle ground between the human and yinglet methods.

I don't think you can really compare the yinglet's breeding program to a system of eradication; yinglet breeding generally seems to be significantly more focused on ensuring maximum genetic diversity instead of the eradication of 'bad blood' which in many ways is kind of the exact reverse of the spiritual intentions of eugenics
they're basically just trying to stop themselves dying from being too related to themselves by making sure that each female has intercourse with as many viable males as is physically possible.
mutations and abnormalities on the other hand don't generally seem to carry the same stigma of corruption and 'foul blood' you would associate with eugenics

what the baxxids are implied to be doing here though seems to follow the same intentions behind a lot of irl lobotomies and sterilizations; the sorta stuff that sets off alarm bells in my head

basically the yings aren't particularly concerned with cultivation of the ideal citizen
baxxids on the other hand are, from the looks of things

I think you're mixing up eugenics itself with both some of the specific ways it's been carried out and related forms of ableist violence (lobotomies¹).

Eugenics is specifically choosing who can/is encouraged to reproduce with the goal of "improving the species"/"Weeding out undesirable traits" (Both, of course, subject to much subjectivity).
Historically it often overlaps with killing or sterilizing those deemed undesirable (as well as other forms of ableist and racist violence though those do not necessarily strictly fall under it, they "just" co-occured²) but that's not strictly speaking a requirement. Various forms of discouragement or even just encouraging those you deem "superior" to breed can also fall under this in a wide sense.
Seeing as yinglet enclaves/their females decide who gets to have kids based on perceived worth... yea they're practicing eugenics.
(Though arguably a less directly violent form and with a broader view of what may be desirable than has been seen in human societies that tried this.)

As for the baxxid... we don't know how they reproduce (I think?) and though this could tie into it (preventing "undesirables" from reproducing) it could also "just" be a very brutal method of punishment.
(Something something, putting someone in prison for life is not generally considered eugenics even if they are extremely unlikely to have any kids in that environment. Weather it should be² is another matter.)

¹Though here used as a means of punishing crime rather than as a way of placating people deemed insane, feeble minded or such.

²This is obviously a somewhat grey area. Lobotomized people may have kids far more rarely, if you're stressed and can't get enough food you may not be able to support kids, police brutality killing a group disproportionately also leads to there being less of that group...

YES!
I knew if I waited long enough, I'd get a pedant!

Not super interested in arguing about it though, the baxxids are weeding out undesirables and neutralizing them, that's what the whole test thing is about.
you can can argue about whether that's exactly correct, or whether it should be referred to by a different name or if it's more akin to americans and ussr weeding out wrong thought or whateves
to me, it's all the same and not worth arguing about, specially when eugenics itself is not really rooted in actual precise science and is more just a means of justifying bad shit

spiritually, they are doing stuff that's consistent with the intentions of it, and that's what matters to me, I don't really care that much about the technicalities, specially given that these are silly cartoon lizards

will argue though that the yings selectively breeding themselves does not fall under eugenics, cause like, they're very clearly just interested in avoiding their present issue of inbreeding being a thing that regularly kills them, specially since they're comfy with any kind of ying mutations so long as the ying in question survives into adult hood.
pree sure they wouldn't be doing it at all if that pressure didn't exist

Ah. So you're one of those "Actually, my vibe check trumps any actual facts"?
In that case, that kinda is just code for “Don’t even try to talk to me because I am always right! No it does not matter weather I am basing my ideas solely on weather I like the people/species in question.”

Also, unless I'm very mistaken yinglet issues are not specifically from inbreeding so much as from their rapid mutation rate and their Neurology generally not being high on impulse control.

No dear, I'm a "I got shit to do" kinda gal, coupled with a "I don't like wasting time arguing the specifics of vagueish psuedo scientific ideologies that weren't designed to make sense in the first place" type o' bitch... that kinda lib shit debate bro nonsense isn't my style

For what it's worth, I don't have a hate boner for the baxxids, i just noticed where their shit is going, and responded by saying 'oh, they're doing a thing

Also what do you think inbreeding is?

