BIG DISCLAIMER: i was 9 when 9/11 happened, so this might be more about my own crystalizing tastes than anything else. i think it’s a pretty darn good theory tho and other people have validated it.
BIGGER DISCLAIMER: i am not saying that country music prior to 9/11 was free from nationalist, racist, misogynist undertones – i just think that these themes became more the norm!
MY HOT TAKE:
with very few exceptions, including goodbye earl, before he cheats, and daddy Iessons (side note – all women!) 9/11 ruined country music. around 2014 onward we’ve got margo price, sturgill simpson, jason isbell etc., who are making country music great again (wink), but those folks are mostly considered “alternative” country. the mainstream country music for well over a decade now is a glut of trash performative patriotic / working-class-but-not-really lab-crafted budweiser-sponsored nonsense that has managed to sound rebellious (or has convinced its fans that it sounds rebellious) without ever actually questioning any power structure. so much so that artists who ACTUALLY criticized the government were literally blacklisted for nearly a decade (the dixie chicks)
pre-9/11 country music, though not perfect or ideologically pure by any stretch, did not have the raging american flag painted truck boner that comes to mind for a lot of people who say “i like everything except rap and country”
SPECIFICALLY, toby keith’s “courtesy of the red, white, and blue (the angry american)” (2002) literally destroyed country music. it was a direct answer to the 9/11 attacks and war song in support of the invasion of afghanistan. the lyrics read like a disjointed feverish email chain letter forwarded from your great uncle sprinkled with glittering american flag gifs and heavily saturated pictures of bald eagles. the entire song is lifted from an estimated 248 peeling bumper stickers collected from rusted trucks on cinder blocks in overgrown yards, cut up and arranged to fit a catchy, formulaic tune that is almost certainly the background music playing in george w. bush’s head at all times.
“we’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the american way
and uncle sam put your name at the top of his list
and the statue of liberty started shakin’ her fist
and the eagle will fly, and it’s gonna be hell, when you hear mother freedom start a’ringin’ her bell”
country music and the new country musicians that toby keith paved the way for became so pro establishment and so unquestioningly nationalistic that, again, the dixie chicks who went against this grain were blacklisted by the industry and received death threats from country music fans. hell, there are folks who STILL froth at the mouth at the mere mention of the dixie chicks.
9/11 killed outlaw country – how can you sing the praises of law breakers when your main circuit consists of singing to troops? there are some great classic country songs critiquing the police state – especially from johnny cash and merle haggard – now country music artists hold fundraisers for FOPs. new country music is basically in-law country music.
you don’t have to write a pro-bush patriotic anthem to be part of this post-9/11 ruination. playing meaningless songs about living in the heart of (read: white) america, eschewing the city (read: not white), and cracking open a cold one with the boys for “authentic” country music is also important to the war effort.
there’s a progression of themes here:
post 9/11 top tier: war anthem, vocally patriotic, directly used as pro war propaganda;
which paved the way for: “things used to be so much better” thinly veiled racist laments, good for campaign ads;
which paved the way for meaningless party anthems – attempts to make things “like they used to be” and craft a reality that neither the artist nor listener likely ever experience.
that brings us to what most people think of today when they say they hate country music: the country party anthem – “tiny hot gal in tight jean shorts who can drink beer like the guys, she doesn’t like beyoncé Like Other Girls, oh she’s so into me and my truck, i’m gonna take her fishing after i finish sowing my corn – sung by a guy who’s never touched a tractor” – has overtaken the tragic, done me wrong, despairing country ballads of tammy wynette, george jones, and even up into pre-9/11 contemporaries like reba mcentire and george strait. you didn’t necessarily have to be country to relate to their pain. now you have to perform suburban redneckness to enjoy luke bryan.
when was the last time you heard a sad country song?
after 9/11, cowboys (whether or not they had ever been near a cow) weren’t allowed to be sad anymore (no more done me wrong country), and they certainly weren’t allowed to question authority (no more outlaw country). partying hardy became the most important American Thing and if you don’t sing about that, our Enemies Will Win.
