"Let's do cultural next, then.  Have you heard of The Bachelor?"

"The... Bachelor.

"The reality show about marrying a stranger under performative conditions."

"That's the one!"

"I'm not going to like where you're going with this."

"You might like it more than going back to being dead."

"I like a lot of things more than being dead, and yet."

"Quite.  Anyway, it's called the Bacheloret now," (pronounced with an 'ay' sound) "that's E-T at the end - ever since they stopped keeping strict contestant gender sorting.  You're slated for season ten-twenty.  Not that the CRC's anywhere close to a thousand years old, but we're popular enough to get the resources to really pump out the seasons.  Time dilation, like I said, that sort of thing."

"What possible kind of viewer demographic is implied here?"

"More women than men; more people who were middle-aged when their 'verses joined the CRC, or who continued to age that far, than young or psychologically-young people; much more lasting viewers from universes with an existing cultural niche for reality TV than those from lower tech levels, although we do have a sizable minority of people who watch a few seasons when it's recommended to them by new CRC friends as cultural onboarding."

"For comparison would you say that daeva tend to remain 'psychologically young'?"

"I would."

"And none of these people think it's sketch to recruit this way? - what is 'this way', people die all the time, there's more than a thousand and twenty of them to sift through even if you prefer twentysomething singles."

"One, we're a television show, not a charitable organization.  There are a lot of organizations working to save people; we're here to create entertainment.  You're welcome to go back home and try your chances that someone else will come for you later; we're not going to stop them, although my employers did pick a 'verse cluster that's a bit off the beaten path.  Two, the contestant pool is all people from the brink of death, so it'd be a lot more than a thousand and twenty except that, two and a half, this season's unusual for selecting its participants in this way.  It's being styled 'Swansong'; it's funny, see.  And three, there are many more dead people than there are dead people who've done anything as bombastic as revelation."

"That was anonymous."

"Not sufficiently so to keep that guy from shooting you about it."

"Touché. Circling back to the sketchiness, I think that, under the prevailing moral and legal regime I'm familiar with which obviously needn't much resemble this one, there would be some pressure to avoid anything structurally shaped like obliging people to work for you under threat of death, even if you weren't behind the original trigger? Like, someone would make a fuss about it if reality shows on my planet were populated with impoverished diabetics from rural India who had to show up and please the studio to get insulin, or whatever, even if nobody would have batted an eye about leaving them whence they came and even if there was no realistic prospect of Doctors Without Borders showing up to save the day. Is this just a really different PR situation or what?"

"Mm."  He clears his throat and holds out his hand; a teacup manifests the same way Cam's juice did.  He takes a sip.  "I would argue there's a continuous scale from, say, gladiatorial combat, to what you describe, to what's going on here - strictly in terms of optics and aesthetics, you understand - to contestants on regular game shows who need to win large amounts of money to pay for care for some large medical expense, to those who want money to build a better life for their children - all the way up to shows about people with lives of privilege and no real problems."  Sip.  "I think your society is closer to something that would largely enjoy this sort of programming than you seem to believe.  ...But also there are networks which do just air gladiatorial combat.  One imagines that tips the balance some."

"Oh, I'm sure people would watch this, I just think there are also people who'd fuss and anyone who hadn't bought enough Girl Scout cookies recently to feel like a good person would sign their petition." He swigs his juice. "I assume the gladiators come up not because you're about to tell me that in this amazing resurrection-capable multiverse some people just really like being gladiators and sign right up and plan to be home in time for dinner after dying twice? They're snatching 'em?"

"Without behind-the-scenes knowledge of the practices of these shows beyond what they release as bonus content, I think most contestants are either resurrected or suicidal.  And more often in some sort of dire strait than kidnapped per se."

"Uh-huh. So what is the minimum viable amount of bachelor-ing demanded of me for Not Dying."

"Why don't you start by telling us a bit about what qualities you'd like in a partner?"

"That's not really an answer to the question I asked, and I would prefer to answer it while equipped with an answer to the question I asked."

"Sure.  It doesn't matter how much you snark to us; none of that has to make it into the final show.  It gets a little complicated if you get snide in front of the contestants and we'd really prefer you didn't.  But as long as there's enough footage to cut together into a proper narrative, you're pretty much fine.  And we're very willing to work with you on that!  As long as you're notionally on board and cooperating, we're not going to chuck you back into the void."

"Do the contestants wake up in places like this, get explanations like this?"

"Approximately.  So far the information you're getting has not diverged very far from what they will, accounting for the inherent differences in being a protagonist versus a contestant and that I generally let people guide the conversation rather than laying everything out in one overwhelming initial package."