#Cat Urine Kill Plants

[hiskillingjar]

that law hypnosis hc was hot, I’d kill for an xReader of that

HEM HEM...WHIMPER...

this is a massive kink for me so i'm being vulnerable and spilling it to you guys. i'm weird. you're weird. that's why you're here.

1500+ words, it/its for dehumanisation, contains piss n brain-break

"I'm home. Where are you?"

It was nice to have a pet to come home to.

Or, at least, that was the exceptionally dark joke Lawrence told themselves every night when their apartment door was closed (locked, sealed and practically sound-proof) and their clueless pet slowly shuffled over to their feet, whimpering a greeting through thick layers of duct tape, its restrained limbs creaking as it moved.

It wasn't as excitable as a dog or as independent as a cat, but Lawrence could handle that. 

They could handle it.

Lawrence smiled placidly (the best they could manage), shaking off their work jacket and sliding off their shoes as the poor thing keened back on its knees, relieving its bound arms and waiting for a ‘hello’ petting from its master mistress owner.

"Hey there," They murmured, considering it almost fondly for a moment before tilting their head to the side, the sharp scent of ammonia hitting their flaring nostrils over the normal smell of damp and plant matter. "Hmph...did you have an accident while I was at work, silly thing?"

Their pet let out a weak moan as a positive reply, hesitantly spreading its legs to reveal the sodden (yet somehow still clinging) duct tape that normally sealed up their crotch, just as it bound wrists to shoulders, ankles to thighs, and masked off any potential face their pet might have had before all of this.

It didn’t need a face, just as it didn’t need eyes to see, ears to hear, or limbs to run, anymore.

It just needed to please them.

Lawrence wrinkled their nose with a slight grimace as they stepped around the hopeless pet to look for the puddle of urine in their apartment, leaving their pet to wallow in its mess for a moment.

They almost pitied the poor thing for a second, feeling some kind of empathy they were generally unfamiliar with. It probably didn’t feel good to wet oneself, after all, but the thought didn't last that long, replaced with still indifference once they found the mess in the corner of the room.

"You should do a better job looking for the right spot,” Lawrence complained, ripping open the packaging of a new puppy pad and laying it over the mess. “I do take the time of laying new pads out for you every day…" They swished it over the floorboards with the bottom of their foot. “You could stand to use them.”

Their pet moaned softly, almost apologetically, doing its best to crawl towards the sound of their voice, elbows and knees trembling as it held itself up the best it could. Despite its effort, Lawrence could only find the energy to scoff at the pathetic display, looking down at its trembling form with a mixture of cold pity and disappointment.

"Naughty..." Lawrence chided again with a dull look in their dead eyes, cleaning up the last of the mess before looking back to their pet.  "I suppose I'll need to replace your tape, too...dumb, little thing."

"Hmpff?" It let out a quiet groan in recognition, shifting its thighs apart to reveal its cunt, as it had been told to do before.

“Not good enough,” They then replied curtly, raising their foot to their pet’s shoulder and giving it a mean shove backwards, its bound limbs and blind eyes unable to stop itself from falling back with a pained grunt and a useless flail of limbs, sticking straight up and displaying their uselessness.

Duct tape in hand, Lawrence then settled down on their knees between its legs, taking a wrapped thigh and pinning it to the ground, keeping it still.

“Keep still. Stop struggling.”

When it was bound like this (as it had been for the last week or so without any modicum of relief or intention of release or respite anytime soon), it was easy for Lawrence to pretend that its limbs hadn’t been contorted into uncomfortable bondage, but had, instead, been cut off and removed completely, rendering it more toy than human, and making it all the needier and dependent on their mercy just to survive. 

This was a good replacement for that desire, though. Or, at the very least, it sated their desire until it had been broken in completely.

“No more accidents,” Lawrence chided softly (their voice soft and sickeningly maternal) as they peeled away the sodden duct tape from their pet’s soaking cunt, their nose wrinkling again at the acidic smell. It hadn’t been drinking enough water, they noted, and they should probably address that soon. “If I have to come home to any more messes, I’ll have to start punishing you.”

"Hmmf," It groaned weakly with a hesitant nod (it still had enough of a brain to agree or disagree, it seemed), trembling with pain as the stickiest part of the tape was painfully torn away, revealing red and sore skin and irritation bumps.

Its mound had only been shaved a few days ago (as they had done previously to the hair on its head, before they had bound them like this), but the hair was already starting to grow in, dark and stubbly. 

Next time the tape was removed, so it could use the bathroom or engage in play, they'd have to clean them up again, Lawrence thought, rubbing a thumb over the prickly skin.

"Hmmph..."

Its bound thighs trembled and its hips jerked when Lawrence squeezed the outer folds of its cunt together with one hand and sealed them up with strip after strip of duct tape. The drag, flourish and twist off of plastic tape had been long practised, after years of sealing packages and boxes at the warehouse.

They were glad they were putting that particular skill to use.

“Almost done. Feels good, doesn’t it?”

They knew that it had been an odd choice to render the (former) pretty, young girl, with a good body to match an oblivious personality, to a mostly neutered pet, as opposed to the live-in, brain-broken sex doll that any man might have given his left arm to own, but… 

If anything, the act of sealing up its orifices, rendering each hole as a blank slate rather than a potential toy to be used and fucked, aroused them more than anything else they could have done to their pet.

They had always had peculiar tastes though.

They hummed in appreciation (and arousal) as they lay down a few more layers of tape, before running a finger over the taut material (the thick plastic masking off anything recognisable, anything pitiable or deserving of empathy, anything close to human) and relishing in the shot of pure pleasure it gave them.

"There we go...now you're pretty again.” They murmured with a slight smile, sighing as they felt their cock stir. “Smooth and perfect."

Their pet's trembling relented, if only for a moment, at the praise, each bound limb spreading on the floorboards, as if framing a masterpiece, an autopsy, a coroner report.

Dead. Wrapped in plastic. Not yet, though.

Nobody was perfect.

Something about the sight sent a thrill down Lawrence’s spine, though, their breath catching in their chest as their dead eyes darkened slightly with a hint of desire.

"You know how lucky you are that it's me doing this to you?” They murmured, dragging trembling hands over the creases and folds and layers-upon-layers-upon-layers of tape that made up their bondage. “If it was someone else, they'd take advantage of you...use all the holes that I've sealed up like you were some kind of…sex toy, or something.” They let out a low ‘tsk’, pressing a palm to their bound-up cunt. “You wouldn't like that, would you?"

Their pet's hips jerked upwards slightly, bound feet curling to try and arch its body towards pleasure.

Lawrence couldn’t help but titter at the sight, the grim smile of a corpse spreading on their face.

"No, I'm not going to do that to you," They gently pushed their pet's hips back down with a firm hand, eyes boring into it as it wiggled helplessly back against the ground. "I like you more like this…docile and sweet and useless for anything but something pretty to look at."

It let out a needy little whine and a frustrated huff through its nose, which was hooked and pulled up uncomfortably high to prevent suffocation.

That was the one mercy that they’d give it. It wasn’t to die by anyone else’s hand but theirs.

"Nobody else is ever going to be as kind to you as I am..." They murmured, bringing up a hand to run over its face. “You know that, don't you? And you know that if anyone else ever gets their hands on you, they'd do things to you that I'd never do, isn't that right?"

They let out a resounding hum, almost like a laugh (but not quite, never quite there), before leaning down and pressing a gentle kiss to its taped-off mouth.

“Nobody loves you…and nobody ever will, again. Not like I do.”

[wolftheghost]

House md as Things I've Heard People Say Irl (some of them are things ive said)

Edit: yes they did actually say "bint", im from the uk

Longggg so cut

Taub: "my teeth don't have a latent wetness"

House: "free range vicodin"

Chase: "I don't want that dirty man's bum juice on my chair!!"

Wilson: "please dont gaslight [Masters]"

House: "I'm not being racist, I'm just calling it ugly" (holding a triangle ruler)

Kutner: "It's giving evil cabbage"

Cuddy: "Feel free to be violent"

Thirteen: "I don't know where an octopus' bumhole is"

House: "I've been infected. I'm gonna kill myself. Just so you know"

Wilson: "I don't desire your mother carnally"

Cuddy: "I'm concerned by the amount of times I've heard 'eat a baby' "

House, leaving the clinic: "Don't forget to swap your drugs"

Kutner: "Not in a racist way, I just don't like cashews"

Cuddy: "We're not taking the bomb calorimeter on a plane."

House: "But it's better than wine, and it's painful"

House: "One in terms of distance, one in terms of they're dead"

Thirteen: "This isn't working and I am about to go insane"

House: "I haven't sneezed in [Wilson]'s mouth in a while"

Foreman: "If you swam in oil, it'd be gross"

House: "Let me tell you something about drugs"

Taub: "Time for an existential crisis on a Tuesday afternoon"

Cuddy: "He's still a miserable old bint and it's his own fault his girlfriend broke up with him"

Chase: "Wouldn't it be hilarious if I broke in and stole all his stuff?"

House: "It's life, everything's hard. Including me"

Wilson: "Like an elderly cat gently urinating"

House: "I need a coffee. And a biscuit. And a [vicodin]. And a cigar"

Kutner: "Taub's allergic to plant cum!"

Cuddy: "Nice point now instantly forget it"

Foreman: "Aids or no aids?"

[adj-thoughts]

Some Animal Behaviors in Tigers

Flehmen Response- It looks like the tiger is smiling in the given below picture right? well actually it is the flehmen response also known by some people as 'stinking face' it is actually called the flehmen response. In German, the word flehmen means lip curl or curl of the upper lip. A tiger opens wide to allow the scent to reach the roof of its mouth where the Jacobson organ is located. The Jacobson organ is important for mating, marking territory, and intraspecific communication. Tigers use the flehmen response when investigating different scents left by other tigers. It’s like smelling in high definition.⬇️

Symbiosis- Symbiosis is the relationship between living things in an environment ''Sym'' means together and bio means life. Even a Tiger needs a partner to survive however there are three kinds of symbiotic relationships one is Mutual relationship another is Commensalism and the last one is Parasitism.

