#compost question

[the-garden-in-the-briar-patch]

Hey gardenblr, what's the smallest size of compost bin you can get away with? Can I use one-gallon containers? Is that too small? Would love advice for starting compost while living in an apartment.

[dread-and-despair-dyke]

Sunflower seeds?

Yes.

[blurbofparadise]

Questions for people who know bug things:

1. How do I explain to my large house centipede that I appreciate it's very important contributions to the household (eating the other bugs), but also that it is scary for it to appear suddenly and touch me and I would prefer strongly that it not do that?

2. How do I calm and apologize to the ant nest in my compost pile? I shifted the compost today and I think I messed up their house, because they were swarming all over real stressful like. Do you think the treats (fruits and veggies that had gone a little squishy and some sugar water) that I left out for them is sufficient to appease them? I would like them to stay in the compost pile, I wasn't aware that they were there before today when I apparently ruined their collective day.

[monstriiss]

hmmm

[nexus-nebulae]

me: *clicks on an article about a question i just googled*

the article: uuhhhhhhhh are you sure you want help with this thing? are you reeeeally sure? have you asked yourself if you actually need to do this? here's 10 other completely different options that aren't what you asked for since i don't think you're smart enough to decide :)

me: i am literally just trying to learn how to make a recipe smaller

[plant-cell-park]

its so tempting to make a limbus oc but i havent read the book id make the oc out of in like. years.

[resplendentmackerelsky]

I'm a bit on the fence about compostable bioplastics - especially after reading a few articles.

The most obvious benefit of them is that they're not made from fossil fuels, instead being made from organic matter, and therefore are renewable.

The second, is that they're not "forever plastics" or plastics that are going to be in the environment for 100s to 1000s of years.

However, the degradation of these bioplastics as they decompose forms microplastics that can have a potentially negative impact on the environment.

Yet, there are two types of compostable bioplastics. Industrially compostable and home compostable. Industrially compostable bioplastics don't have the same potential to release microplastics, as they're decomposed rapidly within a closed industrial composting facility (eg. a Hotrot). But these facilities are not super common and these plastics won't decompose properly if disposed of incorrectly, eg. in a landfill.

There are also similar biodegradable plastics available that degrade in landfills, rather than via composting, which release microplastics or methane when they decompose. Some of these plastics also enter the food chain or become forever-microplastics. At the moment CSIRO and the Australian government are working on cracking down on the labelling of these plastics as biodegradable or environmentally friendly.

There's also the secondary problem of access to somewhere to compost these bioplastics. My council does not accept any forms of compostable plastics in its green waste. And I live in a small unit, with no garden, so I don't have a home compost either. Because I don't have the facilities to compost these bioplastics, they either have to end up in landfill, where they decompose the same as other plastics, or in the recycling, where they get mixed with other plastics and lose the benefits of being compostable bioplastic.

In places such as zoos, museums, and sports stadiums, where these compostable plastics can be used for food/drinks and collected for proper disposal, they're not such a bad idea. But there's no point in the cafe around the corner using them for takeaway when there's nowhere locally to dispose of, collect, and compost them.

[zoofitness]

Random question but does anyone here compost?

[nerdyqueerr]

i NEED more time to MAKE ART and KISS my friends i don't WANNA write a media law case analysis or wash mould out of the compost bin

[belladonnaprice]

[hippo-pot]

think i'm gonna make lasagna today

[luveline]

also if you’re still taking requests for some established relationship criminal minds fics…

could i possibly get spencer and his bombshell when she’s having issues with not getting as hungry as she usually does? like she eats her fill but her fill is less food than she normally eats? this is very self indulgent so feel free to skip 🙏

thank you for requesting <3 bombshell, fem

“Spencer, lovely?” 

Spencer believes that only occasionally do you use your powers of seduction against him. This stringing of words, Spencer, his name, rolling off of your tongue, and lovely, so quaint and said so nicely, how you’ve called out, that’s unintentional. That’s pure niceness. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks, getting up to find you. 

The point of you staying at Spencer’s apartment is to see you, why isn’t he seeing you? (Dramatic. He invites you to spend time here because you want to and he wants you, and whatever you do while you’re here is fine by him.) 

