Dominance display between two female Betta albimarginata.
The larger female with the white is the daughter of the smaller one. She’s much more robust than her mother. I guess it has to do with how she was raised with me compared to how her mother was initially raised elsewhere.
The mother is approximately 20 months old and the daughter is around 9-10 months old.
As someone who’s only ever kept B. splendens, i would have never caught on that the daughter was female if you hadn’t mentioned it; I would have assumed my go-to (males-have-shorter-dorsal-fins) ID would just be different in this species.
These are a variety of wild betta. B. splendens are aggressive because they were originally bred to fight, B. albimarginata are largely nonaggressive. This is the closest thing to aggression you’ll see- brief bouts of intimidation to establish dominance. You can see that the aggressor is satisfied at the end of the video, and likely turned away to go about her business afterward.
They’re best kept in groups, with more males than females, as they’re mouth-brooders. It’s best to have more males so that the males aren’t always brooding eggs if they decide to breed. A 20 gallon or larger tank should have enough room for at least 4.
They’re hard to get ahold of and can be slightly picky eaters, but will take frozen foods and aren’t hard to keep. They do best in water with tannins in it, and with floating plants to dim the light. Driftwood and plants are 100% needed to keep them happy. Plenty of cover is needed, but they’re bold if they have lots of places to hide. Leaf litter is excellent, and will help the survival of fry by growing plenty of microorganisms for fry to eat. Oak leaves serve as leaf litter and also release tannins into the water.
Males look like the white-edged female above, but with brighter red colors and thicker white stripes. Females can be slightly smaller than males, but by and large the colors are the only major indicator of sex.
Pencilfish, small rasboras, and marbled hatchetfish are good tankmates. Any small, unaggressive fish that appreciate dimly lit tanks will work, though fish that stay high in the tank are best to avoid the betta fry being eaten.
I love ‘em. They’re easy to care for, fairly easy to breed, can happily be kept in groups (unlike B. splendens), and come in beautiful colors. Even the females have cute little head-freckles, despite not being colorful. They’re aso very inquisitive and intelligent.
i think it is good to warn people in advance about the circumstances that will cause you to bite them and i think that having given that warning it is good to follow through when the time comes
the rattlesnake is an admirable creature whose virtues we should emulate
One time at dance some rando grabbed me by the waist and told me to dance with him and I told him “if you don’t let go I’m going to bite you” and he didn’t let go so I bit him and that really should be the end of the story but he thought that was funny so I turned around and gave him a donkey kick to the shins and took about a 4 inch strip of skin with me so what I learned that day is when one is without debilitating venom, one must be as a horse do
In the few months I’ve been modding at fuckyeahasexual and touring ace Tumblr, there’s been a very. Steady. Stream of info that detail horrifically abusive situations and overall poor mental unhealth. Two a week in the inbox if I’m lucky, usually around seven-ten.
And there’s been so many, I can officially categorize all 500+ of these kinds of asks and submissions into an extensive bulletlist of Why Asexual Exclusionary Radicalism Is Incredibly Toxic And Shitty;
Coming Out To Family, Friends, And Employers
“My parents keep telling me that I’m something else, and it’s making me doubt my sense of judgement, not just about my sexual identity, but also about everything in general.”
“My family, friends, and co-workers keep referring to me as an inanimate object in a manner that’s clearly meant to humiliate and devastate me. Nothing I say will get them to stop.”
“My parents vocally/bodily forced me to undergo medical examinations, some of them concerning my sexual organs, many of them concerning blood tests and other trauma-centric procedures.”
“My family is intervening with my private life by changing my schedule to include exercise, socialization, friend influences, and whatever they think can ‘change’ me.”
“My friends/co-workers no longer respect my bodily boundaries when I came out to them, because they no longer see me as someone who should be respected. They regularly touch, fondle, grope, and prod me without permission, and/or verbally harass me, and don’t take my objections seriously.”
“My family, friends, and co-workers no longer just harass me, but also anyone I’m currently dating because they view my significant other as pathetic, underserved, or even being abused.”
