Ah… The classic mistake all parents make—assuming and not listening. He should have asked more questions. We all do this, though—especially when we really, really want to help our kids.
That’s just my interpretation of it. Could also be, as said below in other comments, just a very extreme nervous reacion or tic. Heck, I pick at ans chew my fingernails with a similar almost destructive intensity sometimes too.
I just think it’s also evocative of dysphoric feelings, in a loose subconcious way.
So I’m kind of a mess right now (for reasons) and so I’m super emotional, but thank you so much for the last panel of this page. I’m autistic and I scratch my arms just like Sulla is doing in the last panel when I get upset, and I’ve never seen it depicted anywhere before. Thank you so, so much.
Also thank you for this whole comic, the story is beautiful and so well-constructed, the characters are lovely and complicated, and the way you draw expressions and use colors is super inspiring.
Oh yeah! I’ve had this idea that Sulla was autistic or something in that ballpark for a long time… Not ’cause she’s a robot (lordy, no) but because of how she, like… processes and deals with things, and how she’s so nervous around the other kids but gets confident once she latches onto something she knows and stuff. And the arm scratching… dang, guilty as charged.
I love Sulla a lot as a character and I’m really happy this miscommunication didn’t become an awkward junction…
Please understand those really are not at all explicitly autistic things. There are a lot of reasons to behave that way. The only way to know for sure if someone is autistic is if they are diagnosed by a professional.
Kids can certainly be awkward and nervous without being on the spectrum. Sulla has not spent a lot of time around other kids (plus she’s hiding the fact she’s a robot so that probably adds a lot of stress/nervousness) so it’s really not a surprise she is that way. Being trans can also be very stressful—especially if you have no idea how the people closest to you will react when you are trying to come out.
O…kay? I didn’t say that was the only explanation for it, nor that it has nothing to do with the rest of her circumstances.
Also, there is no “way to know for sure” because diagnostics, especially when it comes to psychology, are not things-in-themselves but clusters of symptoms/traits that appear and interact together often enough for an umbrella term to be useful, but that’s neither here nor there.
Just so it’s clear, I was not using autistic as an insult, especially since I share a lot of the traits. That’d be pretty awful and inconsiderate.
Of course autism isn’t offensive, but projecting an entire condition (or label) onto a person or character, because they share a couple traits with that condition is uncool. I have seen a number of people doing this with Sulla when it comes to autism. As a person who grew up with severe trauma and had conditions (like autism) falsely/inaccurately projected upon me (often by my abusers) I find it offensive, but it is also inaccurate and potentially a harmful thing to do.
It’s awesome you relate to Sulla. I’ve seen this a couple times here that people who say they have autism feel a connection with her.
But please understand a lot of conditions and behaviors autistic people go through are not explicitly autistic things. This includes pulling up your knees to your chest and scratching at your arms. People who go through trauma and stress are just as likely to do those kinds of things. It doesn’t necessarily mean a person is autistic or on the spectrum. I say this as I’ve seen a number of people misdiagnosing (or armchair diagnosing) children (and even adults) who really need to get help other ways—especially ones who are academically gifted.
Hey Dotcom, can you do us all a favour and not sound like a condescending jerk just because an autistic person identifies with a character in a web comic? I’m pretty sure Owl knows Sulla’s action aren’t exclusive to autistic people, but the fact is the number of well written autistic characters out there is pitifully low so we have a tendency to identify with characters who are like us but are not explicitly stated to be autistic. Maybe you should take you own advice and not jump to diagnostic conclusions about fictional characters.
All right, folks, thanks for contributing to this discussion but let’s ease off the antagonism. Most of you here are bringing up valid points and we can acknowledge them without assuming ill will from each other.
Arm scratching for me is something I do when my anxiety gets reallllllly bad – not that it rules out that Sulla or Al are autistic! Just can be a sign of anxiety as well.
I’m sure for that one instant (when he thought the topic was “i’m gay”), at that first panel, Brendan was hit full force by all the awkward and bizarre questions and concerns of realizing that he brought his lover back to life and his currently raising him/trying not to screw him up so he won’t have the crippling fears his original self had.
Oh, wow, these crossed wires (heh). Sulla struggling so desperately to say “I’m a girl” and Brendan clearly freaking because he doesn’t know what to do if his kid likes girls.
