Webcomic / Lovebot

Xada and the Lovebot

"Experience for yourself a bond that is better than real."

— Astrobleme Enterprises, advertising the Lovebot 1919 series

Part Sci-fi, part romance, and part thriller, LoveBot is a webcomic by Chase Keels and Miranda Mundt.

In the far-off year of 2049, highly advanced and affectionate robots, called Lovebots, are becoming humanity's primary companions in place of real relationships. The robotics prodigy Xada Tsethlikai modifies these bots to fit their owners' specific wants and needs, mainly as a mere side hustle. However, when Xada is called in to operate on one of the latest models, his curiosity and sympathy for the Lovebot leads him to take out the gold chip in his brain—which makes it displaying more human behavior. Sparks will fly as Xada relearns human connection and helps uncover the truths behind the LoveBots' existence.

The comic is currently hosted on Webtoons, and has been on the site since 2020 as one of its Webtoons Originals.

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This webcomic provides examples of:

• 20 Minutes into the Future: The comic is set only twenty nine years from its release date, yet sea levels have dropped so far that an entire part of Seattle was opened up, robotics became super advanced, and humanity has travelled out into other galaxies.
• Aerith and Bob: Most names skew towards fantastic or exotic, such as Brizzium, Elizaveta, Adlynn, and Xada, but then you have outliers like the very average sounding Charles.
• All Abusers Are Male: While there are plenty of good men in the story, any and all abusers in the story are presented as male. Michael is the most straightforward example as a physically abusive jerk towards his Lovebot, but Charles also plays this role as a domineering and possessive emotional abuser. While Velix isn't dating anyone, his friendship with Xada is eventually revealed to be toxic and his overprotectiveness and Dogged Nice Guy attitude are portrayed as him being a belittling and suffocating presence—and his father is even worse, since the man does the same to him and talks badly of him behind his back. There is a female abuser mentioned briefly (the dumpster 1818's former master, who immediately replaced it with a 1919), but it was considered an unfortunate byproduct of the culture surrounding Lovebots.
• Almost Kiss: Xada and Lacey have a couple of these moments.
• And Then What?: During their second real conversation together, Brizzium brings up a number of things to Lacey— that no matter what the Lovebot chooses, he's guaranteed to get someone hurt. Running away compromises Xada and Adlynn, since finding him was her task and her failure will end in her death; staying and turning himself in will ensure that the other 1919s won't be set free; and staying and fighting will affect everyone he and Xada care about.
• Angst Coma: Lacey watching Charles Dallas wax positive about the features of the Lovebot 2020, combined with Lacey's own worries over the 1919s being scrapped like the 1818s were, makes him panic so much that he faints from the stress. His emotional pain was registered under the same category as severe physical damages would be to a normal 1919 Lovebot.
• Arc Words: The Lovebot 1919's marketing slogan, "Better Than Real", frequently crops up throughout the story. It boasts that the line can be more compassionate, caring, and loving than the average human and therefore make the ideal companion, but the words also serve as a chilling reminder to Lacey that he's still Just a Machine despite him processing his emotional freedom. In a more negative context, the phrase describes the feelings of Charles Dallas and Dr. Eva, who both want to see how Lovebots develop beyond the constraints of humanity.
• Androids Are People, Too: Played with. Older models and Virtual Intelligence robots aren't seen as "real", but the 1919 Lovebots are given more sympathy in-story because they all have the capacity for human-like psychological growth but are inhibited by the golden chip inside their brains. Lacey in particular is upset over being treated as little more than a prop for the people who love him. In an odd case, the maid robots that were popular in Charles Dallas' childhood are treated as sympathetic as well, given the audience is supposed to find him blaming his murder of his little brother on his family's nanny bot and the nanny's anguish over this repulsive.
• Artificial Limbs:
  • Xada has an artificial leg.
  • Dr. Eva has prosthetic arms, with six overall arms attached to strings. She could get more realistic ones, but she went with the multi arms because they just look cooler.
• Asshole Victim: Michael Masters introduced himself as a callous, chain-smoking jerk who had zero regard for Lacey's wellbeing, and later showed himself to be obsessed with getting his dues in AE. Even in universe, there was no love lost when he was killed by Charles, and yet he was also revealed to be one of Charles' many victims.
• Animal Motifs:
  • Xada's alias is Jackalope and he has a jacket and tattoo depicting said animal. Brizzium also calls him 'little rabbit'.
  • Charles Dallas is compared to a snake as befitting his Faux Affably Evil personality. He's later associated with hunting dogs, with his primary trackers for Lacey being the canine-shaped TNT units and the hundreds of paintings of hounds in his studio.