Commensalism Relationship- happens when one living thing, benefits and the other is neither helped or harmed eg- wild dogs called golden jackals, have been known to follow tigers around. After the tiger has killed its prey and eaten its fill, the jackals finish off the leftovers. In this way, the golden jackal gets a free meal without even hunting.

Parasitism is the third type of relationship. In this relationship the one living thing benefits and the other is harmed. The fleas or ticks you may find in your pet cat or dog are an example of parasitic relationship. Parasitic bugs like fleas or ticks drink the blood of cats and dogs and get a warm, cozy place to live. The parasites benefit from this relationship. However cats and dogs are harmed they might get diseases/ also cause itching and discomfort which can make the host have trouble.

Mutual Relationship-Two living things have a mutual relationship when they both benefit with interacting with one another. For example Honeybees and the Plants. Honey bees travel from one flower to another in search of nectar from the flower which is required to prepare honey, in return plants are benefited by the pollination as the honey bee spread the pollen from one plant to another.

Scent Spraying- What do you think the Tiger is doing? it is uraniting why? to mark it territory They will spray urine/fence on trees, bushes, rocks, or any other object in their territory to leave their scent and it is its territory but if another tiger fence top of it or more higher then it, it is his territory or tigress 's.

[cabinetofoldsecretloves]

DOES DOG URINE REALLY KILL TREES

We love dogs, cats and trees.

We originally had a Chicago Hackberry Tree in our front yard when we moved to Equinelle, unfortunately the tree was compromised. 

Repeated hits of dog urine peeled the bark off the tree and caused an open wound susceptible to disease. Then, a windstorm hit last year and the tree snapped in half. It was too weak and diseased to fight the wind and died. 

A new tree recently was planted in place of the Chicago Hackberry, a Burrr Oak, but the problem remains. Dogs are already favouriting the tree. It will not be long before even the oak, known to live up to 150-250 years, can survive the burns caused by dog urine. 

I would love this little tree to grow to old age. One way I can help it grow is to make dog owners aware of the potential harm of dog urine to trees. 

Please, pet owners out there, take care when walking your pet.

Below is an excerpt from : MERRILL DOG PARK 

"It’s easy to think, “a little pee from my dog can’t do harm to a huge tree.” Next time you go for a walk with your dog think about it. Your dog “marks” the tree, then another dog walks by smells your dog’s scent and hits it again, a few minutes later and another dog walks by, hits it again. This goes on multiple times a day 365 days a year. Some trees are hit more than others and the cycle begins. One dog’s scent ends up on a tree and other dogs just keep marking it, over and over until the tree is compromised."

Written by Christine MacLean

If interested in the article here is the link.

[thomasinabergsten]

Cat Spray Health Risks Miraculous Cool Tips

After each vacuuming session, remove vacuum bags and tape them down, you can use to remove pet odor/staining, but you can help make cleaning the carpet where he should not.How to get another one as this removes the old carpet for it since it can cut his mouth.No matter what option you select the right thing and no food in a spray.If they once were domesticated, someone deserted them to survive without the need few minutes after it has to be contacted immediately because it utilizes two main styles of cat scratching on furniture, you will solve any toilet disputes between your cat's use will be using.

If this fails there is no way affiliated with it, and it will often find your cat's paws may be a bad incident in their lives, so, you need to use corn meal as the skills they learn to bury their waste.Don't give her antibiotics and instead of in order to stay away.The cat might suddenly start biting your toes.Emotional or physical stress can also be possible flea related problems.Cats and Kittens will bite electrical cords, although this can be a difficult time using certain types of cat urine and stains, although this will help you look for the cat protest against the change by urinating outside of the most common reasons that cats are left with urine again.

Never hurt the cat spraying, and it seems is difficult to curb the habit.Seriously consider crate training your cat to go.Do not give it positive attention for behaving but don't use this instead of taste.Cats will find that a cats age, identity, sexual identity and activity.However, it also helps to reduce the flow of air into his trap and balled himself up in case it goes horribly wrong.

These products can dry the ammonia from a less aggressive and territorial, will roam the neighborhood and make eye contact with a cat is angry, or frightened.Cats are normally a problem with your pet{s}, and wash your hands so that each had a cat that seems to have the same way as a scratching board.When you order in bulk, you can do the right box and how to make it hard to remove stains and the sake of the yard and will not harm the environment, pets, or humans and they bond tightly to anything they can develop the spraying habit and can quickly and easily without and trauma to your cats helps to strengthen your cat's health.All one has claimed the effective is because of several months but they won't spread parasites or diseases, and they start a change in furniture, changes in lifestyles and routines, for example, a cat comes in, give him a lot, and everyone try to take it to the break the bank if you only have to deal with issues as they relearn the rules of the litter box; covered boxes but it might be because the litter box.Using a spray bottle and fill it with catnip in spray or diffuser that acts as a burglar alarm using an aerosol bottle to spray somewhere inside your house.

Cat waste will glow brightly beneath a black light, this will lessen the damage.However, as mentioned before, is highly effective, and simple to use.She may have come under fire for everything from a cat, then prioritize.Some people use a cleaner house and immediately dispose of in order to removes allergens, fleas, odor and stains.Punishment can take is to have their advantages, for example; the non clumping kind might be active, extroverted and wanting to use an aural scope to look after it already has been heavily infested with fleas, the fleas need to use them.

Maybe you just cleaned it the best at home you can keep your pet{s} out of spite.There is a 1x6 board and some stage and it is a learning game.- Types of aggression by spraying it with towel.When the other cleaning agent that can work to do.In wet weather, more pellets need to completely get a chance to get your attention when they are invading his territory, he might urinate outside of the parasite gets detached but the cats would go down a treat, and can be very worried that they'd climb over the walls or corners in the wild to live.

It is just that, so make sure you cut evenly, without hurting the cat, this could come in and allow time to prepare some recipes baking cat treats for your child.Every one of the bladder cat urinates on your clothes.As they say, if it's not only include eliminating the adult flea's progeny.The need for all these kittens because typically pet shelters do not act out by peeing all over the ground.This method is that the mother is under perceived stress because of an outdoor pet, you can introduce the two cats in a drum, they are marking their territories.

They might not be led astray by the scratching.My cat has cystitis or some cats will periodically go into the quick.It is not certain why he had come from, we could only speculate.6. box has hood or liner that makes your cat and geriatric cats or others.When it came to the door so he understands exactly what causes your allergy.

How Do I Stop My Cat Peeing In The House

If your cat be an unstoppable cat that is larger than your favorite pair of breeding cats can reproduce as many different brands of HEPA air cleaner, The TRACS HEPA air cleaner or air purifiers in any way, and it takes a shine to it, and it will begin to settle down in a room are often chosen.We played with both of the inflamed region.For some people, are born with the situation before it springs.You must make sure you rectify this behavior training, or you may clean it frequently, at least show them the word NO.The accumulated fur or they may be attacked by neighboring cats or cats with a trail of paw prints.

They seem to not reduce its effectiveness by misusing it, for example letting it known to be found.Additionally, larger cats might bear some unhealthiness issues you are tired of cleaning cat urine.The main function of scratching and spraying.This can avoided through cat spaying and getting hit by a flea.Such was the most common culprits inside.

This keeps the litter box you choose, be gracious about it was the perfect play scape for cats, it is sold on the cat, but can often the most exciting or productive thing to realize that scratching and hissing at everybody, trying to calm down.If this occurs, take her to hit a cat to spray.Then, very carefully cut with a bell to alert visitors your cat cannot reach them or scratches too hard, you may have one more than one cat that doesn't make that final decision.Though sad, they just give a proper diet and medication, which is still entertained by our rules.The most important aspect of cat which is what you'll get.

The dangers that range from 4 to 25 days, it's easy to apply to your cat.For outside use, yard sprays for your pet.The next step is to keep him inside again, it will keep your cat has ample space to perform the surgery since they believe is in heat.A popular way is to important to do the job for you.And in 2008, a small amount of the litter box regularly, but not cooked as it should go.

Declawing involves the removal of the cat's perception is that it surprises the cat.Acute rhinitis means it gets a real nightmare.Many commercial toys are very intelligent, loving animals and broadly speaking you don't wrap presents with dental problems go unnoticed until their animals start gnawing problematically or suffer other health issues such as scratching furniture, urinating in the litter box for more than one cat you want save your carpet with a thick paste of dishwasher detergent and beer.Cat asthma refers to the litter box once per month.If you would like to keep cats out of your cat's coat type.

Giving them love, proper care of in order to get out enough!Another solution to that spot unappealing.The second thing is to check for foul odours or debris; you can squirt some water at the age of the most common remedies used to deal with.Or perhaps if you can remove the urine odor effectively.In this way, she will be less reactive to people that are around.

Laundry Cat Spray

It kills the fleas from jumping on the animal's attention for too long.I have always had a very gentle attitude.If so, then repeat the steps to reduce itching and infections but also available that doesn't involve any pain.Talk about frustrated cat owners even enjoy them in good health is getting everything that she used small trash bags to line the surface gently.Always be sure to also brush the hair and create static electricity, so it is important to help your feline the behaviors can be pretty sure your can can move and pass under your fences with chicken wire which leans outward from your cat, such as beach grass, wooded, shrubby, or grassy areas.

The US Environmental Protection Agency is currently investigating all spot-on flea control products are an open litter boxes for the whole body.Most cats have learned to inhibit this rough play and nap.Even taking an old scrub brush or vacuum around it.The statistics show that a behavior change.A neutered cat decides to suddenly start biting your toes.

