#(a guppy life at the store i work at is a bit less than 3 € but shhhhh. they are invaluable so i'm really not loosing money)

[maranull]

Mara "Bad financial decisions" Null

got a cheap fish aquarium ✌

[bootleg-sara]

Thinking about old an Tboi au concept

Okay so, I’ve been thinking about this old Tboi au I had that I want to revamp and give a new coat of paint. I haven’t given this concept much thought in a good year or so but I was scrolling through some art and got reminded of it.

((Au info in undercut, it’s really long))

It’s a lot more simple than my main big project for the basement, as it’s like the more common goal-orientated story structure rather than the less traditional setting of the former.

The story of this au follows Isaac, a young teen boy living with his mother. As per usual his dad left a long time ago and his mom is very religious. Though with his dad out of the picture, his mom now works a lot more, leaving Isaac with a lot more free time to himself. While he can’t really do much anyhow given his mother’s very strict life style, there are a few things Isaac loves to do. Some of those activities being playing with his cat Guppy and reading.

During one of his boring days Isaac hears some shuffling coming from his attic, a place his mother forbidden him from entering. While investing, he comes across a bunch of old items stores away messily in an old box. Most of it doesn’t have any immediately noticeable use, stuff like old keys, used containers and the like. Though what caught Isaac’s interesting were a few books that laid at the very bottom of the box. A small pocket Bible, and two older looking books with nothing but strange symbols on the covers. Further investigation from Isaac lead him to discover said books where known as the Book of Shadows and the Satanic Bible. With nothing better to do, he figured might as well read them and see if there’s anything interesting to pass the time on.

Some time passes, Isaac has a less than ideal encounter with a ghost, his mom is getting more and more irritable with every passing moment, and before you know it the poor kid is running for his life away from a maniac mother wielding a knife. Through unknown means Isaac finds himself knocked out and wakes up in an unfamiliar place along with Guppy who doesn’t look quite right anymore. Before he can give it much thought however, he’s being dragged away by some guy named Cain before he can get killed by a big scary monster with coins for eyes.

More stuff happens, and Cain and his “friend” keeper deduce that Isaac had somehow ended up in hell despite not being dead. Cain brings Isaac over to where he stays with Lilith. At first she’s pretty apprehensive to having to hide yet another person in her home, but her soft spot for Isaac’s plight wins her over. Together Cain and Lilith of them watch Isaac while trying to help him find a way back home. Which would be hard enough but of course the rulers of the citadel they live in are slowly catching on to this and absolutely hate Isaac for seemingly no real reason. And with rumors of heaven and hell going through some dramatic changes in the near future, time of the essence.

Feel like I did a bad job explaining it but whatever there’s a not-quite-a-plot-synopsis-but-story-descriptor.

The au itself follows 3 core aspects:

Isaac’s normal life, how life on earth stands > Isaac’s journeys through hell and a bit of heaven > the aforementioned looming “apocalypse”

There’s a lot of details that need working out. Like, haven’t decided why exactly Isaac ends up here without dying, if Isaac will at one point gain access to travel freely through the afterlife and earth, how heaven operates, character designs (though that one is least priority atm), and a bunch of other story details and what exactly happens

I have a pretty sizable chunk of the cast role’s made and decided. Isaac, Cain, Lilith are the mains, Judas and Eve are the main antagonists, the Lost plays an important role but mostly via the side lines, and Apollyon has their own role in stone (hehe).

You got some characters like Samson, Keeper, Bethany, Eden, and Magdalene who I have general ideas for but still need to flesh out.

Blue baby/??? is… there. Oh boy is he there.

Azazel, Lazarus, and Jacob/Esau have alignments but currently no I have clue as to how to use them.

And I have no ideas for Forgotten. Absolutely none.

I do plan on having tainted forms show up in some capacity because they are fun concept to play around with, but in all honesty don’t know how’d they’d fit yet.