You’re in the kitchen peeling fruits. A whole fruit salad, green and red apples cut in small slices like prep for an apple-sugar crumble, peeled tangerine, strawberries, pear, grapes. “Nothing is wrong,” you sing-song. “Wait, why do you think that?” 

“No reason.” He sweeps as much of your mountain of peels and off cuts into his hand as he can and carries it to his mini compost bin. This’ll take some time. “You did call me, though?” 

“Yeah, I want your opinion.” You slice through another strawberry.

Spencer cleans the last of the peels away, rinses his hands, and creeps up on you. “Why are you drawing this out? Is it an important question? Don’t be nervous,” he says, wrapping his arms around you from behind. Your shoulder is soft where he presses his nose. 

“It’s not important, I just wanna know if you think it’s okay to melt some chocolate and drizzle it over the fruit. Is that greedy? Am I gonna go into a sugar overload?” 

“That’s not greedy.” Spencer laughs softly, kissing your cheek. 

You pull away from him, but only to look at him with your own smile. It’s one he’s starting to know rather well, the I love you smile, fond and indulgent at once. It makes you look like you’re gonna pinch his cheeks. 

“You’re hungry, right?” you ask. 

“Yeah, I am.” It’s a lot of fruit. Spencer doesn’t know exactly why he says it at that very moment, but he suggests, “How about we make a little pot for fondue instead. That way if we don’t eat it all now we can put the fruit back in the fridge.” 

“You just want me to feed you,” you tease. 

Spencer hadn’t thought about it, but the image is a pleasant one. “Fondue was invented purely for dessert purposes at first, no seduction involved.” 

“Let’s involve it anyway.” 

He grins. “Before or after we eat?” he asks lightly. 

You tell him before in a way that reminds him that you aren’t just his best friend but his twin flame, drawing him close to you, your hands fragrant with orange rind and the sweet strawberry juice staining your fingertips. You take his face into your hands as he holds your waist, and when you kiss him, he smiles the entire time. 

“It wasn’t just chocolate,” he says, pulling away. “It was cream and cherry liquor, too.” 

“We should try it one day.” 

Spencer resists the urge to grab your face and squeeze your cheeks. “Yeah, we will.” 

He melts some chocolate and heats a small round dish in the oven. He pours the chocolate into the dish and you, impressed, sing his praises as you make some lemonade slush in the blender. It’s a fresh, cold snack for a warmer day. You take it in the living room with the window wide open and the drapes drawn back, sunshine at your feet. 

Spencer pulls you into his lap as much as you’ll allow him on the couch, the coffee table dragged to be in front of you, the TV remote held hostage under your arm. You dip a slice of apple into chocolate and offer it to him.

Spencer accepts it. He finds, as the bowl empties, the chocolate cools, that you don’t seem to eat very much. He slows his grazing in case he’s being greedy, but after what could only be a handful of fruit you’re done, curling into his side and hugging his leg. Your attention is on the TV but your legs wiggle restlessly.

“Is something on your mind?” he asks. 

“I don’t feel very hungry.” 

“That’s okay. It was a lot of fruit, angel, we can wrap it up.” 

“I feel like my appetite is awful lately,” you lament, sitting up to tip back across his lap, your shoulders to his thighs, looking up at him with a frown. “Do I look like I’ve lost weight to you?” 

Spencer holds your cheek. “I haven’t noticed anything, are you worried?” he asks, rubbing the softest part of your cheek with his thumb. 

“I guess it’s not a bad thing?” You wince. 

“It’s not a bad thing if you don’t feel hungry, but you need to eat. Maybe we can just switch to some dense food for a while. Protein bars and nuts, stuff like that.” Spencer leans down to tap your noses together. You laugh under your breath. “Do you want to lose weight?” he asks, frowning. 

“Not really. I’d prefer not to.” 

“Okay, good. You’re perfect like this,” he says. “We can just make sure you get your intake through whatever means necessary until we figure out what’s changed. Maybe you’re just changing. We can start having smaller meals throughout the day. It’s better for digestion.” 

