Junebug and Johnny

File:Too Late to Love You.jpg

JUNEBUG: Johnny found some gear — an old tape player. We hid away in an underwater cave and listened to it over and over, and we knew we weren't miners ...

Junebug and Johnny are mechanical musicians, motorcyclists, and potential lovers – or perhaps just two who share a common origin. They are both androids who used to work as miners until their escape.

In Act III, the duo encounter Conway, Shannon, and Ezra stranded on the highway. Junebug and Johnny fix Conway's truck, and go on to perform Lysette's song "Too Late to Love You" at the Lower Depths tavern.

History

Junebug and Johnny were part of a robotic crew manufactured by the Consolidated Power Company to drain Elkhorn Mine after its catastrophic flood. Junebug describes her original build, how she came off the assembly line "about a half-foot shorter, and all gray. No eyes." While in the mine, Johnny discovered one of the archivists' tape decks and, listening to the miner's songs, he and Junebug realized they were unhappy as androids, leading them to escape.

The two used to own a pet frog or toad.

Appearance

JUNEBUG: Which star is your favorite?
JOHNNY: That little one in the corner.

The two ran away in the night and have since been adjusting and detailing themselves to appear more human and more like themselves. Junebug now alters her appearance often, such as by dying her hair blue (and later orange, in Act IV), to reject their previous uniformity and to appear unique and "specific." Junebug consistently boasts a half-shaved hairstyle while Johnny wears dark sunglasses and a flattop. They drive around in their motorcycle with sidecar, which they may choose to name the Weird Vector, the Vicious Cycle, or the Sloth-on-wheels.

Personality

Junebug

Junebug is the de facto leader of the duo, and is more cynical, sassy, and solitary than Johnny. She has a biting sense of black humor – often dark to the point where her jokes are more tragic than funny – with which she habitually teases and flirts with Johnny, who she calls her "cricket." She tends to keep everyone else at an arm's length.

Although she buries it in bitterness and denial, Junebug occasionally lets slip glimpses of an identity crisis between person and machine. She seems concerned about genuineness, and tends to dismiss personal problems. At one point, Junebug may explain that she likes looking at porcelain figurines because of how peculiarly non-genuine she finds them – identical figures with their jobs "painted on" – their definition and value being told through little more than a paint job.

Johnny

Johnny is the more passive of the duo to the extent where he occasionally finds himself compared to a dog, staying behind or at the sidelines with Conway's hound. Despite his assertion that Junebug is the artist – and that he is "only an entertainer" – Johnny appears to be highly creative and poetic. He spends much of his time thinking, daydreaming, composing music, and being distracted by the world around him. He enjoys teasing Junebug, often with her same tragic sense of black humor, and refers to her as "ma'am.

Johnny has a particular affinity for sounds and animals; the duo may explain that he enjoys the digital cacophony of the arcade or the animals at the petting zoo. There are a number of stops along the Zero at which Johnny tries (often unsuccessfully) to record various sounds with his tape recorder. He calls Junebug "ma'am."

File:LorettaLynn.jpg

Left: Loretta Lynn.
Center: Junebug's original design, as seen in the Kickstarter trailer.
Right: Junebug's final design, as seen in Act III.

Name

Junebug is heavily based on Loretta Lynn (down to the extravagant blue gown she dons in performances), a country singer-songwriter known for the song "Coal Miner's Daughter."