First Few Days Of Dating
“My date got irrationally angry and confrontational when I came out to them, in a manner that made me fearful.” (SO many of these.)
“My date immediately lost any respect they had for my boundaries, no longer asked for consent, and {tried to} force themselves upon me.” (A lot of these, too)
“My date tried to verbally circumvent any boundaries and issues I confessed to, and it made me feel like I was in danger.”
“I didn’t come out to my date at first, and when they found out, they radically changed their behavior in an attempt to control and manipulate our new relationship to their benefit.”
Long-Term Relationships
“My partner has forcefully and radically changed our long-term relationship after finding out about my asexuality, and I’m now trapped and controlled in a way that I wasn’t before.”
“My partner broke up with me/is fighting with me because of my asexuality, and trying to make it seem like I’m hurting them. It’s made me doubt myself and my ability to trust my own intentions.”
“My partner is slowly changing from what was once supportive of my asexuality, and I’m wondering when I have the right to be worried and when I’d be overreacting. I’m aware of the worst case scenario, but I also worry that I’m being selfish and childish – which are things I’ve been told all throughout my asexual experience.”
Self-Care And Self Development
“I don’t trust my ability to say either yes or no in sexual situations, and this has extended to my life in general. I don’t feel comfortable in my ability to self-determinate.”
“The lack of authority, definition, and schooling of the concept of asexuality has made me very uncomfortable with what I think I am, and that uncertainty haunts me every waking moment.”
“I think it’s too late/too early to tell if I’m asexual, but the longer I hesitate, the worse my mental health and emotional wellbeing gets. I’m effectively stuck.”
“I see no benefit in coming out, or even identifying as asexual. There’s no positivity, role models, or supportive community for what I consider a big and scary part of my overall identity.”
“I think this was sexual abuse, but I’m wondering if I’m just being selfish and childish.”
“I think I was treated badly by my parents/friends/partner, but I’m wondering if I’m just being selfish and childish.”
“I want to believe that I’m deserving of equal freedom and human respect paid to other, not asexual people, but people tell me I’m being selfish and childish.”
“No one encourages this part of me. And that makes me feel forgotten and abandoned in general.”
Shut the fuck up about your petty beef with tumblr bloggers and youtubers and Archie comics or whatever. I literally do not care, I can’t care. I see these messages every goddamn day – this post was written and drafted a month ago, and I very easily compiled most of this bulletpoint list from scratch, just by eyeing what I see in the askbox and what comes across my dash.
‘Ace discourse’ anger is empty and so meaningless. This is what I see by being part of this one 17k follow asexual ask blog for maybe half a year. I am so Done with all the faux rage posts and all the false positivity about how it’s ok to NOT be ace and all the acephobia that falls perfectly in line with the gaslighting typical of acephobia-101 while also having the audacity to claim it not so.
This is what’s real and I want to bleed it into your goddamn eyes.
Reblogging this again, for obvious reasons
Ace ppl are not INSTITUTIONALLY OR SYSTEMATICALLY OPPRESSED BECAUSE OF THE DEGREE THAT YOU FEEL SEXUAL ATTRACTION. If ur trans ur lgbtq. If ur aro but ur gay, bi, pan ur lgbtq. If ur ace but homo, biromantic etc ur lgbt. Being ace doesnt make u lgbt by default. Does the interpersonal lack of understanding suck and should change? Yeah. But society doesnt want u dead so cishet aces stay tf out our business.
Someone read this, all this stuff about struggles of people coming out as ace, people abusing them and telling them that their identity isn’t real or is a problem to be fixed, making people feel worthless and feeling that they’re in the wrong about their own goddamn identity, and said “nah they ain’t oppressed™ enough to be in a community of people who face the same issues”
U mad huh?
