They are in here somewhere
Downside, so are your friends

When you spawn in as blue team but everyone else looks like they're on the red team

All your friends are on the enemy team (sobbing)

Kal, do what you gotta do.

Club her.

NOT CUT HER!

Just club her over the head.

the last time he tried that a guy exploded

Yeah, but that was a human that didn't have an exoskeleton that can withstand crushing rock.

It was a squishy human.

Might be worse. When you crack an exoskeleton even a LITTLE bit they're squished. But when you dont crack it at all they're fine. Thats a really fine needle to thread.

Yeah they're like eggs...hard exterior and soft interior...

The reason an exoskeleton is an exoskeleton is because once you break through that you're fucked.

Also, Kal has actively been working on controlling his strength and speed. Even while feeling emotionally confused, he stuck with controlling himself.

You know what, that'd actually be pretty good setup and pay off for said training.

he is supposed to use the blunt side!

They can't do that. Doing so would be fatal.

Yannit is an insect. Her internal organs and brain don't work the same way as a mammal, and "bonking" her on the head with sufficient force to "knock her out", would cause her exoskeleton to crack. At which point she would bleed to death. And even if it didn't break her carapace, the force involved would cause severe disruption to the internal structures.

You see, it doesn't matter how much armor you have? If you are still soft and squishy on the inside, then those soft and squishy bits are subject to Momentum, which is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. Newton's Second Law: the rate of change of a body's momentum is equal to the net force acting on it, means that sudden and forceful acceleration/deceleration of the outside armor will result in the squishy insides getting splattered on the inside of that armor.

So no bonking.

While I admire the use of the laws of physics, I have a retort:

It's a comic where people can be turned into yinglets and incredibly heavy worm bugs can move with blinding speed.

Chill, friend

Well in general exoskeletons in and of themselves are not made of glass, and species that have them tend to be rather rough and tumble, often able to survive tremendous punishment and can be very hard to kill, which more often occurs by actually tearing them apart limb from limb. Nobody says that a blow delivered with sufficient force would kill an indrel let alone crack its exoskeleton, and well even if it did, creatures that have them don't tend to die from such trauma they can survive it. Another thing to remember is that while we may call them 'Insectoid' that is all they are, insect-like, they are not derived from Earth insects. So that being the case, they may and probably do have abilities and biological functions that are not found in Earth insect species let alone genetically uplifted ones.

I don't think rave music will help in the slightest! D:

No? Then perhaps some 'Funk'? I'm thinking some 'Parliament' maybe..

"We got a Real type of thing going round going round, there's a whole lot of Rhythm going Down."

"Flash-light!"
. "Spot-light!"
. "Red-light!" "Dance, Sucker!"

Fezzik, jog his memory

Lol!

Not to be 'that guy', but some things are too critically important to the real world to be left unsaid: "Blunt force trauma" is a common cause of violent death. Even without crushing injuries, a blow to the head can cause, er... let's just say "bad things" to happen to the brain, resulting in anything from mild concussion (which is still cumulative over a lifetime of repeated injuries) to instant death. The entertainment industry has seriously underplayed how dangerous even a moderate blow to the head can be.

You're being that guy.

I'll be sure to give that all consideration due to a vacuous non-statement.

Too bad nobody has calm causing pheromones near them, just spraying at them, to calm them.

Nuu, no hurt the yannit! Perhaps just a big ol’ restraint hug will do from kal, atleast till they can get back up :3

I like the idea of a restraining hug...but...that's being grabbed and held by the big dangerous worm smell.

Also, r/foundtheprotogen

Need to give a calming scent...is that possible? Did they find the knock out scent?

The Head Researcher was working on that and could calm them in 116 or so...

I think they even had that plan, the problem is the calming scent is a few floors and doors away, and the person having the meltdown is much too close.

Hive conditioning and sense of smell is strong in this poor bug. Poor thing. but it seems the best thing to do is to try and figure out a way to restrain them without hurting them or them hurting anyone else.

Ironically.. Kalgkur may be the best suited for this exact thing. Being completely covered in that natural armor of his.

The problem with him doing it is that it would reinforce the conditioning, making the panic response worse.

ohh most probably. at least till another scent can be used to overwhelm the olfactory. It may not need to be a long time holding them back. and was thinking that out of everyone. The bone worm has the most armor to be able to take any panicked attacks without being harmed.

If that fails. Well.. Kalgkur's likely gonna be able to show just how good of a bodyguard he is and how hard that natural bone armor is.

I think you're right.. Kalgkur not only has that speed, armour, and strength.. He's got that Sonic weapon thing.

If i was Lopin I would run away preferable to find Ran.

Holy feek this WORSE than I had first thought..!!
How can anyone get through to Yannit when she's in her berserk state?!

Violence Area should be the subtitle of the upcoming Out-of-Placers arena fighter.

