"So much," Tony agrees. "—do you want a hug, I kind of feel like maybe I should be giving you a hug."

"I would love a hug." He disentangles from Tanya.

Hug.

Teenage alternate universe dad turns out to give pretty darn good hugs.

(He is only spending a little brainpower lamenting how unfairly hot his alternate universe son is.)

"Should I be giving, like, fatherly advice, I feel like I should be giving fatherly advice."

"Same except I am seventeen and don't actually know what advice I could possibly give you that you won't have already figured out for yourself?"

"I think-- you should remember that no matter how many times you fuck up, you have to keep trying? Machines are the one thing I've ever been really good at. I can fix anything. And-- you have to think of your life the way you think of something you're trying to repair. You're not going to go 'well, that didn't work, I guess I'm going to throw it out and get a new one.' You're not going to get mad at the machine for being broken. You just have to keep testing fixes that might work until the thing runs like it's brand new. And-- that's how you have to think about trying to be a good person too. You're just a broken machine and you have to fix yourself. That's my advice."

"That... is really good advice," says Tony.

"Also, don't fuck strippers without a condom or you'll get gonorrhea."

"Also good advice but somewhat less applicable to me personally. Man I want to come up with something super profound but all I've got is 'creating intelligent life is actually a huge responsibility and if you have children please name them or they will have issues about it forever' and I don't actually think you need that one."

"Honestly, 'having kids is a huge responsibility' seems like solid fatherly advice to me."

"Okay, cool."

"--Yours was also really good," Asher says to Toni, "but I think I have to think about it more."

"Dangerous. Never think about anything I say other than engineering, it's all bullshit."

"Well, hey, it was sorta about engineering, right?"

"That's true. Everything can be about engineering if you try hard enough, that is another solid piece of life advice from me. And you should try to treat people like they're people even if they're science experiments and no one else does. And if you're contemplating blowing six princes at a Nobel prize ceremony, don't, it doesn't end well."

"Treating people like they're people even if they're science experiements is very important, I can confirm that one. I cannot confirm anything about blowing six princes at a Nobel prize ceremony, I don't actually think I have blown even one prince."

"It's pretty overrated."

"Agreed."

"Well, now I know that. —Since everyone's been sharing their questionable sex decisions I feel like I should probably admit that I'm sleeping with Sherry."

"At this point I have zero room to judge any questionable sexual decisions anyone is making."

"Pretty sure I never had the room to judge other people's questionable sexual decisions."

"My boyfriend's girlfriend is literally Death."

"...that seems not especially questionable, honestly?"

"He kills himself on weekends so they can go on dates?"

"See but this phrasing implies he reliably comes back so then that's just adorable!"