#kerytalk

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Little Hunter.

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My morning routine is now literally: get up, open Tumblr, open specific doll tags, report anything that is not doll related. Kind of cathartic actually.

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Since you guys liked the finished planted tank so much, have the tetra update!

A little bit of glass surfing is still happening but honestly was more because I was bugging them with my phone camera than anything. Most of today they were all over the place exploring~ also weird thing in the tank is a Banksia Seed Pod, threw it in for some extra tannins to help with any transition stress (natural antibacterial).

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Finally got a fancy(tm) pic of my aquarium - think I figured out the solution to awful photos is just I have to do them at night because the hugeass window in my room directly adjacent ruins everything. Going to try and take a pic like this weekly to track growth!

Anyway it's looking close? Closeish? to being cycled so the question is: WHAT COLOUR SHRIMP

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Hey gamers/modders, I been thinking about something and wondered what people's opinions are.

As someone who qualifies as 'old' by internet standards (over 30) and recently just read this article about Square Enix having to implement a 'customer harassment policy' - and I mean harassment from players/customers towards Squex staff, it got me thinking.

I have been gaming a while. A long while. And I really feel like about a decade ago, this shit would be considered 'rare' enough that it was uncommon. Now gamedev and even modders are facing harassment from players on a daily basis to the point policies like THIS are having to become a thing, like ....? Like I can point to SEVERAL cases of this in recent years, like how a lot of the BG3 devs and even VA's have been treated and harassed by fans with the expectation of somehow 'continuing' a closed-story-rpg-game indefinitely. The Sims 4 modding community is riddled with drama that I have not seen in any other modding space - at least to that level. Like I know incidents of prominent modders being fucking doxxed because they weren't IMMEDIATELY available to patch for a Sims 4 update (and the Sims 4 is honestly kind of notorious for frequent updating).

Like not to be a 'kids these days' person, but idk, there's only one group entering the wider gaming scene over those 10 years and that's Gen Z. I mean yeah, there's a decent argument towards the growing dominance of web 2.0 (basically your social media sites) that could have fostered an environment for 'anonymous harassment' but I find that hard to believe.

Growing up with games and discovering mods for the first time, I definitely learned to appreciate the hard work modders put in, out of their own time, to make a mod and share it with people for free! We also had to live through a lot of game releases where 'day one patch' was NEVER a thing, and gamedev delays were acceptable because of this - you wanted that game to work on release because you weren't going to GET a patch in most cases. Internet couldn't handle it. Now instead, we have games releasing in early, busted states with a day one patch because you've got some people sending death threats to developers if they mention another delay (Cyberpunk 2077 is a good case for this one).

I dunno. Is it just because I'm old and my priorities are different? I don't have the energy to burn on harassing devs? Because I grew up with games in a different manner than the current gen in gaming?

Thoughts?

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Gotta say nothing shows the level of americanisation of media/internet than with this eclipse. Last year state in Australia (Western Australia) had complete totality of an eclipse in a dinky little town up north. It was inundated with tourists from around Australia and the world - we even had NASA scientists fly in for study.

I'm based in the only city of our hugeass state (Perth) and while we didn't get totality it was probably the most significant eclipse I've seen in recent memory. It was present in shadows, and there was a significant temperature drop during the experience.

Internationally? News probably didn't make a blip.

Meanwhile I'm sitting in my office overhearing the BBC on the tv (so british news) talking about an American solar eclipse like it's more significant? 🤷‍♀️

Anyway here's some of my pics of our eclipse last year: we had 72% coverage where I was, managed to catch some of the crescent shadows beneath our paperbark tree (I thank tumblr for bestowing this knowledge years ago).

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Reading this morning Trump funding cuts are now affecting health research teams HERE in AUSTRALIA.

God I am so fucking sick of America, sorry Americans.

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Aquarium update - I have a Betta again! Got kind of burned last time so I travelled wayyyyy north from where I am to get her, along with some cories. It's been about two weeks since, judging my water changes (do about 25% a week, not because the water needs it but more because any longer and my filter gets gummed up) and she's been doing really well. She's changing rapidly, but she was very juvenile when I got her (like literally only a bit bigger than some of my green neons which max out at 3cm) which I expected, since marble gene. The contrast of a few weeks though is kinda nuts.

Not quite named yet, since honestly I was so burned from last time (RIP fish Karlach 😔) that I've been hesitant to name her or even share anything about her online. Also because I literally have no idea how she's gonna look in a few weeks as she matures.

I was thinking maybe Arita or Imari since her patterning reminds me of Asagi Koi and Imari-Arita Ware ceramics? Leaning towards Arita since it sounds a bit 'sassier' I guess (idk, vibes) and she definitely is that. I'll take suggestions though!

Anyway more fish rambling below -

Honestly I was so hesitant to get her, but I was already putting in replacement Cories after a mystery disease decimated my Corydora population, leaving my admittedly kind-of-fat female Three Lined solo. Whatever contagion was in the tank is either gone or dormant (since a lot of fish disease I know is entirely reliant on how stressed a fish is - they can still be a carrier but completely fine) after basically doing every treatment I had at my disposal. I think it was a mix of parasitic and bacterial, maybe fungal? Hard to target given all my tank tests consistently returned a big fat 0ppm for all the bad shit. My tank is about as clean as it gets - I only change about 25% weekly and that's more to clean sludge out of the filter, it never really needs it. Admittedly some of the deaths I contributed to because I wasn't aware how much my tank PH had changed over the months (test your PH regularly guys), apparently the huge chunks of wood have exhausted all their tannins cause I've gone from acidic to more basic. It seems to be holding about 7.8, apparently related to the Seiryu stone in there. Basically water changes caused the PH to flux to much, contributing to stress for the Cories. Yeah I feel bad but I'm also not blaming myself since a. Literally first tank b. I am learning the fish hobby is really annoying for consistent information. Like literally information that doesn't contradict itself half the time. A lot of that is the reason why I've been slowed down in figuring out what is going wrong and that ultimately has resulted in a lot of loss.

Important part though is everyone seems to be doing fine, and I've learned enough now to maybe recognise stuff a lot faster. One of the Pandas, after my first water change developed a big fungal streak down it's body (I'm guessing it scuffed itself in a panic somewhere) but had that treated easily within about 3 days with just Pimafix. No seriously, they're doing well. Well enough they apparently spawned? Saw the betta striking some mystery thing on the glass. I thought it was a freshwater limpet (they've been in there, just haven't seen them in a while) and realised no, actually an egg. Not opposed to this since I'm pretty close to stocking limit (at least in a regular, unplanted tank) so I'm down for the population control.

Betta really is a little predator though. She's honestly weird for a Betta in that she doesn't show interest in food. At all. She might nibble at a fallen bit but couldn't care less about anything I put on the surface or during feeding time. Been monitoring her weight, and she's definitely not underweight. Guess I have enough random critters in my tank (Planaria, about a million scuds since my last-ditch effort treatment to save a Cory decimated my shrimp population. I lost my favourite orange/red shrimp too 😭) to sustain her? Worry is of course I need to re-establish more shrimp. There are some left but nowhere NEAR what I had before. I've seen her chase a few who appear, she definitely has them on alert but they tend to be too big for her anyway. And too fast. Juveniles though ....

I do have a HUGE amount of hiding places for new, young shrimp (just moss. So much moss) but I think I'll maybe raise them in a netted isolation box until they're big enough that she's no longer a threat maybe? Idk. That or I get technically-not-allowed Cherry Shrimp from someone local, since they tend to be adults. Juveniles are kind of my only option at my local store.

Anyway that's the ramble!