We checked my luck and that seemed to hit me normally but I didn't get a noticeable headache.

"Huh. Well, that's better than not-that, I guess. The luck should be mostly back to normal after a couple of sleeps, it's probably worth checking if it lasts longer than that. Do you think there's something we could have thought of or warned you about to prevent the problem -"

I'd probably benefit from just all the information you have on what does and doesn't count. I didn't even just forget, it just turned out that air quotes don't work - there's a punctuation mark that marks the use-mention distinction in writing and a gesture that mimics the shape of the punctuation mark and I don't know if it didn't work because gestures don't - but nodding does, doesn't it? - or because air quotes in particular are not valid for some reason, or because your brother didn't happen to understand them, or what. So if I knew more about the edge cases I might have been able to notice it was going to be an edge case and marked the sentence more explicitly.

"Gestures work. Gestures work even when someone misunderstands them if they're the sort of gesture almost everyone would understand. I don't know if it's going off '80% of people around today understand the gesture' -- maybe of all people or those speaking the language or those in the vicinity or something else -- or 'the magic's ideal of an informed person understands the gesture' or 'some gestures are objectively correct and most faeries know them through some process of cultural osmosis', or maybe none of those. In general you want to disclaim out loud before starting anything that's quoting someone or retelling or paraphrasing them or otherwise a representation of some words that aren't yours. You don't need to be very specific, 'as they say' works if someone actually does say that and 'I heard once' works most of the time. 

Gestures work if the other party understands them even if they're not common or universal but you don't want to count on that."

Is having conversations in writing like this dangerous, if a statement I write is true in context but then someone picks up the paper later?

"No, unless you're deliberately leaving the paper for someone else to mislead them in which case probably still no but I wouldn't bet on it. Similarly if someone overhears part of a conversation and hears a statement without disclaimers and what they hear is false, you're fine unless you were engineering the conversation such that they'd overhear something false -- say, by saying those parts much louder when you knew they were at the door -"

Cam takes notes on all this. I was able to read him an entire fictional story and hypothesized that opening it with the descriptor 'a fable of economics' sufficed even though he didn't quite get till afterwards that it had been fictional.

"'I'm reading you the words on this paper' is a context where you're reasonably safe if you haven't represented yourself as confident in the truth of the words on the paper, too, if you didn't write them. Even if it weren't, 'a fable' is probably enough disclaimer."

That's good, I don't think a million years' worth of things I want to read have been written and I'm kind of hoping I can inspire faeries to generate more things to read which aren't exclusively factual because that's a very limiting constraint.

"If you get very bored we can always slow you down."

There are probably a thousand years of things to read if I deliberately develop some tastes I don't currently have but I'm worried about being findable or having causally significant interactions if I'm slowed down.

"That makes sense. It is possible to get slowed down while small and remain in the court but I don't know if this solves your problem, I don't know what makes people findable."

I don't either.

"I can try to think about, and write up for you, any other edge cases I can think of, I'm not coming up with much right now. - you can only get penalized for lying as a result of intentional communication? Talking in your sleep isn't lying, instinctive sounds of pain or pleasure aren't lying, talking to yourself without expecting anyone to hear you isn't lying, facial expressions not meant to communicate anything aren't lying. It's considered hard though not proven impossible to lie with facial expressions, actually, I know of plenty of cases of lying with gestures but I do situationally appropriate facial expressions that don't have much to do with my mood all the time and have never had a problem."

I do talk in my sleep but I'm told it's usually not in sentences and I mix up all the languages I know. - what does mixing up languages do? What's the threshold of expecting someone to hear me?

"You can't be considered to by lying if the person you're talking to doesn't speak the language. Expecting someone to hear you seems to run off a threshold somewhat resembling the one for expecting a gesture to be understood - it could be that most people in your place would expect it, it could be that the universe has a concept of a reasonable person who would expect it, it could be that in the local culture there'd be an expectation they're listening. Very few people sincerely disagree with the judgment of the universe when it's described to them though some people will express uncertainty about whether they would have expected that to count. I could do some examples - I'm expecting you to hear me. If you start to walk away and I keep talking, I'd still be expecting you to hear me until you're through the door. If you're through the door and I raise my voice, I still expect you to hear me; if you're through the door and I keep talking at this volume I'd no longer expect you to hear me. If someone comes in and whispers something to me and I whisper back I don't expect you to hear, unless you lean forward and do something else to indicate you're trying to. If you're asleep I don't expect you to hear me but if I'm not sure if you're asleep I do expect you to hear me. If you are wearing earplugs I don't expect you to hear me unless I'm speaking loudly or gesturing to get your attention or something. 

All of this only matters if you're wrong. If you don't in fact hear me I don't get in trouble even if the universe thinks a reasonable person would have heard me. If I'm sufficiently confident you won't hear me I can do things the universe considers unreasonable, but I'd be taking a risk every time."

What if someone speaks the language but not very well and I deliberately use overwrought phrasing?

"Haven't tried it and don't know of anyone who's tried it. I'd expect that to be fine because it's generally fine to outmaneuver people verbally while not actually saying anything false."

I guess experiments should probably be done by someone who is not entangled very much with anyone.

"Yeah, it's not a realm where we've experimented much and there's not an obvious good setup to do so."

Sigh.

I am inclined to apologize to my summoner and try to make it up to him. Your brother suggested he might currently be not only stuck in the dungeons but also receiving visitors he does not want and that I could arrange for that to stop without a debt interaction to deal with from doing so?

"Yes, what I tell other people is permitted within the court isn't the sort of thing the debt system tracks. I don't know if he actually dislikes any visitors but maybe he'd appreciate the assurance even if he doesn't."

It occurred to me that this might not be a great apology since I would have pushed for it anyway as soon as it occurred to me for whoever you have in there whether I have recently given them a headache or not.

"I don't want to change how the dungeons function in general. You can make arrangements on behalf of the people we're holding for you, that seems fine."