"Bright and Sunset - Sunset for, like, therapy reasons, Bright did not have therapy reasons."

"Hm."'

Niari looks concerned.

"There are a lot of safeguards in place, I'd be happy to review them with you if you'd like."

"I have no basis for professional interest but I'm a bit curious, yes."

"Cir and Ruviri have endured lots of questioning by people with a professional interest so I'd sooner not bother them, but I'd be happy to talk through the procedures with you. So the problem, obviously, is that by default mages' workload leaves them seriously disabled; we are funding reduced workloads but some ways of doing that just encourage maging more children in the first place. Anyone who would like to, personally, buy out a mage's indenture to their guild can do so, and so doing automatically makes that mage a citizen of the Noldor and due to some freedom of movement treaties also the Vanyar and the Teleri, and thereby eligible for our universal basic income, and if you want to buy out a mage's contracts you have to arrange a trust for them with the money, have a social worker come by to explain to them that their access to the money is unconditional and that under our laws you cannot, actually, be contractually obliged to be someone's redmage, have another social worker come by to explain to them how to seek redress in our courts, and arrange and pay for regular visits home to their temple-guild, which is empowered to complain - over my head if necessary - if they have concerns about anyone's treatment."

Niari nods.

"Wow, that sounds excruciatingly complicated," says Tireh.

" - do shorefolk not see anything concern-worthy about the possible arrangement -"

"I think redmagery's icky from all angles, honestly."

"I'm glad we have a better option than suicide for Angband survivors."

"I don't have a good sense of why it even helps."

"You'd have to ask Sunset."

" - people in Revelation also might want to buy out mages, come to think of it -"

"Well beyond my scope," says Niari.

"Yeah. I think the vlog would be the wrong way to bring it to peoples' attention and I've kind of only got the one tool - you know politicians, right, Maitimo -"

"I have in fact in my time become acquainted with a politician or two."

"We don't even have politicians. So many things we don't have!"

"You can make it without politicians at least until you have, like, the wheel."

"You can make it without politicians a lot longer than that, Hell doesn't have any. It has neighborhood associations, I guess. Some people take them very seriously."

"I don't know what those are!"

"So admittedly the longest I've spent in Hell without getting impatient and taking a summons was eight hours? Not counting the time when I hid in my room and did all of med school in one shot. But, like, you might have preferences about how loud your neighbors are, or what your neighborhood looks like, or how frequently someone sets off a nuclear bomb because it's expressive of their feelings. And you might want to live with other people who share your preferences, and you might write up a charter describing what you guys want your neighborhood to be like, and then if you cared about it waaaay too much it might get a little out of hand and end up eight hundred pages long with a mailing list with several gigabytes of text arguments about the meaning of the eight hundred pages. I see why Cam got his own gravity well."

"...so it's like arguing about the weather, but more so."

"- arguing about the weather - oh, right, you guys can control the weather. Yeah. Like that."

"When did you do all of med school in one shot?"

"New Guinea."

"- New Guinea?" says Niari.