damselfish | Betta aliens

So I decided to play with a Talk Electric novel because I have no other ideas to muddle with beside editing a few short stories, and I spent a ridiculous amount of time looking at bettas on Aquabid because I saw a dragon plakat and realized that's exactly what I wanted out of aliens and I needed to use them for references.

I started with this gif of a gold dragon flying because it reminded me so much of various nudibranchs, flatfish, and rays. I threw together a bunch of animals--a water possum's freaky hands and axolotl's gills for example--but it was the bettas that kept me looking.

And I gotta say: I'm just gonna get all my bettas from Aquabid from now on, if my order goes well-- and it seems like it will, everybody I've dealt with so far has been so nice. I've gotten some great bettas from local shops--before Raggedy Andy turned out to be a persistent tail biter/fin ripper he was a real beauty, and even my veiltail Birthday Boy is a pretty fish--but nothing compares to the things I've been seeing. Anyway, where else am I going to find these weird alien-looking fish?

No that is not a female. That's a plakat--a betta with a fin type closer to the wild versions, and plakats are usually used for fighting. If you look in the "plakat" category you'll find duller, gladiatorial fish. If you look at halfmoon plakats you find fish like this.

These are just a couple of the ones I saw while checking Aquabid this morning.

I didn't buy one, though. I ended up looking at halfmoons--probably a mistake since halfmoon plakats tend to have ridiculous colors and they're not quite as pricy. Only reason I don't jump on them is I already bought a fish and my local transshipper doesn't get in an order for a month, and haha, $30 - $40 for shipping from the Atlanta-based one.

What did I buy? Well. I started looking at black orchid bettas on google because those are great colors, then I ended up looking for a rosetail (totally unrelated to the alien reference search) and found me this guy. I went to aquabid hoping to find more rosetails.

And found a bunch of halfmoons instead.

First it was just fish to use for reference.

Then I showed some pictures around and sighed, I wish I could get one!

My mother said "why not? That guy is beautiful." And... and he is.

And then I saw this guy.

He was only going to be for reference, too--it's a great color combination and I like the black--but once I went "yeah, I'll buy one!" I waffled between the bottom two. The top was prettier and got more votes, but I've never seen a dude like the bottom one.

So, uh, my fish is in Thailand right now.