Ahhh...l'amour (and la metaphor)...
Driven by a bizarre urge to observe animals (thank you, Molly the Owl...) I purchased betta fish on Monday. Two of them. They're lovely: one is a brilliant red and likes to swim around and flash his fins alot, and the other is a pretty, shimmery pale white, with a rather more sedate and calm demeanor.
Fangirls (and -boys)...meet Raphael and Ivory.
Ordinarily I wouldn't bother the community with this random act of fangirlism, if it were not for today's events. Raphael and Ivory share a tank, but with a divider down the middle so they won't see eachother and try to kill eachother. I've been a little suspicious, though, that they're aware of eachothers' presences: they'll meet at the wall divider in the same place, and Raphael is forever fluffing out his fins and flashing around at the wall.
Oh - and I perhaps should mention that Ivory is a girl. (It's a fact! Just a FACT!! *runs from irate spectral airmen*)
I got in tonight and noticed that there was an alarming amount of little bubbles on the surface of the tank, mostly on Raphael's side. I was a little freaked until the interwebs informed me that this is just what happens when a young man betta's thoughts turn to love, and that he would be trying to lure Ivory under the "bubble nest" to lay eggs for him to fertilize, and then single-handedly (-finnedly?) care for the babies. (Human men could take a note from fishies' books...) So, appealing as this sounded (and as there's a veritable fortune to make from breeding betta in a college town), I raised the barrier between their rooms. Ivory calmly began exploring, especially the bubble nest, with vague interest, and Raphael immediately leapt into full courtship mode, the cheesy romantic, displaying his fins and sashaying his fancy little butt around the tank in ways that had me reconsidering naming him "Balfour". They weren't trying to kill eachother, and everything was going...well, swimmingly.
Until Raphael flipped around just a little too close to Ivory's personal space and Ivory, calmly and sedately, bit part of his fin off and ate it.
He was still peacefully chomping it down like a grotesque spaghetti noodle from some macabre, aquatic Lady-and-the-Tramp as I herded him back into their own areas and put the wall back. I don't care how appropraite they're being to their namesakes: no fish nookie 'til they can do it without ripping eachother apart. (IVORY...)
Knowing what I know now, I have far greater concern for Raphael in the bedroom, in the context of popular fandom. I don't suppose anyone's contemplated how doomed he really is...?
Didn't think so.
Fangirls (and -boys)...meet Raphael and Ivory.
Ordinarily I wouldn't bother the community with this random act of fangirlism, if it were not for today's events. Raphael and Ivory share a tank, but with a divider down the middle so they won't see eachother and try to kill eachother. I've been a little suspicious, though, that they're aware of eachothers' presences: they'll meet at the wall divider in the same place, and Raphael is forever fluffing out his fins and flashing around at the wall.
Oh - and I perhaps should mention that Ivory is a girl. (It's a fact! Just a FACT!! *runs from irate spectral airmen*)
I got in tonight and noticed that there was an alarming amount of little bubbles on the surface of the tank, mostly on Raphael's side. I was a little freaked until the interwebs informed me that this is just what happens when a young man betta's thoughts turn to love, and that he would be trying to lure Ivory under the "bubble nest" to lay eggs for him to fertilize, and then single-handedly (-finnedly?) care for the babies. (Human men could take a note from fishies' books...) So, appealing as this sounded (and as there's a veritable fortune to make from breeding betta in a college town), I raised the barrier between their rooms. Ivory calmly began exploring, especially the bubble nest, with vague interest, and Raphael immediately leapt into full courtship mode, the cheesy romantic, displaying his fins and sashaying his fancy little butt around the tank in ways that had me reconsidering naming him "Balfour". They weren't trying to kill eachother, and everything was going...well, swimmingly.
Until Raphael flipped around just a little too close to Ivory's personal space and Ivory, calmly and sedately, bit part of his fin off and ate it.
He was still peacefully chomping it down like a grotesque spaghetti noodle from some macabre, aquatic Lady-and-the-Tramp as I herded him back into their own areas and put the wall back. I don't care how appropraite they're being to their namesakes: no fish nookie 'til they can do it without ripping eachother apart. (IVORY...)
Knowing what I know now, I have far greater concern for Raphael in the bedroom, in the context of popular fandom. I don't suppose anyone's contemplated how doomed he really is...?
Didn't think so.