He giggles. "Why that for movie night?"

"I don't remember! It was already tradition by the time I was one."

"That's cute. What kinds of movies do you usually watch?"

"It's all over the place. The last four were a Fen Neli biopic, the latest installment in the Shukal Bunch's Music and Merriment Fest by Sofa's request, that time travel movie from last winter Time for Everything, and a cop drama I forget the title of."

"That is all over the place. Which one did you like best?"

"Time for Everything. It was silly but I didn't catch any plot holes until after it was over, which is good for a time travel movie."

He giggles again. "That's high praise! I'll have to watch it sometime."

"It's not the best time travel movie, I think that's When I Was Twice."

"I've heard of that one but didn't watch on the principle of 'time travel movies tend to be awful,' what's that one like?"

"Uh, do you want the plot summary or the go-home-and-get-a-copy-no-spoilers -"

"Hmm, if you tell me it's worth actually watching the latter, otherwise hit me with everything."

"I don't know enough about your taste in movies to be sure but I really like it - it - it passes up obvious boring opportunities and finds good ones instead. It's very sweet. Its fault is that it makes a lot of use of montages, I guess, but if it didn't it'd be sixteen hours long? Don't watch it if you hate montages."

"I don't mind montages. I'll watch it."

"Let me know what you think of it."

"I will. I tend to go more for the SF&F cluster—I guess one could characterise time travel as that but it's not exactly what I mean."

"What is?"

"Like—okay I really like stuff that explores alien societies, especially ones that are actually smart and thoughtful about their castes. I like sci-fi that treats the lightspeed limit like the hard problem it is instead of handwaving it away. I like exploration of alternate presents where some technological changes were or weren't made, and I like speculative future fiction, particularly when it's careful about its societal worldbuilding. Does this paint a picture?"

"Hm, I think so. Social science fiction."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good description."

"Ever read Twelve?"

"Don't think so, what's it about? Guessing twelve castes?"

"Yes, and they're divided up really unusually, it's been called 'the anti-Blackout' but I think it's - differently different."

"Why anti-Blackout? And how different?"

"Well, Blackout's one or rather no castes, see, and they get categorized near each other but Twelve's by a Voan and intended for a more... serious audience, and has different background tropes."

"Interesting. I'll need to look it up."