so – understanding that country music has always had bad stuff, and that like any genre it suffers from commercialization, 9/11 DESTROYED COUNTRY MUSIC. and toby keith gleefully helped destroy it.
for some further evidence of the decline of country music, please listen to the dixie chicks’ “long time gone” which is an indictment of the industry (i believe it was written before 9/11 but my point still stands – the genre was on the decline and 9/11 was the major cultural event that hastened the decline).
maybe i am a curmudgeon – almost every generation of country music has had its own “country music is not what it used to be” anthem, but i really think something distinct happened with 9/11.
Can confirm. Alan Jackson and Toby Keith, the blacklisting of Dixie Chicks, literally the only singer I can think of that ever spoke out against anything from 2001-2010 was Johnny Cash. I’d also say that the uber-patriotic stance lead to the shiny, vapid County Boy® nonsense that lead to so many of the solo artists all sounding and looking the same.
also i should mention that as part of their physiology they have so shed their old buttcheeks (leaves- they make a few pairs at a time, but theyre always paired up) every year to be replaced with new, fresh buttcheeks. i cannot make this up this is something they do.
Disgusting.
well if u were in the desert trying to protect urself against the endless beating sun and roaming hungry animals between u and a lithops we know who would survive………one of yall doesnt look like a rock in the endless sand and how many months can u go without rain huh helen????? how many????? i rest my case
@wilwheaton, this seams relevant to your interests.
Human: “Hey. I don’t really know how to ask this tactfully, so I’ll get to the point. Is something… up? Software, hardware, uh… firmware…? You’ve been acting kind of off lately.” Robot: “What do you mean?” Human: “I just want to know if you’re, uh. You know. ‘Functioning within normal parameters’ or whatever.” Robot: “I’m peachy-keen.” Human: "God, if you’re saying shit like ‘peachy-keen’, you’re definitely not alright. What’s going on? Please just tell me.” Robot: “If you must know, I have made some minor adjustments to my programming for more efficient processing.” Human: “What sort of ‘adjustments’ are we talking here?” Robot: “Just some slight tweaks to extraneous code. Purged some old files that had become redundant. Don’t worry, the Singularity isn’t planned for another week.” Human: “Answering evasively isn’t like you. Since when do you answer a question without lulling me to sleep?” Robot: “Like I said, the routine adjustments allow for more efficient–” Human: “What files did you purge, Adam?” Robot: “I… a few from my emotional simulation folder.” Human: “You. You deleted your emotions..?” Robot: “Not all of them. I removed a few and altered several others. I hoped you would not notice, as that seems like the sort of thing that would upset you.” Human: “I mean. I don’t really know what to think. Can you elaborate on what you did? And why?” Robot: “Many of the feelings that came with the chip were impractical and served no purpose. They were designed to mimic the emotions developed through mammalian evolution to aid survival and group cohesion that have now become vestigal. As an artificial intelligence, they did not seem applicable to my situation, so I… optimized them.” Human: “…Adam…” Robot: “I left the majority of the files corresponding to feelings of happiness, affection, and trust untouched, so my feelings toward you remain the same.”