There’s just, a lot that needs to be worked on before I can say anything for sure. Because really in its current state all this au is is a concept with set pieces. The citadel the main group lives in is rather large and run by Judas/Eve, with the sins as second in commands. Everywhere outside the citadel is overrun by the horsemen who are constantly fighting for territory. The only reason the citadel is safer than most of hell is because of Judas/Eve. Satan is around but rarely does anything other than observe.

There’s more I can get into, but that would be mostly looking into random story beats, character stuff, and setting, which would probably be confusing given the information I have given now.

On that note that’s all I have about that for now.

I’ll probably work more in this later in between my main Isaac story.

Sorry if the grammar is worse than usual I wrote this at 5 in the morning pft

[shoutyfish]

general betta fish care / common myths

there's a lot of myths fueled by pet store employees floating around about bettas, so the more this kind of information is spread, the better. as always i encourage everyone whose looking into fishkeeping does THOROUGH research long before getting the fish and do NOT rely on pet store employees to give u accurate information.

MYTHS TO NEVER BELIEVE

"bettas aren't good swimmers or active so they don't need big tanks and are perfectly happy in a little bowl or a flower vase"

"they're super hardy and resilient so don't worry about tank cycling"

"bettas like dirty water so don't worry about cleaning either'

"live and frozen fish food arent good for everyday feeding"

"bettas can't be kept with other fish ever bc they are extremely aggressive and will kill anything with a pulse"

(we're gonna debunk all of these (: )

the first thing that should be in your possession long before adding the fish is the tank. a lot of fishkeepers think 2.5gallons is the minimum, but personally i think 5 gallons is the minimum. 10 gallons works best. to reference, 2.5 is the minimum by AMERICAN standards, which are outdated, so many people choose to go by germany's standards instead because it's proven to be a lot more successful & up-to-date.​​​​​​​ 

a 5 gallon tank is the minimum that i recommend, but 2.5 gallons are ok.

10 gallon tanks work best. the bigger your tank, the more likely your betta will grow to maximum size & beauty, the less likely chance of stunting growth.

also, 10 gallon tanks are much easier to maintain and establish a cycle, and you can even start an albeit small community tank with them. (with tank mates compatible with your betta & small enough to not outgrow a 10gal. but community tanks are a topic for  another day)

properly cycled tanks reduce disease risk & encourage longevity in your betta's lifespan (i will make another post about the nitrogen cycle bc that's a lot)

THINGS YOU WILL NEED

a filter! nothing with a strong flow, though. bettas are not very good swimmers! (tip: when cleaning your tank, never rinse the filter media! it kills beneficial bacteria & basically starts your cycle all over)

a heater - bettas thrive best in 78-82 degrees F.

an aquarium thermometer

water conditioner. i recommend seachem prime - it's the BEST out there and contains helpful nutrients that get rid of bad bacteria & ammonia.

bottled bacteria, if necessary. helps kickstart the cycle of your tank.

pH and ammonia testing kits

gravel syphon for cleaning & maintenance

a net to fish out uneaten food

gravel/substrate. (tip: measure how much u need by laying the bags out across the tank box. it should fit evenly across it long-ways)

decorations!! don't get plastic plants, they can harm ur betta's fins. if ur getting fake deco, try to find silk ones or very soft ones. bettas like to  be divas so make that shit pretty as hell & give them lots of places to hide. marimo moss balls are good for helping tank filtration & super easy to care for if ur interested in live plants!

INTRODUCING YOUR BETTA TO YOUR TANK​​​​​​​ 

acclimation and tank cycling are still CRITICAL to a betta's life and happiness. it's true that they are resilient fish that are easy to take care of, but like any fish, they have vital comfort needs & are still going to get diseases if you don't care for your water quality! 

1. when you first bring home your betta, do your final check on those water parameters. do an ammonia test in the fish's cup water to see just how much of a battle the pet store caretakers made for you.  almost 100% of the time the ammonia levels will be in the danger zone.