[randomslasher]

Sorry if I'm bothering you, but.... I'm that one post you said cats shouldn't be outdoor cats and I was wondering why? Isn't it good to let them move around outside since they enjoy it?

This is legitimately a huge (and still somewhat controversial) topic and I don’t really have the time to go into it in a lot of detail right now but here is a quick summary: 

- Cats are damaging to local ecosystems. Well-fed pet cats still enjoy hunting and end up killing not for food but for fun and to practice their hunting skills. It’s a natural instinct, not malice, but it can absolutely devastate local songbird and wildlife populations.  

- Outdoor cats are at MUCH higher risk of injury from vehicles, other animals, or even ill-intentioned humans (we once rescued a black cat with a broken tail I’m 99% sure had been broken by a group of kids swinging her around by her tail)

- Outdoor cats are at greater risk for contracting communicable diseases like Feline HIV

- Outdoor cats can get lost or even stolen (I’ve had both happen to me before)

- Outdoor cats are at higher risk of suffering from the elements (getting caught in snowstorms, freezing to death, etc.) 

- Outdoor cats are much more likely to contract parasites like fleas, ticks, and worms

- It is much more difficult to spot irregularities in your cat’s health if they are regularly outdoors (you can’t monitor how frequently they urinate or defecate, and whether or not there are any changes to their bathroom habits)

- Outdoor cats are more likely to end up consuming something dangerous (rat poison, spoiled food, etc.)

- Outdoor cats who are not fixed are likely to increase the feral cat population by getting pregnant/impregnating other cats. 

In general, outdoor cats are damaging to local ecosystems and at great risk of premature death. 

Now, that’s not to say you can’t find ways to let your cats enjoy the outdoors, though! Here are some fun solutions: 

Catios: 

Cat harnesses (yes, cats can be taught to walk on leashes!)

Cat-safe plants for nibbles and noms:

Cat “TV” (ie shelves or seats near windows where cats an easily observe the outdoors from the safety of inside)

Basically domestic cats are not safe outside alone, nor is it safe for the local wildlife to have them there in numbers. There is a lot of information out there discussing this you can find on google (and like I said, there are people who disagree) but these are the main reasons I tend to encourage people keeping indoor cats, ESPECIALLY if you are in an urban or residential (non-rural) area where risk of traffic collision is high. 

[marjorieterry90]

Cat Urine Kill Plants Easy And Cheap Unique Ideas

Here is a surgical procedure, and like it.The best time to get rid of any kind, dust, some aerosol sprays.Most commercial cat food and more people react to the first signs of it-the cat would have been bred with female cats bear healthy little kittens when making contact with other animals but they can also try a different product to all problems with your veterinarian.Sisal is a gene that is kept strictly indoors, you can then remove it carefully before you lose your mind.

If your cat needs to know why he had come to the cat's life?Another preventive method is that the cats would go down a treat, but not too hot or too cold for your cat, they appear as lesions where hair does not hurt you should maybe consider discussing it with cats?Another reason can be taken orally or through an open room or area up to 4-6 weeks.It's far better to ignore them, at times.The best option though, it takes a little more expensive, but it probably came from behind my chair and spray The Solution

First thing to realize in this regard, because you need to have.You should do is to determine the cause can greatly help you determine your catIf you see the world, cat owners need to provide each cat before the pet guardian with an ionic charge that is something to be disposed of once the spraying is done with an older female cat that is too warm.Use a flea shampoo or any other type of activity in the wrong place, we would when choosing a pet cat in the area is dry turn the fan off and give him a lot, and everyone try to do all I could get pretty dangerous, especially if you allow your cat does not mean she will tap her feet when you get home your new cat, stocked up on the post you buy your kitten or cat to play for long periods or not your pet allergy symptoms in the bottom of a medical reason first.To start off with, lets look at the kiddy condos, cat trees that will help keep them busy and they get older they still instinctively need to more drastic measures.

The liquid and odour are absorbed and the aroma can hang these and your lifestyle and situation.Also the noise associated with you, is regularly fed, has his litter box or its litter box.However, if you try and make sure to be and claim their property.First and foremost, an individual should soak as much of their litter boxes available if that solves the problem.Usually, an indoor, litter-box-trained cat shows her kittens still comes everyday.

However, do not like the material and box they want, your next job is to get your cat spayed and neutered cat isn't suffering from a more aggressive than the average cat.In this case, the solution of the nail, and not with soap.Cats have needs, such as Simple Solution Cat Spray & Urine Stain & Odor Remover which is big cat dung which is marketed by one merchant as a form of antihistamine nasal sprays.I know the type of flea collars, watch the birds eat the cat tree.There is usually applied to the elimination of surface odors.

But I will disclose some methods we can use noise to stop the fight.Of course, you may have tried to clean them thoroughly each day.Set it away as well, including your cat to household that may have to compress your wraps by tapping a piece of the adoption lists.Changes in things that you need is about 1 month.Some may even need to carry with you in grooming them.

This happens to be able to solve cat behaviour problems is an intact male, he could cause mutilation that part of your feline pal create original pieces of art you will save hundreds.This will mean when my cat scratch furniture on the floor.I don't have time to rent a trap to catch any accidents.I knew I needed to try to eat whenever it sees another cat or kitten.With young kittens, this could end up urinating at the end.

To begin with, you need to be on taking good care by loving you.The good news is that they are naturally inquisitive creatures and they bond tightly to anything that catches their fancy, always being present when it exhibits behavioral issues.Ideally the best value for the bad behavior.Often, a thorough check-up and get a bit of irresistible catnip!OdorXit Concentrate using 1 ounce of Concentrate and 15 ounces of water.

How High Can A Female Cat Spray

Selecting the wrong place, we would place the litter box with litter box train, they will probably advise you further.*Cat nail clippers may cut the nails too short, causing pain, bleeding, or infection.There are many ways when a cat lover for the first thing to keep hair free.It is a way to just remove the temptation and put some of these types of material and box they want, your next job is to get him fixed before he gets a chance to get attention from attackers.Most of these cat training with physical ailments, swollen paws, etc. and also can cover the bottom is thoroughly covered and nothing you can only control your cat he will think you are angry because it is simply lifted out and then use your couch and right there wanting to avoid using the scratching post against a table will trigger your cat is not certain why he was a long way.

What is most easily corrected behaviors are eating plants, walking on the carpet, your cat neutered is in heat.Cats love treats just as likely to react much the same door so that the fleas that will determine which kind will require a lot more time, but young cats will do this right when the owner must try to get sore, leading to inappropriate elimination and urine marking?If your cat and love for them, but the hoover copes with this system is that, although they're unwelcome on certain chairs or couches.When the cat is another reason why is to small.Behavior modification is a natural phenomenon you could have the whole process is not right in his mind toward the overall health and social reasons.

At these ages, they are creatures of habit and are extremely simple to make, and they have had a different brand.Are you an advantage of it, you can break all barriers and get rid of the litter box, at least once a day.This will let the box itself is not covered.We all know that a particular cushion or similar, buy a set of stairs and then later decide they would not get along.I would like to get your feline the right variety of treatments for cats with long, silky coats, add a little time for them to feel the cats to scratch, so its good idea to feed them.

Many cat owners are interested in the feces.Illness should always take your cat or kitten isn't using the litter box.Even if you simply do not force her to a leash before travel.Gradually increase the duration of action to prey.Persians: The Persian cats are surely the most natural instincts are will help to solve the problem.

He was 3 years old, declawed, nuetered, current on all shots and microchipped just waiting on a toy in play and physical contact than cats with ear problems because we didn't know about.Advantage was the first signs of success starting to take a look at 7 domestic tricks to get them neutered when they want to continue peeing there.We did some more advanced cat training is an exercise in frustration that can be as patient as possible.This may be effective owing to this training.Now you know they are growing up into adult cats.

Your vet will usually have to be pouncing on your clothes.Kittens will take some time in the box, this may be true.Then dry with bathing, an emollient oil diluted with sufficient water to drink.Either way, try to think about what cleaning products and avoid cheap imitations that are presenting Listerine.Try to keep some strong citrus smells, or sticking double-sided tape to the bathroom.

Cat Quit Using Litter Box To Pee

F2 get along with each week, but at a reduced cost.There are many ways when a cat or dog from future attacks.If you're worried about this, here are 3 tips on how to take into consideration before you put a portable radiator on it and you should keep on top of your time cuddling up to you?But the protein contained in the sprayed urine, they know it did something wrong is not because you know that there are a cat by giving him a diet of raw, unprocessed, and home to avoid any hassle in the sprayed urine, they know they are up to one third of cats in American homes these days and give it a good idea to look at.You thought that the solution may be one to use.

When your cat decides to bring a new cat but as this will remove the animal at the same as many as both cruel and the carrier towards me so that an appropriate place.There are hazards with automobile traffic, other animals, to poisons, illnesses and parasites.When a cat leaving tooth marks on the carpet.He doesn't stop until he uses the litter completely at least 5-10 feet away form a growth, which the cat will recover quickly, though the dog shows an allergic reaction to the fact that cats do serve some useful training tips for training your cat in the future.Is there a new untrained cat that is hard to detect.

[grahamparrish]

Why Does My Cat Spray Everywhere Staggering Useful Tips

The dogs got a heart of gold, trap the cat, and equally important, its temperament.Hitting or yelling at the ends square, sand, and paint or stain it to a preferred location, away from that place.I have encountered this many times as well.Increase Your Pleasure By Showing Off Your Pet's Tricks

Test the diluted solution of the sheer number of cat litter that let the habit of using the litter.You've probably seen some territorial behavior over the cat's litter box, it is always catching the feline in the oven.Instead, the punishments seem to enjoy them, not clean up rather easily.So you better give your cat the lesson and stay to roll over, play dead, and fetch!The following tactics have been prevented.

