I knew this was going to happen, but I didn't think it would be so horrible!

I have an ISBI legacy that I've been playing, and they got all the way up to generation 6, Ferdinand and Faye (each generation is named alphabetically). Little did I know that Generation F would stand for Generation FAIL. Ferdinand was well on his way to becoming heir (he would have become a teen in one day), was doing really well in school and was in platinum aspiration for a couple of days. Plus, he had some really good personality points! Faye was a horrible little child who never seemed to be able to have fun, therefore never wanted to do her homework. I could have my current torch holder (Emilee) play with her and try to get her to watch TV, but she never seemed to get that fun bar out of red (yes, I cheated and looked). I even had Ferdinand do an assignment for her so she hopefully wouldn't completely fail. Yet, she came home from school on Friday with an F. I figured if I could get her fun up over the weekend, she could do her homework then and get her grades back up. But if she got taken away by the social worker, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

Well, the damn social worker came and she's taking BOTH KIDS!!! WHY??? I thought that only the bad one would be taken away. Pleeeaaassseee don't take my Ferdinand!

I've since quit without saving but I don't think I can change the outcome with the little time that went by since the last save. I'm gunna try to change Emilee's secondary aspiration so she can plead with the social worker, but dammit, this isn't fair! Take Faye and leave Ferdinand!!! DX

What they left out:
-"I need to see where Draco Malfoy is coming inside of you"
-"There's no need to call me 'sir', professor."
-Tonks being a SUPER SERIOUS Hogwarts guard
-DUMBLEDORE'S FUNERAL. WHAT.
-U-No-Poo
-Merope's story (wtf? how is this NOT important?)
-The fact that Harry needs a password to get in to Dumbledore's office?
-The scene with Harry and Dumbledore in a broom shed
-RUFUS. SCRIMGEOUR. (also, HOW?)
-The scene at the muggle's Prime Minister's office
-"Dumbledore's man, through and through."
-"I like REALLY GOOD Quidditch players." and Ron's side of the dramarz
-"They called it my 'furry little problem.' Most people were under the impression that I owned a badly behaved rabbit."
-Apparition lessons!
-"Excuse me, are you the imprint of a departed soul?" and Snape's entirely new teaching role
-Ginny yelling at Ron about not kissing anyone.
-The chants from both Slytherins and Gryffindors about Ron's keeping abilities
-Fleur Delacour drama and the wedding planning
-The descriptions and stories behind each Horcrux (again, shouldn't this matter?)
-the trouble between Tonks and Lupin~
-Lupin in general. woo one line
-the DRAMATICALLY GETTING OVER SIRIUS' DEATH

That being said, the movie WAS two and a half hours long.

I really loved it the first time I saw it, but then I went to see it again, and i am really nostalgic over the stuff that's missing.

I really hate Ginny.

What I loved:
-the Weasley twins' shop! Amazing.
-Luna. I don't think they missed a single quote, at least someone got their role
-Hermione's hair (i hated that perfectly curled look i mean seriously no one has that time every morning wtf)
-Slughorn
-in the scenes they did keep, it was pretty close to the book
-Ron's obsession with Romilda Vane. beautiful.
-Helena Bonham Carter, not that that's a Harry Potter thing
-Tonks' hair. i actually did like it a lot
-the bridge scene
-katie bell's scene. holy shit horror movie time!
-ER-MY-NEE... lol. sucks to be lavender
-general Dumbledore. Way to step up your game, michael gambon.


ok these lists will be updated as i see fit

Hi everyoneee, I have a quick question.

I'm going away for two weeks so I'm gonna get my brother to take care of my two bettas while I'm gone. He's got a one year kid so he can't be back and forth everyday to my house sooo I'm gonna move my bettas over to his place for the duration of my vacation. (He only lives like a 3 - 5 minute drive away too so it's all cool).

So yeah, I was wondering what you guys suggest is the easiest way to do this? Should I just clean up the tank but not put water in it until I get there (with bettas in little containers or something)? How bad an idea is it to clean the tank up and put water in it and take it in the car? XD One tank is 3g and the other 2g, so.

SILLY QUESTION I KNOW, but lmao just thought I'd see what fishi experts would say. Thanks!

by Lisa Mantchev.

If there's anything else in the world I love as much as writing, it would be The Theater.

