Yeah, I know. I'm decently fluent in Malik, give or take the parts I can't understand, and those are mostly not his fault. [Even this isn't the first time he's felt like it was his duty to kill someone, she knows that, but it's a little different when you were, and could easily be again, the target.]

He managed to stumble into some home-life adventures after the last jaunt, and I think that restored some of his give-a-fuck - otherwise I'm not sure he would've said as much as he did here. The last time he tried to offer cultural advice, the response he got was 'that's stupid, let's go steal people's pants.'

I'm pretty sure the Automata thing is just him being him, which is why I'm not pushing it. He's on a different wavelength to most of Liminal, and I get that, but... sometimes it's frustrating.