You reach for a curl, twisting it around your fingers. “I have an appetite for you, at least.” 

“That’s corny,” he says. 

“You love it, though.” 

Spencer pushes the ‘diminishing appetite’ search results from his head. He can worry later, when you’ve been well and thoroughly kissed. 

[bovineblogger]

Just wanted to pitch my two cents in response to the previous anon! Hi friend, I know for a lot of us who get our food shrink wrapped and packaged at the grocery store it’s mind boggling to even imagine there’s a healthy way of animal husbandry.

I grew up in The Big City™️ but was raised by my grandparents. They grew up farming (just crops, their families were too poor to own livestock or purchase meat/milk/eggs) and taught me to have an incredible respect for where food comes from. We grew our own crops in the tiny backyard, composted, and did aquaculture even before I knew what it was. We bought our smaller meat from the local butcher minimally processed. You had to debone and process the whole chicken, fish, rabbit, frogs, etc. Grandpa traded his veggies for different fruits with the other oldies. Grandma made her own wine and yogurt. And I’ve worked and volunteered at animal shelters and wildlife rescue/rehab centers growing up. I still compost nearly all of my food waste. Even then, I didn’t truly understand the extent to which a properly cared for animal farm could be healthy and ethical.

Until I met one of my previous partners that is. They grew up in an incredibly rural area on a family farm that had animals, including a herd of cows for meat. They hunted, but always to protect the livestock and made use of the animals they killed/sold them to others in town who would. It seemed so counterintuitive to my sensibilities and raised my hackles at first. How could you say you love animals and do that? But I began asking questions…for hours and hours because it was nothing I’d been exposed to.

The way they and their family cared for/revered their animals seemed almost religious to me when I first encountered it. From the time they were kids, it was always the animals’ chores first. You woke up but fed and milked the cows before you made yourself breakfast. They made blankets for the animals and read to them. You gave the herd everything they needed and then some. If something in the barn needed fixing, that would happen first before new windows for the house. The animals had their own things and toys and treats. It was love! There were never cattle prods or whips or any of the machinery you associate with industrial farming. The animals would greet them happily every morning. They loved and trusted their people back enough to be naughty a way a pampered cat is. It really sunk in when I stood next to a cow for the first time — there’s nothing that would stop that animal from harming you, especially if you were a kid, unless it respected you and loved you back.

(They once told me the story of how some large predator like a bear or wolf tried to sneak into the pasture at night. The family woke up there next morning to a furry pancake that had been utterly stomped into the ground by the herd.)

A whole lifetime later, they can still remember the names, personalities, and stories of all the animals they raised. I would get bored and try to list off random names as a game to see if they ever had an animal called that, actually. But the thing that initially shocked (and stuck with me the most) was that when they’d take an older cow to the butcher, they would get packages of meat back labeled with that animal’s name. But it wasn’t ever scary or traumatizing for the kids. They always knew where food was from. Sometimes they were even there helping when that animal was born in the barn. What that did was give them an incredible sense of care, respect, and duty for those animals. When they had dinner that night, they would say grace and mean it in a way you only could if you viewed that animal as an equal family member. I was raised religious, but had never heard grace said like that, with that amount of genuine intent until I ate dinner with them. It used to be just something I did, just going through the motions.

That being said, yes it would probably be the most bio energy efficient/less emissions heavy if the whole world shifted away from a meat-based diet. But ideal isn’t always realistic/something we can achieve overnight. Meat alternatives are often expensive or time consuming to prepare (like beans/legumes). The way I see it, this blog is part of a harm reduction approach in facilitating an appreciation/love/education for livestock and then encouraging people to seek out more mindful sources of meat, like some local farms. We’ve seen time and time again, shame/blame are far less effective in getting people to re-examine their worldviews than education and love.

thank you so much for this ask, this is so so so so so lovely!!! i feel like a lot of people that arent farmers or dont have farmers in their family dont really understand just how much love is there.