• Bait-and-Switch: On the night of the expo awards ceremony the the end of Chapter 93, Velix suddenly blocks Xada from his contacts and tells him that he "doesn't need to worry about [Velix] anymore". Given how volatile and mentally unstable he's been the whole night, Xada and Erik come to the conclusion that he's about to kill himself over his feelings for Xada. In reality, Velix blocked Xada because he realized he was becoming too emotionally dependent on him, and tried to cut off contact so that he doesn't hurt Xada more than he has been. Too bad they were right to be worried, since Velix is seemingly killed the same night after he unblocks the number and visits Charles' penthouse.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: All Lacey knew in life was Michael's apartment, and his only experience with humans was listening to Michael's woes or being used as his sexual relief against his will. When Xada puts him to sleep before his operation, Lacey immediately becomes interested in the man and eventually further falls for him because of how considerate he is.
• Break the Cutie: Poor Lacey gets put through the wringer literal seconds after he gains sentience.
• Cast Full of Gay: It's faster to name characters who aren't LGBTQ+.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Charles, who uses his high power and authority to kill Michael and cover up the murder.
• Creator Provincialism: The series takes place in a far future Seattle, Washington. Both Keels and Mundt are based in Seattle.
• Deadpan Snarker: When Brizzium isn't on the job as AE's resident leg-breaker, this is his default mode.
• Depraved Bisexual: Charles is shown seducing both women (Adlynn) and men (Velix) throughout his long corporate career. From all initial impressions, none of the relationships are genuine on his part, and he uses his time with his partners to keep them loyal to him and get useful information.
• Do Androids Dream?: Lacey often struggles with the idea of not being seen as a living being, constantly thinking about whether or not the rest of the 1919 line have personalities suppressed by their programming. His passion for Xada and their emotional compatibility are also called into question, since 1919 Lovebots were designed to be the perfect romantic and sexual companions to begin with. Brizzium on the opposite end embraces his robotic nature and doesn't believe that he could be more (even outright deleting a part of his hardware that stored human memories), but he shows very human thinking across the seasons without himself noticing.
• Domestic Abuse: Michael, who is abusive to Lacey both emotionally and physically.
• Electronic Eyes:
  • Lacey has electronic eyes with heart-shaped pupils.
  • Charles Dallas has green ones, which tend to glow whenever he's doing something particularly sinister (which is quite often).
• Environmental Symbolism: Charles Dallas' penthouse is full of statues of slave women and hunting dogs, showing him to be a ruthless and uncaring person. In some cases, the paintings he has there accurately reflect what's going on in the story, such as a picture of dogs hunting down a wolf overseeing Velix unsuccessfully running away from the Lovebot 2020 (when he was just animalized into a wolf for a panel).
• Evil Gloating: Charles does some internal gloating after he announces the Lovebot 2020, assured that he was able to regain positive press after all the scandals over the past week and in particular making Victor look foolish for doubting him. He also spends a bit of time mocking him for Velix getting jumped by the Lovebot 2020.
• Evil Vegetarian: Charles mentions going to a Vegans Against Animal Cruelty fundraiser after nonchalantly killing Michael, and while he is very careful with his meals his clear disdain for the rest of humanity is on display.
• Extremely Short Timespan: Season 1 takes place over a maximum of five days, and what a five days it's been—Xada and Lacey almost immediately fall hard for each other and become their other halves, an extremely powerful corporate presence gets murdered, Xada's longtime friendship with Velix is reexamined and soured over a misunderstanding turned real, a manhunt for an android is launched, and more than one robot begins to question AE and turn against the organization. To make things even more hectic, Season 2 reveals that Xada's to accept a prestigious award and only just learned he was nominated for it after all of the above! The season itself takes place during the even shorter time span of three days.
• Fate Worse than Death: While Velix doesn't immediately die during his escape from Charles' penthouse, the Lovebot 2020 decides that he wants to make him "perfect" and strip him of his imperfections. The next time we see Velix, he's unusually smug and carrying around a bloody suitcase.
• Faux Affably Evil: Charles Dallas can put up a cheerful and easy-going façade when it suits him, but the veiled threats and horrific implications are never far from the surface.
• Good Parents: Xada's. They're shown to be nothing but loving and supportive of him, and teach him to be kindhearted and gentle.
• Hate Sink: Michael, from his sadist tendencies to his narcissistic personality.
• Hypocritical Humor: Lacey once takes Brizzium to task for running off without contacting him and Xada at the convention, just after Lacey himself got back from wandering around the convention to tail Eva (and eventually landing himself in a restricted area) without informing Xada.
• Intimidating White Presence: Virtually all of the darker-skinned main characters are emphatic and willing to communicate, while their whiter counterparts are usually seen in a negative light. Michael and Charles are straightforward abusers, Velix becomes increasingly more unstable as time runs on, and his father is an even more suffocating and snide perfectionist. The more racial implications of the trope are alluded to when Xada gets into a conversation with Velix's father Victor and some light-skinned investors; one of them innocently touches Xada's hair without permission because she finds it exotic, while Victor tells her that she can give a Lovebot that same hair without all the hassle of offending a person.
