Dinner?

I don't think I'm hungry right now. But I probably should.

Yes. Yes, you should.

I'll be there very soon.

They didn't know you didn't know it was possible.

When she found out you hadn't known and do now her first question was if you were going to take them.

There are people who would.

I know.

And I suppose you could fight them but you would, in fact, have to permanently disable them to stop them.

I'm not saying this whole thing isn't a massive fuckup but frankly at this point I'm kind of glad that it was you in charge of the people who fucked up.

It is my pleasure to have lots of experience governing fuckups.

I'll certainly give you that, she sends with an edge like slightly hysterical laughter.

It's going to be okay. I've cleared a bunch of afternoons to hear individual cases and figure out what compensation and arrangements make sense going forward. There's no punishment - well, no punishment that Maedhros would be okay with - worse than learning they have children they don't know. No punishments will be needed and misbehavior will be very deterred. 

I'm not okay with people having children they don't know! I'm not okay with them continuing to not know their children! I'm not okay with disrespecting the mothers' wishes even when that involves the fathers continuing not to be part of their childrens' lives! There are no good solutions! I am kind of not okay! And I feel irrationally terrible for that because what right do I have to make any of this about my feelings, I'm not one of the parents involved.

We don't even have any cases yet where those principles are at odds, and they might not be, and - what does 'making this about your feelings' look like? Trying to do the thing you think is right? That seems like a pretty good idea. Having feelings? Dunno if that's a good idea but it doesn't really seem one within the scope of moral judgment.

...Making this about my feelings looks like complaining to you about them in the same breath as complaining about the possibility of people not getting to know their children. And I did say irrational.

Ah. The well known moral law that if there are bad things in the world, venting about personal anxieties is unvirtuous. Presumably not evil, right? Virtue is broadly enough defined that you can make it mean whatever the fuck you please but evil generally requires someone actually be harmed. 

I don't really think I'm doing anything wrong by venting. I just. 

Experience guilt that's not a consequence of actually believing your behavior to be wrong, yeah. What I've been trying to get at is what, if not the belief you're doing something wrong, makes you experience it, so we can stop that. Unless you like feeling irrationally guilty. 

No, I just-- deep breath. Calm down. The guilt is probably--spillover from the rest of my negative emotions about this whole thing. Including the fact that there's a corner of my mind that wishes I had never raised the topic with your brother and didn't have to deal with this.

You don't, we can handle it. You should focus on doing hard magic, there is no way that this is the most valuable use of your time.

I have to at least check in sometimes because I promised I'd intervene if anyone was insufficiently respectful of their maternal rights. I mean, I trust you, but they don't have so much reason to.

Conveniently I am metaphysically completely trustworthy.

Please don't swear an oath about this. ...If you haven't already. I don't think they know enough about the phenomenon to be impressed.

It can be done very safely, and explained very straightforwardly.