Anyway….aces can’t be systematically opressed. None of those things are examples of systematic oppression
Also nice how they called it “asexual exclusionary radicalism” as if it wasn’t a cheap tactic to compare ace exclusionist to twerfs
Asexuality was listed in the DSM as HSDD (Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder) until 2013, making it officially a mental illness that would be treated with therapy and medication. It is still in the DSM, except that you can ‘opt out’ if you self-identify as asexual, which is great except that asexuality is still so unknown that there undoubtedly many people who are asexual but don’t know that it’s “a thing”. This means that who knows how many asexuals have been sent to therapy and told they’re sick, then been “treated” for their orientation to try and force them to experience sexuality “correctly”.
Posts of people describing the hardship they’ve faced for their asexuality:x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x
The blog @acephobia-is-real has so many submissions and examples of hatred, harassment, hostility, and abuse, of aces who have been raped and/or sexually assaulted in an attempt to ‘fix’ them, and made suicidal due to aphobia and/or their own perceived brokenness, that it would be pointless for me to try and link any. Just go and start reading. Try their suicide tag.
There may be dissatisfyingly little research done on asexuality, but there has been enough done to prove that they do face discrimination, no matter how hard some may find that to believe. But guess what? You, an allosexual person, do not get to say shit like “aces don’t get kicked out” or “aces don’t _____” any more than I as a white person get to say that things I don’t experience must not happen to black people either. Just because you haven’t experienced it personally or witnessed it with your own eyes doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. You haven’t walked in an ace’s shoes, you don’t know what they deal with. Period.
Not even other aces can tell asexuals that their experiences aren’t real or aren’t valid. Different people can deal with different amounts of oppression, that doesn’t mean the lack of oppression is the default “truth”.
Nobody is trying to say that asexuals have it “as bad” or worse than gay or trans people, but we don’t HAVE to “have it worse” to beincluded and for our experiences to have merit without being compared to anyone else’s. Let me say that again: our experiences have merit without being compared to anyone else’s.
Told asexuals to die: x, x, x, x, x (tbh this is only a tiny sample and I don’t have the heart to go digging for more)
Are all aphobes this vile? Maybe not, but this is still the disgusting, hateful attitude festering in the gatekeeping community, and it stinks like shit. The examples I have provided above are only a fraction of the harassment and abuse that is perpetrated on a regular basis.
“Het aces/aroaces are straight”
Some het aces identify as straight. Some het aces don’t identify as straight, they identify as asexual, and it’s not your place to label them against their will. There is no world in which aroaces, people who experience no attraction to anyone, are straight.
“We accept SGA (same-gender attracted) and trans aces”
Firstly, SGA (same-gender attraction) is a term that was used and is still used in Mormon conversion therapy, so as one can understand,a lot of people are very uncomfortable being labeled with this description. Secondly, it enforces a gender binary of “same” and “opposite” gender that leaves a large number of nonbinary people out in the cold. Is a genderfluid person only “same-gender attracted” if they’re attracted to other genderfluid people who are genderfluid in exactly the same way? How about agender, intergender, demigirl/boy people? And before the argument “well they’re included as trans” is made, there are plenty of nonbinary people who do not identify as trans. I’m one of them.
The standard of “SGA and trans” as requirement for entry to the LGBTQ community is used nowhere outside of aphobic tumblr, and it seems crafted specifically for the purpose of excluding aces, aros, NBs, intersex people, and others not deemed “gay enough”.
The modern American movement was first known as the “gay community” when cis gay men refused to even accept lesbians, then the “gay and lesbian community”. (Good reading on the subject.)
“After the elation of change following group action in the Stonewall riots in New York, in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, some gays and lesbians became less accepting of bisexual or transgender people. Critics said that transgender people were acting out stereotypes and bisexuals were simply gay men or lesbian women who were afraid to come out and be honest about their identity. Each community has struggled to develop its own identity including whether, and how, to align with other gender and sexuality-based communities, at times excluding other subgroups; these conflicts continue to this day.” (source)
“From about 1988, activists began to use the initialism LGBT in the United States. Not until the 1990s within the movement did gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people gain equal respect.” (ibid)
Insisting that LG people have always been accepting of bi and trans people is incredibly revisionist and does a great deal of injustice to those who have been excluded.