• I Will Find You: After Charles learns that Lacey's escaped, he tasks Adlynn with retrieving him on threat of death. She's also given command of a military-grade robot, Brizzium, to aid her search. When the search takes too long for his liking, he sends out his TNT units to do the retrieval in a much more aggressive manner.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Throughout the story Velix is revealed to be an overly attached nag and a jealous, insecure guy, who slut-shames the partner he believes Xada is sleeping with and is rude to both Xada and Lacey later on. While his behavior is constantly criticized, he is right to be concerned about a lot of the events of the first season; his fears of Xada getting into serious trouble for tampering with a 1919 are validated when said 1919 hurts his master in self defense and goes rogue, and his suspicions towards Lacey hold some weight given that their first encounter had Lacey pull a knife on him and later find out that he's the rogue bot who supposedly killed Michael.
  • His father, Victor, isn't winning Father of the Year anytime soon but he's one of the few people with the balls to call out Charles's toxic nature and less than helpful decisions he made for the sake of satiating his lust for power. Victor outright compares the prideful dignified CEO to a parasite.
• Love Triangle: One starts to develop in Season 2 between Lacey, Xada, and Brizzium.
• Luminescent Blush: Xada tends to sport one whenever Lacey does something suggestive.
• Meaningful Echo: Velix's father, during the Astrobleme expo, tells his entourage that she could purchase a Lovebot if she wanted to freely touch hair as nice as Xada's, and that the Lovebot would be "less whiny" and accepting of it. In the season finale, the Lovebot 2020 mockingly tells an injured Velix that the latter could be replaced by a Lovebot and his social circle would be the better for it, since it would be "less whiny".
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Doctor Eva. It remains to be seen what side she is actually on but she's definitely ticking all the "creepy Mad Scientist" boxes.
• Mr. Fanservice: Lacey serves this role, appropriately enough for a robot built to titillate. He sits in coquettish poses, wears the more revealing outfits of the main cast, and was introduced in little more than a leotard, a choker, and thigh high socks when he was first operated on.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Lacey has a moment of this after he hits Michael in the face with an ashtray.
  • In his quieter moments, Velix is shown to be remorseful of his recent behavior towards Xada, but whenever he does Charles comes back to feed his insecurities. Becomes a full Heel–Face Door-Slam when he begins to comprehend how obsessive he's been over the last few years, only to be killed by Dallas' Lovebot the same night.
• Neck Lift: Xada is put in one after he gets confronted by the military AI Brizzium. Eva is also subjected to this by the same bot when she admits that Adlynn's neuroscience research formed the basis of the golden chip the 1919 line is installed with.
• Never Given a Name: Lacey, who was never properly given a name by Michael, and was instead just referred to by a shortened version of his manufacturer's name.
  Lacey: AEL. Which is just the way he’d sound out: Astrobleme Enterprises Lovebot.
• Nice Guy: Xada, a kindhearted individual who treats everyone well and works on prosthetics.
  • Lacey, his sincerity is truly above and beyond his base programming.
  • Erik is Xada's ex and a genuinely good friend. Unlike Velix's Dogged Nice Guy personality, Erik is (outwardly) content with the friendship he has with Xada and is even the one to call out on the toxic relationship Xada had with Velix.
• Nonstandard Character Design: Most characters featured in the series are either human, modified humans, humanoid robots, or animals with vague cybernetics. Brizzium, on the other hand, looks like a mutant alien with his green skin and monster tail, and wears little to nothing until his Heel–Face Turn. Season 2 gradually downplays this as multiple mutant and mythic looking walk-ons are shown.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: When Xada is invited to a convention to accept an award, Lacey and Brizzium decide to come with. Lacey is still in major hot water after AE frames him as the killer of Michael Masters, so the gang disguises him with little more than some skin chips covering his markings and recoloring his hair pink along with some AI trickery. Most people not in the know are fooled, but Eva, Velix, and Charles pick up on it very quickly. Lacey puts up slightly more of an effort when he dresses up for Xada's award speech, including making up the sassier "William DeLacey" persona.
• Poor Communication Kills: The strain in Xada and Velix's friendship largely stems from both of them refusing to listen to each other. As much as Velix was supportive of Xada, he still belittled the man's hobbies and interests and refuses to accept that Xada will never see him as anything more than a friend. However, Xada is often stubborn and doesn't consider the consequences of dangerous situations until it's too late; when Velix shows concern, it's almost always brushed off. Season 2 later clarifies that the real problem was Velix's obsessive attachment to Xada and the latter's inability to put his foot down at the expense of others' happiness.