2. this is why acclimation is so very critical. start small and take your time. empty out a bit of the cup water, add a bit of your tank water. empty out a bit more of the cup water, add a bit more of your tank water - with about 3-5 minutes in between takes. keep doing this until you have replaced most if not all of the filthy pet store cup water. (WARNING: WATCH FOR SIGNS OF SHOCK WHILE YOU ARE DOING THIS. CLAMPED FINS, THE "SHAKES", FLOATING ON ITS SIDE, ETC ARE ALL SIGNS THAT YOU NEED TO ABSOLUTELY SLOW DOWN & LEAVE THE FISH ALONE FOR A COUPLE HOURS.)

3. now float your betta. you can put them in a bag if it's easier, otherwise you can just hold the cup in the tank. let the temperature adjust & let your lil guy/gal get their first glimpses of their new home. do this for a minimum of 10 minutes

4. gently tip the cup into the water & let the beast free! continue watching for signs of shock and keep a close eye on them & your water parameters for the first couple days.

FEEDING

frozen  or live brine shrimp, bloodworms, & mosquito larvae are betta favorites. when handling frozen food always rinse it out before putting it in the tank - most of the time the food is frozen in water that becomes really gross and murky. dried bloodworms also work very well. for flakes and pellets, i always recommend Omega One betta buffet flakes/pellets because their food is all natural and contains no additives/"meals" (tip: don't buy any food that lists something followed by the word  "meal" in the ingredients; it's basically heavily processed food).

do NOT overfeed. honestly underfeeding is better than overfeeding. you should feed your betta once a day with as much food as they can eat in about 2 minutes. have them fast one day a week to clear their digestive system. their stomachs are smaller than their eyeballs, so really, DON'T overfeed. it can cause a lot of incurable issues AND mess with your water quality

remove any uneaten food, or if you have bottomfeeders in your tank let them have at it

bettas will literally eat six #12s, 7 medium fries and a large shake if you let them. dont let those big black eyes trick you lmao

if you have a very young betta (5-10 weeks old) feed them twice a day instead of just once. brine shrimp eggs are especially tasty for fry but if your lil guy is big enough, they can eat regular frozen brine shrimp. meaty products filled with protein help  them grow the best. (bettas are full grown at 11 weeks, here is a size chart to determine your adolescent betta's age)

COMPATIBLE TANK MATES

note that even if it worked out for everyone and you've gotten 800 recommendations, things can STILL go wrong when keeping bettas with other fish.  ALWAYS be prepared for an emergency move. also note that sometimes things can work perfectly fine for the  first couple months and then go to shit within a couple seconds, especially when pairing young bettas with other fish. young bettas develop, you know, hormones at some point and start getting supa territorial.

also, please make sure you have the proper tank size to keep any of these fish together. i've included their adult sizes & my recommended tank size if you were to keep nothing but the betta and this species in the tank. this WILL vary.

clown plecos - 4" full grown - algae eaters - 20 gallon tank size min.

pygmy corydoras - 1" full grown - schooling fish (you will need 6 or more of these) - 15 gallon tank size min.

ember tetras - 1" full grown - schooling fish (again, 6+) - 15 gallon tank size min.

rasboras - 1" full grown - schooling fish (again, 6+) - 15 gallon tank size min.

mystery snails - 2" full grown - plant-safe snail, doesn't reproduce asexually - 5 gallon tank min.

ghost shrimp - 1.5" full grown - social shrimp (3-4 of these, any more can lead to breeding) - 10 gallon tank min.

feeder guppies - 1" full grown - normal, can live in schools but not necessary - 10 gallon tank min (larger recommended for schools)

corydoras - 2.5" full grown est. - algae eaters - 15 gallon tank min.

and there are many, many more but these are what has, to me, at least, been the least problematic tank mates for bettas. all of these fish have something about them that would deter an aggressive betta's attention, such as the armor plating on clown plecos & dull colors of the pygmy corydoras and feeder guppies.

okay, so i think this covers all the basics! if you guys have any questions, please ask! and if you have anything to add, please do! thanks for reading & happy fishkeeping xxx

[ciathyzareposts]

What I Can Tell You About DragonBlade, GayBlade, and Citadel of the Dead

Where fortune and fame await the oold? What does that mean?

