"I am less easily shocked, and new here also. I'm sort of trying to think what the Enemy could get out of it but it seems rude to speculate aloud about that."

"I don't know. He never bothered shouting at us about what he was doing to Maitimo, so he's probably not collecting material to upset my loved ones. He's got better repertoire than this if he wants to make me program golems. I think he just likes fucking with people."

"Charming. Maybe. He can hurt your loved ones even without any shouting at them, though, if some people make it out and so other peoples' loved ones know what to expect..."

"Maitimo never went into much detail and he himself won't really believe I was captured. So there's that."

"Mes are unusually good liars. But - yeah." Sigh. "After a couple thousand years you'll probably believe it, right?"

"After a couple thousand years he'll probably believe it," he says to his alt.

This appears to cheer him up significantly.

Good for him.

"What's the movie about?"

"Bunch of people all very concerned about pseudopolitical matchmaking. Cam provided cultural footnotes and the novel version."

"...huh."

"I guess this is the Earth version of liking Harthan Empire intrigues or something."

"Harthan Empire?"

"Historical empire on my world."

"About which people watch political intrigues?"

"Read, usually, it's not a popular subject of acted drama."

"Movies take a hundred people a short year to make, usually."

"Seems a little excessive."

"Not really, there're a bunch of specialized expertises you need all lined up and you usually capture a scene a lot before you get it exactly the way you like it and they compose original music for the soundtracks - well, no idea if humans do that - and they have to make all the costumes and have six of everything since one scene might be shot over the course of a week, and you need to do the shots at the same time of day every day or the lighting will all be wrong..."

"There's music in this, couldn't tell you if it's original."

"You could pick up filmmaking as a hobby if you're skeptical of how much time could go into it."

"Mm-hm."

Sigh.

"You could have more advanced equipment than you give him which cuts down the time."