• Princess Carry: As a romance series, this happens quite a lot, usually with Lacey being the recipient. A notable example occurs in Season 2, when Brizzium carries Lacey in this manner—his excuse is that the TNTs won't be able to track Lacey if they can't find more of his footprints, but their conversation afterwards shows that Brizzium's growing feelings for the bot have everything to do with how he carried him.
• Psychotic Manchild: Both Eva and Victor view Charles as little more than a spoiled boy in a man's body underneath his prestige and sophistication.
• Queer Colors:
  • Frankie, Xada's robotic cockatoo, has a blue, white, and pink striped comb. While Frankie isn't portrayed as trans herself, her master is explicitly stated to be a transgender man.
  • Many people don't usually give off their sexuality, but in various scenes they're shown with a pride pin. Particularly, Velix and Erik wear a homosexual pride button.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: Compared to their 1818 counterparts, which were referred to as glorified SIRI type robots, the 1919 Lovebots are unilaterally considered to be the most lifelike in the line. They have customizable skin and hair colors, retain the 1818 series' ability to feel pain, and while they aren't allowed to express them, have very humanlike emotions. Removing the golden chip inside of them apparently grants them the ability to emote like the average human. Lacey in particular is a peculiar case, since according to Brizzium and others he was given artificial intelligence compared to the other Lovebots' Virtual Intelligence.
• Robot Dog: Charles keeps one near his desk. The dog is actually one of several (called TNTs), and their true purpose is to act as trackers and attack dogs for whoever AE wants delivered to them.
• Robot Soldier: Brizzium, who was built to be a military AI by Astrobleme Enterprises
• Sadist: Michael, whose introduction involves him hiring Xada to remove the pain limiters from Lacey's brain.
• Sexbot: The titular Lovebots are treated this way, with the 1919 line adding more human features to facilitate the process, but marketing by the time of the story's start has pushed the idea of them being used as luxury companions and caretakers far more than them being used only for sex.
• Sexual Karma: Sex is implied from time to time, but the mutually loving couples will usually have intimate bed scenes and Xada and Lacey get a whole chapter dedicated to ecstatic lovemaking. Meanwhile, sex between uneven pairings will usually be non-penetrative acts and occur offscreen.
• Shout-Out:
  • Lacey chooses a name after reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, naming himself after the De Lacey family. Doubles as a Meaningful Name since the Creature learns about humanity and, by extension, emotions such as love, from observing them, similar to Lacey's observations of Xada.
  • Xada once has an Imagine Spot of of Michael catching him and declaring that he's already dead.
  • In Season 2, Charles's second seduction of Velix acts as an homage to the car seduction scenes of Revolutionary Girl Utena's Black Rose arc.
  • Modeus from Suitor Armor shows up as a robot door guard.
• Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence: Virtual Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence are treated as the higher end of the scale, with the 1919s and Brizzium's type of robot treated as the most humanoid. The 1818s and robots like the U-No units are a step down, with them being competent helpers but emotionally and socially unintelligent. Robots below that, like the TNT units, are designed to look like living beings but have no mind of their own. The rest are simply non-sapient tools.
• Three Laws-Compliant: Weirdly enough, subverted. All robots are expected to listen to orders, and if they are military grade they can be used to injure or kill humans, and the 2020 Lovebot is quick to resort to violence. "Self preservation" is limited to shutting down when their pain threshold has been reached.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: It appears that Charles was always a heartless ego monster, given that he smothered his baby brother in his cradle when he got aggravated with the baby's crying, and then blamed his nanny robot for the murder.
• What Measure Is a Non-Cute?: While the 1919 Lovebots and any animal or mascot robots do get respect and affection in the series, the 1818 Lovebots and less humanoid robots are always treated as tools. Lacey did feel legitimate sorrow over his inability to save the one he found in a dumpster, but every mention of 1818s afterwards depicts them as unintelligent and not worth the effort of worry despite the fact that they share the same "brain" structure as the 1919 line. Even Lacey's Tragic Keepsake necklace gradually loses its importance as something created from the remains of a neglected 1818.
• Wham Episode: Season 2 ends with Dallas announcing a newer, more lifelike line of Lovebots at the expo, while Velix is violently silenced and replaced by Dallas' robotic body double—who also happens to be the prototype of the new Lovebots.
• Wham Shot: In Season 2's finale, Velix defending himself from an unruly Charles Dallas, only to find that the Charles with him has blue blood like the Lovebots.
• Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: Michael claims that Lacey's disobedience, along with the fact that he tried to run away is the reason he had to hit him in the face with an ashtray.