And then make art of home, that'd be a good idea. I hope my family isn't worried for me. 

...is there any realistic chance they aren't?

Well, when I was little my father worried whenever I left the room - trauma, from the time of the war. But a Year isn't really all that long and if they had a way to verify I was safe they'd find it a little dramatic to miss me already. And I'd kind of run away from home a couple years earlier.

Is there any way they can verify you're safe?

I assume if the Valar could get here at all they'd, uh, get here, but it's possible they looked into it, determined that I was safe and contact with this world likely to be kind of fraught, and set to hosting a public debate about it.

Uh, wow.

They don't understand. They mean well and they're not stupid but they're millions of years old and they don't understand and they always err on the side of caution.

I'm not sure the concept of "caution" unambiguously points at leaving you in a world this dangerous for an extended period of time just because they don't want to land on the President's lawn and say hi right away.

I mean, if they can get here at all they can resurrect me later if anything happens to me. Nothing happening in Valinor is really really important - that's not just them having weird priorities, it's actually perfectly reasonable.

Do tell.

So, uh, no one actually told me this I just kind of inferred it from available information and the fact that my father whatever his flaws is competent and sets priorities right and wouldn't have this one for no reason.

But the survivors of Melkor's big torture project can be completely okay and then something happens which is, uh, more likely if they were in a detailed simulation by the Enemy than if they were safe, and they'll fall apart totally, and sometimes irretrievably. And so there has to exist a place that, uh, doesn't let those kinds of implausibilities impinge the wrong way.

Oh.

Ideally there'd be a place that was like that and a separate place for people who want paradise without that, but we've only the one paradise at the moment so we make it work. 

It sounds... nice to vacation in? I might get bored after very long there.

I think I could be happy just learning things and inventing things forever, when there's no one anywhere who is in need. Maybe not forever, but for thousands of years, easily. 

I'm not sure there's anything I could do for thousands of years but not forever.

Species difference, probably. If I'd stayed home it'd be a couple thousand years just raising my family, and that I'd want to do in a place like Valinor, and I guess I could see myself itching to have more freedom to be implausible after that. But not necessarily - there are people who need low-implausibility who I like and care about and it's not like you can't invent and change and grow around them, just that you can't careen headfirst into foreign wars. And there weren't even any to careen into.

I guess. Wow, thousand-year children, sounds tiring.

By comparison with humans yeah I bet. It's five hundred each but if I hadn't discovered other worlds I'd definitely have several.

I'm not sure if I want any. [Rete, if you are a person and reviewing this email: I don't mean you sweetie, you're great.]

I wouldn't have them while it'd mean taking time off from saving the universe but once all relevant universes are all perfect, yeah definitely. The point of inventing miraculous amazing things is that people can grow up happy and safe and taking them entirely for granted. 

I mean, I definitely wouldn't reproduce by default under conditions like this, but even if things stabilized. Just because that's the point doesn't mean I have to make a personal contribution.

You definitely shouldn't if you aren't sure you'd want to, yeah.

My mom thinks I will when I'm older.

Does that happen with humans? I don't think it does really with Elves. Well, sometimes people think the process sounds gross and then they get older and no longer have that objection, but that's different.