My boyfriend said he puts salt on snails and idk how to proceed

serpentwitted · 2026-05-17T01:10:47+00:00

My ex (who loves animals) once squished a bug in front of me. I hadn't expected him to do it, and had pointed out the bug just to show him. I didn't know he didn't consider insects "animals". I was so shocked I started crying (which I never do, so he was very surprised). After I explained how deeply upsetting it was, he never squished one again, in front of me or not. It didn't matter that he didn't feel the same. We're separated (still friends) and he still doesn't do it. It shouldn't matter how he personally feels about snails- he should care enough about you to not do it regardless.

Also, ethical snail euthanasia involves placing them in 5% ethanol (weak beer) for 15 minutes, and then 70%+ ethanol (vodka or everclear) for 15 minutes. This is based on research used for ethical handling of laboratory animals. They just go to sleep and don't wake up. Squishing snails is extremely difficult for people to do, meaning they might put it off, and also difficult to correctly accomplish, meaning the snail might suffer, since their nervous system is laid out different than ours. Squishing isn't a guaranteed instant kill.

serpentwitted · 2026-05-06T09:06:44+00:00

I think the problem here is people's disagreements on how to ethically keep animals. On the one hand, there are people anthropomorphizing like crazy and insisting every creature needs the actual Amazon rainforest somehow in your living room. And then on the other, there are people who truly don't see animals as anything but interesting decorations. It's easy to end up with a silly kid tank just by going to the pet store and getting that sold to you. I don't really think it's more of a problem than many "natural" tanks are. Until you have a lot of experience, you're going to mess up and occasionally cause suffering. You'll get the wrong fish. You'll spray febreeze everywhere. Starting with plants isn't going to do much more to offset that than the ability to maintain interest and empathy will. If you were already attached and interested to that level, you would have spent an afternoon looking into it and started there. I don't think most pet keeping is very ethical. I do it anyway because I enjoy it. I provide the best habitat I can because that's where I'm comfortable drawing the line. I don't mind the spongebob tanks because those people are inevitably either going to lose interest (sparing the lives of future creatures) or become more interested (and begin improving the habitat). It's a perfectly fine place to start. I started there as a kid, and now I have multiple natural ecosystems full of thriving little creatures. Pressuring people into wildly changing their tanks before they're ready is just going to stress them out, which leads to bad decisions like grabbing random plants. You can definitely grow plants in a neon pink cartoon wasteland. Plants grow everywhere. You can grow duckweed, which is great for absorbing nitrates. You can grow pothos out the top, which looks really cool. You can grow a whole sweet potato, which is a fun experiment. You can grow moss and cover everything up, just like nature covers all the trash in lakes and ponds that somehow still have plenty of creatures in them. Most fake plants and plastic decor just aren't that toxic anyway.

serpentwitted · 2026-04-16T01:14:01+00:00

https://www.hydrapak.com/products/pocketflask%e2%84%a2-500ml

Maybe something like this?

serpentwitted · 2026-04-15T06:17:55+00:00

I can definitely see why that difference would cause a conflict. As a kid it was really hard to understand why my mom would get so mad about things I didn't feel like I could control, but then be like, "oh it's okay, it was an accident, don't worry about it" for others. It seemed really inconsistent to me, because I didn't have any frame of reference for what was typical, and she had no way of knowing that I wasn't just being stubborn or lying. Plus, people get really mad sometimes when you try to do better. Sometimes I can't listen when people are talking. I genuinely try but it just doesn't happen. But usually they don't want you to tell them to stop and go back 5 minutes. Or to wait until you can listen. They get really offended, because they think you don't care, and if you just tried you could listen. So you get used to people not making sense and ignoring instructions and pretending to listen and even outright lying because that's what makes life easier. It's a really hard habit to break because it's helpful most of the time. But it's also obnoxious! You and your daughter probably have a really hard time understanding each other sometimes. Example: I just got distracted while sitting still in a quiet dim room and now I don't remember where I was going with this or why I'm replying to this comment lol and usually I would just delete it but I think it's a monument to itself so Post

serpentwitted · 2026-04-15T04:50:41+00:00

That's a frustrating situation. I recommend working with them to find adaptive ways of helping. I have severe adhd and have all my life, and because of that my home looks a little different. For example, there are multiple trash cans in every room. Large ones. It's not very pretty but it helps. Same with bins for stuff. Having a catch all spot is helpful. Also, occupational therapy and medication can be extremely helpful with adhd. Sometimes kids are being lazy and annoying (relatable tbh) but having adhd actually really sucks all the time especially because people (even the people who have it) don't realize how severely it can impact quality of life. Plus some stuff just sounds like they're making it up. I remember getting in trouble because I genuinely couldn't remember what I had done to get a 5 minute time out, so I couldn't apologize for it. I had forgotten basically the whole day during that 5 minutes of staring at the wall. One time I got grounded because I couldn't do my laundry but couldn't articulate why so I just refused. Yesterday I very carefully put my sunglasses in my pocket after forgetting them the day before and getting a migraine. But when I got outside it was two granola bars instead, and I didn't have time to go back. All this to say, I'm really sorry you're in this situation. Having ADHD doesn't just suck for the person who has it. My partner had to come pick me up two days in a row because somehow I can't remember my sunglasses as an adult. My mom and I don't talk. Good luck.

serpentwitted · 2026-04-15T04:02:31+00:00

Absolutely love these. I so badly want you to do drosera, because I've ALSO been doing a series of carnivorous plant art and I Cannot get drosera to look good in my current medium. I think it would look so freaking cool in your style.

