Your wholesome sleep paralysis demon

Okay, I worked it out. In "Wall-E", two robots doing a little zzt energy exchange by touching foreheads is an equivalent of a kiss. What if the robots of Auchtertool do something similar?

The current exchange is a sign of affection with several different meanings depending on how it's done. A forehead touch is your classic tender romantic kiss, while gently poking the other bot in that specific spot on the forehead with your finger is more casual, kind of like a hug or a friendly nudge. Boop, you're my friend.

So when the Robot Prince first zzts little Angus on the forehead after saving him, it's meant to be a friendly "stay safe out there, kid."

But funnily enough, Angus zzting him on the forehead to wake him up from stasis in that tomb isn't actually meant to be a display of affection - it's meant to jumpstart him via that little current transfer. Gotta wake the Sleeping Beauty somehow, y'know. Then again... Maybe it's a bit of both? "Wake up," but also "lasers down, I'm a friend."

The zzt to restore the Prince after he was stabbed with the Knife of Evil, however, was absolutely intentional. "I'm your friend. You're my friend. Remember. Come back. Come back. Come back."

Also, perhaps the robots can recognise each other through the zzt. Even if their bodies are different, or it's been many, many years, they recognise the other's unique frequency via the connection. So when Angus zzts Tooley, Tooley can immediately recognise him as "Prince Angus II" and later "my friend and companion", even under the influence of the Knife.

This, however, also implies that their first zzt wasn't just "take care out there, kid" but also "I want to remember you. No matter what happens, no matter how long it might be until our paths cross again, how different we'll both be when it happens, I'll remember you, and I'll recognise you immediately."

"I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world." ("The Song of Achilles" by Madeline Miller)

Oh, hey. "Wall-E" was a movie that happened.

Oh god, Angus II would get SO fucked up about it. Imagine a little boy raised by robots on the moon and told he has to fix his broken home watching a movie about a lonely little robot in a broken world all alone (save for a cockroach) trying to fix it as best as he can and finding beauty among the rubble.

...and then he meets another robot, fancy and pretty and all, who can fly and shoot lasers and...

...and then Wall-E shows her music and dancing and friendship and a life outside of her designation...

Hey, hold up, HOLD THE FUCKING PRESSES. Don't... don't they kiss by doing a little zzt current exchange when they touch foreheads?

So...

So the little zzt forehead boop he and Tooley do with each other in the "He Has Returned" video could be...

That one bit at the end where EVA zzt's Wall-E to restore his memory...

And... And Angus doing the zzt at the end to snap Tooley out of the Knife of Evil's influence...