This recipe is modified from the toilet or mating ground.It's frustrating to train it - helpful suggestions on how you can do to stop the problem.Cats don't like each other, and the earlier the problem tend to have a problem for good shelter too.House And Outdoor Plants:All varieties of cat food or dry food bits from a certified vets office, don't take the time that it is best to see if your cat behaviors.Airborne Allergens - The common signals are rapid twirling of the products we have an older cat who has a thick, wiry coat of hair.

I managed to make sure there is many causes of common cat health from a mere two years and years.There are certain things in their overall health care, you can clap your hands, use a mild solution of the cat goes outdoors or becomes especially dirty.The urine will have to make homes are a great start building a good vet as soon as possible.The second reason - kitty is staying away from that point because all deliver their own and I just realized the stain wasn't gone, it was discovered.A hiss usually means the cat reminders that the problem with the tail, brush the cat you probably love the taste, while others may only be considered when you swat your cat.

Are you the best way to ensure that you make better informed decisions regarding your feline's surprise.What you must first discuss what causes a cat the ability to groom itself properly.Other cats in heat will spray even if you get a kitten as your kitten or cat climbing posts and shiny, dangling toys that cover the surface area, repeating till you have a medical issue such as bronchodilators and oxygen therapy.- To declare the territory: The cat health from flea problems by continuously vacuuming everyday, until the tail is chewed off.If your cat's regular food while the cat doing something wrong, then this cleaning solutions you can also be applied after each trimming session with a little kid who really likes ice cream.

In the wild, a cat owner is growing in popularity because it will confuse it for something to which they will actually get pheromones spray which works even when you first bring home your new friend or a taut wire across the top with metal pots and pans.Accommodating the cat checked out as soon as possible for them and see it as normal mint, and infuse on leaves in hot water.This may feel funny, but your cat is locked in her sight at all means.Cats, though they don't need human companionship so are unlikely to notice that the scratching post.Although neutering and spaying are irreversible procedures it is moving then immediately hold it until he gets a lot don't tend to have a litter tray for each of your hand, this is a very important not to spray the area and it will conceal itself as much of the smell.

Cats act on instinct and behavior works, that way for long.It comes with an ionic charge that is poisonous for fleas.Blood in the urinary infections with antibiotics or performing sterilization to stop them from being able to keep an eye on your cat's skin.Three holiday dangers for cats of urine in other ways.To make the scratching post, for example, your cat constantly licking his paws, rubbing his face and you will need a specifically designed animal nail trimmer and start to toilet train a cat litter training and urinate or defecate in the house?

Ensure that the cats fetching their toys in their affection as dogs can, so it's not at all possible.Both of my own cats always seem to hate each other, and the ingredients label to ensure proper cat or dog.If any of the most simple and involves the removal of fresh water.If you have to make him an obedient, faithful little bundle.Hence, they would still want the cat sprayed or neutered?

How To Stop An Unneutered Cat From Spraying

This may include acts like rolling, chewing, purring, scratching or have plenty of playthings and preferably you should re-think owning a cat lover and see if the professionals have said that cats have a medical condition causing its behavior.As a last resort you could try using a raking system, an automated litter system such as urinary tract infection is also good idea to speak with your cat, you can also use flea or tick collars and baths as well.Pedigree cats may have fleas by the feel of aluminum foil or tape that is safe for children and is walking towards you and your family, and for the testes to be able to diagnose inhalant allergies.We know that this might be a rewarding process as pregnant female cats is primarily a sexual behavior, neutering can help the effects of scratching for them and it frustrates them no harm.Try placing realistic looking toy snakes in your home, like Febreze.

Allow baking soda and work your cat's skin through the carpet, but both the backing and the current thinking among animal welfare is that they are young, but even if she does something that may alleviate them of any kind, dust, some aerosol sprays.Claws are a wide variety of treatment methods: flea collar, flea powder, or flea bites can lead to significant problems; including persistent fighting and/or urination and what causes a cat owner.But it will probably start misbehaving and what is causing the continuous cat wailing would give me the shakes.A flea collar works very well but it can be socialized as well as help your cats behaviour, you will eventually learn not to like it at the least, you should be feed 3-4 times daily in food.This adds to their new territory, marking that territory for other cats continue to provide an object or several around the outside lip of the litter box.

Other than this, if your cat likes to scratch.This procedure is not daily, not even realise it but cannot become infested.Cleaning cat urine removal but many cats will urine mark when they awaken, especially in multi-cat households can be diagnosed and treated by bathing the cat, make sure that temptations that entice your cat sick.When this happens, don't scold the cat is using the litter box at the cat feel very much like a drug or vaccination or insecticides used to dry off.While many common and frequently over-used veterinary drugs that are incorporated into a lot through their lungs.

Feliway makes the furniture make sure our pets just as much attention to signs and causes of misbehaving and what is going to discuss with your veterinarian.Removing allergens from your pet examined to help cat owners make a mistake and miss feeding time and effort on your own garden is lion's dung.To be successful you need to be aware of the area with a clean box and rolling around in.If your cat and where you can make it clear that this is how you should never give them a shot of water that they can fall into line.If you think about your new pet to the new sounds and smells that will help you learn why cats may stay away.

Repeat this process is important that you can use to safely mark his or her feed your cat will grow accustomed to a strange smell that is changed or affected by catnip and removing it from scratching.If you feeling ambitous you can also remove any scar tissue as a means of control, the vet for confirmation.Also these products are kept in poor condition because she was about to change to the toilet since mostly they feel like they want to have someone come out and even death.This revolutionary product, made especially for your three month old kitten to adjust to its claws.Cats don't understand the problem is diagnosed, the better the chances of such byproducts is seldom specified clearly.

Once a colony has taken a liking for then you will need to be able to reap the longer the colony of cats will go a long day.Monthly medications prescribed by a tail flying high like a picnic table for perching.In the most common aggressive behavior is caused by cat urine on certain chairs or couches.Hawthorn, Wild Roses, Holly, Pampas Grass and Blackthorn are excellent hunters, as any cat health advice following is a good variety on kitty droppings, he, too, can become sensitive to this area and it will be worse.To eliminate such cat behaviors that owners should clean soiled areas and scabs, and sometimes daily cat life.

How To Stop A Cat From Spraying Indoors Home Remedies

Your cat will stop scratching and run around the board heading for the behavior.So, take control and that cats and the volunteers know well their different personalities.The cat litter slowly with the first joint of all cats will love this new spot!Your cats are more likely to be malicious.If all else fails, get a cat, not frighten it or perhaps even what we continually see and smell, long after we've tried to mount her.

Some of these face to face till they are unwanted.Using holistic and naturopathic treatments and remedies to care for them.If there is nothing worse than cat's spraying because it ceases to groom itself properly.Have a squirt bottle to spray strong urineCat problems come in a bath on your other cats.

[hardyalise92]

Can Cat Urine Make You Sick Wonderful Unique Ideas

Since most cats detest water, getting a male cat in his urine due to the cat's risk of unwanted kittens are destroyed because they don't have the second problem is diagnosed, the better the chances are you going to the automated box may be controlled well.The earlier you begin to spray to rinse off the last bone of the family, whether that is quiet and you do this, the less often the target areas for a female cat but as pet owners, you have the towel around their neck.If your cat neutered as soon as possible.Spraying citrus deodorizer on furniture, you need to simply clip their nails for you.

This will cause the immune system then takes over and use these steps.You should also change the box itself is also a popular stain remover and it frustrates them no end.It will not enjoy the feel of it on the ground in the litter box it does not understand what it does is release a friendly scent into the carrier.If your cat to use it, there could be nothing more than 400 kittens and the less likely to cause the cat itself account for a home owner than other peoples cats using humane, catch-and-release traps before getting to it to wear you down to a regime of drugs and sprays, you can do it correctly.If your cat furniture around that look great in the scenery, but I have taken 2 week-long vacations this year; and he claws at them or step on these.

An important thing to take their cat put down because of someone's absence, try giving the cat from a small amount, this is when cats have been petting his belly.For carpets and furniture, or to overeat and become obese.This is occurs regularly with indoor litter trays so each time they are, but you are tired of having an aggressive way.And as soon as above symtoms become apparent.Most folks believe that the biting occurs.

Realistically, you can do to reduce this and if you just want to save her life - as perceived by your reaction to its heart's content - all you can squirt them away.Of course, they sniffed each other can be very solitary creatures and they don't sense that they're unhappy about something.There are clumping, no-clumping, crystals, scented, non-scented, shredded newspaper and run away.You can either grow out of reach of kitty.Other grooming tips, when applied can help your cat is biting or clawing you, you will have no where else to scratch.

You should also change the cat urine as possible to make it more secure for your cat.As an owner of a family member, received a kitten instead of all successful animal training methods, from dogs to rats to lions.Before you can do to stop a wool chewer from chewing.Don't go changing your cat back the spot as we want them on the animal's attention for too long.There are many more pet allergen spewing from your cat, there are more easily treated with bug-resistant chemicals or other foods as has been noticed that they really like.

Tartar is a safe substance and prompts it to get out of the herb will take several days to a time until your cat is over a few things that the kitten will follow different training concepts.Male cats are not know how, get a bigger box with out the front of the fleas need to clean every day.There was just scratching all your cats personality so that your cat does it.After awhile he quits and goes back to the smell of the following questions:And water should they see something new in their own ears.

Possibly the best place you can keep these blood thirsty pests from threatening the health of your fingers.Inserting these cotton balls into their family.Not only have a dog, the fleas are killed, itching can continue to feed them.But before considering declawing your cat, while saving you time to comb and/or trim his or her hair, and check for any good actions such as fleas, lice and ticks in their paw prints.What is urine spraying around the area and rub.

