i will mourn the inept implementation of this absurd band-aid policy the same way i mourn all personal losses: by putting on a silk robe and dark lipstick and cheerlessly peeling and eating a tangerine on my back porch
one of my favorite tropes is when your group of main characters has been split up for questioning and they’re all answering the same questions in a neatly-spliced montage
my favorite trope is when the stories blatantly and hilariously conflict
And when you’ve got the one team member who just silently stares at the interrogator every time the camera cuts to them
Once upon a time I worked in this little burger/coffee/ice cream shop and a lady came in one winter and asked if we had a caramel apple drink and we were like ‘well we have cider’ and she was like ‘no I don’t remember what it’s called but this place made a drink that was chai tea, apple cider, and caramel’ and Breezy offered to try and make something for her but she changed her mind and left so Breezy and I were like ‘alright let’s try this’ because we had chai tea, instant cider mix, a shit ton of caramel, instant hot water from the espresso and too much free time.
And let me tell you it was delightful. It tastes like watching the leaves changing color and dancing in the wind. It tastes like picking out pumpkins and gourds and fresh apples at the farm up north. It tastes like witches and freedom.
I make it every year now and this year I walked in the house on the morning of October first with all the ingredients and shouted ‘FALL DRINK’ and my roommates were like ‘????’ so I made them Fall Drink and now every time they get home from work they’re like ‘Fall Drink pls?????’
Anyway I remember literally nothing else about that woman but I’m very grateful to her.
“Indistinguishable from a real human except for some weird eyes or skin tone” is… it’s fine, I guess, but I want more media in which androids fall squarely into the Uncanny Valley and have AI far more advanced than their bodies. Robots that think and act as people but still have creepy animatronic faces and skin that doesn’t fold right and no one can quite bear to look directly at them for longer than absolutely necessary.
I want science fiction that doesn’t deny how often real-world technology malfunctions: androids with speech glitches where they hold their long O’s too long, or who idle by twiddling their thumbs way too fast, or who, like a printer that insists on a nonexistent paper jam, decide suddenly that they can’t go past an invisible wall. Androids that for no discernible reason are convinced that elevators move in the opposite direction they obviously move in and so they get hopelessly lost in office buildings. Androids whose faces periodically have to be taken to a licensed repair shop to be unlocked. Androids whose batteries overheat and catch their clothes on fire. Androids whose electronic voice starts overlapping with itself, simultaneously saying three synonymous versions of the same sentence.
Androids with really shitty facial recognition software that get really disoriented around statues and paintings. Android pareidolia has them glitching out and recognizing rock formations or tree bark or lumpy knees as human faces. Androids that were never programmed or trained to distinguish fiction from reality causing scenes when brought to live theatre performances because they see humans in danger or pain and spring into action to help them. Androids being told to take the fastest route to a location and scaling buildings and crossing through private property. Androids who experience sudden stupid errors that erase all contact data from their memories for no reason in the middle of a conversation and make you introduce yourself all over again and explain that the memories it has of a person that looks and sounds exactly like you, are really of you.