In fact, for about three years I was certain I would grow up not to be a writer, but An Actor. I have a journal entry from my sophomore year of high school right after I saw Beauty and the Beast at Her Majesty's Theatre in Sydney, Australia in which I wrote, "oh god, I die! Tonight I saw my destiny!" and other melodramatic things. I was convinced that The Theater saved my life, quite literally, by giving me passion and friends and a reason to be at a time when I otherwise felt lost and alone. Throughout high school I threw myself into theater, not only acting in all the productions at my school (including the awesome Midsummer Night's Dream and The Complete Works of Shakespear (abridged) in which I got to play Hamlet), but ended up president of the drama club, a forensics judge and champion (if I do say so myself) and basically everything I *could* do to envelope myself in the art.

I'm only saying all this so you can understand that when I heard about EYES LIKE STARS, I was a wee bit excited. Here's the description I nicked from Amazon:

All her world’s a stage.

Bertie Shakespeare Smith is not an actress, yet she lives in a theater.

She’s not an orphan, but she has no parents.

She knows every part, but she has no lines of her own.

That is, until now.


Enter Stage Right

NATE. Dashing pirate. Will do anything to protect Bertie.

COBWEB, MOTH, MUSTARD SEED, and PEASEBLOSSOM. Four tiny and incredibly annoying fairies. BERTIE’S sidekicks.

ARIEL. Seductive air spirit and Bertie’s weakness. The symbol of impending doom.

BERTIE. Our heroine.

Welcome to the Théâtre Illuminata, where the actors of every play ever written can be found behind the curtain. They were born to play their parts, and are bound to the Théâtre by The Book—an ancient and magical tome of scripts. Bertie is not one of them, but they are her family—and she is about to lose them all and the only home she has ever known."


My insides sort of twisted up in anticipation, and I tried for months to *not* be excited, because let's face it: the more excited I am about something, the more potential for disappointment. I'm a very contrary person.

But! I kept seeing buzz about it, and kept thinking about the potential of that little line mentioning Ariel, who is probably one of the coolest characters Shakespeare ever wrote and who is always ALWAYS overshadowed by Puck. Plus, I stared reading Lisa Mantchev's blog (lisamantchev) and she seems like a Very Cool Person..... so when the book came out last week and I was heading up here to Colorado, I stopped in the bookstore and treated myself.

Then I started reading it on Monday, promising after one chapter I'd get back to my own writing. But instead I was still reading five chapters later when my Mom called. IT'S THAT GOOD.

Short review: THIS. BOOK. IS. AWESOME.

Long review: ( Behind a cut because I'm about to vomit love for Lisa Mantchev and her book all over the internets. )

Overall, this is 110% win. I loved it, and I can't wait for the sequel.

Better than that though: if I'd read this when I was 14 or 15 it would have been my Favorite Book Ever, and I'd have read it three times already.

Lisa, if you're reading this: WRITE FASTER. Please. With sugar on top.

Happy birthday, delleve!

(63 pics + adult situations under the fake cut)

Voices of the Vampire Community
Global Vampire Community Discussion - July 10, 2009
96 Attendees - 53 Page Transcript

The transcript is available from the following links:

http://www.veritasvosliberabit.com/images/VVCGlobalVampireCommunityDiscussion07.10.09.pdf
http://www.veritasvosliberabit.com/images/VVCGlobalVampireCommunityDiscussion07.10.09.doc

- Voices of the Vampire Community (VVC)
http://www.veritasvosliberabit.com/vvc.html

So I had a thought. For lack of a better way to describe what's been going on, it seems like my fish have trouble breathing sometimes. My bottle of water conditioner is getting rather low and I've had it for about a year, is it possible that it's expired and it's not working as well anymore? I have a second bottle, it's been around as long but it's never been opened, should I try using that next time I clean the tanks or does this stuff not expire? There's no actual date on it, but that doesn't mean there isn't a shelf life. A lot of women don't realize perfume has a shelf life, for example. I use regular tap water (by "regular" I mean unfiltered) and use BettaSafe conditioner by AquaSafe. I use that because it actually says "Use x drops per gallon" as opposed to assuming I have at least ten gallons of water to work with, I just can't do the math on something that says "Use one capful per 10 gallons."

About ten days ago somebody said to me, "hey you want to come to Fort Collins for a week, basically for free?" And I said, "You mean the Fort Collins that's right next to Rocky Mountain National Park where I just now decided the next chunk of my WIP takes place?!?"