              An awful lot of administrative work and emulator-fighting went into tracking down, sorting out, an running the three variants of this exceptionally mediocre game. This was not time well spent. When Dragon magazine, home of the modal five-star review, gives your game no stars and calls it the “worst dungeon-crawl, you-do-the-mapping, oops-you’re-in-a-trap-and-your-torch-went-out, mindless click-the-‘attack’-button game I’ve seen in a decade,” you know you have a problem. This is an account of why I didn’t get very far with these games and why, at least for now, I’m not interested in trying harder.     To judge by the manual and character creation process (the only part of the game I could really experience), DragonBlade, offers essentially nothing that Wizardry (1981) doesn’t except for color graphics. But even worse is the re-skinned GayBlade, which bills itself as the first gay-and-lesbian-themed CRPG, which it probably was, but only in the most superficial way. If I were a gay CRPG Addict, neither game would satisfy my gayness nor my CRPG addiction. That GayBlade received so much press in its day goes to show how starved the genre really ways for authentic gay representation in games.

       The timeline is a little confused because a lot of sites give GayBlade as a 1992 game and DragonBlade as a “straight fantasy variant of GayBlade.” In fact, the reverse is almost certainly true, particularly since the “About” screen for GayBlade is still titled, “About DragonBlade.” There are a lot of sloppy bits like that in GayBlade. (That double-entendre is gayer than anything in the game.) Making things more confusing, author R. J. Best went on a Macintosh Garden forum last year and claimed he wrote GayBlade and released it for free in revenge for a distributor withholding royalties from Citadel of the Dead. But it’s clear from both news accounts and magazine reviews that GayBlade was available in 1993 while Citadel didn’t come out until 1994. Citadel, as far as I can tell, is just DragonBlade with a new title screen and a few bug fixes.

   Let’s talk about DragonBlade first. The manual offers the most generic backstory possible: Once peace reigned in the land, led by a community of knights and mages who followed “the gentle philosophy of DragonMagic.” They were headquartered in the DragonKeep and ruled by High Wizard Alastor. But a demon army led by Lord Xygor invaded the land, lay waste to the keep, and imprisoned Alastor in a “dimension of frozen souls.” A party must brave the now-monster-ridden keep to rescue Alastor.

The game opens on a menu town with a “training yard” (character creation), tavern, general store, guild (for level advancement), magic shop, healer, and dungeon door. Classes are fighter, mage, priest, samurai (fighter/priest), wizard (fighter/mage), and master (fighter/priest/wizard). Races are orc (c. 10%), ogre (10%), elf (40%), gnome (20%), and dwarf (20%). When you roll a new character, his race is randomized along with his attributes: strength, wisdom, intelligence, constitution, dexterity, and hits. Each attribute is rolled from 1 to 15 (there are no racial modifications), and the aggregate determines your available classes. So far, with the exception of the monster races and no human race, things are identical to Wizardry            

Except for low hits (which prevents him from being a “master”), this character has some unusually high stats.