Also, poor Yannit

I was thinking kal and yannit's new thrash metal band myself

This, too, is very good

Someone bring forth the Hammer of Bonkening for I fear nothing else will calm this rage!

She is really spazzing out. I don't blame her considering how she was conditioned. But it is sad to see a breakdown like this. I wonder if they would consider this a crash out.

Yannit.exe has crashed, auto-defense.exe is running.

OH BOY 8V

I think Kass has the best chance of bringing her out of it. Yannit has spent hours touching Kass' hair and acclimating to her scent. Yannit has internalized "Kassfriend" as "so, so GOOD." The downside is Kassen is going to have to get within crushing distance and probably make physical contact with an Indrel in murderbug mode.

This is an interesting contrast to Kass battling through his Ying instincts a few pages back. Kass has to fight what's naturally "baked into" the Scav Condition. Kass has training and past experience in facing threats but obviously he was never conditioned to bug out at a serious danger. Yannit was conditioned for this response and we don't know how much inborn instinct and pheromone deprivation is a contributing factor.

Meanwhile Kal seems mildly surprised this is happening. So far he's only taking basic precautions, staying back, keeping his arm blades up. Out of everyone here he seems to be exerting the most control over himself. Baxxid do their best to disassociate from their instincts, with varying degrees of success and maybe his practice with self-mastery is already paying off? Probably too early to tell, though.

I think you're onto something. If Kal can precisely (and he HAS been practicing!) interpose his heavy arm blades in front of Yannit's strikes, he can keep anyone Squishier Than Him from taking the brunt of the damage

However

Yannit seems to be trying to fight down the reaction

and that last panel:

"STOP ME!"

There's enough YannitFriend still coherent enough to know that she IS the present threat in the situation

That last tiny "help" made me so sad :(

Yes. Her mental landscape is really impactful.

I'm honestly so glad that there are people in the comments who recognize the significance of Kalkgur's crossed arm position, after reading the rest of the comments y'all make me feel so much better >,.<

But also this also made me think a lot about Kass' military training, looking at the flashbacks on Page 95 and 191-196. Then on page 88, Kass anticipates that Elim is going to go through the same kill-or-be-killed motions and orders Elim to go find a doctor instead of fighting. And the recent what-would-an-officer-do line of thought with Kal on page 307 reinforces my feeling that Kass has been fighting an inner battle this whole time to reframe the personal meaning of soldiering. Kass was originally a peasant conscript rushed out to fight and kill in a literal last ditch, and is trying hard to be something more professional and protective, so I think what Yannit is going through would probably actually be pretty relateable.

She needs a long fur hat.

Quick, someone grab the nearest yinglet and rub them all over whatever sense organ that's overloading Yannit.

Deploying a tactical yinglet sounds both cute and hilarious

Friendly fire is on.

They'll reach to you, Yannit. Just hold out a little longer. They'll stop you and they'll save you.

Wow that is some nasty strong claws there!

Autistic meltdown by like.

...Oh man. Either Ran or Kas is gonna cut off her antenna. I can feel it.

*squints and slooooooowly holds up a can of bug spray*

Put it down, Dan! >:(

would bug spray even work against a giant bug? or would one need full on chemical weapons (as in intended for humans) do to the same?

"Risk hurt friend - I am danger". Damn, that's powerful.

time for kass to ask what's going on in their bored voice, and that stability draws Yannit out of the confusion of instincts?

Holy hell, she's doing amazing so far, fighting generations of instinct.

This is such a powerful visualization of the struggles between instinct and independent though.
You can FEEL how much this is tearing Yannit inside.

This is an anxiety attack in full swing.

Ran will come save the day with a spray solution or something.
There's no way he didn't prepare for this possibility, right?

Kal casually parrying an Indrel claw shows just how lopsided an actual fight would be.

I'm wondering if it might also show that Yannit really isn't fighting in a deliberate way, just flailing around. Like, Kalkgur wasn't sure -what- was going to happen, and it caught Isher by surprise, and poor little Lopin is probably very confused, but yeah I doubt any of them really feel threatened right now.

How can they stop her?

That's some conditioning she's been threw. <Ó\/ò>

Comence cooldown hug!

Where's that worm dude that used the word of power to knock out Kal when he was gonna rampage?

I see the problem. You put too many crispy meme layers on your eyes.

She needs a snickers asap

Going through the same things Kass was with those conflicting internal thoughts, butt I'm not sure she has the ability to overcome them like he did.

Violence Area sounds like a great metal band name

Damn it all, you beat me to it! Apologies for the copycat comment.

This is really good.

All of Yannit’s violence-oriented inner monologue would make great death metal band names. I can totally see ‘VIOLENCE AREA’ headlining, followed by gigs from ‘SEEK HUNT’ and ‘TEAR ORGANS’.