Despite the fact that bisexual and transgender people have always been around, and have done great things for the community, they have faced a great deal of lateral oppression from the LG part of the group that did not want to see them get an equal share of attention, support, or legitimacy. This post is not about proving LG transphobia and biphobia, but it’s so rampant that I don’t feel like I need to provide sources whatsoever. Nevertheless, here’s a collection of biphobia, and the blog@terf-calloutdocuments some of the violent transphobia on this site, particularly in the lesbian community. This post is an example.
“The A stands for Ally so that closeted people can be the community without being outed”
No one is saying that we don’t care about closeted people, but a) even if you’re a closeted L, G, B, or T, you are still a L, G, B, or T. Allies do not need to be part of the acronym to be intrinsically welcomed. As someone said, this is like saying the ‘B’ in BLT stands for ‘bread’. We can pretty much safely assume that a sandwich is going to include bread, we don’t have to go of our way to give it a letter. Either you are outing every “ally” as a closeted queer person, or you are giving 100% cis straight people an LGBTQ member card, the very thing you are arguing against by trying to exclude asexuals.
Furthermore, this puts forth the argument “I’m willing to let cishet straight people into the community for the sake of a few closeted people” while at the same time stating “I’m not willing to let the A stand for asexuals because I don’t think letting cis heteroromantic asexuals into the community is worth giving all asexuals representation and support”. Which says that you consider asexuals less valuable and more of a threat than cis straight people.
“I have proof of an asexual being homophobic/transphobic/racist/a terrible person”
Of course there are asexuals who are terrible people. There are legions of gays and lesbians who are racist and transphobic. Does that make them not gay/lesbian? Does their bigotry invalidate their sexual orientation, or remove the L and G from the acronym? No, I don’t think so. Some asexuals being bad people doesn’t justify you trying to invalidate all of us.
“’Allosexual’ is a bad word because ____”
I actually have an ‘allosexual’ tag just for posts about why ‘allosexual’ is a perfectly fine word: x, x, x, x, x. x
“The split-attraction model is homophobic”
What we call the split-attraction model was first described by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a gay advocate from the 1800s, as “disjunctive uranodioning”. (source) (credit to this post)
“The term ‘corrective rape’ was coined by South African lesbians and should only be used by lesbians”
No one means any disrespect to lesbians or other victims of corrective rape, but this is not a correct statement.
“We’ll Show You You’re a Woman” describes the violence directed towards LGBT people in South Africa, stating, “Negative public attitudes towards homosexuality go hand in hand with a broader pattern of discrimination, violence, hatred, and extreme prejudice against people known or assumed to be lesbian, gay, and transgender, or those who violate gender and sexual norms in appearance or conduct (such as women playing soccer, dressing in a masculine manner, and refusing to date men).” It goes on to say, “Much of the recent media coverage of violence against lesbians and transgender men has been characterized by a focus on “corrective rape,” a phenomenon in which men rape people they presume or know to be lesbians in order to “convert” them to heterosexuality.”
The Wikipedia article on corrective rape in South Africa states that, “A study conducted by OUT LGBT Well-being and the University of South Africa Centre for Applied Psychology (UCAP) showed that “the percentage of black gay men who said they have experienced corrective rape matched that of the black lesbians who partook in the study”.”
It is not only lesbians, but also bisexual women, transgender men, gay men, and gender non-conforming people in South Africa who experience corrective rape. This is not in any way meant to minimize the horror of the epidemic or shift attention away from lesbians, but other victims, including asexuals, deserve attention as well. Do not silence or speak over victims of rape by policing their language.