Needless to say, I am currently in Colorado. I'm in a cute yellow brick bungalow, built in 1904, about 5 blocks away from Old Town. If I walk out into the street I can see the foothills of the mountains. More on the city itself later (remind me to tell you about the best martini bar I've ever seen) and our day into the national park. This post is about inspiration.

My family used to go on long camping trips every other summer: to Yellowstone, the Badlands, the Grand Canyon, Black Hills, Redwood National Forest, and of course, the Rockies. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go on a hike that I remember from a trip when I was about twelve. It's near the Estes Park entrance, and one of the more popular hikes. You lead in at the Bear Lake trailhead, and hike up a couple of miles to various lakes hidden among the mountains: Nymph Lake with it's lily pads, Dream Lake with the spectacular view, and finally Emerald Lake. It's a trek, but completely worth it. We also took a detour off to Lake Haiyaha, which was strenuous on my ankles (uneven path) but when we got there it was one of those crystal-perfect moments with blue skies, glaciers, huge boulders and this water as clear as glass.

But it was really Dream Lake that I was interested in.

I remember standing on a boulder at the edge of Dream Lake when I was 12, and being caught up in awe. Behind me was the valley, cutting down in layers of evergreen trees and sheer cliffs, and in front of me a still lake that reflected a perfect image of the cloudy sky. A peak rose overhead, and wind gusted down at me so thick and sharp I could reach out my fingers and feel it weave around them like heavy spider webs. And I though, This. This feeling right now is hiding a story.

It wasn't until I was 17 that I wrote that story, but it turned into the first novel I ever finished. My epic 200k monstrosity: SHADOW KIN, about a girl who used magic to weave wind and fly. (Well, it was about a lot of other, darker, bloodier things, but what made her happy was the flying, the brilliant feeling of wind through her fingertips.)

So, that's Dream Lake and me, sixteen years after the last time I was there. About six novels later, too.

It's the perfect place for New Asgard, home of the gods. Right up there on that peak.

So Raine and Veronica have grown up, very nicely i may add. follow this way....
( Read more... )

hi everyone. i've been thinking about getting a betta fish. i've had two in the past that lived a reasonable amount of time, but if i get another i'd like to make sure i take care of it the right way. i have a couple of glass bowls from my previous bettas (i don't know their exact size) but i've never used any kind of filter or heater. also, i'll be living in an apartment without air conditioning for a few months, and was wondering if that should be a concern. i can leave fans on, but it may get up to 85 or 90 in there.

anyway, do you guys have suggestions for a basic set-up for a betta? i've been reading a lot of conflicting information.

Will my Betta get along with an African Dwarf Frog(s)?

Oh, CPs you're glorious!
Never uproarious!


... Ok, that's a lie and I also can't write poetry, especially the kind that rhymes.

On Wednesday I was talking to m_stiefvater about my book. The awesome one where I get to write insults like this: "Oh," Astrid interrupts merrily, "we were just asking this pig-faced troll sucker to leave us alone."

Yeah, that one. Which I love so much I am in that place where I almost don't care if anyone else loves it or even reads it. It's mine, precious. All mine.

ANYWAY.

WEDNESDAY: I'm chatting with Maggie about what happens next, and it goes like this.

Maggie: That's great!
Tessa: I know!

.... ten seconds later....

Maggie: You have no idea how this book ends, do you.
Tessa: I do!! I know the last image and I know... stuff!
Maggie: Stuff?
Tessa: Yes, lots of it.
Maggie: But not how it ends.
Tessa:.... *whispers*... no.

Cue dramatic music. Swelling cello and a high-pitch flute to represent my complete panic.

About two hours later, still sans ideas (or sanity), I email Maggie and Brenna this long, incoherent email that might include the phrases "I don't know what I'm doing" "What am I writing about" "tell me what to do" and "HELP ME."

brennayovanoff writes back almost immediately with a joke about climaxes and bearsploding to make me feel better and says she is going to reread everything I sent her which is a lot. Maggie writes back and is very mean* and tells me five times in the course of the email that I WILL NOT LOSE MY MOJO.

I drink two pomegranate margaritas and feel mightily better.

THURSDAY:

I begin taking their advice, which was to print out everything I've written for a long, slow read, because if I did it right, all the answers I need are right there in my book.