[beenbaanbuun]

the ghost - opposites attract universe

in front of the fire stands a broad shouldered man dressed in furs, staring down at your rug as if it means just as much to him as it does you. you don’t recognise him as a friend of your lovers, although it’s possible that you just haven’t met this one yet. you wrack your brain for names they might have mentioned, but each one that pops up in your mind is someone you’ve met before. that means that this man is a stranger.

you want to call out to him, ask him what the fuck he was doing in your home. perhaps you’d grab yeosang’s attention at the same time; the werewolf may be just a few steps behind you, but he is surprisingly unaware of his surroundings. maybe he’d leap into action, chase the intruder out of the house. but then you blink and the man is gone, completely vanished like he’s some sort of…

ghost…

“did you just see that?” you ask yeosang, the werewolf slowly coming to a stop behind you with a strip of jerky hanging lazily between his lips. he really hasn’t been paying attention to much other than the way your hair shines prettily under the dim candles that light the home, so it’s safe to say that he has no idea what it is you’re talking about. he gives you a questioning hum as he rips the jerky with his teeth.

“see what?” his voice is muffled by the meat that he insists on chewing as he speaks. the sound of his lips smacking sends an unsatisfying shiver down your spine, and your mouth tugs into a frown.

“so i guess the answers no?” you scoff, crossing your arms in irritation, “some guard dog you are; i don’t think you’d be able to spot an intruder if he came up to you and gave you a handshake!”

yeosang doesn’t respond to your insult, merely rolling his eyes before tugging you over to jongho, the rug, to cuddle. always so dramatic, he thinks to himself as he flops onto the floor and gestures for you to join him. you do, lying straight on his chest in a way that seems to force all the air out of his lungs. normally, he’d pin you for that, holding you to the floor until you’re promising him to be more gentle through your honestly insulting giggles. though, he finds that with the lack of air in his lungs, it’s rather difficult to flip the two of you over. next time, he concludes before wrapping his tail protectively around your thigh.

a few hours later, you find yourself in the greenhouse with seonghwa, watching the graceful man tend to his plants as he hums out a pretty tune. yeosang is long gone, deciding to take some alone time after listening to you ramble about your most recent interest, book binding, for as long as he could stand to. he gave you some fake excuse of needing to ask hongjoong about something, but you aren’t quite dumb enough to believe that. especially when you watched him walk in the opposite direction of the office you knew your daddy was in.

still, you don’t really mind having your time away from your friend. it gives you the opportunity to spend time with your lovers without the grumpy mutt offering his snarky comments every few sentences.

“hey, seonghwa?” you say, voice lilting with curiosity as you push yourself up to sit on his work bench. there’s a grimace on his face as he watches your thighs press down against the dirt covered wood, the compost and debris no doubt rubbing into the material of your denim shorts. its fine, he tells himself; it’ll come out with a little manpower… hopefully.

“what is it, lamb?” seonghwa hums as he tugs his cotton gardening gloves from his hands and lays them perfectly straight on the table. his fingertips are painted with a deep shake of purple today, done by hongjoong’s fair hands just the night before. as he lays a hand on your exposed thigh, you can’t help but think that the colour looks pretty against your skin.

“do you think ghosts are real?”

the question takes seonghwa by surprise, you can see by the way his eyes go wide and his blinks slow for just a moment or two. he lets out an inquisitive hum, lips pursing slightly as he tries to think of an answer.

“well, i know they’re real,” seonghwa purrs as he gently spreads your thighs, stepping between them so he can look you in the eyes. he’s pretty from this close up—not that he isn’t always pretty—with his wide eyes twinkling and pink lips so beautifully plush. you so badly want to steal a kiss from him, but you also want to know the answer to your question. you hold back for now; there’ll be plenty of time for kissing later. “why are you asking?”

you almost tell him, but just before the words fall from your lips, you hold back. perhaps telling one of your lovers that you saw a man in their living room would be cause for concern. whilst you’re almost entirely convinced that he was a ghost, the only proof you have is that one moment he was there and the next he wasn’t. it’s very plausible that he was just really good at hiding, or maybe he was just a figment of your imagination. if either of those turn out to be the case, seonghwa will worry. you don’t want that, so you keep your theory to yourself.