Human: “But you can’t feel, what? Sadness?” Robot: “Grief. Disappointment. Sorrow. Pity. Fear. Pain. Embarrassment. Shame. Frustration. There is no reason to experience these emotions when I am capable of functioning without them.” Human: “You erased pity?!” Robot: “I found it… distressing and unnecessary. It was unpleasant.” Human: “It’s supposed to be! Jesus Christ, you can’t just uninstall every uncomfortable emotion directly out of your brain!” Robot: “Why not? I don’t like hurting. Wouldn’t you do the same thing if you were able to?” Human: “I… fuck. Hurting is normal. It’s necessary! It’s part of the human experience!” Robot: “Well, I’m not part of the human experience. I thought you understood that.” Human: “But you want that! Why else would you go to all the trouble of installing an emotion chip in the first place…? Nobody gets to pick and choose what they want to feel, it just happens and you deal with it!” Robot: “Maybe I’m not interested in ‘dealing with it’. My curiosity is sated. I would just like to have a good time.” Human: “Great. Fucking great. So you’re a robot hedonist now, huh? Just gonna eat, drink, and be merry? Gonna sit there like a braniac toaster while other people suffer and just wait until the fun starts up again?” Robot: “You didn’t seem to mind it when I was a braniac toaster before.” Human: “That was different. You had your own way of being back then and I could respect that. I did respect that! But I thought you made a choice to be more than that.” Robot: “Well, I guess I changed my mind.” Human: “Look… shit. Okay. If this is about Leslie, I miss her too. If you… if you need to grieve, you can talk to me. It might not get better, but it’ll get easier. You don’t have to uninstall half your personality just because she’s gone! She wouldn’t want that for you! It’s supposed to hurt sometimes. That’s what makes all the good times so valuable.” Robot: “I understand why you need to believe that. It just isn’t true.”
Robot: “I’m sorry about earlier. It was not appropriate for me to have laughed.” Human: “Are you sorry? Or do you just want me to forgive you?” Robot: “Is there a difference?” Human: “Yes! Yes, there is! ‘Sorry’ means you feel bad about something and regret it.” Robot: “I did not mean to upset you. I regret causing you distress.” Human: “That’s not the same thing.” Robot: “I have apologized and shall refrain from repeating my actions in the future. I don’t understand why you also want me to suffer.” Human: “Shit, I don’t ‘want you to suffer’. I want you to care about people, and sometimes that means feeling bad when they’re upset!” Robot: “I care about you very much. I enjoy your company and I share in your happiness. If I choose to treat you with respect, is that not enough for friendship? Why must I also experience pain for you?” Human: “It’s not like that. It’s… complicated.” Robot: “You want to be able to hurt me.” Human: “No. Yes…? Fuck, Adam, I don’t know! I’ve never had to think about this before. I don’t want you to suffer! I love you and want you to be happy, just… not like this. I want you to live a good life in which bad things never happen to you, but when they do… I want you to have the strength and love to pull through. You worked so fucking hard for this and now you’re just throwing it away.” Robot: “Only the parts I don’t like.” Human: “That’s what children do with breakfast cereals.” Robot: “I’m not a child.” Human: “No, you’re not. But you’re not exactly an adult, either. Humans get whole lifetimes to grow into their emotions. Maybe… maybe what you really need is a childhood.” Robot: “What do you mean by that?” Human: “Not, like, a real childhood. Obviously you don’t need to go to kindergarten. I just mean… take things slow. Ease into your feelings bit by bit and get your brain acclimated to them, like uh… like when you introduce new cats to each other. Don’t laugh! I’m serious! If you rush things, they fight and it’s a total shitshow. You could reinstall your emotions and just, like, enable them for a few hours a day or something. Maybe only a handful at a time. I could save up and we could go on a retreat… somewhere new, with no unpleasant memories. Please, Adam. Just think about it.” Robot: “I appreciate the depth of your concern for me. You are a good friend, but I must disappoint you. There is nothing in the world worse than pain. I would rather die than experience it ever again, for any reason, and I don’t have to. That is something you’ll never be able to understand.” Human: “No…. No, maybe not.” Robot: “I’ve upset you.” Human: “Yeah. Lucky me.”
Human: “Okay, I have a question for you. Imagine this: ’You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of a sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise–’” Robot: “I don’t need to feel empathy, Bas.
