"You think 2179 is adorably goody two-shoes, it's got nothing on Elves. Except for how their deities were fucked up about sexual mores, and even that they cope with without the repression causing the sorts of population-level issues I'd expect in humans who had similar gods breathing down their necks."

"What sort of population-level issues would you expect to see -"

"Oh, I don't know how it is in 1802 but circa my lifetime all affection between people of the same sex was policed for possible romantic subtext or loose associations with supposed personality correlations, and it was popular in certain subcultures to send one's suspected gay children to be subjected to abusive therapeutic practices to change it, and the wrong rumor in the wrong high school would induce physical violence. ...Elves did have the abusive therapeutic practice thing, the gods went in for that, but it actually worked and presumably involved less operant conditioning and I think it required at least token consent."

"- and in 2179?"

"In 2179 there are still small religious sects that frown on homosexuality but they'd better not fuck up their kids over it or child protective services will whisk them away."

"But like, what if you don't want to like boys - because you want to get married or something - I'd be annoyed if I went through puberty and turned up wanting to kiss boys, that'd be stupid -"

"It is possible you wouldn't feel that way if raised in 2179."

"...bet I still would."

"I'm not aware of that being a common sentiment in 2179 but of course human psychology is a vast and complex thing. Although for reference it is possible to want to kiss boys and also want to kiss girls. And it was only six years after I died that gay marriage became legal throughout the United States, I think the UK beat us to that."

"Bet wizards are slower."

"I wouldn't know how to predict that."

"We could look at the books in Bar but it's not really important because taking over the world'll change that."

"It is the sort of thing that would."

"I think I might start interviewing angels."

"Have fun."

"Thank you. What's the circle look like to grab someone at random?"

"Do you want a bunch of sheets of paper with most of a circle for that on 'em?"

He gestures with his wand. "I can draw them up pretty quick, but sure."

Cam hands him a rolled up bundle of papers.

And he goes back outside to interview angels.

And he starts quizzing Minor on electrical engineering questions from a glossy future textbook.

An angel appears on demand.

"Hi! I'm Timothy, nice to meet you, I'm doing interviews for some future projects but I can go get you a computer or something for your time, there's a very well-supplied vendor inside."

"Srini," says the angel. "What sort of projects?"

"I'm not from the world you're usually summoned to, I'm from another one, and it's at a much lower tech level - like, we haven't invented electricity yet - but it has magic more powerful than parlor tricks. I want to teach lots of people how to summon, but some of them are going to mess it up and I don't want them summoning angels at random, and also practically none of them have anything decent to pay with, so I want to set up some kind of monthly retainer thing."