"Costs? I haven't had anyone refuse to trade over rudeness yet. Except the monster guy, but he's even weirder than me."

"And no one charges extra or wants to be paid a certain amount for accommodating you? Then how do you know it's you being rude and not monster guy being rude?"

"Oh. You kind of get indirect costs for being rude? People won't help you, or they'll be rude back. It's, like, social esteem is kind of a sort of currency? Not one you can quantify, but... If you're a nice and respectable person you can ask for favors and people will do them without getting paid? And they gain some esteem from doing the thing you asked. And you lose it if you're rude. Or lose it with some people but gain it with others if you're rude to people they don't like, sometimes. It's more complicated than that but does that at least make sense?"

"Not very much sense and I'm glad the Empire isn't like that. If you're polite, you become the sort of person who it's inherently beneficial somehow to do favors for. If you're rude, you become someone who gets treated normally and has to pay for things. Is that a collective attempt to pay people back for making it more pleasant to be around them? And rewarding people who do favors for polite people is rewarding them for rewarding the people everyone wants to reward. Does doing favors for rude people make other people not do favors for you because you defected from the agreement to reward only polite people?"

"Not quite. If you're polite you get... Accepted? And if you're rude, you get treated like an outsider, someone not to trust... You do a good job of making it all sound very silly, you know. And I know it's silly. And complicated. But it is how it is." Shrug. "As for me? Being nice to people just feels good. Well, usually, not if I hate them or something."

Valanda writes: in Hyrule politeness = trusted, people do more favors for people who do more favors for polite people.

"What kinds of things count as being nice to people? Why is being polite a signal of trustworthiness, can't untrustworthy people be polite?"

"Polite people are more likely to be trustworthy, maybe? And if you're not trustworthy but are polite, people figure out that you're not trustworthy after a betrayal or two anyway. I think. There's so many layers to social rules. I think they're easier if you live with them for a while. I'll not judge you for breaking ones I instinctively expect you to know about but you don't. Like the eyes thing. I think politeness is also kind of a collective agreement to be civil to each other and not make a big deal out of minor trespasses? And let people know that we know minor trespasses probably aren't deliberate and we wish them no specific harm. Just saying 'sorry' is powerful. And to subtly punish people who do minor trespasses by being rude, without having to really punish them. So things run smoothly and you can relax more and don't unexpectedly have to pay the shopkeeper eight rupees instead of six for eggs just because you accidentally tracked mud into his shop."

"And you wouldn't rather be told about the problem with mud and charged extra for your eggs that day than not hear about it and be caught by surprise some other time when someone unexpectedly refuses to do you a favor? How do you know which kinds of rudeness are worse? What if it's just very important to you to track mud into shops and you'd like to be able to budget for the cost of doing that instead of have it result in random unquantified harms at times when you're not tracking any mud anywhere? Does this also mean you can't pay people to treat you differently? What if someone says 'sorry' about something that was actually deliberate, how can you tell?"

"...Complicated. You usually know if you're being rude and if people are, like, at the breaking point of resentment over it? And explaining why you need to track mud might help, or offering to clean it or pay for cleaning, but that's not really... I don't know. It's complicated.. And, uh, it would be strange to pay someone to treat you differently. Except in a professional context I guess? It'd break friendships if you think they're only your friend because you pay them. Being sorry - tone, attitude, history. Sorry indicates 'I understand that you don't like that I will keep it in mind and try to avoid repeating it'. If you're flippant or insincere about being sorry it doesn't count much but if you're sincere and especially if you offer to pay or change your actions or make some other kind of recompense it counts a lot. But. Context changes a lot of the details."

"So you holistically assess how likely someone is to do it again and below a certain threshold they 'are sorry' and you don't need to punish them because a deterrent isn't necessary, that makes sense. So it would be unacceptable in your world for me to say, for example, when you're speaking a language that has different pronouns for men and women, talk about me as a man and I'll pay you a ring each month I don't hear you talk about me as a woman?"

"...Yes, involving money for things like that would be unusual. Something like that usually you would just ask 'please refer to me as a man' and some people would shrug and do that and some people would be confused and say you aren't. Standards of what's rude and what's not are different with different, like, sub-groups of society? I think it'd be very rude to refuse. But a lot of people would think it's not right to say 'I'm actually a man' if you don't have man parts and if you confront them about it they might say sorry and stop but probably won't and paying them to refer to you as a man anyway would probably be counterproductive. Gah. Explaining this stuff is hard but I'm getting better at it maybe! So... That kind of thing happens for you guys too? Weirdness and non-defaultness with gender I mean."

"I don't know how common it is with humans. There are caralendri who prefer not to turn into women, but I don't know of any who want to be called women before they are or who've changed and regretted it. Why would paying people be counterproductive?"

"It's not common and not always accepted, but it's a thing. Like gay people. Caralendri change? Well, if it works for them. Uh. I don't even know how to explain this one. It's... Bad incentives? People could loudly call you a woman just to annoy you in the hopes that you'll pay them to stop. Well, that's one of the problems with it, anyway..."

"Someone could ask me to pay them for it without ever talking about me at all. I'd offer to pay you if I expected to still know you a month from now or if I had a unit of currency worth enough less than a ring to pay for today. Gay people are a distinct category? In a different way than, say, people who eat pears are different from people who only like apples?"

"Our society defines them that way, at any rate. There's some cultural baggage attached to the label. 'Bi' is the word for those who like both genders. Like, uh, me. Yeah, not all these social complexities are nice ones, ones I like."

"Are you having all the sex you want?" Valanda asks with all the smooth charm of someone from a country where sex is solicited with as much careful indirection as selling apples. "Since you're not wasting any time in your world if you do things while the door is closed."

"Ah. Right. We have tons of stupid and not-so-stupid norms around sex things too, by the way. I will do my best to ignore those. And, I'd have to think about it. It would be so strange to visit your world."

"What kinds of norms and why do you have stupid ones?"

"I don't make the norms! I just form opinions on them! You're supposed to be really indirect about it and not literally say 'how about we have sex?' and you're supposed to not want to have sex with people unless you love them, and not as a family but specifically romantic love, and you're supposed to only love one person this way and you're supposed to not talk about it."

"I didn't literally say that! I could just as easily have said exactly the same words if I'd been offering to rent you a vibrating toothbrush or a slave. I wasn't, unless you want a toothbrush, I do have some. Probably more convenient to sell you one than rent it. Anyway what does 'romantic love' mean?"

"...Toothbrush? And, wait, stop, I am kind of done explaining things that my head is screaming everyone should already know for now."

He wonders if she'd keep explaining for wait no people here don't like to be paid for information. "Sure, that's fine. Toothbrush! I bought a bunch from another universe earlier, they magically vibrate or so I hear. There's a part with bristles but it's removable and you can put something else in its place. Sound interesting?"

"What? No, hold on, you said slaves just now. Slavery's pretty damn evil. Ganon-ish. Goddess Hylia asks us to be kind and wants everyone to be happy. You keep slaves? Your society condones keeping slaves?"

"I don't have any, which is one reason I wasn't offering to rent you one. Slavery is one of the Hari Empire's most important social institutions and I don't fully understand how other societies can function without it but I can learn that from a book or another person later, I understand that you don't want to explain things."

"It's not... I don't... Bah. Slaves! Please do try to explain it you kind of owe me an explanation I just spent a while explaining at you."