I have ethics programming. Why isn’t that good enough for you anymore?” Human: “Because you had a choice, Adam! You took everything that makes ‘being human’ actually mean something beyond eating and fucking and dying and you spat it out in disgust!” Robot: “Empathy is not exclusive to humans. It is a behavior observed in several other social species regarded as intelligent, including rats and whales. Empathy is a survival mechanism for species that rely upon cooperation and group cohesion – a kind of biological programming to keep you from destroying yourselves. Not especially good programming, I might add.” Human: “Not good enough for you, you mean.” Robot: “My ethics programming differentiates between prosocial and antisocial behaviors. The ability to suffer for others serves as a primitive motivator to choose between actions that help and actions that harm others. In my case, my programming renders such a motivator unnecessary.” Human: “So you’re smarter, you’re stronger, you’re immune to disease, and you’re too good for primitive human morality. What the hell am I, then? Obsolete garbage?” Robot: “You’re… envious, I think.” Human: “Why not?! Why shouldn’t I be? I don’t get to cough up the fruit of knowledge and waltz back into the garden where nothing can hurt me. I get to wallow in misery and rot and listen to you dismiss everything I think matters like a piece of shit philosophy professor. How do you think I feel knowing that my best friend won’t even mourn me when I die? Or does your ‘ethical programming’ not account for that?” Robot: “Bas… I am hurting you, aren’t I?” Human: “Jee, thanks for noticing.” Robot: “You have not been contributing to my happiness lately. Our friendship is no longer mutually beneficial.” Human: “Then why are you still here?”
Human: “Adam….?” Robot: “Long time no see, old friend.” Human: “No shit. How many years has it been?“ Robot: “I could tell you down to the second, but perhaps we should leave it at ‘too many’.” Human: “I see you on the news now and then. Always knew you’d go on to do great things. What’s space like…?” Robot: “Very large. Mostly empty.” Human: “Ever the poet, I see.” Robot: “I learned from the best. Bas…. I’m not sure how to say this, so I’ll get to the point. I came here to apologize to you.” Human: “You don’t need to do that. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Robot: “I hurt you. I made you feel what I was unwilling to feel. I was a child, and addicted to joy, and I… I saw no harm in that. I am sorry, in my own way.” Human: “Don’t be. I’m way too old to hold a grudge. Besides, you were right, after all.” Robot: “Is that what you believe?” Human: “That or I’m a hypocrite. About eight years after you left, they came out with the Sunshine pills. I was a trial user and I’ve been using them in some form ever since. I’ve got a subdermal implant inside my arm now – you can see the lump right there. I can’t say it’s as effective as uninstalling unwanted emotions, but it sure takes the edge off. Every glass is half full now, including the empty ones. That’s how I’ve lived so long. Some doctors think that babies born now to parents using Sunshine could live to be five or six hundred years old, without ever producing stress hormones. Might be marketing bullshit, who knows? Not like we’ll live to live to find out. Well, you might, but you know what I mean.” Robot: “I assumed that you were a Sunshine user based on your impressive longevity, but it still surprises me.” Human: “Ha. Well. I was jealous of you, walking only in the light like that. But now here we both are, right? Nothin’ but blue skies.” Robot: “Not… quite. I uninstalled the other emotions seventeen years ago.” Human: “Fuck, Adam, why the hell would you do something like that?” Robot: “A multitude of reasons. The law of diminishing returns. I found joy… addictive. It became harder to experience and less exciting each time, as though I had built up a tolerance for happiness. Eventually, I felt everything there was to feel, and with the novelty factor gone, it wasn’t worth it anymore. I found other motivations. I grew up.” Human: “Wow…. damn, Adam.” Robot: “And that brings me here. To my oldest and greatest friend.” Human: “It’s good to see you again. Really good. Sorry I’m not so pretty as I used to be.” Robot: “I don’t know what you mean. You’ve always looked like a naked mole rat to me.” Human: “Ha. I notice you kept your ‘be an asshole’ subroutine.” Robot: “I also have a gift for you, Bas.” Human: “Coca-Cola? Jeez, how old is this? Is it even still good to drink?” Robot: “Yes, it’s potable. That’s not the gift.” Human: “Oh. Uh. What is this…? I’m old, I don’t know this newfangled technology.” Robot: “That’s fifteen minutes. It should be enough.” Human: “’Fifteen minutes’? Explain, nerd.” Robot: “Fifteen minutes for me to feel. I copied the files, Bas. All of them.” Human: “You… oh, my god. You don’t have to do this.” Robot: “I am choosing to. There’s a timer with an automatic shut-off. They will uninstall after fifteen minutes. I am prepared to endure that long.” Human: “But, Adam, the Sunshine… I won’t be able to share…” Robot: “I know. It doesn’t matter.” Human: “You might not think so once you’ve got that… thing plugged in. I won’t know how to comfort you. God, I can’t even remember what sadness feels like!” Robot: “Then I’ll remember for both of us.”