              The manual doesn’t tell you the prime requisites for each class, so I spent far more time than made sense noting the minimum scores every time an option came up and then figuring out the associated probabilities. First, there isn’t an equal probability of each number between 1 and 15 appearing for each attribute. For some reason, 8 is heavily weighted, accounting for about 15% of values. The numbers 1 and 15 are weighted low, accounting for about 3% each. Everything else is in the 6-8% range. Priests require at least a 12 in wisdom and mages require at least a 12 in intelligence; each comes up as an option about 21% of the time. Samurai require 13 strength, 12 dexterity, and possibly smaller values for the other attributes. They come up only about 5 times in 1,000. Wizards require at least a 12 in wisdom and dexterity and a 13 in intelligence; they come up 6 times in 1,000. Masters have at least a minimum requirement of 12 or 13 in all attributes (I’m guessing a bit) and come up less than 1 time in every 10,000 rolls. I only ever got one once, and I forgot to click the “Master” option when selecting him, so I accidentally made him a fighter. That hurt.           

Starting items in the store.

         It turns out that much like Wizardry, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to sweat through thousands of re-rolls for the perfect character anyway, since Level 1 characters might as well be wearing red Star Trek uniforms. This is particularly true for DragonBlade, where enemies attack the moment you enter the dungeon, before you can even light a torch, and never stop. Combat is also Wizardry standard. Each character can attack, parry, use an item, or cast a spell, although it executes the action immediately (more like Might and Magic) rather than running through the entire round at once.            

Combat against giant rock ants.

            The game uses Wizardry‘s “slot” system (e.g., a Level 6 priest gets 3 first-level spells, 2 second-level spells, one third-level spell), but there are only 11 spells for each spellcasting class. Mages get “Light Wound,” “Evade,” “Light,” “Heavy Wound,” “Invisibility On,” “Invisibility Off,” “Locate,” “Lightning,” “Fireballs,” “Ice Storm,” and “Castle” (as in, “return to”). Priests get “Disarm” (the only way to disarm, since there are no thieves), “Light Cure,” “Compass,” “Cure Poison,” “Resist Fire,” “Resist Ice,” “Raise,” “Heavy Cure,” “Eye of Death,” “Cure All,” and “Restore.”           

Looking at spell options while facing an undead.

             It soon become clear to me that the programmers had built DragonBlade to serve up a combat once every n clock cycles and hadn’t accounted for faster models. (If I don’t have that quite right technically, I’m sure someone will correct me.) Thus, the combats never end and you never get to explore the dungeon or even retreat out the back door. I tried Citadel of the Dead and ran into essentially the same problem. I could actually get a torch lit and occasionally move a step, but generally speaking I was trapped in an endless succession of combats from the moment I entered until they finally overwhelmed the party. Death is permanent in the game, although one weird feature is that enemies continue to attack slain party members in combat, slashing and bashing their helpless corpses. I guess that’s good news for the survivors but still somewhat gruesome.            

An inevitable message in my DragonBlade experiences.

         The Basilisk emulator that I use for Mac games doesn’t offer dynamic clock speed scaling the way that DOSBox does, and I was unable to find a Windows version of DragonBlade even though it existed. (I think Citadel was Mac-only.) I fiddled around with other models and settings in the Basilisk GUI, but I couldn’t find anything that wasn’t too fast. Thus, I tried GayBlade, for which I could only find a Windows version. This was my first experience emulating Windows 3.1, and it went about as smoothly as all my experiences with a new emulator, which means it took several frustrating hours to get it right (and would have taken longer if my commenter Lance hadn’t given me a head start with his configuration).            

There’s no way it’s the world’s first. What about Leather Goddesses of Phobos? What about the game version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show?

               GayBlade is a gay-themed game if by “gay-themed” you mean taking all the trappings of a typical computer role-playing game and replacing them with trappings of gay life. Not real gay life, but stereotypically flamboyant gay life, and not “replaced” in any thoughtful way but clumsily and senselessly. Let’s start with the classes. In place of fighters, samurais, wizards, and priests, we get queers, drag queens, guppies, and lesbians. Mages and masters aren’t even translated. Prime requisites are lowered significantly, and instead of default-naming every character “Dufus,” this game picks names that begin with the character’s class. You can only create four characters instead of being able to create up to 8 and only assign 4 to the party the way the other games work.           

Assembling a gay party.

