Haha! Fair enough. Hopefully not a punishment/warning on the way to such a self-destruct sequence, then.

I’m not at all convinced Sulla *didn’t* do it or wasn’t involved. If she did anything but pretend to be ignorant (and some of that surprise could be that he figured out he had a propulsion system), she probably knows he’d spill the beans to everyone else. There could be more at stake, too, than what appears if she’s behind it.

That’s what I thought happened actually—that his survival instincts kicked in and his propulsion system kicked on “naturally,” but totally at the wrong time since he doesn’t know how to control it. If his body was really trying to do him in, wouldn’t there be more efficient ways (like a self destruct sequence or something)?

Her hair would look so friggin cute if it was like, how she has it now, except braided instead of just wrung out, lol

Agreed. Al probably got kicked out by his biological parents (biphobia/homophobia/toxic masculinity?), so he’s used to assuming he needs to scramble – but Sulla has had unconditional love even through something both tough and completely unexpected by Brendan (gender transition).

What fascinates me is if whoever-built-Al was trying to tailor Al’s body to Al’s desires – and if so, whether the gender dysphoria exemplified by Sulla is something that the constructor didn’t pick up on in the case of AL, or whether it’s just too deeply repressed or absent.

I love that this isn’t even a *question* for Sulla: of course you’re coming home now. And Al just… has nothing BUT questions. As always, Blue, you do such an amazing job of letting us see both the ways Al and Sulla are the same and the ways they’re different.

Yes, Al, you have a home and even a family, you Goober, but I agree with everyone else—you need a hug.

It’s where the hearth is.

With a fire. To thaw everything out.

Whoever built Al’s body probably based some of it on Sulla’s. She’s the AI with the body that resembles a human much more closely than other AIs that we’ve seen so far.

If Al’s mind scan was allegedly incomplete… and the body is partly based on Sulla’s… I wonder if whoever did this has access to both Sulla’s schematic data, and her mind, somehow.

That is, if it isn’t her who brought him back to begin with…