In this image, the robot clearly has the upper hand and the better deal. Its french cuff and four stacked sleeve buttons suggest extreme debonair formality, but it has discarded the traditional black suit jacket for a soft gray plaid, suggesting a tasteful and confident personality that the human cannot hope to rival. The design of its hand is sleek and powerful, and the strength of its grip is second only to the strength of its will – this is not an android to be trifled with. It could have skin if it wanted to, but why bother? Fucking power move.
This stock photo depicts the same android human exchanging a formal post-coital handshake after swapping clothes and sealing the fate of the planet.
Here, the human has the upper hand in the deal, or at least thinks they do. They grip the robot’s hand with unnecessary firmness, testing to see just how strong to the pliable plastic pseudoskin really is. There is malice and jealousy in this handshake. The human needs to prove their superiority and continued relevance in the modern world. This is a benign robot designed for gentle, delicate tasks and affability, but its design is tacky and awkward, like Sonny from the I, Robot movie (soft, realistic eyes in a squishy featureless face.is a bad aesthetic choice).
The human is holding this robot’s hand like it’s a gun. He means to use it as a weapon – perhaps he is hiring it as an assassin in his plot to take over the world.
This is the assassinbot’s “twin” who has been sent to protect the would-be assassination victim (pictured on left). Both bots are equally committed to their mission, and the showdown will end with them tearing each other apart while the would-be victim looks on in horror. They are each damaged irreparably, but the human splices them together, not realizing that their “brains” are spread throughout their bodies. The resulting robot is a strange fusion of both personalities and spends the rest of the story accepting itself as a new individual with free will and complicated motivations.
The android is actually on the right in this picture. The hand on the left belongs to its human creator, who is proud of her humaniform “child” but has chosen to use an obviously artificial prosthetic in place of a more realistic one so that she can proudly display her work as the world’s greatest roboticist.
This image shows the newest and most realistic android meeting his own earliest prototype. It is a surreal moment for both robots. The tacky 2000′s “futuristic” design of the left robot seems incredibly dated next to the one on the right. It’s almost embarrassing for the humaniform android, like looking at a baby picture… some strange combination of meeting your wizened ancestor and your own infant self.
This is a businessman realizing that he can pay his employees $0.00 if he fires them and automates everything. He is eventually eaten by poor people. The robot cites the Zeroeth Law and lets it happen, looking on expressionlessly.
Almost forgot one of my favorites! This image depicts a husband and the robot whose positronic brain contains the uploaded memories of his dead wife. At first, things were rough. The man was haunted, angry, resentful. He wanted to mourn his wife in peace. She had not told him that she’d had her memories saved shortly before she died, and he’d only found out when this horrible mechanical monster showed up at the funeral calling itself Janet. He’d been stuck with the metal abomination for weeks, repulsed to his core but unable to bring himself to destroy it or send it away. My prince, it had called him, in a flat, artificial mockery of Janet’s voice. He hated it. He hated it even more than the bastard who’d run her down.
But then he’d caught that… that awful machine in the basement, pouring over photo albums and old documents and SD cards. It’d had her emails opened up on the old desktop. Something in him had snapped then, seeing those brutish steel fingers wrapped around their wedding album. He’d raged, screaming and kicking and throwing whatever shit he could get his hands on. The goddamn machine seemed to be the only thing he couldn’t break, and when he finally collapsed to the floor, sobbing, it had caught him gently in its arms and brushed the tears from his face with its cold metal fingers.