Right. As I said, miss "Ackshually my vibe check is better than actual knowledge"

Inbreeding = reproduction with (closely¹) related relatives. Often leads to more expression of recessive (often negative) traits due to higher likelihood of offspring being homozygous for that trait.
Inbreeding =/= high mutation rate.
But a high mutation rate can also lead to a lot more varied (and, because that's how this works, often detrimental) traits being expressed.

¹Since you ARE miss "I don't actually care what anything means" I'm not actually going into any detail here beyond the simplified version.

oh come on, My title is Miss "akshully has better things to do than argue with numpy pedants"
if you're gonna keep replying to this and ticking over my comment counter, at least get my damn title right ya nong

but like, for real, the vibes ARE what matter to me here; that's not a dis to me.
I really don't care how my imprecise semantics are annoying you; that you think that being more correct about a thing than some stranger should be more important to me is an effing weird expectation

like, seriously, you're trying to pick a fight with a random woman you don't know, who barely cares about you in the comments section for a niche web comic on a portion of the internet seen by a few thousand people at most hun, what exactly are you doing here?

Seems legit to me xD

I'm expecting the chained one to suddenly come out and go, "Ah. Very good, then. So, is anyone else craving noodles?"

"Dont worry kalgkur
We have the ability to turn you into a mindless slave whenever we want
Teehee
Dont think about it"
Lol

The ones with the black cloth! They're cut off from the hive, leaving them alone in their heads!

It feels more like they had their ability to speak removed rather than lobotomized. Black Flag seems to be trying to reach out, but it just can't

They can still speak... kind of. Black Flag managed a garbled "follow" to our boy here when he went to fetch him. I do wonder, though, how much of the damage was from the Elders, and how much was from sheer guilt. Assuming they weren't the kind of psychopaths who do not feel guilt at all.

It looks like it took an extreme measure of will just to get a faded "Follow" to come out. The white "sparks" above its head seems to me like it wants to say something, just can't for whatever reason. Lobotomy is on the table, sure, but it feels to me like its actively trying to reach out. Doubt we'll ever know for certain

Point. Though the blackies' body language is also a factor. Everything about them is dull and limp and lifeless, from the eyes to the mandibles. If what was done to them wasn't an effective lobotomy, it might as well have been.

This looks exceedingly cruel. However, let's not forget, on top of the ones who fail choosing the path of peying on other sapients and possibly bringing extinction upon their whole species, the elders explained that Baxxid are very susceptible to groupthink and peer pressure. How do you make sure the Chained One gets fed without a chance to turn more to his ill-fated ideology?

Have the ones with a mind too damaged to turn do it.

Can't indoctrinate if there's nothing indoctrinatable in there!

It might even be more cruel to the Elders to have to keep the Chained One down there at all, just so they can do this test. Because it looks like he's been chained long enough that his body is warped from trying to outgrow those chains. Also, the higher-ups in Ivenmoth most likely know what's going on down there, because a Baxxid couldn't have made that chain, nor bind him in the first place. You need hands for that.

Oooh, that's an interesting point you make there. Acquiring the chains are one thing, but yeah looking at it actually binding and restraining might be a different matter altogether...

Ever want to hug a giant worm that could kill you

I do
Certainly do

To be fair, right now Kalghur would probably take the hug. He's still a relative kid and just went through a hell of a traumatic experience. And he really likes humans.

He sure needs a hug. I'd hug him

To choose to feign allegiance with humanity in the trail is to be doomed with the black cloth?

But what may happen should the black cloths increase in number and break 'He-Who-Knows-What-They-Did' out of their binds and follow their command? D:

They'd have to figure out how to unmake a big ol chain first!

That is a fair point!

And hasn't "He-Who-Knows-What-They-Did" has had its skull and limbs become too big, it couldn't support itself?

Goodness, maximum spooky on that one. Also, our boy's eyes felt oddly different on this page! Trying out new angles with his head?