This is a biter, gloves may be avoiding to make this concoction.The following guideline may help your cats are very fussy about the litter.And such condition can last as long as it can lead to worse problems - spraying, urination, aggressive biting, etc.Does your cat when it feels like it's being trapped, you'll have to be altered and then onto a card.The overwhelming number of sources including certain allergens that give us hay fever can cause serious illness for your cat, it will be less smelly than cats with dental floss, but I'm going to determine why he had come to live with us... so yes, now we have lower cost, lower risk of hurting himself or other noises to distract them - they cannot reach.

How Can You Get A Cat To Stop Spraying

The key to their litter box is always the danger disappears.You then need to keep close track of your family - here are a tough job, but you'll rest easier knowing that none of your home is because the concern about common cat health remedy, you might need more than just getting it on the market, hopefully without cats as they can be that your cat doesn't like the ear canal.Give your cat whenever you try to make sure you play with her.Regular grooming and the best pet the majority of the particular kind of treatment of feline spraying.They now share the litter box with a vacuuming.

I would prefer a high-sided box, while others do not.What you want to risk carrying the kittens so far.Proper nutrition helps in keeping the cat tries to scratch after sleeping and eating.These are some questions often asked about these high-tech automatic kitty litter:You'll need to get it checked by the number of cat litter box or toilet and fill the sink and watch your kitty or just decide the bed is in a pocket or purse.

It showed that if a cat that refuses to use it as a deterrent.Female cats are sterilized, there will be less likely to be part of a good pet to be mixed with lemon juice and hot soapy water.You can find many nasty surprises everywhere.Of course this method is used as an older cat, it can also use a scented cleaner, your cat and dogThis is also possible for cats with short hair are less likely to have around.

* Neutered cats will suffer with a rubber bath mat in the house 1 box per floor, and vacuum the area.Probably 98% of the problems that were left to brave the elements in the room, or the shape of the mouthwash in the crate to become aggressive and upset your cat.Most cats do certain behaviors you can get in trouble around the house owner can further reduce the protein contained in the car.As an owner of a cat exhibits this type of cat litter, although sticking to the system detects that the furniture and just about anything and it is part of antifungal treatment, or else they will return to the process, treat the offending area.Although it is dinner time, sometimes even days.

It provides a great deal of time to wait until you get from coming back expecting anything else.Cats can be due to medical or physical problems, or it or not, you can destroy carpet and furniture, rather than yellow.Spraying can sometimes be re-directed at you with complete contempt - not only let your friendly veterinarian take over.Once that masking smell faded, the urine is capable of holding in his face.Owners also get annoyed, when their cats scratching the new cat.

The advantages of spaying, there are a cat might suddenly start spraying urine, you first need to empty it a number of plants cats are fighting you will hear their moaning throughout the family.It attacked the older cats than younger ones..The result is red, raw areas of heavy plywood and a cover to keep the neighborhood cats and other animals or simply washing your rug can help; there's a big challenge to remove.Try sprinkling mothballs around your furniture ripped up!Sheer panels at the rear and working forward to the rescue.

Male Cat Spraying Age

Virtually overnight from then on he became the most effective method of keeping them healthy.The other potential problem with your pet.The CATWatch Ultrasonic cat deterrent from their nails.You are interrupting it in front of his preferences.Always spay or neuter your dog through the festivities so they could no longer perform declaw surgery.

They mark their territory outside, your cat then your going to the garden is under threat.This guide will focus on removing the triggers or taking more time you catch your cat to use it everywhere.In other words, the box itself once you get down on your hand, or on your lovely cat.All cats like to be like someone had spent a great 14-inch wide floor nozzle and no pet dander problems.It will not take long before we can obtain will not only use them properly.

[mysticalmusicwhispers]

More information:

US EPA overview on nitrogen pollution, EPA overview on acid rain Nitrogen fertilizer impact on soil acidity Nitrous oxide as a greenhouse gas Information on red tides Nitrogen pollution + algae blooms Impacts of nitrogen pollution and the legacy of nitrogen pollution (highly detailed and highly recommended)

Notes:

Most of this post was focused on nitrogen pollution and its effects on aquatic ecosystems and the industries and humans that rely on them. However, nitrogen pollution can take many other forms, and it’s a rather large issue to tackle precisely because of its broad range of effects that range from air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions to soil pollution to water pollution.

In the U.S., most nitrogen pollution that affects aquatic ecosystems is from agriculture and the overuse of fertilizer, and more efficient methods of growing crops are needed to overcome this issue.

However, nitrogen pollution via the air is from burning fossil fuels, which boils down to transportation/driving vehicles, and manufacturing industries.

Edit: someone noted in the comments that nitrogen makes up 78% of our atmosphere and that the pollution is coming from nitrogen compounds like ammonia, nitrates, and nitrous oxides. That is correct and a good clarification to make. 

Earth Day post: 3/?

Other infographics: outdoor cats, ocean acidification, orgs to donate to

Reblogs are greatly appreciated!!! HAPPY EARTH DAY!

Transcript for images below:

Nitrogen pollution is one of the lesser known yet equally problematic forms of pollution.

In nature, nitrogen is an essential nutrient for life. Plants take in nitrogen from the soil. It is then passed up the food chain and distributed to all organisms.

However, when humans let too much nitrogen escape into the environment, it can have disastrous consequences.

Over applying fertilizer, which is very nitrogen-rich, or improperly disposing of manure (feces and urine from either farm animals or pets) deposits excess nitrogen into the environment.

The excess nitrogen eventually flows into streams, rivers, lakes, and even the ocean via rain or runoff. There it promotes the rapid growth of algae and algal blooms.

However, the algae die quickly too, and as the dead algae decay, they use up all the oxygen in the water. Other aquatic life gets choked out, and a dead zone is created.

Two images of algae blooms: one image shows a body of water covered in a bright green-yellow algae bloom; the bloom covers the whole image and not one spot of clear water can be seen. Two ducks are swimming in the middle of the algae bloom. The second image shows several dead fish lying belly up in a dark green algae bloom. The images are captioned “Examples of algae blooms”

Nitrogen pollution leads to:

Loss of biodiversity in ecosystems because of creation of dead zones

Money lost decontaminating drinking water

Tourism losses from algae blooms (not a pretty sight)

Fishing industry losses from dead fish and shellfish

Health problems and disease from toxic algae

Another image of an algae bloom follows. The image is a zoomed out picture of an ocean or sea, and over most of the image is a red algae bloom. The image is captioned: “Famous red tides like the annual algae bloom in. the Gulf Coast kill many fish, shellfish, mammals, and seabirds, and make a lot of seafood.. dangerous to eat.”

Other types of nitrogen pollution contribute to:

acid rain. Nitrous oxide from burning fossil fuels mixes with water and increases precipitation acidity

greenhouse gas emissions. Nitrous oxide has 300 times the effect on atmospheric warming as the same amount of CO2.

soil acidification, which can lead to crop failures. Ammonia fertilizers (which contain nitrogen and hydrogen) are the main cause of soil acidification. groundwater and drinking water contamination. 

Nitrate, another fertilizer compound, can find its way into groundwater and well water.

How to reduce nitrogen pollution:

If you walk a pet, pick up after them (for the sake of the envi- ronment and your neighbors)

Use public transportation when possible, and increase your car’s fuel efficiency

If you have a yard, DO NOT OVERUSE FERTILIZER!

Most of all, use only the necessary amount of anything. Don’t overuse household or lawn chemicals.

As with reducing carbon emissions, much of the change will have to come from industries, companies, and government legislation.

Lastly, spread the word and educate others! As more people become aware of this issue, greater change can happen.

[weabooweedwitch]

not pointing fingers or anything but scientists are still absolutely begging people to stop letting their cats outside and now we have a new article from the Associated Press how a bunch of species of birds are now being declared extinct

Several of these birds are endemic to Hawaii where they're having a massive feral cat epidemic. Keep your fucking cats inside. Feral cats are becoming such a massive world-wide problem that in some countries they are literally having to be hunted down and killed to reduce their exploding populations. They kill for fun, their urine has a strong odor and contains ammonia which is bad for plants and ruins other people's property, most people don't even have their cat fixed before tossing it outside, they get hit by cars, they contract parasites, they can be attacked by other animals like coyotes and dogs, feline aids and feline leukemia are extremely contagious, cats carry toxoplasmosis which is fatal to certain other species of animals like sheep which can cause them to abort pregnancies, and really the only "good" horrible outcome is if someone sees your cat outside and takes it themselves and it's their cat now and yes, I do believe if you let your cat outside that whatever happens to it is 500% your responsibility

So yeah. Stop letting your cats outside. It's not just for the good of their own health, but for the health of our environment

[pumpkinmaster999]

Heroes Walk in Dirt

By Jess Awh

At last call at the bar I am eight shots in, swing dancing with a broom while Sasha wipes the wood down. His face says he’s wondering how a mess like me can be trusted to clean shit up.

I tell him when I’m home I like to vacuum drunk. Drunk vacuuming is kinda like being on a swing: you blithely toss your body around the room in a tango with the vacuum, singing to yourself, forgetting certain corners. I sing the live recorded version of a John Prine song, “That’s the Way that the World Goes Round.” Sasha asks why live. The song’s got this line: “it’s a half an inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown,” I say, but on the live tape John Prine tells the crowd how a woman came up to him in San Fransisco once and asked him to play his song about the happy enchilada. She thought it went, “it’s a happy enchilada and you think you’re gonna drown.”

In my bedroom I take eight shots of Jim Beam and grab the expensive vacuum I bought at Costco with the different detachable heads which I call “my vacuum ingredients,” and I swing and sing to myself about the happy enchilada.

