"Me either, but people leave it on in the lounge. I can explain stuff but I'm not sure where to start."

"I hang out with geniuses who don't object to a little telepathic poking, so I'm probably a better than average person to be describing how a world works," she admits.

"Oh, I'm not bad at that either, hardly a week goes by that a dwarf or a mermaid or something isn't asking me a mildly to moderately embarrassing question about how humans work, but you haven't asked me anything."

"Or something. Last weekend it was a neko."

"Okay, dwarves and mermaids are fictional in my universe but I have no idea what a neko is."

"Neko are a kind of yokai from another country - I don't think there's an immigrant Imperial population, but I'm not sure."

"I don't think I know what a yokai is...Bar, are there any legends in my world about creatures called yokai or neko or what have you?"

In Japan, says Bar.

"Okay, so we have stories about those too. In Japan, where I've never been and which has a completely different cultural history from my country."

"Huh. ...Do you have anything besides humans?"

"Some people claim that mutants aren't quite human."

"Yeah, but besides that, you're basically just a subtle artist and I'm a human."

"Well, some of us are more dramatically divergent than others. My Aunt Raven is blue and scaly, and my friend Sophie is green. But no, as far as I know humanity is it as far as sentient life goes."

"That sounds... simpler, I guess, but a little samey."

"I don't know, humanity comes in all different kinds of cultures. I don't know how different your different species' cultures are, though."

"Very. And there are still plenty of different human cultures too."

"All right, I'll take your word for it. I still think it's unlikely that most people spend enough of their time interacting with completely different cultures that my world is practically that much more samey for individuals who live in it."

"My area's pretty cosmopolitan - it's a big famous school, plenty of international students, elves, etcetera. But maybe, sure."

"I actually also am at a big famous school, but yours sounds like it's a university, mine's just a boarding school."

"Yeah, I'm in college."

"I go to a boarding school for young mutants. My parents run the place, so."

"Makes sense. My mom is a teacher but she teaches kindergarten."

"I'm probably going to teach there when I'm older, but I'm not sure if I want to teach younger kids or older kids."

"I'm going into therapy; it's the obvious subtle arts track."