“Aces are valid, they’re just not queer/LGBTQ”
You cannot in one breath say “Asexuals are valid” and in the next deny their experiences. Spend five minutes in the community and you will see testimony after testimony from aces describing their abuse, their sexual assault(s), the countless times people have called them confused, broken, wrong, mentally ill, inhuman, sinful, and how these experiences have left them feeling hopeless, alone, alienated, subhuman, depressed, and suicidal. Almost every asexual out there will tell you a story of how their orientation has caused them pain and struggle, and you can’t call them valid while at the same time calling these experiences invalid and nonexistent.
“Aces take resources from other LGBTQ who need them”
I’ve seen some pretty wild claims about this one, insisting that asexuals “steal” things such as scholarships, beds at homeless shelters, food and space at pride events, suicide hotlines, and so on, yet I have never seen any actual proof that any “stealing” has ever taken place. For one thing, I thought “you’ll never get kicked out or fired for being ace”, “no one is suicidal because they’re asexual”, so why would you think aces need these resources? Either we don’t need them or we don’t use them, you can’t have it both ways.
For another, how heartless do you have to be to tell asexuals that they can’t use suicide hotlines? Do you realize that you’re saying that asexuals should be denied life-saving services? That, in essence, asexuals are suicidal due to their orientation, but you think they’re not “queer enough” so they deserve to die? Because that is the logical progression of refusing someone suicide prevention, and that’s the message aces receive when you tell them they are “stealing” suicide prevention.
Lastly, do you not realize we are alsoPROVIDING resources? We are bringing bodies and minds to the community, we are here to be voices, to volunteer, to bring encouragement, information, and support. We earn our keep. You just have to admit that you don’t WANT us here.
(Thanks to @livebloggingmydescentintomadness for these)
My own contribution:
Living in a world where the media is overflowing with sexual imagery and where society constantly puts value on sexual intercourse, virginity, and related topics – who can forget the phrase ‘sex sells’? – men and women who do not experience sexual attraction (the definition of asexuality) and who are sex-repulsed or masturbation-repulsed (as many asexuals, myself included, are) feel alienated and ‘broken’. We also face erasure in terms of representation, being either grossly underrepresented or represented as cold, harsh, and ‘synonymous with celibate’ people. Let’s not forget erasure from LGBT spaces – I have many times been told that asexuals do not belong in the acronym or in “our spaces”, even though asexuals have the capacity to be homoromantic, biromantic, panromantic, etc, as well as transgender or nonbinary. And, if we don’t belong in LGBT spaces, and we clearly aren’t heterosexual, what do we belong? Nowhere, it seems. Of course, the argument also drifts to “asexuals don’t experience oppression”, which is false.
I got an anon the other day asking how ace people could possibly experience more oppression than someone who is celibate. Here you go.
Long post, but full of resources.
How in the fuck can you scroll through a such a staggering number of examples of the shit ace people get for being ace and say “okay but asexual people aren’t oppressed”
How even the fuck
Aphobes and other kinds of exclusionists don’t care about the truth, they care only about their own fear. That’s how.
Big Horses are a Very New Thing and they Likely Didn’t Exist in your Historical and/or Fantasy Settings.
You’ve all seen it in every historical piece of media ever produced. Contrary to popular belief, a big black horse with long legs and long flowing mane is not a widespread or even a particularly old type of horse.
THIS IS NOT A MEDIEVAL THING. THIS IS NOT EVEN A BAROQUE THING. THIS IS A NINETEENTH CENTURY CITY CARRIAGE HORSE.
All the love to fancy Friesian horses, but your Roman general or Medieval country heroine just really couldn’t, wouldn’t, and for the sake of my mental health shouldn’t have ridden one either.
Big warmblood horses are a Western European and British invention that started popping up somewhere around 1700s when agriculture and warfare changed, and when rich folks wanted Bigger Faster Stronger Thinner race horses. The modern warmblood and the big continental draught both had their first real rise to fame in the 1800s when people started driving Fancy Carriages everywhere, and having the Fanciest Carriage started to mean having the Tallest and Thinnest Horses in the town.
Before mechanised weaponry and heavy artillery all horses used to be small and hardy easy-feeders. Kinda like a donkey but easier to steer and with a back that’s not as nasty and straight to sit on.
