Juniper: You’re not wrong about one thing — we got the Embassy job because it was supposed to be easy on us. But it’s been harder than it looks.
And frankly, it takes time to develop . . . good relations . . . with a whole staff of foreigners. They’re not holding us back because it’s all we can handle. They’re keeping us on because we’d be hard to replace.
Internal view:
Kiki: I thought it was all because of the prophecy?
Atarangi (internal): You know not to front while I’m at work!
External view:
Atarangi (?): I thought it was all because of the prophecy?
Comment Header
21 Comments
BUSTED
[checks title of arc] Ah. Probably the train itself will be fine, then, only metaphorical trainwrecks here.
Erin loves quadruple entedres. The actual train is gonna wreck too.
Erin is very talented; calling it now: quintuple entandre’
What would that even be?
Uh oh! Welp, *very* excited to see how this is going to play out.
(Also, Erin, I think the text transcription got cut off early – there’s no reiteration of the prophesy line after the “External View:” heading, and that’s semi-critical to the plot here (and the punchline) )
Can anyone see my can of worms. I’m sure I left it somewhere around here.
Oh, hey. It’s that plot hook from X number of years ago! Welcome back, plot hook!
*Twitch*
…If Atarangi knew that there was even a small chance that her system could blurt out confidential information unprompted, she shouldn’t have chosen a job where keeping certain information confidential significantly reduced the chances of starting a war, or whatever. However many people she’s personally saved through her efforts, it can’t possibly equal even a small fraction of those who would die in a large war between two powers.
Even a 99% certainty that she wouldn’t say anything, and a 99% certainty that it wouldn’t be causing megadeaths if she did is a very high level of risk. I don’t know what her importance to the success of the mission is, but she would have to be worth a heck of a lot in order to justify her presence here.
Echo, can you give us some context on how likely this scenario can be?
I’m plural, and know several other systems irl. In most cases it’s probably not more likely that a system member would slip up and say something they shouldn’t than that a singlet (non-plural person) would do the same. All systems vary, of course.
My system is on the small side, like Kiki and Atarangi’s seems to be, and we do have a little more susceptibility to someone slipping into front by mistake than the system we’re dating, which has upwards of fifty members. But that could be due to a lot of factors.
All in all, I think it’s reasonable to say that the likelihood of an information slip is roughly equal between a singlet and a plural person, with the only difference being the “mechanisms” behind the error.
Well, Jason got here first, but I’ll still reply. Thanks for remembering me.
As Jason said, it’s not really more likely for a system to mess up than a singlet is. That’s my experience, at least. Of course, we’re also a small system, so perhaps that’s the deciding factor in that regard.
I myself, however, am a bit more likely to accidentally reply to something that was said in the headspace aloud, which is probably just because I have a habit of doing so when we’re alone and my filter there is not as good as it should be. Not what’s happening in this page here, but still a hazard.
This has happened, like, once that I can remember, though. Maybe more than that, my memory is fritzy when it comes to events. Embarrassing situation, I think my neighbor hates me, but not a very big issue, luckily.
From what I know of dealing with multiples, this slip probably only happened because Kiki felt like they’re all on the same side here, so it’s not a big deal.
That said, Atarangi probably shields Kiki from dangers a bit too thoroughly at times, such as not informing her of all of the people she works with who aren’t on the same side.
This, on the other hand, could be a bigger deal, even if they are on the same side. Sometimes, Prophesies are self-fulfilling, while other times they’re self-denying. It was my impression this one was of the latter sort. Hopefully, they’ve either passed that bit by now, and this was an expected snafu, the people who most need to not know aren’t here, or Atarangi is able to keep things vague enough to not be too much of an issue.
What you said about why this happened might explain what happened, but if it turns out Atarangi knew, or could reasonably infer that there is a genuine risk of megadeaths, it is not an excuse. If somebody has a disability, and in this context being a multiple has in-comic been shown to be very much a disability, then it is on them to make sure they don’t put themselves into situations where them having that disability could kill people.
Not saying you meant what you said as an excuse for what happened, I just thought it could be read like that.
Eh, megadeth is more often in the context of a nuclear exchange scenario. Granted, it certainly would be a massive war between Sonhe and Ceannis, but there’s no promise it would be any worse than WW1 or the Napoleonic Wars.
Still, this is why someone should’ve told Thorn who she’s living with. The magic commanders literally set Thorn up for failure, and Atarangi too.
Uh… based on how the higher ups discussed possibly removing Thorn’s team after he had bad public ptsd issues, I don’t think this is on the severity of blowing up half the city.
I kinda think the prophecy about a fire at the embassy was about the hellhound in the first arc
So – I was really annoyed about this at first like “what was she thinking, stepping in like that when one of her headmates was at work?” especially when that idiot Kokum was there.
Then I caught myself and did some of the dreaded self-reflection. And it occurred to me that this was *just* the sort of idiot thing I would and have done on occasion – also thinking “we’re all on the same side here so it’s fine….” It wasn’t. And I’m a singlet (as far as I know). In my three decades of life, it’s happened more than I’d care to think about (more than one is too many XD)
Realizing this I had to laugh – and since I was reading this early in the morning and still in bed, I was treated to a “what the fuck are you on” stare from my dog.
This has been an insight into the life of Veer.
Ah, the “what the frick are you on” dog stare is one that I am often blessed with.
I just noticed the transcript is incomplete here. There’s nothing after “external view”
Comment Footer