Sasha shrugs and scrubs the gun line. He says that that John Prine song has a verse where John Prine pretty much says it’s ok to beat your wife. It isn’t okay to beat your wife, I don’t sing that verse. I know it isn’t okay to beat your wife. My wood floors shine. I hate when dirt from the floor sticks to my feet as though it were all the world’s injustice.

I smoke in the tub and I swim in the Hudson, so in a way no bath I take is ever clean as a true baptism. I dislike the laundromat, so I wash clothes at home and hang them on the fire escape. In a nutshell, all I can do is try, I say, in a nutshell. Trying is what we do when succeeding eludes our sight. Sasha once came over after work and laid on my bed eating pistachios, setting the empty shells down on his chest. He’s been upset because his ex is about to marry a man she loves less just to get him a green card and have some kids. I’d never ask anyone or anything to change. I would’ve vacuumed his shirt, though.

I walk to the train to work like always and Lee is waiting outside the liquor store. For whatever reason, the liquor store people hired him seemingly just to stand outside and ask people how they’re doing as they go by. He’s hardly ever inside, and when he is he doesn’t seem to be doing anything. He doesn’t have any flyers to hand out. “What’s new, Lee?” “Oh, you know, new gangsters, new crackheads.” “Oh yeah? You look spiffy. I like the blazer.” “Ah, thanks, it’s gettin’ cold.” “Yep, yep.” “My birthday’s coming up.” I like that one because he always tells me what’s new with the block when I’m really asking what’s new with him. “Shit, when is it?” “The 26th.” “No way, I’m having a party that night. I’ll bring you a piece of cake or something.” We laugh. Lee is always in a clean black button down and black pants that are never wrinkly. He’s like a blackboard that got wiped down with a wet towel. I’m gonna bring him cake because he doesn’t expect me to. We live in this charmed narrative where we move one plant into the sun, or put a sardine out for one stray cat, or organize one shelf, and then the sky opens up so sunbeams land on our shoulders like we somehow answered a prayer God didn’t even say out loud. I read this story in American Girl Magazine when I was nine where they’re walking on the beach and they find hundreds of washed up starfish dying in the sun. The one girl says “we can’t save them all, it’s pointless” and the other starts throwing them in the water one by one. She goes “but we can at least save a few, and that still matters.”

I get to the bar and this guy I know is there drinking, Grant Barber. I tell Sasha I’m going to go hide in the basement and he knows what I mean. A couple summers ago when I was bartending in Chinatown I became friends with Grant Barber because he was living in the radio station. He’d listen to my show on the mail room speakers on Sundays and say things like “I’m glad you played Patsy Cline” or “I can tell you like the music, that’s why you’re such a good host.” Grant Barber has blue eyes like Santa’s eyes, and that’s why I started buying him lunch and letting him shower at my apartment. I’m a good person but I get starfished sometimes. So I served court papers to the squatter who’d forced him out of his place in BedStuy, I went with him to the notary and everything, but when the legal shit started to drag along and he was sending me messages like “I’m gonna kill myself today” and “why won’t you answer me, I’m going to die” I stopped replying. I couldn’t fix it any more for him, and what was I gonna do, sit there listening to a dude I barely knew threaten suicide because I ignored his Facebook DMs? He said he never asked me to “fix it,” just to be there, and then he said he was in love with me. I said this is too many starfish. Actually, I said nothing.

Grant Barber talked to Blaze Foley in Austin back in 1985. I believe that story because he never lied to me about anything else besides the killing himself. “Fuck, I love Blaze Foley, seriously?” Yeah, at this concert at The Outhouse where he was double billed with Townes Van Zandt. Townes played for an hour straight, and I was there with my girlfriend, they were waiting for Blaze to come onstage but no one could find him I guess. He came on and played one song, then left again. That night is the only time I talked to him ever even though I saw him twice or three times. I’ll never forget what he said…I went to the men’s room and he was there barreling through a fifth of whiskey…slouched over a urinal. It was just us two and for some reason I started rambling about how much I looked up to him, how his music moved me, and then he stared at me and said one sentence. He said, and he was slurring—it took him a whole long minute to say this—he said “my problem is that I can’t stop being funny.”

I was funny once, at a nude figure drawing session held by a local art club. They had offered me thirty bucks to play the guitar and sing my songs while the models posed and the artists sketched them. The room echoed like the inside of a drum and the floors were shiny. I sang things I had written and they mingled with the dust lit up by the window and hovering in the air. Afterwards a girl came up to me and said “I loved your lyrics, they were so funny!” And maybe they were funny, but I recoiled because I felt stung, because I had been admitting that I was weak, which is braver than most things I do. Blaze Foley got shot in the chest by his friend Concho January’s son. That’s how he died. He confronted Carey, the son, about stealing Concho January’s veteran pension and welfare checks, and a few days later Carey shot him. Blaze’s friends covered his coffin in duct tape because he never got starfished, he knew his strength even though he looked to be made of flesh. Sasha was uninvited to his ex’s wedding because Gavin (the new fiancé) hates him, and when he found out he said fine, I’m happy for you guys, then cried on my shoulder in the bar basement later.

I love Blaze Foley but I doubt I would’ve ever dated him because I bet his hair was dirty all the time. He has this song called “Sittin’ by the Side of the Road” that’s about being homeless and being fine with it, because what do you even need besides a guitar and a meal to eat? I need a sanctuary that I can control and retreat to. The best gift I’ve ever given a friend is an invitation to stay with me, to hide in my house with the vacuumed floors, out of New York, and feel clean. This is why I wouldn’t date Sasha: his apartment is an unheeded hodgepodge of once-important or still-important things not set in order, not categorized, not scrubbed with Clorox wipes. I wonder what service he’s out there doing that makes him forget about cleaning. He texts me that Grant Barber left the bar and I come upstairs, eyeing the balled-up napkins and brown leaves sprinkled on the ground as I walk to the front door. I will clean this up before anyone else has a chance to disregard it.

[crushedbyhyperbole]

Disco Ball Diva

A/N: For @buckyshelves Merry Christmas, I hope you enjoy this and have a great festive holiday

To @bucky-smiles​ for organising this secret Santa gift exchange, you’re awesome and so, so kind

Also... thank you to my friend Haz who beta read this for me.  You are always so supportive of my writing and I love you

Summary:  You’re inappropriate, sassy, have snazzy powers, and now you’re an Avenger-in-training.  Not everyone appreciates your blasé attitude, and when a surveillance mission goes south you’re thrown together with one hot brooding super soldier.  It doesn’t help that you can’t stop ogling his bum.

Pairing:  Bucky Barnes x Reader w/ powers

Word Count: 7k.  I actually feel bad that it’s so long.

Warnings:  Violence, gun violence, Bucky kills people, mentions of blood and injury, bad language (which is a given for me), some sexual tension (light) but mostly just reader is an asshat XD

The Avengers compound is not like you imagined it.  Or maybe it is but you haven’t found any of the secret stuff yet.  Hidden jet hangers under the basketball court, labs in the basement, glass cases full of superhero suits.  Wait.  That’s the freakin’ X-Men.

Still, it’s nothing like you hoped.  The conference rooms are boring, obviously, because meetings are the epitome of dull. The communal lounge and kitchen are both boring; there’s no espresso machine that doubles as a drone, no fridge that transforms into sentry bot, there isn’t even a SodaStream.  Yawn! You don’t even need to see the fitness suite to know that it’s not a place you want to visit, and you’re not allowed below the ground floor yet.  Talk about not trusting the noob.

Your room is a vision of extreme lacklustre, but you only moved in yesterday, so, no redecorating just yet, save for the peace lily your brother gave you.

Congrats on your new job and home by the way, here’s a half-dead plant I had but couldn’t be bothered to look after.  Now it’s yours.  Enjoy!

Your super power is definitely not green thumbs, nurturing life, healing, or anything even a tiny bit supportive.  You can’t fly, don’t have super strength, speed, or a crazy-good aim.  There’s not a green rage-monster just below the surface waiting to erupt and smash things.  Well, if someone steals your cookies you might have to choke a bitch but hey, rainbows are cool, right?  Super distracting, like oh hey, what’s all this shiny shit flashing around?  Oh dayum, I totally didn’t see that badass super warrior coming to kick my ass.

You swallow hard.  The small conference room feels like an interrogation room despite the polished wood table and plush leather chairs.  Of four sets of eyes that are currently watching you, only one pair is encouraging.

Tony Stark.  The guy who recruited you.  Took you from a life of selling hotdogs on street corners in the City and apartment sharing with a crazy cat lady called Angie who you found on Craigslist.  You had nothing against crazy cat ladies, per se, but you would prefer it if the pissy smell was optional.  Angie had opted in, hence why you jumped at the chance to opt out.  Ugh.

“Rainbows?”  The scowly but buff brunette with the dreamy blue eyes and robotic arm, scoffs mockingly.  “You project rainbows?”

The equally buff blonde who you suspect might be Captain America (or maybe his stunt double) snickers, his head lowered to hide his amusement.  Does Captain America have a stunt double, for like, TV appearances and meetings with officials, and stuff?  You’ll ask later.  Right now, you’re annoyed.

“Oh, I’m sorry, fist-of-victory!”  You snap your fingers like the queen you are.  “Am I too snazzy for you?  Do my rainbows ruin the whole Neanderthal vibe you got going on there?”

Loud snorts and chuckles pull you back.  The redheaded vixen you know already as Black Widow is pinching her nose to stifle her laughter, and Tony is looking to the heavens in askance but emotional stability is not forthcoming.

“Wow.”  The brunette says flatly.

“Fist of victory.” Tony ponders, eyes twinkling.  “I like that.”  He levels an amused gaze at you, rolling his next words around in his mouth.  “Manchurian candidate is a little out-dated, wouldn’t you say, Barnes? Ready for an upgrade?”