This raises some intriguing questions about WHY Sulla decided to transition when Al did not. There’s the “neural copy can diverge” option. Alternatively, as an android Sulla doesn’t have hormones – Al quite clearly had a lot of testosterone given his build, but was still gay… Whilst the biological component of homosexuality and gender dismorphia is still a work-in-progress, it’s conceivably down partly to genetics and partly to exposure to/lack thereof regarding certain hormones in utero. Since Sulla never went through that, is her reaction to Al’s neurological pattern suggesting that gay guys – if they hadn’t experienced a secondary burst of testosterone at puberty – might wish to transition?
It’s obviously more complex than that in humans – and to give Sulla credit it may be more complex in AIs too – but it could cast light on how the mind-body divide works in the OHS-verse.
It’s been clear that Al and Sulla are fundamentally different people because the copy was imperfect, as evidenced by the fact that someone later achieved a perfect copy. He probably is not and would not be trans in any circumstance. But if we are to speculate about a cause of Sulla’s gender beyond random chance, well, correct me if I’m wrong, but might the brainframe Brendan used in his desperate attempt actually be the one from the demo? The one that was imprinted with the thought patterns of a woman from the audience for sixty seconds, just long enough for it to be able to recognize her girlfriend. Possibly it inherently could not be returned to a blank slate before he did what he did.
Ya, I definitely got a faint vibe of trans-ish-ness from Al in some parts of the early chapters. It’s honestly a little surprising to me that some other readers didn’t catch that when we met Sulla (I kinda always assumed they were both trans and just different people w/ the same basic personality). Not that I think anyone is dumb or not paying attention, it just seemed so obvious to me by this point.
It does, however, make sense that Brendan didn’t notice that. He didn’t have our advantage of getting to peak in on Al’s dreams and thoughts, also he probably just wasn’t aware of/looking for it.
@SI: Sorry, honest question: has it been confirmed (either in the comic or through Word of God) that Al is trans, or is it still speculation at this point? It’s been a while since I’ve read through the earlier chapters of this comic, but I seem to remember him vehemently rejecting Brendan’s insinuation that Sulla being trans was because of him. I know that he denied that he was gay, too, but he didn’t really deny it with the same strength? I might have mis-scanned that scene, though. Might be time for an archive binge again, heh.
There are a number of possibilities. Fun fact, there are records of even identical twins having different gender identities. The actual relationship between a person and their gender is complicated, but it surely not wholly biological. Even brains that should be identical can develop in different ways, and the people in charge of those brains can deal with the same development in radically different ways.
The second, is, of course, is that Al is a DEEPLY repressed person. They have clearly been through a lot of shit and suffering over the years. They couldn’t even handle the fact that they liked dudes, and kept it a secret to their deathbed and beyond. If they were trans, as many viewers of this comic think they were, then surely Al would have never acted on it.
A lot of us are waiting on the answer to that question. Is Sulla the product of a splintered mind that developed its own quirks? Or was she simply given the opportunity to become the person both always wished to be, whereas Al was aggressively denied the chance?
It could also simply be upbringing. Sulla was born in 2005 and is around 12 in 2017. Al was born in 1961 and was around 12 in 1973! That’s a huge difference. Society can have a lot to do whether someone transitions or even acknowledges their gender identity, and it’d be so much easier for a preteen in 2017 to realise that she’s trans and to want to transition in 2017 compared to the seventies.
Even if they have the exact same minds, even if she’s 100% a perfect copy of Al’s brain patterns, Sulla’s upbringing has been worlds apart from Al’s. She’s living in a time where it’s much more acceptable for her to explore her identity and be herself, whereas Al never had that opportunity, and, as nightsbridge pointed out, is extremely repressed. It’s not just nature, if Sulla has the same mind as Al – it’s also nurture, how she grew up, and the society she’s growing up in. Just look at the amount of older people who are starting to come out and transition now, just because society is in a better place to allow that self-reflection.
And I’m additionally on tenterhooks what’s going on on his phone. Some urgent stuff is trying to get through to him. Makes the scene even more intense to me. Is black profile picture Mystery Person going to make their entrance?
brendan…….bud…..
Ever.
For the first time in a while, I actually giggled a little at how cute their relationship is. Even if it’s about to go through a rough patch.
Brandon was all ready to discuss the birds and the bees. Oh boy
Ah… The classic mistake all parents make—assuming and not listening. He should have asked more questions. We all do this, though—especially when we really, really want to help our kids.
Mmmmh. I’ve been wondering how this moment would play out.
The scratching at the skin–a nice visual hint of dysphoria. Literally in the wrong body.
I wish the fix was as easy as swapping chassis, in this world. :-}
Is _that_ what it means? Is that what would have caused Al’s scars?
That’s just my interpretation of it. Could also be, as said below in other comments, just a very extreme nervous reacion or tic. Heck, I pick at ans chew my fingernails with a similar almost destructive intensity sometimes too.
I just think it’s also evocative of dysphoric feelings, in a loose subconcious way.
So I’m kind of a mess right now (for reasons) and so I’m super emotional, but thank you so much for the last panel of this page. I’m autistic and I scratch my arms just like Sulla is doing in the last panel when I get upset, and I’ve never seen it depicted anywhere before. Thank you so, so much.
Also thank you for this whole comic, the story is beautiful and so well-constructed, the characters are lovely and complicated, and the way you draw expressions and use colors is super inspiring.
Oh yeah! I’ve had this idea that Sulla was autistic or something in that ballpark for a long time… Not ’cause she’s a robot (lordy, no) but because of how she, like… processes and deals with things, and how she’s so nervous around the other kids but gets confident once she latches onto something she knows and stuff. And the arm scratching… dang, guilty as charged.
I love Sulla a lot as a character and I’m really happy this miscommunication didn’t become an awkward junction…
Please understand those really are not at all explicitly autistic things. There are a lot of reasons to behave that way. The only way to know for sure if someone is autistic is if they are diagnosed by a professional.
Kids can certainly be awkward and nervous without being on the spectrum. Sulla has not spent a lot of time around other kids (plus she’s hiding the fact she’s a robot so that probably adds a lot of stress/nervousness) so it’s really not a surprise she is that way. Being trans can also be very stressful—especially if you have no idea how the people closest to you will react when you are trying to come out.
O…kay? I didn’t say that was the only explanation for it, nor that it has nothing to do with the rest of her circumstances.
Also, there is no “way to know for sure” because diagnostics, especially when it comes to psychology, are not things-in-themselves but clusters of symptoms/traits that appear and interact together often enough for an umbrella term to be useful, but that’s neither here nor there.
Just so it’s clear, I was not using autistic as an insult, especially since I share a lot of the traits. That’d be pretty awful and inconsiderate.
Of course autism isn’t offensive, but projecting an entire condition (or label) onto a person or character, because they share a couple traits with that condition is uncool. I have seen a number of people doing this with Sulla when it comes to autism. As a person who grew up with severe trauma and had conditions (like autism) falsely/inaccurately projected upon me (often by my abusers) I find it offensive, but it is also inaccurate and potentially a harmful thing to do.
It’s awesome you relate to Sulla. I’ve seen this a couple times here that people who say they have autism feel a connection with her.
But please understand a lot of conditions and behaviors autistic people go through are not explicitly autistic things. This includes pulling up your knees to your chest and scratching at your arms. People who go through trauma and stress are just as likely to do those kinds of things. It doesn’t necessarily mean a person is autistic or on the spectrum. I say this as I’ve seen a number of people misdiagnosing (or armchair diagnosing) children (and even adults) who really need to get help other ways—especially ones who are academically gifted.
Hey Dotcom, can you do us all a favour and not sound like a condescending jerk just because an autistic person identifies with a character in a web comic? I’m pretty sure Owl knows Sulla’s action aren’t exclusive to autistic people, but the fact is the number of well written autistic characters out there is pitifully low so we have a tendency to identify with characters who are like us but are not explicitly stated to be autistic. Maybe you should take you own advice and not jump to diagnostic conclusions about fictional characters.
All right, folks, thanks for contributing to this discussion but let’s ease off the antagonism. Most of you here are bringing up valid points and we can acknowledge them without assuming ill will from each other.
Arm scratching for me is something I do when my anxiety gets reallllllly bad – not that it rules out that Sulla or Al are autistic! Just can be a sign of anxiety as well.
I’m sure for that one instant (when he thought the topic was “i’m gay”), at that first panel, Brendan was hit full force by all the awkward and bizarre questions and concerns of realizing that he brought his lover back to life and his currently raising him/trying not to screw him up so he won’t have the crippling fears his original self had.
He did try, God bless his heart…
OMG DAD I DON’T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR SEXUAL ORIENTATION RIGHT NOW I’M TRYING TO COME OUT
Brendan has spent so long preparing for a different conversation… Hopefully he can switch gears.
Oh, wow, these crossed wires (heh). Sulla struggling so desperately to say “I’m a girl” and Brendan clearly freaking because he doesn’t know what to do if his kid likes girls.
This raises some intriguing questions about WHY Sulla decided to transition when Al did not. There’s the “neural copy can diverge” option. Alternatively, as an android Sulla doesn’t have hormones – Al quite clearly had a lot of testosterone given his build, but was still gay… Whilst the biological component of homosexuality and gender dismorphia is still a work-in-progress, it’s conceivably down partly to genetics and partly to exposure to/lack thereof regarding certain hormones in utero. Since Sulla never went through that, is her reaction to Al’s neurological pattern suggesting that gay guys – if they hadn’t experienced a secondary burst of testosterone at puberty – might wish to transition?
