Thanks for this comment! :)

I didn’t see this until now and am not sure if it was directed at me, but if so, then the fact that I mentioned several personality-related factors before even touching on gender makes this reaction look both needless and odd. Borderline desperation to keep gender out of it also seems misplaced for a comic that has had themes of gender, gender roles, transgenderism, and women-in-STEM since 2012.

As far as I can tell (I’m a cis gal), the only people for whom gender does not colour virtually every experience they have are those who are cisgender, and who fit well into one of the gender boxes offered up by the society they live in, and who have interests and jobs and personality traits that align well with the gender roles (expectations about behaviour, dress, etc.). There’s nothing wrong with a person happening to match these criteria – but it’s a coincidence when someone does, and everyone who does not ends up thinking about gender and gender roles on a nearly constant basis, because the clashes are super noticeable and often unpleasant. So most of the people in this comic are going to be thinking about gender a lot, and that’s going to be affecting pretty much everything they do. Al in particular, who was (presumably) abused by their family in childhood for doing something to indicate that their gender didn’t line up with the sex they were assigned at birth.

Lucille, Sulla, Brendan: “What happened to the lights??!”

Al: “Your mouths used up all the energy.”

Some of Al’s problems with Lucille might be personality based. Lucille and Brendan have very outspoken extrovert personalities. When Lucille and Brendan are together they kind of verbally dominate EVERYTHING. Al is far more introverted and quiet, and is pushed out of their chatterbox conversations.

Consider Al as more like the Anubis AI, they both are drained by social interactions as many introverts are.

Brendan, Sulla and Lucille are all energized by social interactions.

This really doesn’t need to be so much about gender theory, just human nature and personality. Not all personalities work well together. This is fine. You need to accept the simple fact that everyone will NEVER see things the same way as long as there are different kinds of people.

I’ve been reflecting a bit on why Al was always so aloof to Lucille. Bunch of things, I imagine: Lucille and Brendan had a pre-existing easygoing friendship, both of them are much more talkative than Al is, they both brought lots of people into Al’s house/workshop, and there was probably some jealousy given Lucille’s position as a highly successful colleague who didn’t ever have to try to fit into mainstream cis-het masculinity, which in Al’s case is a particularly ill-fitting box.