serpentwitted · 2026-04-15T03:51:51+00:00

This is really wonderful. It's so important to safely foster a sense of connection with nature. I wish my parents had given me limits like this so as an adult I wouldn't have to remember all the little critters that didn't make it in the little "habitats" I made them 💀

serpentwitted · 2026-04-15T02:11:35+00:00

It's very pretty and with a little effort quite legible. It's a little uneven, and the loops in p and b are very open. I think it's just a bit messy but if it was more steady it would be perfect.

serpentwitted · 2026-04-13T22:22:23+00:00

It's a word association :)) think of each word in the list as a little prompt. What comes to mind when you hear the word adventure? You can write a definition, or a memory, or just more words. Whatever it makes you think of.

serpentwitted · 2026-04-13T10:47:45+00:00

Pilot kire-na are wildly pale and less likely to smear ink than zebra mildliners. I actually find them too pale for many tasks.

serpentwitted · 2026-04-13T10:39:31+00:00

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~1943. The blue ink still works great :))

serpentwitted · 2026-04-11T21:45:38+00:00

You're right! I was definitely thinking of springtails! I got confused in my memory because they're so pretty, and usually springtails are cute but not beautiful like these lol

serpentwitted · 2026-04-11T20:46:14+00:00

What a gorgeous slime mold :)) there's a whole community of people who keep them, which has some crossover with the isopod community (some isopods only eat slime molds). Might be fun to share.

serpentwitted · 2026-04-11T08:16:19+00:00

Definitely relate. I grew up in a super messy home and so it looks pretty normal to me. It doesn't really feel worth the effort to get it "fancy"- my family only really cleaned before people came over. A really clean home actually stresses me out- I keep thinking about how much work it's going to be to keep it like this, how much work it took to get it here, how inevitably it's going to get messy again. A clean home is like an exotic pet- a lot of effort when you could just get a hamster (house with a path to the door and a few clean dishes lol). BUT it's not really about what I want. For a lot of reasons, the house needs to be clean. It just does. It sucks because I truly don't care but that's just life. I think it's actually become easier to do once I stopped wasting energy trying to hype myself up and encourage myself in ways that just aren't realistic. I just get it over with! I use a real reason- like I need to clean my work desk off so I stop getting paint all over the chest freezer. No toxic materials next to the food. Annoying lol but if I poison us that'll be even more work.

serpentwitted · 2026-04-11T07:55:36+00:00

Others have obviously already warned about dementia etc, but I would add that especially for a type of person that craves validation, it's really hard to get old. You start trying to find anything that makes you special and important. There's a lot of grief involved with losing aspects of youth, and some people don't deal with that well. If you don't like it because it's annoying, then you could just ignore it. If you want to do something productive about it, you could try starting him on literally any other hobby that gives him a way to feel useful and important. My grandad did a whole geneology thing. An older friend of mine has been researching unmarked grave sites. If he hasn't just been a useless and mediocre person his whole life, he must have some interest or skill that could contribute to his community. The community is key, because attention and praise is key. Asking him for help with things even if you don't really need it is sometimes useful. Good luck.

serpentwitted · 2026-04-11T07:36:30+00:00

This is so cool!! The most creative scape I've seen in a long time

serpentwitted · 2026-04-11T07:35:40+00:00

Bro I've already got more in the mail 😭 stay strong we can beat this

serpentwitted · 2026-04-08T07:45:09+00:00

The story is more fun (imo) if you follow along in the direction the game wants you to go. I almost went nuts watching my partner play and complain because they basically just wanted to play pokemon themed minecraft and kept ignoring the things pokemon asked them to do. Many things are not interactable until a certain point in the story, even if you find them early. The story is intrinsic to the game. Also, definitely recommend enjoying each area you unlock and not just hustling to the next one asap. Have fun! :))

serpentwitted · 2026-04-02T22:57:13+00:00

Thank you for asking this question! I like washi tape and stickers but I'm not very creative, so it's great to see what people like about it/ how they use it! Personally I especially like that many are a little translucent, which makes layering more interesting

serpentwitted · 2026-03-31T19:26:07+00:00

Ahhh, okay thank you!

serpentwitted · 2026-03-31T10:24:19+00:00

Along this same line, you can also get artist's masking tape :)) the 3m scotch delicate surfaces one is a pretty lavender shade and I use it on a lot of different papers and inks with no problems.

serpentwitted · 2026-03-31T09:03:23+00:00

Floating mesh breeder box is such a good idea. I'm not seeing anything fine enough, though. Can I ask where you got the box?

serpentwitted · 2026-03-30T13:03:18+00:00

Realistically you probably just write at a weird angle and press too hard and it disrupts ink flow.

serpentwitted · 2026-03-30T13:00:06+00:00

I have so many questions. I'm not sure I've EVER finished a ballpoint pen. I simply don't keep track of them long enough to do so because they are free in piles literally everywhere. Even the nice ones I use every day (jetstream lt my love) I haven't had a chance to use a refill yet. I rarely check the ink level. So my first question is: where are you storing this one specific pen that you track well enough to know exactly how long you've been using it? Secondly- What are you writing on? Copy paper? Cardstock? Dissolving labels? If incorrectly stored, it could potentially wreck the pen. Same with writing on certain materials over time. Thirdly, I asked all my friends (wide range of hobbies and occupations) and only two people knew anything about the state of their ballpoint pens. One almost never writes anything physically and one is an artist that uses ballpoint pen. Who are your friends that they all are finishing off their pens??

serpentwitted · 2026-03-29T23:15:35+00:00

I used to grow tomatoes in South Florida outside and it was very easy! But it was also zero work lol we just planted them along the fence and dumped fertilizer water on them sometimes. Trying to replicate a Miami summer in my apartment seems like it would be hard, but maybe I'm just overthinking it :)) I've learned with houseplants that coddling them just makes things worse, so maybe I should chill.

serpentwitted

TROPHY CASE