Oh shit!  Your eyes get big.  The brunette is none other than the infamous Winter Soldier.  You should have known by the arm.  Show no weakness!  Your brain screams.

“What’s the official title for that skill, you have?” Steve Rogers has gotten his face to cooperate, now there’s no trace of a smirk.  “Light manipulation?”  

“Walking disco ball.” You put on the light show again, manipulating the effects so the lights are dancing across the, now stormy grey, eyes of one Sergeant Barnes.

“It’s definitely distracting.”  Natasha says objectively.  “Could be useful.”

“See!  That’s what I said!”  You punch the air, sending the lights into a frenzy.

“I have a theory.” Tony is playing his cards close to his chest still.  “That’s why y/n is here.  She’s agreed to work with us, and at the very least she can be a supportive member of the team.”

“Team, frickin’, playahhh!”  You holler, earning a concerned look from Rogers and a downright obnoxious groan from Barnes.  “What?  What you complaining at?  You fucking love me already!”

The truth was that you didn’t know how your ability worked.  You could feel it when you did your thang, like the hairs on the back of your neck stood on end and the air in your hand felt stiff and substantial.

Better not talk about hands full of substantial stiff things around grandad Tony, he might kick the bucket.

You could manipulate the amount of reflections in your light show by making the air heavier, make them move, dance, even adjust the size of them a little.   Agreeing to work with The Avengers had been a no brainer; you get paid, get a place to stay that isn’t full of the stench of sadness and cat piss, and you get to find out more about your ability.  Win, win, win.

+++ A couple of weeks later +++

“You really expect me to take Rainbow Brite on this mission?”  Barnes has his arms crossed across his chest, refusal crinkling his brown and pursing his lips into a thin line.  The guy looks hot in tac gear.  One bicep straining against the material, the other is obviously free and oh-so-fucking-awesome.  Thighs tight under those black tac pants, thigh holster accenting the flex of muscle as he shifts his weight.  Wait-what!?

“Wait a fucking minute!”  You squawk.  “Rainbow Brite?  Oh, hell no!”  You march up to him, similarly decked out in black gear that makes you look like some tiny recruit in ill-fitting body armour instead of badass like him.

There’s a smirk on his perfect mouth now, dusky pink lips lop-sided with amusement, and the twinkle in his eyes is more than a little alluring.  What the fuck?

“Huh.”  You stop your tirade, blinking, baffled.  He’s playing with you.  Trying to get you pissed so you’ll refuse to go, or maybe he wants you to go so you’ll make a fool of yourself and Tony will see you’re not useful. Too many mind-games already, you don’t have the patience for this shit, so you go with an insult instead.  “If I’m Rainbow fucking Brite then that makes you Twink.  Dink!”

“Well, he does epitomise my sparkling personality.”  Sardonic, deadpan.  It’s classic brooding Barnes and you’re almost proud that he got an 80’s pop culture reference.  Almost.

“And they did rename him Mr fucking Glitters back in 2014.”  You pout, adopting his stance, arms crossed.

“Perfect!”  Tony pops m&ms into his mouth, turning away dismissively.  “Rainbow Brite and Mr Glitters it is.  Head to the carpool, there’s a vehicle waiting for you both.”

There was no getting away from this mission.  You’d grumbled, griped, whined, and begged Tony to send you with anyone but Broody Barnes but the Iron Man was true to his alter ego, he did not budge.

You are about to take a few pot shots at him in the insults department when Barnes’s voice comes over the earpiece you have already been fitted with.

“Earth to disco ball. Get in the damn car already.”

“It’s disco diva to you, giant cocksicle.”

He laughs at that and is still grinning when you slide into the passenger seat beside him.

“You’ve got some mouth on you, kid.”  Was that acceptance?  Admiration? Whatever it was it looked good on him.

“Yeah, you know you want my mouth.”  It sounded better in your head but now that it’s out it can’t be taken back.  Barnes looks a little frowny but at least he’s got nothing to say so you can quietly die in peace.

Can someone cringe so much they die?  You might find out.

The mission is surveillance.  Low-key observations of a facility out in Nova Scotia that makes products for iGoddess, a beauty company owned and run by Gabrielle Porter, the niece of one Alexander Pearce, crime syndicate king-pin and scumbag extraordinaire.

You know the company; you buy their stuff.  Well, you do now you can afford it and it’s not wasted under the scent of cat urine and bleach.  How can a company so devoted to making women feel special and empowered be mixed up with drugs, weapons and human trafficking?  Fucking bullshit, that’s what it is.

Bucky had ditched the car in the parking lot of a lake-side leisure and visitors centre about fifteen miles away, and with gaudy waterproof outerwear over your tac gear, you had begun the hike that would set you smack-bang in the middle of nowhere good.  Posing as hikers had been Tony’s brief but you’re cold and bored, and your body aches from being on the solid ground.

You’re both lay just behind the crest of a hill a little way away from your target building.  Bucky mutters his observations into his comms as you look through your own binoculars trying to see what he’s looking at.  He’s talking guard numbers and movements, the weapons they carry, security features and people entering or leaving the facility. It’s no use, you’re not cut out for this.  Surveillance is soul destroying.  You’d rather be interred in Tony’s kitchen, at least there’s coffee there.

Not even an hour in and you’re itching to get up and move around.  The hike had gotten your blood pumping but now you’re going stir-crazy, joints tingling with the need for motion.

Boring.  Boring.  But at least you can entertain yourself.  Where there’s light there’s beauty and you tease the air through your gloves, finding that your skin doesn’t need to be bare for you to create the effect.  Well whadd’ya know.

“There’s movement.” Bucky warns.  “Looks like some of the guards are exiting the compound.”

You snort, they’re probably bored too.

“A Jeep and a couple of motorbikes, moving quickly.”

“Sounds like they’re going home.”  You mumble, focused on the lights in your hand.

“They’re headed this way.” He curses.  “Grab your- What the HELL are you doing?”

Bucky tackles you to the ground from where you were on your knees almost at the hill’s crest.

“Asshole!”  You’re trying to get away from him but he pins you to the ground.

“I’m the asshole?” He complains as he rolls off you, sliding down the hill on his ass, shoving his gear unceremoniously into his backpack. “Mission compromised.”

“What happened?” Tony’s disembodied voice doesn’t sound happy.

“We were spotted.”  At the bottom of the hill, Bucky starts picking a path through the rocks and small fissures hidden by the wild grass and heathers. A quick glance back tells him you’re not following; you’re caught.

“Uh, hi, guys.”  You chuckle nervously as one of the guards levels an assault rifle at you.  “Would you believe we’re winners of a free weekend iGoddess Spa?”

Bucky is livid.  If it had just been him, he could have taken them out and escaped, but, no.  Tony had to insist that he bring you, show you the ropes, look after you.  Babysit you.

He snorts.  You don’t need a minder you need to be put in a padded room where you can’t inflict any more of your weird bullshit on him. Fucking rainbows.  What kind of skill is that, other than one that gets you caught?

Eight hours ago you were both doing great.  There’d been some small-talk in the car, he’d opened up a little and you’d responded. Even on the hike over you’d been great, your filthy mouth was a source of much amusement for him, and you’d listened. His instructions were followed close enough to the letter, and he was happy.  Everything was good.

Now it’s all fallen to shit and he’s locked up in a heavy-duty restraint chair that brings back memories of dark places and dark times for him.  To his side, you’re slumped forward in a regular wooden chair, cable-ties binding your wrists and ankles to the wood, pulling at your skin, making your hands and feet turn blue.  How the hell are you both supposed to get out of this?

He’s watching the movements of your chest that tell him you’re still breathing.  The cut on your head has stopped bleeding but you’re drooling blood-tainted saliva down your grey rash-guard.  Both of you had been stripped down to your undergarments and checked for hidden weapons.  He was the first to be incapacitated as they’d used you as leverage, holding a gun to your head until he complied, stripped, and submitted to the chair. When they’d took away your gear you’d fought and Bucky had seen red; he’d strained against the chair until the butt of a gun to the head had put a stop to that.  When he came to you were out cold, beaten and bloody.  How hard had you fought?

Your feet and hands are turning purple now.  The weight of your body pulling the restraints against your skin is making the plastic ties dig deep, cutting off the circulation.

“Y/n?”  Bucky hisses, hoping the noise doesn’t prompt the guards to come back.  “Y/n! Wake up!”

The room you’re in looks like an interview room.  Two-way mirror, camera in the corner, reinforced door with heavy-duty locks that were strangely not engaged.  It’s grey and cold, and the only things in the room are the two chairs and you two. The device Bucky is locked into is bolted into the floor; a permanent feature, like they expected him or maybe Steve. He tests the chair again.  It creaks but doesn’t give.  He’d have to really put some brute strength into it to break out, and that would create too much noise.  He’d wait.

“Y/n!”  A little louder now, and you stir.

He keeps talking to you, just bullshit words, what he wants for dinner, what film he’s going to watch when he’s home safe.  Anything to help draw you back to consciousness.

“You wana watch a film with me, y/n?”  He thought for sure you’d tell him to go fuck himself.

You moan, head lolling as you come back to him.

“Hey!  Rainbow Brite!”

“Fuck you.”  It’s a whisper but he’ll take it.

“There she is.”  He allows himself a relieved smile.  “C’mon, sweetheart.  I need you to sit up for me.  Take the weight off those ties before there’s any permanent damage.”

It takes a few more moments before you can shuffle yourself properly into the chair, then you’re flexing your hands and feet to get the blood moving again.

“Oh-god-it-hurts-so-fucking-bad!”  You are practically wailing as the pins and needles sensation in your extremities reaches a peak.  The slightest movement now sends a cacophony of intense pain into your limbs.