Also wait, looking back on it now, the black robed one's eyes lacking their reflection.. has this one been blinded as well as having their voice removed? How horrifying

It's not that they're not reflecting, it's that there's nothing in there. Light in the eyes is a sign of life, vitality, sentience and sapience. Dead, haunted eyes see only static.

Regrets in the Infamy
Forgets in the Lobotomy

Reminds me of what happens to mages in dragon age 1 that dont cut it

"You wanna give up your free will and do as you're told? OK then..."

I have to wonder about the precision of the operation.

A Baxxids have formed a symbiotic relationship with other species in a number of ways, and one is that species like humans are dextrous and precise with our hands, fingers, and tools.

Who did the operation on the Black Eyes? And how?

That'd be an....interesting character to meet in a future chapter.

The answer to that, I would guess, is the Elders, using a Power Word much, much more destructive than the one temporarily used to stun Kalghur. That's why the one Elder said that "Nothing good lies in this place."

I can't help but to think that the black-flags look pretty effectively lobotomized. The "Power Word" they used on Kalghur has, I assume, much more powerful siblings. The sort of thing that can break a brain.

... and that hammers home, finally, that you're dealing with a truly alien sophont in the Baxxid. To us, it seems evil and cruel. But in their moral system, it might well be the most merciful choice - render any potential rebels mindless rather than killing them and making a martyr to their cause. They remain alive as a symbol - and a warning.

And they're smart enough to figure out they had one of two choices with humanity: Remain feral and be hunted to extinction, or "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." and forged an alliance. They gave up the Coalescing, but in the process something much more advanced-thinking was born. And they would make sure that any that seeked to drag them backward would pay a very high price.

Something I like, that I often see in writers who aren't a pile of cynical misanthropy and exterminatus memes...

Humanity actually has one of the single greatest superpowers in any setting, if you think about it. Ignore our almost supernatural endurance, compared to most life on Earth. Ignore our tools, and our clever constructs. Ignore our ability, through clothing and gear to adapt to every imaginable environment.

The reason humans are unstoppable is hinted at, by the appalling number of us who have an apex predator who is curled up by our ankles for snuggles and food. And how we anthropomorphize said predators so hard, that they have come to emulate their pack-bonded family, to the point that cats and dogs cuddle smaller mammals like mice and hamsters.

That's right: humans, as a rule, like to make friends. What's more, those bizarre friendships end up mutually beneficial, to where some wild animals seek the odd human for help in dire times.

Our wrath and fear are terrifying. Our inherent friendliness is lovecraftian.

This is straight-up truth

See below for a somewhat alternate take by a published furry author. She is a misanthrope, but had an interesting balance in the way she depicted humans.

I've never looked at it quite like that, but you are one-hundred-percent correct.

We're root beer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VhSm6G7cVk

Exactly.

We're insidious!

Hrhr I loved that bit

The series Griffin Ranger by  rgibson had an interesting take on that. Most of it was set on a parallel universe Earth where humans did not exist and there was no Sixth Extinction. In our place were several sapient species, rather like Valsalia's world. The two dominant ones were the griffins and the builders (chicken-sized parrots that were extremely handy building things). Their world had a bloody history, with the builders trying to take over at the point of a gun - just like with us - but failing in one place. In some conquered lands, a perpetual war raged between builder and griffin, which lead into the main plot.

The Big Bad of the series, a builder named Whitehead, built an interdimensional gate and opened it to human!Earth in order to find allies against the griffins. What they found instead, they literally referred to as monsters. He contracted with the worst of humanity: He traded his world's virgin oil supply for them to design a custom weapon against the griffins and their allies.

The "monster" tag was because of how odd we looked compared to any species on their world. What was Lovecraftian was the weapons - like hydrogen bombs - we'd developed, to the point of driving Whitehead's psych expert into insanity. Our penchant for friendliness actually came in hugely handy for a griffin and his companion trapped on our world, two of the protagonists who find out that not all "monsters" are monstrous.

