my heart is a fish

favorite thing about them: I like how sincerely he approaches everything. He’s a very sweet boy!

least favorite thing about them: nothing, really?

favorite line: “I… am… the Biological Man. I can do things… a Merlin can.” He’s only just now able to formulate non-prerecorded sentences and the first thing he does put a little twist on one of his phrases! Incredibly charming, and a great way to signal to the audience early on that he is intelligent and innovating with this new brain he’s got. (also the way he said “Fuck off, Merlin!” in The Popular Man really tickled my eardrums and will be going into my season 3 lines that rattle around in my brain compilation)

brOTP: Everett! The Biological Man is curious about all the experiences life has to offer and Everett has been on lots of adventures, has tons of hobbies, and has a strong community background. I think they could have so much fun together, swapping stories and trying new things. I mean, all their interactions so far have been fun, and I hope for more of it.

ОТР: I don’t have one for him. I’ll discuss my feelings on Felix/The Biological Man in the unpopular opinion section.

nОТР: Also none. No one in any of the established couples, I guess? but I don’t think anyone’s shipping that lol

random headcanon: I’ve kinda been running with a bit of an alloromantic allosexual headcanon. Weird for me, I know! But with my aroace Merlin reading, the Biological Man being allo lends an interesting texture to all the questions their storyline has been asking of individuality, of bodies and brains, and of nature vs. nurture.

unpopular opinion: I’m still not fully on board with Felix/Biological Man. I get the reasonings and I get that it’s a bonkers situation that doesn’t really have any concrete answers, but also I think Felix is kinda weird for hooking up with the Biological Man! Kind of in general (but again: weird situation, if they both felt it was on the level, sure, I can accept that), but mostly because he seems to at least somewhat be using the Biological Man as a proxy for Merlin. I do believe he cares about the Biological Man for who he is, but he told Merlin, “It was easier to get to know you by getting to know HIM,” and “I like him because he IS you!” so there’s clearly some overlap happening. And this all makes for an interesting story with complex character beats, but because I’m only seeing the conflict resulting from the Biological Man and Felix’s relationship and not the actual build up, I’m not sold on the romance of it.

song i associate with them: none, alas.

Ideal features:

- Remembers where you are in a 'track' so you can pause and come back later (essential for those 2hr+ actual-plays). Even better if you could exit out of a file, play something else, and then come back, but that's probably too ambitious.

- skip-forward or +30s feature to get through the ads, plus the same in reverse to replay that bit you missed

- organises and plays files (episodes) in order. Would he even better if you could individually set up some playlists to shuffle (music) and some to play straight in order, but —again— probably asking too much

- Bluetooth would be nice

- Physical buttons woukd also be nice

- Would also be neat to be able to 'mark' tracks in some way to keep track of which episodes you've listened to

- as low-tech as possible (something that's not just a cheap andoird phone minus the 'phone' part)

I know it's a lot to ask 😅 and I totally understand if such a thing doesn't exist... but no harm in asking, right?

I do not personally know, but perhaps someone following me will.

The one that i have at the moment is a Supereye MP3 player, with holds 16 GB storage. The interface is pretty clunky but navigation is pretty easy. I've had it for years and it's been consistently decent throughout - no glitches except when i tried to upload a really large file, but after that it was fine. I'd definitely recommend if you're looking for something cheaper and easy to use its pretty good. Here is an image of my child for reference.

Now, if you're looking for something more fancy (in my case, dreaming of something more fancy), I'm trying to get a Snowski Echo Mini. It supports so many more audio formats like FLAC, WAV and DSD as well as MP3. Its more deluxe if your looking for something for a beginner, I guess, but I mean just look at this baby!

You know, deep in your soul, you want something this pretty to listen to your audio dramas on. It also supports a 120 GB SD card for additional storage (to my knowledge its starts off with 8GB but I could be wrong there). I've heard in my research that actually using a 120 GB SD card causes issues so if you do end up looking for one and buying an SD card then maybe get one with less storage (which sounds counterintuitive I know).

That being said, my Supereye also takes an SD card but because it was gifted to me by an evil witch and I have not even tried to find out what kind of SD card it takes. It's probably easy to find. I use my Supereye without one and its worked absolutely fine for me.

I eventually settled on a HiBy R1. It's not super cheap (~$70 USD), but it had almost all my wishlist features and plenty of good reviews from music people online. I'm not going to write a review myself b/c they're super easy to find, but I will give a very quick overview:

oh for my fellow spreadsheet enjoyers, the dot vs granddaughter numbers this season go craaaazy 👀

- 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!"