SOME REAL MEDIEVAL, ROMAN, OTTOMAN, MONGOL, VIKING, GREEK and WHATEVER HISTORICALLY PLAUSIBLE HORSES FOR YOU:
“Primitive”, native breeds all over the globe tend to be only roughly 120-140 cm (12.0 – 13.3 hh) tall at the withers. They all also look a little something like this:
Mongolian native horse (Around 120-130 at the withers, and decendants of the first ever domesticated horses from central Asia. Still virtually unchanged from Chinggis Khan’s cavalry, ancestor to many Chinese, Japanese and Indian horses, and bred for speed racing and surviving outdoors without the help of humans.)
Carpathian native horse / Romanian and Polish Hucul Pony (Around 120-150 at the withers, first mentioned in writing during the 400s as wild mountain ponies, depicted before that in Trajanian Roman sculptures, used by the Austro-Hungarian cavalry in the 19th century)
Middle-Eastern native horse / Caspian Pony (Around 100-130 at the withers, ancestor of the Iranian Asil horse and its decendants, including the famous Arabian and Barb horses, likely been around since Darius I the Great, 5th century BC, and old Persian kings are often depicted riding these midgets)
Baltic Sea native horse / Icelandic, Finnish, Estonian, Gotland and Nordland horses (Around 120-150 at the withers, descendant of Mongolian horses, used by viking traders in 700-900 AD and taken to Iceland. Later used by the Swedish cavalry in the 30 years war and by the Finnish army in the Second World War, nowadays harness racing and draught horses)
Siberian native horse / Yakutian pony (Around 120-140 at the withers, related to Baltic and Mongolian horses and at least as old, as well-adapted to Siberian climate as woolly mammoths once were, the hairiest horse there is, used in draught work and herding)
Mediterranean native horse / Skyros pony, Sardinian Giara, Monterufolino (Around 100-140 at the Withers, used and bred by ancient Greeks for cavalry use, influenced by African and Eastern breeds, further had its own influence on Celtic breeds via Roman Empire, still used by park ranger officers in Italy)
British Isles’ native horse / various “Mountain & Moorland” pony breeds (Around 100-150 at the withers, brought over and mixed by Celts, Romans and Vikings, base for almost every modern sport pony and the deserving main pony of all your British Medieval settings. Some populations still live as feral herds in the British countryside, used as war mounts, draught horses, mine pit ponies, hunting help and race horses)
[rain pouring] [thunder rumbling] [car horn blaring] “go on. wheyyyyyyy!! Oh no.” [in distance: “YOU IDIOT”, uproarious laughter] “why would you go through that. what are you doing. ahhh no, he’s actually floating!” “well of course he is. what a fucking bellend!” “what a knobhead!” “fucking hell.”
Hey, RP anon, do you think we could move any potential discussion elsewhere? Me answering asks isn’t a good way to communicate, and I don’t think any of my followers are really interested in seeing half of a conversation. If you check out oneonone.freeforums.net, you can post in the chatbox at the bottom without an account, I still won’t know who you are. I’d just like to be able to carry on a halfway coherent conversation, and also know if I have one or two people messaging me here.
Partly because what you’ve suggested, although an interesting idea, involves a very specific world, scenario, and kink, and none of it is really in a category I’m interested in. I’m not upset or anything, I’m just genuinely curious as to why you think this is something I’d be a good RP partner for. I don’t think I’ve posted anything that would give the impression I’m interested in those particular things, is all. Also, I’m curious as to how some of what you’ve suggested would work as far as the bit of worldbuilding in that ask.
Alright, so there’s a thing some autistic people do, especially people who are more prone to the really big motions. It’s this sort of odd walk, leaning forward a lot, up on the toes, almost gliding between steps, telegraphing the next motions really clearly.
That’s called posting, right? Because I could swear I read that’s what it’s called, but I can’t find anything online to confirm that.
BettSplendens Tumblr Evac 