my heart is a fish

- How will Dot’s acceptance of feelings change their dynamic within the crew? Will they continue to put on a front of total serenity out of habit, or will they be more open and expressive? (I’m inclined towards the latter for character development reasons and because they were already becoming more expressive last season so I don’t see why they wouldn’t continue along those lines.) Will they smile more? Will they be outwardly affectionate with Cleo?

- While I think most of the crew would be pleased with such a development, is it going to be weird for anyone to see a marked change in Dot’s demeanor? Specifically I’m thinking of Merlin, who did see Dot’s emotional reaction to wearing glasses for the first time but seems to have either forgotten or ignored it based on his conversation with Cleo in s3e9, and Rawfield, who missed out on all of Dot’s development last season. She saw the s2e17 kiss, she presumably knows that Cleo and Dot are dating, but she has only ever known Dot to be completely calm and impassive. Really, I think she’d be glad to see emotion from them, especially after dying, but it’s interesting to think about how new that would be to her.

- excited for someone other than the Biological Man to yell at Merlin, and I hope it’s Rawfield. I hope she takes him to task for learning cult tactics from Steve and for acting like everyone’s against him.

- hoping for a full Merlin breakdown, ideally featuring aroace angst. I want him to feel like the Biological Man is becoming the better, more complete version of Merlin (all the knowledge, none of the harsh edges; he’s even got the romantic and sexual desire that Merlin lacks!), while he is the bad first draft. I don’t want that to be true, but I want him to believe it is and I want it to HURT.

- more interesting and unique Fount biomes and creatures! sprinkle in some cosmic horror!

- What are we to do about Omelet? He is Very Big now, and if Cleo leaves behind the sprawling Guilemoth estate and generational wealth, how is she going to take care of him? I’m kinda predicting he goes to Verdure with Tzila. It’s bittersweet, but it does feel like a good option.

#it's also very Merlin of him to have not noticed any of the complexity going on with Cleo and Dot's relationship#and to not hear any of the hesitation or caution in Cleo's reply#just 'oh I heard you were in a relationship! congrats!'#two thirds of the plot is sailing right past him and he hasn't even noticed

yeah! like, there's this part too:

Cleo: They’re so unbothered now, you know? Totally chill with whatever. Merlin: Haven’t… haven’t they always been like that? And isn’t that a good thing?

Not only has Merlin breezed past Dot's interiority (which, yes, they're very good at hiding their thoughts and emotions, but he was also there for them crying at wearing glasses for the first time, so he's seen that no, they haven't always been like that), but it really serves to highlight the differences in his and Cleo's approaches to their primary relationships.

A huge part of Cleo's character arc has been about finding real connections that aren't based in people-pleasing or toxic positivity. A major turning point in that was when Steve accused her of manipulating and using Dot, and Cleo had to come to terms with an uncomfortable aspect of herself. It caused a lot of tension between her and Dot, but ultimately it was in working through that tension that their relationship strengthened. For someone who dislikes her subconscious tendency to smooth over every bit of interpersonal tension, having a partner who is very suddenly like "yeah, sure, whatever" is probably deeply uncomfortable! And then when she does address this issue with Dot, it goes very well, all things considered, and leads to another breakthrough in their relationship, where they are more open and honest with each other than before.

Merlin, on the other hand, describes his conflict with the Biological Man as him being "so determined to vex me!" and says that "If everyone would just leave him to me to manage, to instruct, to guide, then so much of this could have been avoided!” He is uninterested in letting this be the impetus for their relationship to change and progress. He sees the conflict itself as the issue. Frankly, it's very Guilemoth of him! (derogatory) Much like how we saw Aurelia and Cleo's papa take Cleo's attempts to communicate as personal attacks/pointed accusations to which they must deny responsibility, Merlin takes the Biological Man's assertions of personhood as attempts to replace him and refuses to accept that those feelings come from within him.

Cleo: Yeah. I guess we… are.

Merlin: Felicitations! Young people should have fun while they can.

I’ve been pondering this exchange recently (several things about the broader exchange actually, but I’m focusing on this one), and I think it’s interesting that Merlin is so chipper about Cleo and Dot dating. Not wrong or weird, but it’s interesting how encouraging he is here when I think back on his assertion that “[feelings/desire/companionship] should not be a priority!!” in Bodily Autonomy. Obviously, I imagine part of his ability to be cool about it is that neither Dot nor Cleo is in a body he still perceives as his own while doing things he would not do, but by saying that “young people should have fun while they can” he is implying that romantic endeavors are youthful diversions and will eventually become not fun. For all Merlin is accepting of relationships aside from the Biological Man and Felix’s, I’m getting the sense that he doesn’t believe that romance—or at least, enduring romance—is real, that rather it is a flight of fancy that must inevitably be grounded by age and responsibility.