It’s obviously more complex than that in humans – and to give Sulla credit it may be more complex in AIs too – but it could cast light on how the mind-body divide works in the OHS-verse.
It’s been clear that Al and Sulla are fundamentally different people because the copy was imperfect, as evidenced by the fact that someone later achieved a perfect copy. He probably is not and would not be trans in any circumstance. But if we are to speculate about a cause of Sulla’s gender beyond random chance, well, correct me if I’m wrong, but might the brainframe Brendan used in his desperate attempt actually be the one from the demo? The one that was imprinted with the thought patterns of a woman from the audience for sixty seconds, just long enough for it to be able to recognize her girlfriend. Possibly it inherently could not be returned to a blank slate before he did what he did.
psst al is trans
Ya, I definitely got a faint vibe of trans-ish-ness from Al in some parts of the early chapters. It’s honestly a little surprising to me that some other readers didn’t catch that when we met Sulla (I kinda always assumed they were both trans and just different people w/ the same basic personality). Not that I think anyone is dumb or not paying attention, it just seemed so obvious to me by this point.
It does, however, make sense that Brendan didn’t notice that. He didn’t have our advantage of getting to peak in on Al’s dreams and thoughts, also he probably just wasn’t aware of/looking for it.
@SI: Sorry, honest question: has it been confirmed (either in the comic or through Word of God) that Al is trans, or is it still speculation at this point? It’s been a while since I’ve read through the earlier chapters of this comic, but I seem to remember him vehemently rejecting Brendan’s insinuation that Sulla being trans was because of him. I know that he denied that he was gay, too, but he didn’t really deny it with the same strength? I might have mis-scanned that scene, though. Might be time for an archive binge again, heh.
There are a number of possibilities. Fun fact, there are records of even identical twins having different gender identities. The actual relationship between a person and their gender is complicated, but it surely not wholly biological. Even brains that should be identical can develop in different ways, and the people in charge of those brains can deal with the same development in radically different ways.
The second, is, of course, is that Al is a DEEPLY repressed person. They have clearly been through a lot of shit and suffering over the years. They couldn’t even handle the fact that they liked dudes, and kept it a secret to their deathbed and beyond. If they were trans, as many viewers of this comic think they were, then surely Al would have never acted on it.
A lot of us are waiting on the answer to that question. Is Sulla the product of a splintered mind that developed its own quirks? Or was she simply given the opportunity to become the person both always wished to be, whereas Al was aggressively denied the chance?
It could also simply be upbringing. Sulla was born in 2005 and is around 12 in 2017. Al was born in 1961 and was around 12 in 1973! That’s a huge difference. Society can have a lot to do whether someone transitions or even acknowledges their gender identity, and it’d be so much easier for a preteen in 2017 to realise that she’s trans and to want to transition in 2017 compared to the seventies.
Even if they have the exact same minds, even if she’s 100% a perfect copy of Al’s brain patterns, Sulla’s upbringing has been worlds apart from Al’s. She’s living in a time where it’s much more acceptable for her to explore her identity and be herself, whereas Al never had that opportunity, and, as nightsbridge pointed out, is extremely repressed. It’s not just nature, if Sulla has the same mind as Al – it’s also nurture, how she grew up, and the society she’s growing up in. Just look at the amount of older people who are starting to come out and transition now, just because society is in a better place to allow that self-reflection.
I agree. And it’s not only the times, Al had a shitty family while Sulla has a really supportive one. I think that makes a big difference
I shivered – this is quite the moment. And you can see why she later notices Al picking at his clothing. Fascinating.
I love how often our clever, intuitive, fast-talkin’ Brendan is caught totally off-guard and forced to re-evaluate.
Aw jeez, Sulla. This is one of those moments where you wish you could just reach in and tell a character things work out okay.
I wonder if Brendan’s going to miss his flight.
Yeah, Brendo there really isn’t making his flight.
And I’m additionally on tenterhooks what’s going on on his phone. Some urgent stuff is trying to get through to him. Makes the scene even more intense to me. Is black profile picture Mystery Person going to make their entrance?
Ahhhh this has been such a long time in coming and I empathize with it so strongly. I am so glad this comic exists.
Catching up super late and aaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So happy and proud of you Sulla babyyyyy!!!!
I love the scritching in the last panel. She’s literally uncomfortable in this skin.