“i’m just curious, hwa,” you offer him a smile, but you can tell he sees through it. he gives you a low hum, a single eyebrow cocking an question. the fake smile remains on your face, so he lets it go, understanding that he’s not going to get the truth out of you so easily.

“well, what do you want to know, my darling lamb?” he asks, using a long finger to hook some hair behind your ear, “you never know, i might just have the answers, hm?” the same hand settles on your cheek, palm cupping your face like you’re the most precious thing on earth.

you pause for a moment. what do you want to know about ghosts? you’d come to seonghwa with just the one question in mind; did they exist? he’d answered that one with ease and now you’re stuck on where to go next. realistically, you should probably focus on trying to find out whether the man in the living room was one or not; how on earth are you supposed to do that without revealing the truth?

seonghwa chuckles as he watches your expression contort onto one of concentration. it’s adorable, the way that your worry lines look between your brows. the way you tug on your bottom lip with your teeth, the white enamel now lined with the pretty pink gloss you reapplied not too long ago. if he didn’t think you looked entirely too cute like that, perhaps he’d tell you about it so you could wipe it away. for now, though, he’s happy to sit and bask in your sweetness.

“what’s so difficult about thinking up a question?” seonghwa leans forward to place a kiss to the tip of your nose when he finds that he can no longer hold himself back. the grin on his face as he pulls away is wide. “i can think of a million off the top of my head.”

you me face relaxes as he teases you. a deadpan glare is thrown in his direction, but it does nothing to faze him. he’s still watching you like you hold the world in your hands.

“like what?” you retaliate, mock annoyance laced through your tone.

“like,” he pauses for a second, pouting as he sorts through the wide array of cryptid knowledge that’s stored itself in his brain. you can practically see the lightbulb pop up above his head a few seconds later as he lands on something. “how do ghosts come into existence?”

“someone dies?” you shrug, and seonghwa lets out a chuckle.

“yes, but it’s so much more than that, lamb,” he smiles. there’s a hint of amusement in his face with the way the corners of his lips tilt up, but you ignore it in favour of looking into his adoring eyes. they’re mostly pupil, and the way the light bounces off of them causes them to shine like a hunk of whitby jet. you suck in a deep breath as you try to calm your racing heart. it almost aches with how much you love him. “if you died right now, there would have to be some sort of physical remains tying you to the real world; a lock of hair, or a splatter of blood.”

or the skin of an onikuma…

oh…

“jongho,” you mutter under your breath, suddenly feeling your chest grow tight at the realisation.

“your rug?” seonghwa tilts his head, “what about it?”

you gulp down the lump in your throat, letting it sit in your stomach as an uneasy ball of emotions instead. you don’t have the time nor energy to sift through them or unpack each of them individually. you’re so close to reaching the bottom of the mystery you’d stumbled upon; you won’t let feelings fuck it up now.

“he’s a demon,” you say, looking into seonghwa’s eyes for confirmation. he nods, “and hongjoong said demons have human forms too?”

“sometimes,” seonghwa concludes, “the onikuma… it’s probable that he disguised himself as a villager from time to time. it would’ve helped him scope his hunting ground better.”

jongho probably had a human form. that ball of emotions—is that excitement?—grows bigger.

“and if you were to kill a onikuma and, i don’t know, keep its hide as a trophy, would he come back as a ghost? do demons even have souls? do you even need a soul to be a ghost? what exactly is a soul?”

a hand slips over your racing mouth, effectively cutting your rambles short, shutting you up. seonghwa relaxedly sighs at the moment of peace.

“not even i understand the ins and outs of everything, my silly little lamb,” he snickers, a teasing smirk playing on his lips, “but i do think i understand what you’re trying to ask in your odd, roundabout way.” he pauses to slowly pull his hand away from your lips. his actions say that he trusts you to remain silent, the pace he’s going at tells you that he’s prepared to put his hand right back where it was if you start rambling again. it pleases him to see your lips sealed in a thin, annoyed line. he hums in amusement, “you know, your precious onikuma will probably come back if you call for him; ghosts like to know that the living still have a need for them.”

“you think?” you ask. seonghwa presses another short kiss to your lips, barely giving you time to close your eyes before he’s pulling away again.

“i know,” he murmurs, “now, go and talk to your bear; leave me to work in peace!”

——————————————

that’s how you end up back in the living room, cross legged on jongho’s back like you have been so many times before. the fire crackles behind you, filling the otherwise silent room with the comforting sound of burning wood. you take a deep breath through your nose, pushing it out through your mouth as you try and expel the anxiety that’s muddled itself with the excitement in your stomach.

“jongho?” you say, speaking the name given to him by you; his real name remained a mystery to you. there’s a cold blast of air behind you, and your neck twists at a whiplash pace, eyes landing on the fireplace. there’s nothing there but the white-hot logs and the flames dancing back and forth across them. it must’ve been a gust of wind down the chimney or something. nothing to frighten you at all.

you huff out a breath of relief before letting your head twist slowly back around…

“is that me?” a voice says as your eyes make contact with a pair of pupils that sit a little too close to be comfortable. you scramble back, a little squeak coming from your lips as you move away from the figure that has appeared in front of you. you come to a step just a foot or two away, chest heaving at the sudden fright the man had given you. if it weren’t for the mop of fuzzy brown hair that resembled the fur on your favourite rug a little too closely to be coincidence perhaps you’d have screamed for help. “jongho, i mean… is that my name?”

he tilts his head like a confused animal, tugging at the brown fur hide that rests upon his shoulders as if the action brings him some sort of comfort. and as you look into his eyes, you realise that he probably needs it. they’re wet, glittering with unshed tears of confusion and stress. he keeps blinking them away, but they come back almost instantly. it’s no surprise to you when the first one rolls down his cheek. he wastes no time in wiping it away.

“does that upset you?” you ask, cautiously, “that i’ve given you a name?”

he shakes his head vigorously.

“i’ve never had a name before,” he clarifies; the thought makes your chest ache. to be given a name is to be loved and this poor creature has none. no names, and therefore no love. you think for a moment about how long he’s lived with no love, but it only makes it hurt more. he was slain hundreds of years ago, and he was probably alive for hundreds more. your eyes begin to burn so you push that thought deep down inside of you. “jongho is a nice one to have as my first.”

your heart breaks for the creature. you’d have to have a talk with hongjoong later; how cruel of him to let his resident ghost go uncared for for so long.

“it is,” you try not to take notice of how strained your voice sounds, “and its yours; you’re jongho, if you’d like be.

the man nods, although the tension in his body doesn’t seem to seep away just yet. his shoulders are still hunched up by his ears, and his fingers still twirl the fur he’s wearing mindlessly. you find yourself grateful that it’s just you and him; you can’t bear to think how nervous he’d be if there was a werewolf looming over your shoulder.

“and… who are you?” he asks shyly, and you take a moment to think. within a few seconds, you settle on an answer and smile to yourself.

“a friend,” you reply.

[zara-renata]

Would you love me if I were a worm?

Sylus x gn reader | A stupid, short drabble that got stuck in my head while peeling potatoes yesterday, no warnings

“Sylus, would you love me if I were a worm?”

Sylus doesn’t even look up from the book he’s reading, sprawled on one of the leather couches in his library, the full red moon spilling through the windows and blanketing him in a softly sinister light. “Yes.”

You lift your head and scowl at him from your position stretched out along his long body, hands folded under your chin, resting on his firm stomach.

“You’re not taking the question seriously.”

He lifts a dark silver eyebrow, eyes still not lifting from his book, the gold-rimmed reading glasses he’s wearing glinting in the warm light from the Tiffany lamp next to the couch. “And how did you arrive at that conclusion?”

“If you had actually properly considered it, you would have taken a little more time to answer.”

He finally deigns to look at you over the rims of his glasses. “I gave it the exact amount of attention that such a question deserves.”

“Why doesn’t it deserve more attention? I want to know your answer.”

“And I gave you my answer.” He returns to his book. It’s some pretentious title, about the sociology of ingroups and outgroups, the banality of evil.

“How can I take your answer seriously if you don’t think about it properly?”