A good observation.

I adore what you've written, thank you

No words left for complicit failures to say

Wait, average "decreasing", doesn't that mean they're happening more frequently? That's... That's not a good thing.

That's probably a typo. The Elder does say "relievingly", clearly he meant the frequency decreases.

He may mean 'average per-capita', in the same sense of crime rates in an area relating to population. If frequency remains the same for a given crime in a given area, as population density increases the total average of people of people committing that crime decreases. Likewise, if frequency decreases but population remains unchanged, the average decreases accordingly.

Think of it like break-ins or car thefts per person. If there's 100,000 people in a city, and each of them has a single car, and you have 5,000 car thefts in a given year, you have an average car theft of 5% for the city. If, the following year, 10,000 people, each with their own car, move to the city, but there are still only 5,000 cars stolen, the average car theft has decreased to 4.5%

The average mentioned is 1/6.48(2), not 6.48(2), so it decreasing indeed means it happening LESS often, not MORE.

Ooooo Okkkayy well that answers the black cloth question

It's 450 cases in 2917 years or 56 cases in 363 years? I don't see any other way to get an integer.

Well, depends on what "the test" is defined as, and when it started being performed. The Field Guide on Beliefs mentions that He Who Knows-What-He-Did has spent 43 years chained there. If the field guide is only about 2.375 years old, then 7 instances of the trial would get us to that figure. (There could also be rounding/truncating of an irrational number, 6.482222 might not be the exact figure but rather an approximation.)

However, the Field Guide on Baxxid Devouring Impulses does mention that the Immergen Agreement was about 115 years ago (The part about Sun Thirst mentions "12 years after the Immergen Agreement ... counting now for 103 years") from the writing of that document. If that's where the "start point" was for this average (which would imply that HWKWHD could be an outlier, not lobotomized but kept for a reason -- perhaps to make the test easier to perform, perhaps he had some unique trait that made him immune to lobotomization), then 18 individuals would put it at around 116.68 years, meaning that document would only need to be about a year and a half old.

The Baxxid don't necessarily need "number of years since we started testing" to be an integer, their mathematical minds are perfectly capable of tracking a decimal year, I would imagine.

Okay, I did not think it would be possible for bony protrusions to look like perked ears of shock and fear, but you managed it, Val. And yeah, Kal. Time to GTFO of this place.

Huh, so the bone worms are basically doing eugenics

And they're doing it to folks who dissent against having humans colonise their nest....
Hrmmm, not sure I can say that the baxxids are my faves anymore

They are creatures of some extreme mentalities!

No kidding!

I don't think it's *just* humans the Baxxids are worried about being unable to interact with.

It's all other intelligent species.

If they let themselves become animalistic ambush killers and nothing more, they would be marked as targets by every sentient species in the world.

They know the other races communicate over long distances, meaning warning about Baxxids would spread.

Instead, they're making themselves into assets and natable figures.

That beats everyone targeting them with arrows, spears, and magics.

that's not really what I'm talking about here, I'm pointing out that they're selectively erasing portions of their own society
specifically in the name of being more 'civilized'
they might not be invoking genes, but that is basically eugenics, like that's the heart of what that pissant movement was about
and like, historically, lobotomies were one of the more outrageously disgusting tool of the eugenics movement
so like...this is very much invoking that, like, I don't know that you could create a more apparent connection without directly pointing to gas chambers

so like, yeah, very much not endeared to their cause

how ironic, they have more in common with yinglets than they thought

I wonder if the black flags get a chance to redeem themselves in some way and earn back their own autonomy/mind. Or are they just permanently stuck like that with no chance of rehabilitation, that would be pretty cruel even if they failed the trial and is somewhat deserved.

so how hard was it for fuzzbrain to come up with the word, albeit broken, "follow"? also what was fuzzbrains name before becoming a bit foggy?

how much mental capacity are they left with? and who did they murder? was it a mistake or on purpose? what was their trial like?

and why does kal have such a violent mental screechy reaction to the fuzzy one?

