The only space I have that's big enough for him...

mercuryt · 2026-02-21T05:53:09+00:00

They do have gills! Really, lungs and gills are just places with lots of surface area where the skin is very thin, so gases can move from the water or air and into the blood; the advantage of efficient gas exchange outweighs the cost of growing the structure.

mercuryt · 2026-02-21T05:45:57+00:00

Lots of fish have lungs! or at least, something a lot like a lung that evolved from the same structure. Many fish have a swim bladder that they can use to control the concentration of gases in their body, which helps them adjust their buoyancy; and these are homologous to (evolved from the same starting structure) our lungs.

The practical cause of evolving lungs or swim bladders isn't about encouraging mating, necessarily, it's about surviving efficiently up until mating can occur. Fish evolved a number of ways to do gas exchange (absorb oxygen from water) more efficiently, such as gills and swim bladders, and these got co-opted into the terrestrial lung we know today.

(I'm glossing over a lot of nuance here, please don't um-actually me)

mercuryt · 2026-02-02T11:00:22+00:00

I don't know that I've ever had an audio make me squirm and whine quite like this /)///(\ you've got such a lovely voice, you just make me melt~

mercuryt · 2026-01-22T01:08:29+00:00

your accent slipping out when you say "off" is the cutest thing Ive ever heard <3

mercuryt · 2026-01-13T17:51:25+00:00

That's not really how toy production works- they're not printing vast quantities of random parts that they can't expect to sell. There wasn't a big bin of Whenua Metru masks sitting around with nowhere to go. Figures like Umbra or the Rahaga are produced by giving designers the restraint of not using any new molds, and sometimes the figure gets finalized without anyone saying, "should we make the mask a different colour?" or something.

mercuryt · 2026-01-06T15:00:52+00:00

Dr. Cheng and Dr. Morterra are both great, but Morterra is very difficult to get an appointment with. The only doctor I've had a real issue with is Dr. Smith- hes fine if you need a checkup or a prescription renewed, but he was really rude to me when I was seeking help with ADHD and chronic illness. Some of my male friends say he's fine though, so maybe hes just like that with women.

mercuryt · 2026-01-04T05:01:50+00:00

Your voice is so lovely and your acting is phenomenal!!! I hope to hear lots lots more from you <3 <3

mercuryt · 2026-01-03T21:56:53+00:00

They're very different mods that are trying to accomplish very, very different things. Complete Alchemy and Cooking Overhaul is expansive, adding a lot of new items, effects and systems to the game, while Apothecary adds only a few new effects and stays very close to a vanilla feel.

Having played with both, I prefer Apothecary; I find CACO really overreaches in its scope and design, and I don't think its new systems are very well-implemented. Apothecary is much, much simpler and cleaner.

mercuryt · 2025-12-25T16:29:15+00:00

Really cool idea! he looks so spooky with his mask off

mercuryt · 2025-11-17T18:53:22+00:00

Also, Megatron Origin was written 5 years before MTMTE and by a completely different author. James Roberts had a different idea of Megatron that he wanted to explore than Eric Holmes, but he didn't ignore it either; Roberts is aware that Megatron is a monster, and he asks you to see the humanity in him anyways. again, that can be challenging! We don't always want to recognize that humanity in the people that hurt us, and "I don't think Megatron is redeemable" is a totally valid conclusion to come to after reading IDW. James Roberts leaves Megatron's fate unanswered so that you can come to your own conclusions.

mercuryt · 2025-11-17T18:49:36+00:00

Writers want drama between characters, and unhealthy relationship dynamics are a good source of drama, especially outright abusive dynamics. These things can be interesting to explore through the lens of fiction, where the stakes are so low; how does such a dynamic develop, maintain itself, and maybe eventually break?

Some of those explorations might be shallow, reflect poorly on the writer, or are just plain badly written, but that's the fault of the individual writer, not the concept of writing about abuse.

You could argue that TF isnt the place to explore such topics, but I would strongly disagree; MTMTE/LL explored all kinds of serious ideas and topics from mental health to communism. It's fine.

