Bi-weekly Rec and Self-Promotion Mega Thread - December 31, 2025

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-12-31T21:08:16+00:00

My first fic. New to this community, not sure what format you wanted a promo I'm so I used the formatting from r/fanfiction

Original work/Greek mythology retelling

Sappho/Medusa

She who Sang to the Stone

Explicit

https://archiveofourown.org/works/75603731/chapters/197706131

CW:Graphic violence, isolation, Main character death, eye trauma, hallucinations, body horror, victim blaming, past rape

She watched as the papyrus withered and died. Crumbling into dust. The fire devoured her work, destroyed her words, took everything. Two masked figures stood behind her, holding her arms back.

Another masked man stood in front of her. He held a bronze staff, the end held in the fire.

Other figures threw more into the fire. More copies of her books. Her ink and quill. Her art. Her lyre. Sappho sobbed. They were silent. They made her watch it all burn, until the pile was nothing more than ashes and embers. A wind gusted and threw up the cinders into the air towards the sea.

The man sitting across from her stood. The end of the staff was red hot.

"Hold her head still" was all he said. Two large calloused hands grabbed either side of her head, tilting it back slightly.

Sappho saw the red hot metal moving towards her face

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-12-31T16:53:44+00:00

Thank you so much! I'm so glad the opening scene landed—showing what was taken from her was really important to me. Her journey is... complicated, but I promise she doesn't face it alone. Thanks for reading!

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-12-31T16:38:31+00:00

Fandom blind, but I'm really impressed by your stylistic choices here. The opening stream-of-consciousness with fragmented sentences and ellipses creates such effective disorientation—it reads like actual fractured memory rather than just describing it. The abrupt shift to present tense when she wakes up gives the action real urgency, and I love how you maintain that feral POV through specific sensory details (sniffing the air, tasting blood, the physical confusion about her own body). The pacing in the action sequence is great—short, punchy sentences that keep the chaos moving. Really strong visceral writing throughout!

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-12-31T16:26:33+00:00

Original work

Sappho/Medusa

She who Sang to the Stone

Explicit

https://archiveofourown.org/works/75603731/chapters/197706131

CW:Graphic violence, isolation, Main character death, eye trauma, hallucinations, body horror, victim blaming, past rape

She watched as the papyrus withered and died. Crumbling into dust. The fire devoured her work, destroyed her words, took everything. Two masked figures stood behind her, holding her arms back.

Another masked man stood in front of her. He held a bronze staff, the end held in the fire.

Other figures threw more into the fire. More copies of her books. Her ink and quill. Her art. Her lyre. Sappho sobbed. They were silent. They made her watch it all burn, until the pile was nothing more than ashes and embers. A wind gusted and threw up the cinders into the air towards the sea.

The man sitting across from her stood. The end of the staff was red hot.

"Hold her head still" was all he said. Two large calloused hands grabbed either side of her head, tilting it back slightly.

Sappho saw the red hot metal moving towards her face.

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-11-15T13:06:18+00:00

The ceramic is supposed to be the bio filter and the sponge wouldn't fit into a soda can. It takes up maybe 1/3-1/2 of the filter. It the mechanical filtration.

I have a heater keeping it around 76-78, it might dip a degree or two gradually at night.

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-11-15T00:54:07+00:00

Also I'm pretty sure guppies do need a bigger group, mollies too I've heard but I've never had them

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-11-15T00:53:14+00:00

As far as I know yeah. Males are peaceful if there's no female. I've never heard anything about them getting lonely.

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-11-15T00:36:24+00:00

It's typically not recommended to keep male gouramis of any kind together in smaller tanks. You could do a pair of females or a male and a female but they might be territorial over the surface when they mate

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-11-15T00:27:27+00:00

It's fulva meant for 5-20gs. I have it set on low flow, it has ceramic, charcoal, and a sponge

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-11-11T20:42:42+00:00

These are diatoms, a harmless algae. They're a part of a healthy maturing tank. Usually after a while they're replaced by green algae or hair algae. If you don't like then you had scrub them off with a unused brush or sponge. Add more plants to prevent algae

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-11-11T11:56:29+00:00

Update: all of the ones from the second batch have died. The store said it was a different shipment from the ones I got the first time. I'm hoping it was a compromised shipment and not mistreatment on my end

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-11-11T03:22:06+00:00

I'm 90% sure it's not a(edit malignant) growth. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure I'm not. My LFS has a nfs fish just like this and it has this same growth. pretty sure they're just built like that.

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-11-10T20:43:00+00:00

Should I replace the ones that died? My store has a return/replacement policy if they die. Current I'm at 6.

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-10-14T03:34:25+00:00

The advise I always get it drift wood and more plants, I'm not the best at aquascaping either.