The worst parts of my brain think it's like people who have damaged language centers in their brain; for some types of injuries, life is a constant "it's on the tip of my tongue" feeling but not just for talking, but listening, and conceptualizing, where you know you used to be able to put things together but part of you is just missing, while the rest is still ready to go, and it's a struggle or even impossible to put thoughts together.

I think children are taught to avoid them, and that they never come to the upper levels. They're like living ghosts in their paleness and broken communication.

if we were to turn the fuzzy ones fuzz and turn it into something humans would be used to hearing what would his mental fizzley poppy fuzz speech sound like? would it be like someone randomly rambling words that don't make sense or is it more just a tv / radio static sound where there really isn't any words at all?

... Is Nell still out there? She is, isn't she.

Sometimes the only path left open, is to bang your head against a wall.

wonder how these guys are going to react when they enviably get pulled into a war?

Well, ouch. But it makes sense.

A moment of silence... for those who haven't passed...

"This is the price that must be paid to not be feared and hated by the world."

Whatever they took from black veil, they clearly didn't take the knowledge that they failed.

Awareness of your own failures seems the ultimate baxxid punishment. Heck, their greatest villain is "He-who-knows-what-he-did"

Poor bone-noodles! If I were to guess, the Black-Cloth noodle has been 'sedated' (If you know what I mean) to make them a non-threat. It's sad as heck and I want to hug the noodle. Poor noodle. D:

Woo lobotomies!!

Heya OOPsers! I'm here to remind you once again that there's a place called "Top Web Comics" https://www.topwebcomics.com/?home=3 that compiles comics from various places. There's a bunch of cool stuff there. They have monthly votes, so you can support OOPs there. You can vote once a day per device, so your PC, laptop, tablet, phone, etc.

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ty I keep forgetting

NP!

It would seem that our hero has managed to avoid a rather grim fate.

The black cloth = murderer who underwent ego death and now does very specific duties
Got it.

Great, now I feel sorry for the murderous lobotomized super predator.

Oh. Oh noooo.

The poor black-cloths.

Perhaps they get induced to become 'light hungry.' Fairly safe to be around, that way.

The thing about this being a test was predictable.
predictable, but good.
it is good to not shy away from predictable outcomes. they are often predictable because they are logical in their conclusion.

a bit of a personal comment: The thing about the deception of the council.
instead of full understanding and everything being well, I personally play with the idea of Kalgur being very pissed at the council.
it was a great break of trust and a deception. even though done for a reasonable cause, it would still be very understandable for Kalgur to hold a lingering distrust towards the council.
they did decieve them with the intent of killing him if he would agree with them.
both sides have a reasonable logic, but it is still one that wouold put them at odds with each other.
if they really wanted him to disagree with them, then it stands not to far to reason, that there is the possibility of Baxxid holding a lingering feeling for that sort of betrayal.

I would way more be interrested about a series about the Baxxid. it is by far the most interresting stuff in this comic series.

I'm really glad to hear that this arc, which finally establishes the baxxid's place in the story, is getting a pretty good reception! It's always a little uncertain about how readers will react to arcs like this, when the story initially drew them in by a guy becoming a female stilt-rat, ya know?

Amusingly, the Baxxid are what pulled me in first, with Kalgkur's little air raid siren spider encounter. After that, I dove into the rest of the archives to that point.

we came for the jokes, stay for the characters, keep up the wild work lol

The Baxxid are fascinating. It is going to be a bit strange going back to Yinglet shenanigans after Serious Baxxid being Serious.

I do know about the female stilt-rat.
I was there.

Ok, so then now we know what the black flags primarily are, but then what the hell is Zhretta? She's always in a black flag with gold trim and ornate markings, much like the other leaders/elders, though not quite as extravagant. Is she the caretaker/overseer of these black flags, or is she perhaps the one that... "Vacates" them?

