"I could be generalizing excessively but I don't think so - Maitimë's legitimately terrifically sheltered, she might be skewing your read on Elves."

"I do hang out with her more than anybody else around here. How did she come to be particularly sheltered?"

"Uh, you know how some people take social rules seriously because if everyone thinks it it must be true, and then some people follow them as much as necessary not to get in trouble because they don't think popularity makes a thing right? Maitimë - considers obedience to social rules the way she has the consent of the governed? If something matters to people, even if they're objectively wrong to care about it, she feels they have the right to demand it of someone they're giving their loyalty. So she's the only strait-laced Fëanorian  - and because she actually sincerely believes that following the rules even in private is important, and practically no one really believes that - or, well, really acts like they believe that - "

"Huh, that's interesting."

"Yeah. Sometimes I worry it'll fuck her up but - she seems okay."

"I'm not sure I'm qualified to tell, but she seems okay to me too."

"Nobody's qualified to tell, she's too good at lying, but -" Headshake. "I had such a crush on her when we were younger."

"Aww."

"Thing about Fëanorians is that - nothing's ever enough for them. And even if there weren't infinitely many other complications I - expect that something unimaginably far down the road would be too far, there's just a sense of momentum around it - fate -"

"...I think you've lost me."

"If, like, my cousin didn't have a principled objection to violating social norms and were gay and were interested, I would go for it in a heartbeat but in the expectation that at some point it would be a complete disaster, and my awareness of the preceding is more than sufficient to motivate me not to try to alter any of the relevant considerations."

"...'Gay' is a weird one by osanwë translation, on Earth monosexuals in either direction are kinda weird and the really bizarre thing is people who want to date the same role for some reason."

"Here, like, presence or absence of opposite-gender attraction is what matters, if you're actually acknowledging that the absence is a thing at all."

"Yeah, I've noticed that. I wonder if the cultures will rub off on each other at all."

"Maybe eventually. Elves're - slow to change. And that one is Eru, so social exposure might not do much."

"Religious objections along comparable lines sometimes attenuate around social exposure on Earth, but religious objections on Earth don't come with literal Valar so there's that."

"The idea of believing in gods who aren't, like, around is very weird to me."

"Me too. And yet people do it."

"Can psion postcogs check up on the events that were supposedly divine in origin?"

"By and large way too long ago."

"Hmm."

"There are supposedly witnesses who, being human, are of course all dead by now..."

"Is it horrible rude to say that, uh, sounds like your world doesn't have any gods -"

"Some people wouldn't take it well, but I didn't think we had."

"I won't bring it up with the kids. Who I should probably get back to - thoughtful of you to drop in, tell Maitimë hi -"