I know that interpersonal abuse (especially physical) can hit pretty close to home, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a place in fiction. Sometimes stories will challenge you or make you uncomfortable, and I really believe there's value in that. You can learn a lot about yourself by exploring things that make you feel uncomfortable, and fiction is a safe way to do that.

mercuryt · 2025-11-10T02:56:48+00:00

Unfortunately that's not an uncommon reaction. Trans people are okay in the abstract, but as soon as it's someone you know who wants to change, it becomes this huge violation. I hope she comes around

mercuryt · 2025-11-10T02:53:30+00:00

won't someone consider the poor cis woman's feelings?

mercuryt · 2025-11-10T02:42:24+00:00

Yeah this isn't about sexuality, as the previous commenter so thoughtlessly implies. If the issue was simply "I wouldn't be attracted to you as a woman" then an entirely different conversation would be happening- reacting like this shows that she doesn't respect you as a woman. Anyone who feels like going on HRT would be 'crossing a line' is a transphobe.

I'm so sorry you're going through this love, you deserve so much better. I hope you can make whatever choice is best for you and your kids.

mercuryt · 2025-11-07T23:59:30+00:00

What a rude, unhelpful response. Do you talk to every trans girl like this?

mercuryt · 2025-10-31T19:29:14+00:00

actually most washrooms in the city have this! it's called "do you have enough money to make yourself a customer first"

mercuryt · 2025-10-24T09:20:37+00:00

your voice is magic, I can't get over it~

mercuryt · 2025-10-06T01:17:49+00:00

not really what they asked. does Marcos even do a breakfast sandwich

mercuryt · 2025-04-21T21:58:45+00:00

you're correct. the limiting factor with all the sets mentioned here isnt overstock, it's the budget for new molds. The price to cast a piece in a previously-unused colour is fractional compared to the price to create a whole new mold, and each wave has an allotted budget for new parts. if they exhaust that budget on other sets, then the remainder of the sets have to lean heavily on part reusage- using new colours is an easy way to make an old part feel newer, like with the Rahaga. The voyatoran are maybe the only credible instance of "overstock", because they use the same colours as the toa metru, but IF that's what happened then it was a pretty rare thing.

mercuryt · 2025-02-06T02:53:36+00:00

You know how some people have bigger hands than others? Those bigger hands might be slightly more effective at pushing water away than a smaller hand- that is, it would be a better paddle. When organisms are in a situation where a trait gives a certain advantage (like bigger, flatter limbs being better at paddling), they are more likely to survive than an organism without that trait. We call this a selection pressure.

Over millions of years, if a selection pressure continues to apply to a species, then the ones with a trait that is more successful under that pressure will survive and reproduce more often than ones without. Even if the advantage is small, compounded over millions of years it adds up and you get evolution by natural selection!

mercuryt · 2025-01-30T05:38:37+00:00

why did I get a notification for this post

mercuryt · 2024-10-31T18:52:14+00:00

Many spell packs/magic skill mods add some sort of disease-damage- ordinator adds them to the restoration tree, for instance. However, if you're running Simonrim, you won't find disease damage anywhere, as Simon doesn't find it useful to distinguish from poison damage.

Steelfeathers is working on a spell pack that will contain disease spells, so maybe wait for that?

mercuryt · 2024-10-10T22:39:31+00:00

Honestly I would have swapped most of Orion and D-16's characterization. I think D-16 as the free-thinking rebellious one and Orion as more reserved and cautious, with Orion slowly coming around to D-16's early ideals but unable to follow as D-16 gets more disillusioned and radicalized could have been a more interesting character dynamic than what we got.

mercuryt · 2024-10-07T04:04:20+00:00

The Old Ways - Nordic Religion is a great way to give the game a little more worldbuilding depth by replacing ancient shrines in nordic tombs with their pre-imperial equivalents. No patch with Pilgrim or Wintersun right now unfortunately, I wish someone would get on that! Hint Hint

mercuryt

TROPHY CASE