Black cloth seems akin to the Tranquil of DAO from what I get. Not quite knowing/recalling the species lifespan which from what I have surmised is really long, and those that have failed the 'Harrowing' become servetors for this test. With this 'Harrowing' complete the servetor is no longer needed till 6 to 7 years down the road as long as the math keeps to it all.

Those who pass skull off and enter their mushroom phase

....

Will have to reread quite a bit of this comic....again.

That moment when you finally find out what the test is and realize how easy it is to pass.

What a very suspiciously round number. So round it might be in the translation 6.482222... Hmm.
*math math math*
... So, this planet has a year that is 450 days long.

Curious about your reasoning, though amusingly, 450 / 6.482222 truncated at three decimal places results in 69.420. (Have to truncate to get Funni Numbers, since the next digit is 6, but still. ^_^ )

I do believe Val had said before that the planet's year is longer than an Earth year, but I don't remember where/when it was said, unfortunately.

Drop the vulgar fraction.
6 + 0.482
6 + (217/450)
Six years, 217 days.

This way of speaking would be very cumbersome for a human*, but Baxxid language and culture may have a different way of representing numbers - perhaps they just express all non-integer numbers as decimals, and find it annoying that humans keep trying to turn everything into fractions that are much more difficult to add or multiply.

*Or a yinglet, since they learned their mathematical terms from humans along with the language.

...is it bad that I never even realised the black-cloth was mindless until I read the comments?

I thought he was banging his head on the walls in frustration over failing the trial, and the little unformed speech bubble was the baxxid equivalent of a sigh. As if he was thinking "I've fucked everything up."

so would they even fight to save their current homeland from invaders?

They.... they lost the ability to speak, to communicate, to be social, perhaps even to THINK, because they said or thought the wrong thing.

...

holy shit

Poor bean, gonna need therapy and hugs. Also kinda thigh highs, buuuut that's a personal wish uwu

That poor black flag....it is alone once more...

"yes. nothing good lies here. Especially me. I wish to be good, but I cannot. it was not and is not my nature to be good. I can never be good no matter how much I wish to be. I must stay here, where there is no good, because here is where I belong. oh how I wish I could be good."

dunno why this popped into my head, it just did.

I went back and reread these pages, just for funsies
I hurt now, knowing why the black cloths HAVE to be the way that they are. That's SAD VAL.
THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A COMIC ABOUT INCONVENIENT CHANGES, NOT THINGS TO MAKE ME CRY!!!!!

No, no. Val engineered this arc just to make you cry.

Hey now getting your soul hollowed out is a pretty inconvenient change I'd say!

sikfok666's comment hits especially close to home now that you've said this, THANKS VAL!!!!!!!!!!!

Curious if the black-flagged baxxid will get thoroughly explained. People have some good theories. I can agree that they’ve certainly been mentally fucked with in some way. Really bizarre the baxxid. They photosynthesize, they talk weird, they go Godzilla mode when angy, they have voice commands, and they become zombies. The theory that they are some biogenetic engineered creature starts to seem more plausible than natural evolution.

Had to edit because baxxid autocorrected to yinglets. Just… 🤷‍♂️

I only just realized that here, in the infographic displaying the various head garments and their meanings, and when this one first appeared, there is no gloss, no light in their eyes. Even in the same full light as others.

I just now noticed that the blackcloth baxxid has no ornamentation on their boneskull. That's a subtle but very well done detail there - because of course, seemingly lacking at the very least most of their will, they wouldn't be ornamenting themselves, and whoever is shaving their bone growth probably just goes for the quickest, simplest, and easiest thing.

Basically, the baxxid equivalent of a buzzcut.

At last... we know what the black cloth means.

The squiggles seem like Baxxid keysmash xD

All of you reading into the lobotomy-esque thing that's described here,

meanwhile my dumb ass went "LMAO Kalgkur is a gen-z baxxid 😂👌" after reading 'among your generation'.
My brain has been thoroughly fried.