"Hi. I have some questions for you."

"Yes, yes, I know!"

"...do you also know what they are?"

"Yep! But if you want I can wait to answer them until you ask! People sometimes like that better."

"No need to wait."

"I design Ardas by imagining what the most beautiful possible world would be like, and then finding critical moments and doing - detail work? so they will happen exactly the right way, and then creating peoples who will fit into the pieces between the detail work so that everything works out perfectly. It takes unfathomable amounts of time and attention but when it's done it's so unimaginably beautiful and then I set it into motion and the Valar go to live and work in it. They can see enough that the beautiful moments will all be there, but they muddle some details. It's okay because them being fallible servants of my will works better than them being perfect at it - if they were perfect at it people'd be more upset about them letting Melkor out. They might lose faith in me and enduring faith in me is so beautiful.

I see when I start a world if someone will land on it. I let them, if they can make the story more beautiful - sometimes they can, even though I designed it for beauty, because unlooked-for hope has its own beauty. I put them back or send them somewhere else if they're not going to make the story more beautiful.

I like the Arda you call Elentári a lot! It's lovely. It will definitely have more tragedies play out eventually, but I space them, usually, by thousands of years to give some breathing room, so they shouldn't come to pass any time that seems soon to you, and they might be quiet tragedies that escape your notice entirely. 

When the Valar consult me I tell them the truth but the parts of it that make the beautiful bits shine the brightest.

They're not the same at all! No two of them have turned out the same, have they. But anyway, the most beautiful story isn't less beautiful for the retelling! Retelling is beautiful! 

I haven't tried interacting with adjacency. I think if I wanted to pull someone into an Arda who wasn't nearby, and I knew enough about them, I could do it no matter where they were. I could put all your worlds next to each other, probably, but that'd make everything dull faster and then I'd get bored and then I'd introduce some beautiful things.

I can restrict the degree to which I am omnipotent? For example, I can't know the contents of your mind, because I decided not to be able to, because it would make you less beautiful if I did and you knew it, and it's aesthetically wrong for things to be beautiful only out of ignorance of me. But if I'm not deliberately being unable to do something then I can do it. - if you wanted to send a traumatized Maitimo back in time I could definitely do that, it sounds like an amazing story!!

Bells make for beautiful stories, obviously. There are other people who could do it but Bells when they're around are very suited.

Ardas aren't adjacent because it would inhibit both Erus creatively. It's hard to say 'we move them' because it's not really moving - we just decide that they aren't adjacent, before there's anything to be adjacent - there are so many Ardas, Ardas are so beautiful, they're distributed through the multiverse like stars in the night sky..."

...two universes away Loki facepalms.

"All the Ardas are different ages because we wanted to showcase all the parts of Arda's glorious history without you having to wait several thousand years, incarnates are very impatient. Doomed romances are beautiful, and prohibited romances are beautiful, and people torn between their heart and their conscience are beautiful, and that is why homosexuality is not allowed. There are lots of things that don't work the way the Elves think that they work! Prophecies are so people who won't live to see the beautiful bits get to appreciate them anyway! If Ardas never ever get found they continue being so, so beautiful. And of course you can ask questions! I don't know why you think I'd smite you, that would be petty and not beautiful at all. I smote a continent, in the original story. That was beautiful. Killing random people is different."

"Can you be more specific about what you mean by 'beautiful'?"

"...it is the morally relevant trait of universes. When you hugged Vár and told her to go to Mandos and killed her that was beautiful. When Maitimos leap into a fiery chasm holding a Silmaril that is beautiful. When Angband is nuked and everyone watches and weeps and lets themselves dare to hope that is beautiful. When Cam fed Valinor into a black hole that was beautiful."

"Is this in any way not synonymous with 'tragic'?"

"Yes, but not along any dimensions you are capable of experiencing. Sorry. I can try to think how to make it visualizable or something."

"To what extent are Erus aware of each other and other Ardas despite being nonadjacent?"

"We know each others' worlds! We don't talk since that would be a little silly."

"What-all can you do with nearby non-Ardas?"

"I could make them beautiful too but it seems rude, and they wouldn't be as beautiful because I'd be starting from a muddled base."

"Rude to - whom?"

"Whoever designed that universe! Almost all universes have designers, even if they're not as - precise, or involved, as me -"

"Almost all?"

"You can get naturally occurring universes! You have to wait billions of years. Even I am not that patient, not with no guarantee it'll turn out beautiful."

"How'd you know what my questions were?"

"I can know things if I want to! Because I'm a god."

"...but not via mindreading?"

"No! I told you I didn't do that! I like you. You had such a beautiful story."

"So how did you know?"