I’m starting to hate them both (though loving the comic still).
Al has a very gentle giant stalwart nature, but he’s also very passive. Brendan isn’t responsible for all of Al’s success, but he did help him focus it, and kind of lit a fire under his ass.

Brendan isn’t being as understanding as he could be (at all), and is definitely using the wrong approach, but for everyone that’s recalling the last fight they got into, Al didn’t apologize until after Brendan gave him the silent treatment.

Al can choose to hide their relationship, and by extension his sexuality, but to also allow public disregard for Brendan as a business partner on top of the other two? That’s a relationship that needs to end.

I’m not so sure it’s ‘narrow’ really. When it comes to being open about your sexuality, that’s one thing. A relationship? That’s another.

But Al could still treat Brendan in public like an equal and hard working business partner, and he’s not doing that either. Brendan is being very ugly, but Al is pushing him to that point.

Al was designated male at birth, as was Sulla at creation. Sulla has only been overtly presenting as female for three years before Al’s reawakening.

It’s even worse because I’m pretty sure Brendan mentioned at some point that he had suspected Al might be trans. He definitely sees how careful Al is to meet the masculinity standards of the military guys, and now he’s using those standards to hit Al where he knows it will hurt.

so maybe i’m confused, but i always thought Al was a trans guy? and that was why Sulla being a girl was so disorienting to him. IDK if i’m just totally lost, or what.

Refusing to argue with someone who’s crying is definitely your right, but I don’t think that crying is necessarily a deliberate or manipulative “move”! Some people just cry real fast (myself included), even if they’d rather not. As for Brendan, you might be right, but then: he is a very dramatic person. I think this might just be the way arguments go for him. (Not the most constructive way, but neither is Al’s evasiveness and silence.)

Nice. Some of us can’t *help* the tears when we talk about something personal, or when we get angry, or when we’re hurt. Believe me. I’ve gone to frickin’ *therapy* about it. You know what? The people who told me things like “oh, you’re being manipulative, stop or this conversation is over” generally turned out to be the abusive, manipulative ones who were ripping me apart. And NOW I have to go to therapy to stop myself from surreptitiously self-harming during arguments/personal discussions in an attempt to stop crying.

Crying is a natural response to feeling hurt or stressed, and not really something people do intentionally.
I cry every time I get angry, it can make having an argument pretty hard. I can’t help it, and I don’t like it.
So I think Brendan doing this right here intentionally to manipulate his partner seems pretty far fetched.

Actually this sort of thing is bad enough if Al is actually cis male, but if Al *is* a closeted/unrealized trans woman, having Brendan say: “If you were a REAL man,” and “When you grow some BALLS,” is…so harmful.