Okay, I may need to lie down for a bit. You have portrayed brilliantly a sapient with a LOT of reflexive defensive programing frantically, even heroically trying to override it. I don't think I've ever seen something like this so well done. She's surrounded by decent hnau, so they just... might... all survive it. But it's gonna be scary close.

Ya, this is an anxiety attack in full swing type situation, on overdrive.

Oh. So this is why all the other indrel went batshit insane.

They might need the right scents to help calm this one down.

someone get the plush!
Things are getting intense and Im loving it

YODA: GOOD ANGER HATE TEAR ORGANS HURT FRIEND

Boy oh boy, this here sure is whatcha call a Tense Situation!

Don't wanna see battle of buggos! Wanna see buggo cute and buggo big be friens!

"Remember Teach and Come Back Alive! Enemy Not Attack If Disable Claws! Like To Know More!?"

Eeeee Lopin be careful.

If you can crush solid stone with your bare claws, but only manage to scratch Baxxid armor, then it's no wonder they'd be terrified!

Okay, I know what's needed here. Someone needs to get a REALLY big mayonnaise jar and poke some holes in the lid.

So, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who's noticed this looks a -lot- like a synesthetic sensory overload meltdown. But a certain heated debate over the potential effects of a concussive blow has made me wonder - do the indrel have a distributed nervous system?

Synesthesia is usually rooted in prenatal development, and I've been eying the level of detail Valsalia has gone into with yinglet (and now interspecies) reproduction. I've been favoring a single-genetic-species theory about what's going on with this world, and the idea that developing a distributed nervous system might have similar causes and symptoms to lack of synaptic pruning is tickling my bird brains.

I feel like Valsalia might be working up to a new science reveal about indrel physiology; however this gets resolved I'm sure Ran is going to prevent it from happening again by publishing all that research that's been going on in the background as another familiar-yet-fantastical infographic. "Staff expected to be working in close proximity to the new synesthetic coworker: please refrain from wearing heavy perfumes."

Hey hey, OOPs friends! 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.

I've noticed that you can sometimes even get in extra votes from different IP addresses, or if you're disconnected from your IP and open up again later.

It closed out last month at 12831 votes and 24th place. It's currently at 15228 votes and 28th place. The highest it's reached is 24th place, and the top vote getters seem to end up with something close to 60,000 votes, at least recently.

Vote early, vote often! Help OOPs get noticed!

I'll repeat my comment on this from last time:

"The numbers at TWC have gotten very strange recently. Hundreds of votes have been showing up suddenly every day, and the rankings throughout a day have been going radically up and down. I recently noticed that this is just confined to the comics in the top 100.

This is making the numbers and rankings pretty meaningless, and is really unfair to any comic not in the top 100. It also makes it a complete crapshoot where the comics end up at the end of the month. I haven't been able to find out what's going on with this."

I tried asking ChatGPT what it thought was going on. Here is the reply:

📈 What seems to be going on
Sudden surge in high daily votes for top-performing comics: Previously, top-ranking comics might end the month with a couple thousand votes, with a gap of a few hundred between them. Now, you're seeing top comics shoot up by thousands in a month, but clustered tightly at the top.

Artificial inflation or vote amplification: This pattern isn’t typical of steady organic growth. Instead, it points to some form of automated or coordinated voting—bots, scripts, vote-swapping schemes—especially since the vote counts and daily counts align suspiciously.

Gamesmanship among creators: Once creators noticed, it likely turned into a communal response—casting daily votes en masse, maybe encouraging fans to log in, or even selling votes. All to keep rank within that top 100 band.

This is from the same AI that claimed the genus Urva was the wolverine (it is the Asian mongooses), so take that with a grain of salt.

I don't think that this is believable. I think that it's something the site itself is doing.

Why? I hsve no idea.

I've noticed that for the first week the numbers seem to be normal.

For instance, this month OOPs received roughly 28-30 votes a day, then suddenly it's shot up by hundreds of votes a couple of times. This is also confined to just the top 100 rated comics.

It also goes up by even numbers of hundreds of votes at a time.

Kal gets a new scar.

" I am danger" Bro thinks she's Walter White. (I hate myself for making this reference)

Quite fascinating to have such powerful instincts that are hard to fight. Closest I can relate is feelings of crippling fear as a kid. You want to do one thing, but simply because of thoughts in your head you are physically being held back. Where's the power of love and friendship when you need it?

you could even say she is ... bugging out ... XD XD XD :D :D :D :) :) :) :| :| :| :( :( :(...

The most immediate solution to the problem would be to get Kal out of there, but that is only known to us as the audience. To the characters there, they don't know what is going on, or what is racing through Yanni's head, how she is lost in primal fight or flight instinct, since not much is really known about them, how thy think or what their psychological makeup is. They have no insight into the further workings of the Indrel and Yannit herself is only capable of expressing so much.