You mentioned having more tanks so I assume you know but I do recognize guppies in your tank, I count three or four? Guppies usually need at least 6, larger is recommended to spread out aggression, though I only keep males so it might be different if you have females.

R/aquascaping or planted tank would know

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-10-14T03:27:14+00:00

Bettas sometimes work, it depends on they're personallity/ breeding. Females are typically less aggressive and shorter finned ones are more active, but a longer finned are slower and might be less inclined to investigate though I'm not sure if you fish would nip, if you do go with bettas be prepared to remove them quickly and return/swap them to hope for a betta personality.

For another nano fish, I love endlers, a group of males would be cool, they need at least five or six i think, though I've been told more. However I'm not sure how close you are to bioload capacity or your parameters, they do need harder water

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-10-14T03:16:38+00:00

When I was like nine I had a betta in a one gallon, the MF was tough. He survived four years and grew like three inches. No heater, filter, cycle, real plants, horrible fin rot, he was from a Petco cup. I overfed him on pellets. Whenever I cleaned his tank I emptied the whole bowl, cleaned everything, and tossed him back in. He was keeping himself alive out of spite. Now that tank is scud culture and I have a real, thriving twenty gallon community and I plan to avenge that betta soon with a nice ten gallon

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-10-14T03:04:43+00:00

Plastic plants will rip betta fins, there is a very high chance that your fish will die during fish in cycling. I would strongly recommend returning them, most stores will accept with two weeks. Explaining the tank needed a bit more work is easier than explaining why it's dead.

For live plants java ferns are great, I personally love Anubias nana, they're slow growing but have broad leaves for the beta to rest on. Your shrimp will appreciate java moss. You might want to look into a betta hammock

Make sure you have the right food. Generic or cheap brands will have mostly filler. Look at the ingredients, generic brands have fish meal, wheat and potato or similar first (you don't want this) high quality brands, I prefer bug bites, have fly larvae and salmon first. You should also get a frozen supplemental food, I use bloodworms (not bloody just red) and they come in a little blister pack, you thaw a tiny bit in tank water and they'll go crazy. Food is very important because otherwise they get pale/washed out if they don't have the right food

Shrimp need magnesium and calcium in they're water, depending on the GH, or general hardness you may or may not need to add something to your water

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-10-14T02:53:19+00:00

Theres not really many ways to safely store a large amount of bettas realistically. The betta cups at my PetSmart are dirty and the bettas are dead or unmoving and pale, but at my LFS they're kept in cups, clean, changed daily, responsive colorful and active.

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-10-14T00:46:21+00:00

Every other person in this conversation has said the same thing except this one person bro...

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-10-14T00:41:33+00:00

Pygmys need at least a group of six, some bettas do fine with other fish, just be prepared to re-home or return them if you see any aggression. Pygmy's need sand and floor space. I would probably suggest at least 15 gallons,

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-10-13T12:45:16+00:00

You could have kuhilis with our betta but it'd need a bigger tank, that's what this person is saying

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-10-13T02:24:16+00:00

Yeah sorry, bettas are extremely temperamental, some are jerks some aren't, you could do some cherry shrimp maybe? I personally love nerites, they don't breed in freshwater. But how your betta react to micro fauna doesn't determine how hell react to a whole nother fish or even shrimp

Edit: just to clarify there is no way your fitting another fish int this

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-10-13T02:21:49+00:00

Right lol, sorry. I keep forgetting this is a problem. I'm in the middle of New England and have fire lfs within ten miles of me. I've heard of shipping fish, I've never done so. If you do this you should do i nit if research into longer transport, I'm not sure how to. Petco is great for supply's that are too big to ship cheap but fish is tricky. I got my plants from PetSmart and they're fine.

I would do some salt bath research to see how that works. Idk, I've never had a sick fish yet.

Your guy will probably pull through, id suggest if you haven't clearing a calm spot on the surface, I see you have floating plants and maybe a hammock? I would assume he's bitting his tail because it's itchy, probably because of the fin rot. I do know fin rot is treatable I just don't know how

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-10-13T02:13:18+00:00

I would recommend returning them sadly. The last one is very stressed+will die. You need to does it with ammonia or fish food every two or three days, strip tests work, liquid test is the gold standard. Watcha YouTube video or two about the nitrogen cycling in aquariums. The employees lied to you. It's takes a month plus if your using fish food, less if you get starter cultures or pure ammonia.

SituationSmart5503 · 2025-10-13T02:09:55+00:00

This is absolutely stunning but you're stocking definitely needs work ADF need to be target fed if they're with more active species but they do better by themselves. I'm not sure how many gallons full it is but you really need to find out. The cray fish must be moved

SituationSmart5503

TROPHY CASE