#she'll always be maru-ko in my heart though

[taylor-titmouse]

If the androids have a written-out script, how do conversations work? Do they only respond to keywords? Do they ever take bits and pieces to make new phrases to keep up with their audience’s whole sentence?

honestly it's "whatever is most convenient for me as the author" but i do try to make them come off as like, stilted, and as having multiple systems running at once to determine how to respond. like mari-ko*, the receptionist, is running a receptionist program that tells her who employees are, what the business hours are, and all the most likely questions she would be asked. but she's also running touma's handwritten software that would activate if she's placed in a sexual situation, and that would be comparatively less dynamic at the time the story takes place because it's in-progress.

so it's like. at least in the current draft, they're not having real conversations, they'll repeat the same phrases, or they'll only respond if spoken to and will respond with that they think the person talking to them would want to hear, based on programming and previous experience with that person. they have Some learning capabilities but it's more like remembering preferences and settings.