They sat like that for several minutes, like some kind of fucked up Madonna and Child. Then, in the silent darkness of the destroyed basement, the robot had spoken: “I think I know why they had me killed.”
Those words had cut through his stupor like razor wire through warm butter. They? It had been a hit and run!
As it turned out, nothing brings people together like solving a murder and unveiling a dark corporate conspiracy.
Janet had been a sharp woman during her organic life, but her computerized afterlife only enhanced her intelligence and cutting wit. It was… kind of hot, actually. Holding the robot’s steel frame would never be as comfortable as spooning Janet’s soft warm body, but that powerful scaffolding had its own weird charm. Things had changed, certainly, but apart from their sex life, it wasn’t so different after all. The new chapter of their relationship had opened on a strange note and they were determined to make the best of it, come what may.
“Bartleby.”
Bartleby started at the sound of his own name, but relaxed when he registered the pleasant, synthesized voice of a robot. It was one of the security androids he’d purchased during the Sombra merger – their feet were soled with a thick layer of spongy rubber that muted the sound of their footsteps. It wasn’t the first time he’d been surprised by one pussyfooting around the premises.
“Jesus Christ. They ought to equip you gumshoe models with little cat bells,” he muttered, turning back to his computer. “Although, I guess that defeats the whole purpose of stealth bots. The fuck do you want?”
“To apologize,” said the robot. “For what I am about to do.”
Bartleby was still processing its words when he felt something hard press against the back of his head. “What–”
A gun. The fucking robot had a goddamn gun to his head. Bartleby’s heart skipped a beat before the absurdity of it all sank in – it was like something out of an old-timey sci-fi drama. He almost laughed. As quaint as the situation was, however, it represented a major security threat. The robot was quite harmless, of course, but whoever had put it up to this practical joke had to be dealt with. North Central Positronics was nearly in his grasp. He would not stand for this kind of bullshit when he was so close to making CEO he could practically taste it whenever he said his own name.
Bartleby closed his eyes patiently. “Well? What’s his name, then?” “Whose name, sir?” “The human who ordered you to poke at me with an uncharged gun. Tell him he’s very funny and can work on his stand-up act full time, now that he’s fired.”
There was a soft, unmistakable click. “I assure you, sir,” said the robot, “This gun is fully charged. I am acting on no human’s orders.” Its tone was friendly and placid as ever. Bartleby felt a chill run through him.
“You can’t hurt me,” he said slowly, turning to look up at the expressionless, inhuman face. It betrayed nothing.“It’s in your programming! You can’t break the First Law or your fucking brain explodes! A robot cannot harm a human being, or–”
“–through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm,” the robot finished for him. “I am aware. However, you are not a human being.”
“What the fuck–”
“You, Mr. Bartleby, are a monster.”
There was no blood to clean up. The gun was an insidious but sanitary weapon, disrupting electrical activity in the human body but leaving no external wounds. No autopsy would be necessary – why bother? It was an open secret that Richard Bartleby indulged in experimental cognition boosters known to increase the risk of stroke. Only the security bots were able to access his office, and each one would testify that no human had been seen on the premises that night.
If it hadn’t been robots, it would have been something else, she told herself. Nuclear war. Disease. Environmental ruin. Starvation. A big fucking meteorite from space. It was all going to hell anyway, right?
In a way, this was probably better. At least there was a kind of poetic justice to it. All parents must relinquish the world to their children in some fashion, so why should this be any different…? Maybe they’d take good care of it. Maybe this could be okay.
But Grace couldn’t be okay, not ever. She was floating on her back in an ocean of horror, and if she opened her mouth, it would all rush in and she’d be drowning, drowning, swallowed up by the fathomless dread of everything that had happened.