Protagonist now remembers key facts about important people. He no longer develops convenient amnesia between cutscenes.

Protagonist now has a cooldown on certain adverbs. Adverbs have been buffed by 30% to compensate.

Developer note: Adverbs are important to writing but they are sometimes overused. This change keeps adverbs relevant while encouraging the use of adjectives and verbs.

The horse now has a name.

Solved a glitch where supernumerary limbs would sometimes emerge during complex physical interactions.

Should no longer display “[insertnamehere]” during conversations and narration. All of such occurrances have been replaced with the appropriate tags.

Conversation continuity has been improved. Characters will no longer inappropriately respond with lines from previous iterations of the narrative.

All references to “Event A” have been purged to reflect changes in narrative structure.

Paragraphs which contained two or more instances of the same adjective have had their adjectives updated to accurately reflect a player’s vocabulary inventory.

Minor time traveling issues have been resolved, all characters should now exist in the same tense.

Punctuation has been improved. Commas have been reduced by half.

Characters sighing has been reduced by 30%.

Characters looking at things or people during conversations has been reduced by 40%. To make up for this, characters thinking about the conversation has been boosted and descriptive narrative has been added.

For example, a couple years ago, while learning Spanish, I encountered the word for a store, "la tienda." I thought "huh, that's a lot like tener (tiene) - the word for store in Spanish literally corresponds to 'to have/keep'. How interesting!"

In honor of our favorite cat’s big glow-up, enjoy some photos from his aquarium adventures when he came with me to Dragon Con last year. No one seemed to recognize him, but he stole many hearts nevertheless!

Omelet is freehand crocheted & knitted by me, and is intended to be a life-sized pre-pupal cat. He really fits in among the myriad strange creatures of the deep Fold.

They want to be alive for this, and so, here and now, they are.

"I know the Canvas ransomware attack is terribly inconvenient for many people, and sorry if that means you. I, however, am finding it farcically amusing.

For years and years faculty have been pushed to use Canvas. All courses get a homogenized and flattened interface and everything is presented as an easy consumer experience in a one-stop shop and it doesn’t matter if you object to any of that or don’t want to spend 50 hours dealing with an annoying tech product that doesn’t fit your pedagogy. Even communicating with students has been shunted through Canvas. And if you resist any of this, woe betide you. In fact you can’t print syllabi any more even if you wanted to—unless you pay for your own paper, ink, and printer (which I do).

Now Canvas has been taken down by ransomware, tomorrow is the last day of finals week, and YOU are supposed to scramble and solve this problem, using magic. That includes adjuncts who are not even paid a livable wage and faculty who might have hundreds of students.

This is a failure of a tech platform that was forced on us, and the university administrations nationwide who expect you to move heaven and earth are the same ones who are actively undermining their own institutions’ degrees by leaping into bed with AI companies before they even get their pants all the way off. These administrations (and this includes almost all of them) are not *ignoring* the destruction of education and academic integrity by AI—they are actively participating in it by forcibly inserting AI into student life, university email systems, etc. They are literally giving students software designed for cheating and cognitive dependency for free and applauding its use. And they think you are supposed to materialize a magical solution to this Canvas mess to ensure grades are in? Like between dinner and breakfast you are supposed to recreate everything you had to put in Camvas for an entire semester in some nonexistent other platform?

We just got an email telling us to “communicate directly with your students via email or other available tools for any immediate course needs.” How? Also, we should “Consider alternate methods of submitting assignments digitally or completing assignments in person on Friday” LOL what? So, individual faculty member, grab some No-Doz from the truck stop because in the next 12 hours or so, you must materialize a way for your students to take an online exam! Hope you own a server! Oh also you will have to rewrite the exam because you wrote it in Canvas and you don’t even have the questions anymore! Or just tell the students show up on campus tomorrow for an in-person exam—I hope you brought your personal printer!—and I hope nobody else scheduled anything at the same time, with no coordination! Then sit back and listen to the students tell you they already went home to Wyoming or Guam two days ago.

This is ludicrous. It is a problem created by overpaid administrators who have never had an idea that wasn’t sold to them by a software company and who now expect you to abracadabra a solution even as they are pushing chatbot accounts onto the same students so they can learn as little as possible through the degree.

- Merlin is ~38 years old

- He and Rawfield have known each other for 'tens of traversals' (as he told Kanneken during the interlude interview)

- They met because Rawfield 'yanked him off a first-day tour' at a mica-lung facility to help her perform a lavage

Obvious conclusion: