The Captain's Log: #113: Dating Show

Entertainment was the laudanum of the masses, created to keep the masses placid and more easily subjugated. Still, laudanum could be useful in small doses... nah. Anarchist ravings aside, Eltanin just really liked dating shows.

 

The ones with the gimmicks were fun. What could go wrong having a date while riding a solar skiff going 200 miles an hour? Oh, or the one where everyone had to flirt with each other exclusively in slam poetry. But sometimes, simple was best, and the Paperdemon Dating Show just happened to be starting when his idle channel surfing landed him on the Avangard Broadcasting Corporation's Channel 2.

 

"Oh! PDDS?" Hester asked, swinging open the door to the captain’s cabin the instant the intro chords started to play. "They still on that bachelor from Castimeria? Poncy posh, that one. Turned down everyone making less than 5 figures for three weeks straight."

 

"Think he quit the show last week," Eltanin said, patting the open spot on the sofa beside him.

 

Hester obliged, plopping herself down with an ease not generally used for sitting down on the boss’s settee. "TV guide says they got an admiral on the show today. Some real hot shot, apparently. Climbed the ladder until he couldn’t go any further, and now he wants to share the view with someone special."

 

“Good morning, Paperverse!” the announcer boomed. The familiar stage blinked into view, a single spotline shining over everyone's favourite TV host, Caelan Simkin. That half-orc could make a crew manifest sound exciting; he had an infectious enthusiasm that could reach through the glass screen and get you invested in people you’d never even heard of seconds ago. “I know we’re all a little starved for love after Fairbairn stormed off the stage last week, so we’ve pulled out all the stops finding our next bachelor. We've got a special guest on with us tonight. A bona fide Rear Admiral from the Avangard Navy!”

 

"Oh no," Eltanin said, right on cue. A second spotlight flicked on over the darkened stage, revealing a taller-than-average human with dark skin and piercing green eyes…

 

Hester leaned forward, like that was going to make the image on the TV any bigger. "What the… isn't that--"

 

“Admiral Sinan Arieh Harlow has spent the last ten years advancing his career, and now he's looking for someone to share the spotlight. Who will take the wheel and become the captain of his heart? Stay tuned!”

 

"Ridiculous!" Eltanin huffed, turning down the volume for the boring bits where they panned across the audience and everyone made their contractually-obligated cheers and claps. "Harlow couldn't love his mother if she baked him a tray of chocolate chip cookies. What's he hoping to get out of this?"

 

"Someone who won't ghost him after one night," Hester mumbled.

 

"Hey, now. That's misinformation. I absolutely left a note on his nightstand before I climbed out the window."

 

Oh, it was back on! Eltanin thumbed the volume back up just in time as the dashing contestant himself took centre stage.

 

"Now, for newcomers to the programme– ahoy there, Avangardians!-- our show is divided into three segments. First, the good admiral will meet our carefully-curated lineup of contestants: Ten lovely he, she, theys, and xeys here to find their match! Then come the games: innocent little gambols and such, nothing like the life and death peril you jolly lads of the Navy put yourselves in every day! And finally, the decision round: we see if we have ourselves a match, and if not, the show continues next week. Ready?”

 

"Ready," Harlow replied, in that calm and measured tone of his. He had worn his full admiral's dress uniform to a silly little dating show, because of course he had. “I’m not here to make friends, after all.”

 

“Ah, pick-up lines straight out of last century’s playbook,” Eltanin remarked.

 

“Are you… talking to the TV?”

 

“Much safer than telling the man face-to-face. Ah, television, letting hecklers experience vicarious triumph over a cathode-ray enemy. But yes.”