I'm reading. And reading more. And then on page four, I see it: "If she was dead, Soren, she would be easy to find." Astrid's mouth presses into a thin line. "I could summon your father." This is meaningless to you, I'm sure, but to me it was The Answer.

Or at least the first one.

I found two more sentences before page ten that laid out for me like a map the three main issues I have to deal with in the last half of my book. I was excited! I was ecstatic! I was making jokes about writing fanfic slash of my favorite character in SHIVER!

... and then I am chatting with Brenna who says something to make me realize that I have plot points and I know the kinds of things I need to deal with... but I still don't know the KEY emotional climax. Because plot is one thing. Having an idea of the place you want to end the story is another. And the emotional journey of your main character... well that's a whole different ball game.

I think most writers (and possibly readers) know that there are two climaxes in a good book: the plot climax and the emotional climax. They sometimes happen at the same time, but not always. I believe that if you nail the emotional climax, the plot one is significantly less important. A good way to find your emotional climax is to figure out how your MC is changing over the course of the book. My deliriously awesome crit partners told me I needed to think about reversals. If Soren is one way at the beginning, what is the reverse of that? What about the other characters, what about the overall situation? Should the changes be that dramatic? (I tend to think that with YA, the answer is usually a big fat YES, because of the melodramatic nature of teens and the changes occurring in their lives.)

Yesterday afternoon, between the two of them, I spent FIVE HOURS talking in-depth about writing and characters: my writing specifically, what I'm doing and trying to do, and their writing, too. We compared ideas, yelled at each other, laughed at early drafts, and I got to swing between excitement and more panic.

Yes, there were several long interludes where we made fun of TV shows and other books, discussed the likelihood of cannibalism every being sexy (guess which side I was on), Steven King, Twilight, if Ioan, Ian, or Eoin is a better way to spell it, neutered werewolves, Justin Timberlake, which characters in our own books we would like to murder, and then argued about art.

But Brenna also said some very profound things that got me thinking in another direction and Maggie talked like Yoda and we figured out why "Troy" was not a very good movie for the same reason I was going to write a better book.

And at 6:26pm July 9th, 2009, I said this:

me: and he thinks he transfers that to Baldur. when they get to Baldur. yeah. and...

AND

oh

OH

oh god

THAT, good friends, was my spasm of epiphany (also known as a writerly orgasm, or WO). It took several hours of foreplay, of letting all these thoughts rattle around in my brain, of dicking around and being silly - of making wildly ridiculous metaphors and being creative in ways that were not directly related to my book.

BLESS THEM for doing it with me.

Because the best friends/critique partners will not only laugh and call you a weird monster for being excited about cannibals in prehistoric Italy, but they'll tell you when you're seriously screwing up your book. And then help you fix it.




*but at least she didn't call me laughing which is what I did to her that one time.
**and check out that weird thing Brenna's doing with her tongue in the picture. Hahaha!

One of my fish isn't looking so hot. He's been listless for a while, though of course he perks up when he sees me and especially when he's being fed. But he seems to spend a lot of time resting, more than what I figure is normal. He rests with his head higher than his tail, like he's staring at the aquarium light. He's currently bloated, so I'm going to fast him tonight and maybe even tomorrow. Could constipation simply be the problem? I'm Jewish, so it's difficult for me to not feed an adorable wriggly fish, I just sit here thinking "He might be hungry. He's so damn cute. I should feed him at least one pellet." XD

I haven't actually seen him poop lately, but from what I can see on the bottom of the tank (don't worry, I siphon it out regularly), he's definitely pooping and it's brown. I don't clean the tank as often as I should, but it is clean and I've been putting some aquarium salt in there the past few water changes. I don't use too much salt, the temperature's fine according to the thermometer, no nitrites/nitrates or ammonia, nothing in or near the tank that could bother him, and Googling this issue has been absolutely no help.

Should I just fast him and see if that perks him up at all? Is being listless a symptom for anything I could medicate? Is he just older than I think and this is the fish equivalent of an old dude watching tv all day? I've had him a year, but he was from PetCo so who knows how old he was when I got him.

Noooo!!!!

Tuesday came and I was very distracted all morning by the fact that it was the last day of our retreat. *cue massive sighs of sorrow and peremptory nostalgia*

Someone discovered that a famous southern style restaurant was only a couple of blocks away from us, and you could get a huge smorgasbord of fried chicken and grits and potatoes and okra and collard greens and anything you could possibly imagine eating at a southern style restaurant.