He sighs. Looks over his glasses at you again. “You’ve been spending too much time with the twins.”

You sit up, leaning against the armrest of the couch opposite of Sylus. He frowns as you move away. “I don’t think I spend enough time with them, actually. They’re hilarious.”

His frown deepens. “I’m hilarious.”

“No, you’re a pretentious edgelord who won’t properly consider my question.”

“You speak so sweetly to the twins. Where’s that honey when you speak to me?”

“Honeypot’s empty until you tell me why you’d love me if I were a worm.” You prod his thigh with your bare foot.

He sighs again, sets the book on the side table. He takes your foot in his hands and begins to rub it, thumbs gently pressing into your arch. You suppress a moan.

“I’d love you if you were a worm because even as a worm, you are still you. I’d love you in any universe, in any world, in any timeline, in any form.”

You stare at him for a moment. “Now I feel bad about being mean to you.”

“As you should,” he gloats. “How will you make it up to me?”

“No, no. I’m not done.” He continues to caress your foot, one hand drifting up to your ankle, circling it between his thumb and forefinger. “You may love me as a worm, but what would you do with me? And would you seek out company in other people, since I couldn’t provide it to you as a little wiggly worm?”

“I would construct the most extravagant terrarium with all of the most luxurious provisions that a little worm’s heart could desire.” He pauses. “I’d also have to construct some sort of grate to protect you from Mephisto.”

You shudder, thinking about what it would be like to be a worm facing down Mephisto’s ruby stare. “I’d probably just be happy in some dirt,” you say, giving him your other foot. He takes the hint and begins to rub it too.

“Tch. My worm deserves only the finest in compost and enrichment activities in their terrarium. I wouldn’t be happy with just giving you some dirt.”

“Of course, and we must keep his royal snobness happy.”

“See? This is why I love you,” he smiles, just a little. “Even though your tongue is so sharp with me.”

“You’re avoiding the question about seeking other company,” you say, sinking lower into the couch as you enjoy the foot massage.

“What’s the point in answering what is clearly a trick question? You will not be turned into a worm. This whole discussion is a waste of time we could spend doing more interesting things.” He gives you an exaggeratedly lascivious once-over.

“I could be turned into a worm! Modified protocores have resulted in weirder shit happening!”

Sylus sighs yet again in resignation.

“I would miss your human company terribly, but there’s no replacing you,” he says smoothly.

You scowl at him again. “That doesn’t answer the question.”

“Darling, I was fine with my own company until you came into my life. I was fine with my own hand until you came into my life. I’d miss your company, and your sharp tongue, and your blow—”

You jerk one of your feet out of his hands and prod him in his stupid sexy abs. “Okay, okay. I get it.”

“I don’t think you do,” he says, sliding out from under you, dropping to his knees on the plush rug in front of you. He lifts one of your legs over his broad shoulder. “I think a demonstration is in order, of all the things I’ll miss that are irreplaceable, should the unthinkable happen and your lovely human form is reduced to that of a worm. I’ll start.” He lifts your other leg over his shoulder and looks up at you smugly.

You look down at him, heart so full with how much you love him that it hurts. “Promise you’re not lying?”

“When have I ever lied to you, beloved?”

You tilt your head. You think he really would love you if you were a worm.

“I’d love you if you were a worm too, Sy.”

“Oh good, I can stop losing sleep at night,” he says, voice dripping sarcasm. You punish him by tightening your thighs, squishing his handsome face between your knees.

He laughs a little breathlessly. “If you’re trying to encourage me, it’s working, kitten.”

You laugh and release him. “Deviant,” you say affectionately.

“Your deviant,” he says, leaning forward, big palms gliding up your thighs. “Whether you’re a human or a worm, that won’t change.”

[heywriters]

one of the positives of "show don't tell" is that it can be used to make readers ask and then answer their own questions. this is great because it is always great to get readers thinking and involving their imagination and their perspective.

I'm watching a show where in one brief, silent scene characters drag corpses to a room labeled "compost." no other information is needed because the viewer (reader) can now supplement the missing information with their own knowledge or conjecture, further immersing them in the story.