Stars form naturally over very long periods of time under my world's laws of physics. The sun predates life on my planet. Life also forms naturally over very long periods of time.

That's fascinating. I can't think of anything else to mention, which probably leaves us with misunderstandings that both sides consider too obvious to clarify. Are you wondering anything?

Yes, but I'm not sure it's polite to ask.

Well, you can check what would happen if you asked me, and if I go faint with horror at your discourtesy and then pull out a pen and start stabbing you with it you can conclude you oughtn't really ask.

All right.

And if she were to say you look very close to human for aliens but I can barely distinguish genders and haven't gotten a solid read on a single person's role since I landed -?

There are gendered hairstyles. No one would cut their hair off, it'd be really painful to have it as short as yours, but there are distinct differences. Role?

The concept is easily pushed -

Oh! Huh. That's - to the extent it exists at all it'd be private. People will make assumptions in certain kinds of circumstances but one wouldn't acknowledge their assumptions - your way sounds lovely -

So there's no accompanying public social role?

Nope. Sorry.

Well, that's going to be vaguely uncomfortable but I'll live with it. There are gendered roles?

Yes, but informally, and people pretend there aren't. People in power will uniformly be women but everyone pretends it's a gender-wide disinclination and not some sort of rule against it. Healing and nurturing and theoretical and abstract academic fields are gendered male; creation and invention and command are gendered female. What's going to be uncomfortable, is there a way to mitigate it?

It's going to be odd that people won't identify me on sight as a dom and that I can't identify them even by asking the way I could if someone presented ambiguously at home. In roughly the same way I imagine it might be odd if you went to a place where there were no genders. I suppose the local feminine role is possibly close enough - at home most doms are men so I was concerned.

Yes, don't ask, people will think you're asking about their sex life and feel - invaded upon.

Okay.

And that's enough of that; she bounces the hypothetical conversation to Maitimë.

Huh. I am very envious of your powers but I can't imagine using that one much, people make plenty of sense to me anyway. If you claim some position of authority in your home world people will make approximately the right assumptions less the intimate ones, and it wouldn't be that hard to find a husband who was comfortable with the intimate ones if not with the - public role part.

"Professional precog" is a position of status mostly for its rarity and not less open to subs in any respect. If I ever take it into my head to marry an Elf I'll keep that in mind, although I have no idea how I'd filter for it in this environment... is it a standard assumption that people only want to match up in potentially-child-producing ways?

...uh, yes, very much so. Not back home?

Some people prioritize it if they really want kids and don't want to adopt or solicit outside contributions, some people are actually monosexual either which way but they're a minority...

It's one of those things the Valar clumsily have opinions about, and the universe less-clumsily also has opinions about. Most people are exclusively attracted to the opposite gender and if that doesn't describe you you are encouraged to get the Valar to fix it for you.

...to fix it.

You don't need to worry, that they never do without consent and I don't even know if they expect humans to work like Elves. But yes. The divine plan has everybody paired up in child-producing marriages, exceptions to that rule are assumed to be a consequence of the long-ago introduction of evil to the world, most people want to not disgust and disappoint their friends and family and society and so get it altered if it's not what they'd want.

Noted.

I'm working on it. Things change slowly around here and I won't be Queen until my grandmother gets bored.

Interesting manner of succession.