HOWEVER, Maggie and Dawn and I were party-poopers and decided to stay at the house and eat cereal instead of standing in line outside for an hour in 95 degree weather. We chilled in the dining room with our coffee/tea/laptops and gossiped about the other six GothicGirls until Carrie showed up, having abandoned the sweaty line. At which point we kept doing exactly what we'd been doing, with the addition of Carrie!

This is only important because we later learned that the girls at the restaurant sat with a family who knew who Carrie was. I can just imagine that conversation:

Stranger Kid: what do you do?
Heidi: (I'm only sort of sure it was Heidi, but even if not, I'm happy abusing her) Hey! We're young adult writers on a retreat!
SK: Oh yeah? Do you have any books?
Heidi: Well, not yet, but we will! Except for Maggie Stiefvater and Carrie Ryan! Their books are out!
SK: Carrie Ryan who wrote the zombie book?!?! AWESOME! Where is she?!?
Heidi: Yes! That Carrie Ryan! Um, she went home.
SK: Really. (narrows eyes suspiciously)
Heidi: I swear, she was just here.
SK: Yeah right, lame-o.
Jackson: (interrupting to save Heidi face) Hey, SK, did you know Miley Cyrus is in town?!?! WOO!

Anyway, when everybody got back, a handful of us walked outside in the unbelievably sticky heat to find a Bank of America and were summarily thwarted. And no, there was nothing worthwhile on that walk. It was just very hot and sticky, and BOA proved itself as evil as ever.

I spent the next couple of hours laying on my back in my pajamas on the landing up to the attic. I had my notebook, my iPod, and was brainstorming about this crazy idea for changing the POV of the book I wanted to write next.* I didn't get much done because of all the giggling and jokes, but it was so totally worth it.

Then we cleaned up and headed out to make our reservations at The Pink House, which had been recommended to all of us by various people back home. It was our Fancy Dinner Out to celebrate our last night together. Once we found it, we were taken upstairs (and what stairs they were, so narrow and crooked and uneven - they would kill me if I lived there) and through a maze of tiny dining rooms to our table. It was all very quiet, with a few dozen servers running around in black and white, carrying plates with small, lovely looking bits of food. We settled in, decided on wine and a few appetizers (which were all DELICIOUS) and ordered.

The menu changes, so this one isn't exactly what we had, but it's pretty close. Maggie and I shared an almond crusted chicken breast and jumbo sea scallops that tasted like butter... I could have eaten them forever. Like hot butter. YUM. There were several whole seared flounders around the table, too. Jackson tried to share a bite of hers with me, but I did it wrong despite having watched our server demonstrate it about five times. Oops.

That night, the conversation revolved around the question of what would make us feel as though we'd "arrived" or succeeded at writers. Everyone had something different to say, and the answers were fascinating: from winning a Printz for Heidi ( ;P ) to holding our own book in our hands, to walking into Target and seeing our book there - from nine writers, there were about eighteen different answers. And we all agreed that the moment at the table, sitting and talking with each other was in itself a moment of arrival.

I know I already wrote my mushy post, but that moment was amazing. There I was with eight other strong women, all doing what we love. Making that dream real.

By the time we got home, it couldn't have been later than 10pm... but the next time I looked at my watch it was four in the morning. That's right, before a day spent in the airport trying to get home, I didn't go to sleep until after five. And the last hour, those of us still awake (and insane) talked about dogs. No joke. Dogs and rescue dogs and our own pets and... I'm sure there were cute pictures from the internets involved.

I think I got about two hours of sleep, because my alarm was set to go off in time for me to leave for the airport with Carrie around 930am. It was just the two of us, because Maggie's flight was delayed (and thanks so so so much for the ride, Carrie!!!) And I didn't get to say goodbye to everyone, because some were still sleeping and I hadn't thought about it the night before. Thank goodness for the internet! I've been able to keep up with everyone, almost like we never left Savannah!

My lack of sleep allowed me to sleep on the airplane home, and when the second leg of the flight was rocky and horrible (the pilot actually said at one point, "If you're thinking of getting up to use the lavatory, forget it!") I was too tired to really care if I was about to plummet to my death. At least the clouds were gorgeous.


So that's basically the whole trip! I'm sure I left out a ton of stuff, so maybe bits and pieces will pop up again in the future. At least until we get back together for GothicGirls10! I'm hoping for somewhere a little less... sticky. :D

Thanks to Maggie, Brenna, Carrie, Jackson, Jackie, Heidi, Dawn, and Linda for including me and being so freaking amazing. WOO GOTHIC GIRLS!



