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I just thought of something: remember back in chapter 1 or 2 when we learned how Beings are programmed to introduce themselves? In this world, should I be suspicious of any character who introduces themselves as “Call me X” or “I go by X”? What about in-universe fiction–is Moby Dick a story about the tribulations of Ahab’s Being?
I actually really like this theory of Moby Dick being a loosely-based-on-a-true-story tale of a man hunting the Being known as The Whale. And its colors are white and grey or something.
How do we submit questions for Being Q&A?
Leave it as a comment on any comic page =)
Cool.
If I contract with a Being using my full name (i.e. “I, John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt…”), and a Being can use a shortened nickname of their Master’s but not their full name (i.e. “Bee” but not “Bianca”) then could my Being refer to me as “John” or “Jacob”?
[Sorry it’s a long question, feel free to shorten it if you need to.]
Well, great, now I’ve been earwormed all evening.
The thing to remember about Contract functions is that they’re not specific and inflexible, computer-style. There’s not a simple rule like “as long as you say less than X% of the Master’s Name, it counts as a nickname.” It’s more like “if the Master honestly perceives something as a nickname, it counts as a nickname.”
Trying to wrangle a Being around a rule via sneaky technicalities isn’t going to work, because the Being (and/or the Contract) will recognize that you’re trying to pull a sneaky technicality, and respond accordingly. It’s like someone trying to be a dick on a forum — even if they’re not breaking any specific forum rules, a moderator can still make the intuition-based call of “this stops now on the grounds of you being a dick.”
Can Beings really get that small when human? I assume they can’t, since you’ve only shown them shrinking in animal form, but it is an Important Question.
Sadly, no. They can get anywhere in the possible human size range, which is a really wide range once you get to the farthest outliers (record-setting Jyoti Amge is 23″ tall!), but they’re not going to be able to wear Barbie clothes.
Wait, this is beings being small, not Jany Balachandran being big?
It’s a fantasy scenario no matter what, so it can be whichever one you like better =)
This is obviously just Jany chilling with some Tamaputians.