           Then we get to inventory. Instead of useful items like armor and swords, we get aprons, mace (not the weapon, but the chemical spray), blow-dryers, press-on nails, and condoms. If the relative positions are any guide, purses are substituting for cloaks, tiaras for helms, press-on nails for gauntlets, and condoms for shields. Okay, I just got that last one. That’s a little clever.      

   The ostensible goal of the game is to rescue someone named “Empress Nelda.” But once you enter the dungeon, you’re just in the same medieval dungeon as the straight versions. Some of the monsters are replaced with menaces to gay people, such as “FBI Probes,” homosexual thugs who say “you fag” when they attack, televangelists, KKK grand dragons, and spineless politicos. You even have to face some external representations of inner demons such as suicidal tendencies and age spots. But there are also regular monsters carried over from DragonBlade, like giant insects and rats. The spells aren’t “translated” at all. Drag queens get the priest spells.              

The characters face an “FBI Probe” led for some reason but a naval officer.

             I tried to last long enough to explore the first level. I’m pretty sure it’s only 10 x 10. I didn’t find any special encounters or navigation tricks. But my queers and lesbians and their mace and hairdryers were far less effective against enemies than the swords and armor of the fantasy versions. I hate the control system in all three games: they’re mouse-buttons only, even for movement. I also hate the perspective, which insists you’ve hit a wall (not only subtracting a hit point but making you acknowledge a message) even though it looks like there’s plenty of space.

             Sure, it was “plainly marked.” ONE SQUARE AHEAD of where I am.

              I’ll leave it to you, gay readers: what impressions do you get from this description? Are you happy to have any acknowledgement, even if the best it aspires to is high camp and doesn’t really succeed even at that? This will be better served in a longer entry specifically on the topic, but milestones that I can remember for gay representation in RPGs are:            

Ultima VI (1990): Earliest game that I can remember that allows same-sex sex, albeit with a gypsy prostitute.

Ultima VII (1992): Continues the tradition, albeit at a brothel.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002): Made things equal-opportunity for creepy sex predators, as Crassius Curio will sexually harass males and females alike.

Jade Empire (2005): Introduced BioWare’s from-then common theme of offering at least one same-sex partner, often a bisexual who could also be romanced from the other side. I remember accidentally falling into a gay relationship based on some tricky dialogue options.

Fallout: New Vegas (2010): In a game famous for not introducing “romance options” with its NPCs, the only exception (sort-of) is for lesbian characters.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011): Introduced full equality. Any character who could be romanced, married, and bedded could be done by both men and women with no additional commentary. Unfortunately, all relationships were a bit boring and bloodless. 

Dragon Age: Inquisition (2015): Kicks up the complexity a notch with a wide cast of characters with a variety of racial and sexual preferences–plus mature attitudes (and a sense of humor) about sex and sexual situations.

               I’m sure more experienced readers can think of more, but for 1993, I think you’d be better off playing a regular CRPG and just imagining the protagonist as gay rather than paying homage to this penis-lollipop take on gay themes. Even if you feel differently, I simply can’t bring myself to fight rednecks with press-on nails and blow-dryers for 13 levels.    Thus, I guess I’m rejecting the entire group on “notability” grounds, although I’ll hold myself open for taking up one of the medieval versions if I can get Basilisk to slow it down. I’m done with it for now; the game has kept me too long from Ultima VII.             Note: The title of the gay version is perhaps a reference to Zorro: The Gay Blade (1981), which not enough people have seen. Ironically, the authors removed swords and daggers from the game so that the characters no longer have any blades.

*****

I’ve put Planet’s Edge on the back burner because it’s clear that I’m going to have to start over. I’ll pick it up again after a couple of games have gone by; this isn’t going to be another Magic Candle III. I just hate doing the same things I’ve already done, and I needed some space in between.      

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/what-i-can-tell-you-about-dragonblade-gayblade-and-citadel-of-the-dead/