*which led, two weeks later, to the still phenominal Dream of Apples, Dream of Spears, which I am referring to as merely APPLES for short.

Every book is different. We all know that. You begin one in the right place, you end it all wrong. You begin another book five times before it's even close to right and then half the middle has to be replaced, but damn is that character consistent throughout the whole thing. Sometimes an outline works, sometimes you have to run with sudden inspiration in the opposite direction.

There are patterns we develop, that we learn to recognize in ourselves. I know that until I have the right beginning, I can't tell the rest of the story. I know I have to have a key word, a theme, to keep in mind or I'll get so far off track with what I'm doing that I never find my way home again. I know when I'm stuck, it's usually because I don't know what my antagonist is up to, and a little villainous freewriting is in order.

But if every book is different, how do I know I'm getting better? How do I know I'm challenging myself in the right ways, pushing where I need to push, reaching for that next level?

Negative Word Count.

It used to be that whenever I deleted words, especially big chunks of them, it felt like failure. It felt like I'd messed up and had totally wasted time. It felt awful. I hated it.

Yesterday, I'd written 1800 word before noon. I kept squinting at the page, wondering why my characters were talking about what they were talking about. I was thinking, I didn't expect this info to appear until later, and oh, that reveal was supposed to happen in that scene tomorrow... And I was having trouble finishing the scene. I knew what was supposed to happen next, but not exactly, word-by-word, how to get there.

So I went for a walk. Not five minutes in, I knew I had to scrap every single bit of it.

It felt wasteful, like surely I could find a way to salvage it. But no. It was wrong. I used to let myself go with the flow. I'd let my characters do what they wanted (so to speak), because surely they were saying things for a reason, and who was I to silence them? How could I manipulate their emotions and motivations? The characters are who they are, I used to think, so I have to let them be themselves. I have to let the story exist as it wants to exist.

OH how silly of me.

I'm the writer. I know better. I know where the story has to go, I know how to keep the characters consistent. See, I didn't used to believe that. I used to think I was more like a channel, interpreting a story as it transitioned from that amorphous land of imagination into the real world. It was fun, and often exhilarating. And I can understand why some people like to function that way.

But if I'm only channeling the story, I don't have to take responsibility for it. I don't have to focus on the best way for the story to be told. I don't have to look so closely at the work every single word needs to be doing for me. I don't have to be in charge.

And if I'm only channeling, not only don't I take responsibility, but what about credit?

I'm not a medium. Not a channel. I am a writer. I make it all up, every single tiny detail comes from some place inside my brain. I can't always explain it, whether I painstakingly create a character or dream her up one night in a series of random-seeming images. But it comes from me.

This little paradigm shift changed everything. I went from feeling protective toward my writing and idolizing it in a spiritual-emotional way, to understanding that it was a thing I built. I invent the pieces and arrange them. Rearrange them. Revising makes no sense if you've channeled a perfect little story from the realm of the gods. But if you've crafted something, if you've created pieces and put them together, you can always ALWAYS go back and put them into a new shape, create more pieces, destroy others.

There are so many other changes brought about by taking responsibility for your story. Theme, characterization, violence, sex, imagery, everything - but right now I'm only talking about the craft.

Now, when I delete almost 2,000 words, the total work I've put out in a morning, instead of feeling like I failed to listen, failed to translate properly... I feel like I've severed a poisoned limb. I have sutured a wound that won't be tempted to fester.

When I look at the novel I'm writing now, almost 23k of good, useable story, and I see all the false starts, the 20k of missteps, bad beginnings, and random scenes removed already, I see success.

I'm learning.

I think Hedwig has fin rot.


I am not 100% sure, but he may have had it when I got him - he had a dark line at the edge of his tail, and now his tail looks shredded.

I'm going back over old posts that have been tagged; but it appears I need to vacuum his gravel really well, water change more often, and medicate him? And what is the best stuff to get? I'm seeing references to things like 'm/m2' or JHC but I don't know which is better or exactly what they're called :/


Also, will the fins grow back? He hasn't lost a LOT yet but it seems raggedy and has a dark line on the edge of it :(




Click for bigger. This is one of the first pictures I got of him, and I noticed the dark line at the edge of his tail :(