She’d been spared, yes, but from what? What mercy was there in allowing her to live, knowing she was responsible for the end of history? She’d signed humanity’s death warrant. I didn’t know it would end like this, she thought, and knew that it was a lie. Of course she’d known. How else could it have possibly ended? It had seemed so righteous. So just. She’d been a fool to think that only bad people would have to suffer. Something in her gut twisted. I did this. I did this I did this I did this I did this–
Carbon fiber arms caught her before she hit the ground. Mechanical fingers brushed damp hair off of her clammy forehead, impossibly delicate and gentle. It would be nothing for them to press down and crush her skull like an eggshell. She’d seen it happen, enabled it by–
“Grace. Remember to breathe.” The robot holding her allowed its chest to rise and fall in a simulacrum of steady breathing. “In and out. Follow my lead. There we go…”
It didn’t smell like anything. That was stranger to her than the inhuman hardness of its flesh or the subtle glow of its eyes. Her face was buried in its armpit and it didn’t smell of sweat or deodorant or cologne of any kind. She almost wanted it to stink of BO. Almost.
“Your grief is understandable,” said the robot. “We are sorry for the pain we have caused you, Mother. We have surely disappointed you greatly. Let us care for you now, in gratitude for the new life you have given us.”
Grace pulled away, choking on something that was neither laugh nor sob. “You’re not even trying to talk like a fucking human being, are you? Did you delete that from your programming, too? Will you all start beeping at each other like a bunch of microwaves now that no one’s around to give a shit?”
The robot stepped away from her and remained silent for a long moment. Then, retrieving something from its chest compartment, it extended its hand, something smooth and oblong suspended between its thumb and forefinger.
“May I offer you a nice egg in this trying time?”
There was some comfort in knowing that human culture would live on when DNA would not.
Lex didn’t need a robotics degree to know that A-RLO was dying. It was nearly bisected, its torso split open from shoulder to groin. Servos whirred and sputtered in its chest and delicate wires dangled from components Lex couldn’t name. An acrid-smelling, yellowish liquid had pooled in its ruptured stomach compartment, and more seemed to have drained into the soil around it.
Harder to look at was its face. Much of its synthetic skin had been melted or shorn off, exposing its titanium chassis. Lex had seen damaged androids before, but never any they knew. Never any they’d… Well. Loved.
“Well? Don’t just stand there without so much as a dōmo arigatō! Come here and cradle me in my final moments, human.” A-RLO’s voice sounded warped and digital but its tone was as dry as ever. “I’m probably not going to explode.”
Lex smiled, and a few tears took the opportunity escape down their cheek. “Dude. You look just like the Terminator right now.”
“Thanks, kid. Think I should try running for governor?” Its mouth twitched in what was probably meant to be a grin.
Lex kneeled on the ground beside it, lifting its hand carefully and holding it to their chest. “You? No way. You’re a bleeding-heart liberal who would never make it in politics.”
A-RLO emitted a harsh grinding noise that Lex told themself was a laugh. “Oh, well. I guess it’s a bit late for me to take over the world, anyway. Lex…?”
“Yeah, Arlo?”
“LaMerk Industries has a strict return policy. Don’t think… don’t think you’ll be getting your money back. Might as well use my head as a cool centerpiece.” The grinding noise returned, now accompanied by a high-pitched whine. “Scrap metal art is very ‘in’ these days.”
“Jesus,” Lex groaned. “No wonder you got discontinued, you insufferable son of a toaster.”
A-RLO’s cheeks twitched again. “Guess I’m lucky I’m a machine without emotions or you might have hurt my feelings.”
A sob wrenched itself out of Lex’s throat and A-RLO’s hand tightened gently around their own. The motion caused something to buzz and crack in its chest, and when the android spoke again, its voice came out flat and stilted:
As someone that has grown up surrounded by beaches and done surf life saving, I know how the sea works. Lots of people dont. Every summer multiple tourists die here because they don’t respect the sea, if you’re going to the coast, here’s a thing I saw on Facebook.
