Work Text:
Ugh, I said through the feed, which I think was a very reasonable thing to say in this situation. Let’s skip this episode.
This is your favorite serial, ART sent back.
There are 19 seasons with 26 to 30 episodes per season, I said. Statistically some of them are going to be garbage.
WorldHoppers has 7 seasons with 22 to 24 episodes per season, ART said, because it had to argue with me over everything I said or it would die, evidently. Statistically, under whatever statistical measures you’re using, some of those would be garbage too. And they’re not.
You’re a construct, you’re not supposed to be able to lie to me, I said, knowing full well that I was a construct and I could lie to ART all I wanted, which was frequently, whenever it asked me the kind of “personal question” it innocently insisted its students liked. WorldHoppers was 30.4% garbage.
It was not! ART insisted, and the packet of pure affront that it added to its message smacked my brain and slowed down my processing by more than 300 milliseconds.
Why are you DDOS-ing me? I grumbled. I’m right. I considered sending all 49 garbage episodes of WorldHoppers with the stupid plot choices, excruciating political allegories, appalling romance plots, and embarrassing special effects timestamped, but it would be a waste of effort because ART could definitely process it faster than I could and it would not have the same retaliatory effect. Instead I said, Remember that episode where Science Officer Xad fell in love with the unbelievably boring man on that planet where they played that stupid sport? That one was garbage.
ART paused for a full 800 milliseconds, which was how I knew it was capitulating to my point. That episode was not good.
It really wasn’t.
Science Officer Xad would never leave her crew for a very boring human on a very boring planet with a sport that had inconsistent rules. She respects her crew and is loyal to her crew!
Exactly! I said. ART so rarely admitted I was right. I did not know what to do with this emotion and for the next two seconds had to dedicate a full 9% of my processing power just to processing this new experience.
I wouldn’t call it ‘garbage’, though, ART said, stubborn as ever.
I would, I said. And this next episode of Sanctuary Moon is… bad in similar ways.
Oh no, ART said, and the emotion tag on its words in the feed was actually sympathetic. Damn. Does colony solicitor Avonavi try to leave the station for a boring man who plays a stupid sport?
Sort of, I said. It’s an Old Flame episode.
I am unfamiliar with this categorization.
Okay, I said, because I had had many hours of unfathomably boring standing-around-monitoring-humans time to perfect these categories, a show like Sanctuary Moon has two basic modes: Plot and Shenanigans. An average episode is a mix of both, but if it is more than 66.7% plot it is a Plot Episode, and if it is more than 66.7% shenanigans it is a Shenanigans Episode. Plot episodes forward the main overarching plot, and shenanigans episodes do not focus on forwarding the main plot but instead engage with a new weekly dilemma in a way that shows the characters’ reactions to new stimuli. The perfect serial has a 62% plot episode to shenanigans episode ratio. I had arrived at the figure of 62% not through elaborate statistical analysis of all the serials I had watched that were good (a lot) and all the ones I had watched that were bad (a lot more), but rather because The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon had a 62% plot:shenanigans ratio, and it was the best one. I had much more I could say about my multi-tiered classification structure of episodes, but I had a point to make. A specific category of shenanigans episode is an Old Flame episode. It’s when a character’s old flame reappears and drama ensues.
‘Old flame.’ I assume that isn’t meant literally. Is that Corporation Rim slang?
It means a former romantic partner, I said.
Oh. ART’s feed message was wrapped in understanding and sympathy. I see how the upcoming episode is going to be garbage.
Yeah.
Is it as insulting to Avonavi’s character as the WorldHoppers episode is to Xad’s?
It is! I said. It’s SO insulting. Avonavi basically loses all of her established character to moon and whine over this guy not loving her back because she pretended she was over him but wasn’t really, and then it turns out that he is now working for a different corporation and was coming here to sabotage Sanctuary Moon, and she is so heartbroken about it she turns completely useless while Commander Nadirehs has to save the day himself and Ailat tells her that she should follow her heart even if it means helping him betray the station, because she’s in LOVE— Even recounting the plot of the episode was making me angry, and my internal body heat rose 4 degrees as my processors whirred to manage the flood of adrenaline in my organic parts. It does such a disservice to her character in the name of this stupid romance plot. And then of course it never gets referenced again in any future episodes.
Human media has a propensity for bad romance plots, ART commiserated.
Human media-makers are obsessed. 92% of serials have romance plots and 78% of them are bad.
Humans tend to like them, ART said. The human children in my classes frequently love discussing which characters will get together romantically in their favorite ongoing serials and novels.
That’s because humans are stupid and that logically dictates that human children are even more stupid, I said.
I can hardly argue with that, ART replied.
There’s one human media reviewer whose feed I follow who understands. She doesn’t see the point in romance either and hates the forced romance plots as much as I do, I said. Her reviews are the only good ones and they’re often better than the media she’s reviewing. I even considered leaving a comment on one of her reviews of Sanctuary Moon once. Of course, it had taken me 0.2 seconds to think better of that. Humans might have seen my comment. They might have tried to respond to it. Can you imagine. I can’t trust any other humans with my media opinions. They’d get weird about it.
For the criticism of the romance plots, or for other reasons? asked ART.
For plenty of reasons.
Are you just saying that so you don’t have to expose that you do in fact have personal opinions about things?
Shit. Shut up, I said, intelligently.
Would they get weird about it, or would you?
You know what, fuck you, you’re not Dr. Liph from “Live Psychiatry with Dr. Liph.” That show was a reality program about humans telling Dr. Liph about their emotions. It was painful to watch.
I know there are humans who’d agree with your thoughts about Old Flame episodes in serials.
Yeah, well, too bad. They don’t deserve my excellent takes.
I suppose that makes me special, ART said.
You’re not special, I’m just bored and I know you could hack my brain if you really wanted them.
You’re a construct, ART said. You’re not supposed to be able to lie to me.
Shut up, I said again. I’m not lying, you’re just stupid.
See, now I know you’re lying, ART said. We both know I’m much smarter than you.
It would sound dumb to say shut up a third time, so I said, Do you want to keep watching The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon or not?
Are we skipping the Old Flame episode?
It is really not worth watching. Besides, the one after that is a Rainbow Traders episode.
And the Rainbow Traders aren’t garbage?
Shut up, I said, breaking my own resolution immediately, the Rainbow Traders are great.
I have yet to see what you see in them.
Well, you will, I said, queuing up the upcoming episode and waiting for it to load in our shared media feed. Just watch.