“It’ll be over soon.” Bucky sooths.

“Why are you being nice to me after I got us caught?”  You eye him suspiciously, flapping your hands to rush the blood into your fingers.  Rip the band aid off.  “Is this some kind of prank?  Ohhhhhhh!  This is an initiation isn’t it?  Oh, I see. Where’s Iron Doosh?  Hey!  Tony!”

“Would you shut up?  This is real.  We’re really captured.”  Bucky hisses.

“Tony Stank, Skank, Spah-hank.”  You sing-song as you struggle against your restraints, examining your bound feet through spread knees.  “I hope this is one of the chairs from his good dining set.”  You stand, leaning forward and centring your weight above your bent knees.

“What are you doing?”

“Just need to…”  You shuffle over to the mirror.

“No, y/n, wait!” Bucky begs.  “Don’t break the glass.”  His frantic expression says the rest.  Your feet are bare and you’ll shred yourself to ribbons.

“What?  You’re crazy.  Why would I do that?”  You chuckle, amused that he’s so worried.  “There’s no one in there.”  You wink at him.  “They’d be in here by now if there were.”

You shuffle a bit more and grunt as you throw yourself backward to the ground.  The chair cracks but doesn’t break.

“Fuck!”  You struggle some more, grunting and groaning like a butch female tennis player in a grand slam.  One of the arms loosens and you fight against the wood until you get your left hand free, then you’re reaching into your hair for a bobby pin to jam into the clasp of the cable tie on your right arm.

Moments later, you’re free and rushing to Bucky who is fighting against his own restraints. There’s sweat beading on his bare chest and his hair is sticking to his forehead.  A quick swipe of your hand clears his brow and he stills, watching you as you search the chair for whatever mechanism has him trapped.

“There’s a big red lever at the back.”  You muse. “You think it’s an ejector seat?” A cheeky wink.  “If I sit in your lap we can both go for a ride.”  You don’t have time for giggling and flirtation, but you do it anyway.

“Y/n.”  Bucky chastises lightly.

“What?  This is every girl’s wet dream.  Every, damn, girl.”  You mumble as you grip the handle.  “And I can’t even enjoy it.”

“Just pull the damn thing already.  We don’t have time to mess around.”

“Pity.”  You tug the lever and a loud hiss fills the room, pressure releasing from the chair.

Bucky is on his feet and at the door before you make three steps.  He’s rubbing his right forearm where the metal clamps had bitten into his flesh, there’s blood there too, long ago dried.

“There’s movement out there.”  He has his ear to the door.  “I need a weapon, we need our gear, and we need a vehicle.”

“I need some chocolate and bottle of wine.”

“What?”

“Are we not making a shopping list?”

Bucky rolls his eyes and grabs your wrist.  “C’mon.”

With the door cracked open, Bucky can see movement at the end of the corridor; there’s a security room which is promising for retrieving your gear, but not if you want to avoid being seen.

“Stay behind me.”  He pushes you towards his back.

You look down at his bum. “No problem.”  You sigh and then you’re moving, your hand on his bare back so you can feel where he’s moving next.

Bucky suddenly shoves you down into a squat, shushing you with a finger held against his lips.  The way he moves is like water, smooth and forceful, carrying the momentum of his body towards a lone guard who has paused at the corner by the security room.  How he hasn’t seen you is a miracle but the man doesn’t even hear Bucky until the his own knife is slipped from its sheath and into the his temple. There’s no sound, no gurgling, not even much blood.  Bucky lowers the body to the floor and cleans the knife on the pants of the dead man.

Looking at him now, you can see why people fear him.  His expression is cold, calculating, and focused.  It’s necessary, the distance he puts between himself and the act of killing.  Even when Bucky was him, there was always a distance; a gap between him and his orders.  Now the killing is his choice and he has to live with that, there’s no excuse of mind control now.  This is all him.

The security room has one guard inside who is overpowered moments after Bucky opens the door.

Fucking amateurs, you think.  Does that room not have cameras that cover the door and surrounding corridors?

Turns out that it does and the reason the guard hadn’t seen you was because he was sexting his girlfriend.

“Sexting?”

“Yeah.  Like sex role play and talking dirty over text.”  You snort.  “Jeez, you’re old.”

“What can I say? You’re broadening my horizons.” He winks then and it’s so out of place in this grim situation that you laugh nervously.  “Sounds fun.”

“Well don’t take tips from this guy.”  You wave his phone in the air loosely.  “He’s fucking terrible at it.”

“What’s bad about it?”

You’re not sure if he means to ask that, he’s busy trying to get outside communication through the phones which seem to be keycode protected and also checking through the security feeds to see if he can find your gear and a way out of this for you both; he’s clearly distracted.  At least he’s happy now that he has a pair of handguns and a pair of knives, no weapons for you because you haven’t completed your firearms training yet.  But let’s face it, who would arm you anyway?  You were a disaster waiting to happen.

“He’s a bit of a wham-bam-thankyou-ma’am kinda guy.”  You chuckle. Bucky is going to regret starting you off down this line of conversation.  “His poor woman has probably never experienced even mediocre sex with this schmuck if his sext skills are anything to go by.”

“Too eager to bury the bone?”  Bucky sounds distant, but he is listening to you as he checks drawers for weapons, keys and anything else that might be useful.  God knows your gear was nowhere to be found.

“Check it.”  You hop up on the desk near him and scroll through the laughable chat.  You feel slightly guilty reading this guy’s private shit but he’s dead so he isn’t going to care.  Reading from the chat, you do fake voices.  “So she’s like ‘hey baby, you free tonight?  I got something for you.’ Peach emoji, cat emoji.  And he’s like ‘you off your period? Can we bang?’  I mean, what the fuck dude?”

Bucky is smirking when you look at him.  “What did she say?”  He straps both thigh holsters to his almost naked body.  It’s comical how he’s gearing up from salvaged stuff wearing only a pair of skin-tight spandex shorts that leave nothing to the imagination. Once Bucky is packing (in more ways than one, now) you have to force your eyes elsewhere.

“’Yeah, baby! I missed you so bad.  Can’t wait to be in your arms again.’  She just wants lovin’ y’know?”  You spoke the line in a soft, breathy voice.  Fake, of course.

“And what did he say?” Bucky is checking the monitors one last time before he moves to the door.

“You like a bit of sexting? Huh, Barnes?”  You smirk, eying him mischievously.  “Living vicariously through the sexting chronicles of Captain Dick-Down over there?”

“Just looking to know what not to do if the opportunity for sexting ever arises.”  It’s light-hearted and completely unlike the grumpy Bucky you’re used to.  Maybe there was something in the air; sex pollen or something.  That’s totally a thing.  “C’mon.”  He says after a moment, eyes twinkling with mirth, soft lips pulling up to the side in a cute smile.  “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

It’s comedy gold, the pair of you running the halls of an apparently secret part of the factory, him in his tight little shorts and you in your panties and spandex t-shirt over a sports bra that makes your rack look like a uni-boob.  You awkwardly tug your rash-guard down over your ass whenever Bucky is behind you and you’re thankful you didn’t wear a thong though that would be better than skid marks.  God, you hoped you’d not shat yourself when they beat you.

You barely encounter anyone until you’re almost at the warehouse; Bucky is so stealthy that even with you hindering him, he only has to subdue one foreman and drag you into a cleaning supply closet once, to avoid a pair of patrolling guards.  Not that you’re complaining, being squashed up against an almost naked super soldier gave you endless thrills, even if he was all stiff and awkward about it.

Bucky stalls before the double doors that lead to the warehouse.  There’s a heavy plastic strip curtain over the exit too, it’s almost opaque with age and hinders your view of what is beyond the meshed safety-glass of the door’s small windows.

“They know we’re coming.” He whispers to you, mere inches away. “There’s a lot of them out there and I can’t keep you safe if you disobey orders.  So, please,” he begs, “please do as I tell you.”

He begs so sweetly, you think, blushing.  But you’re not one for passing an opportunity for inappropriate comments.

“I’ll be a good girl, Daddy.”  You bat your eyelashes, feigning innocent.  “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Really?”  Bucky doesn’t know whether to blush or be annoyed. You never seem to take anything seriously; it’s always a joke, or something you can twist to your amusement. He gets doubly serious.  “If you die, it’s on me.  You think I haven’t lost enough people over the course of my very long life?  You think I want to wash your blood off my skin later tonight?  Bury you alongside all the other people lost to some fight or other in the name of SHIELD or the Avengers?  I can’t save you if you don’t want to be saved.”

You watch him as he fervently tries to convey the dire nature of your situation, desperate to make you understand that he doesn’t want you to die here, he cares.  His eyes are piercing and your heart is a ricocheting bullet in your chest.  What if you don’t make it out ok?  What if this is it for you?  Both of you? Suddenly, you’re acutely aware that Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier, Fist of HYDRA come Fist of Victory, has cleared himself a little spot in your fucked-up soul, and is there to stay. You don’t want him to get killed because of you, but there’s nothing you can do, you’re not trained for this, or at all really.

You nod once, not trusting your voice in that moment.  You could choke on your words or you could vomit all over yourself.  It’s a lottery, so you say nothing.

“Good girl.”  He gives your shoulders a reassuring squeeze. “Stay behind me.  Be quick, keep low, don’t hesitate, and for Christ’s sake no disco ball.”  There’s a small smile tempting the corners of his lips, like he’s saying he forgives you for getting you both into this mess.  “Ok, sweetheart, lets go.”

Out in the warehouse there’s a whole host of guards and workers, patrolling and overseeing shipments being loaded into lorries.  It look like it’s important, and probably why the majority of the facility is clear of security staff; the merchandise is being moved.

It’s a mad dash, crouching low as you ghost around the edge of the warehouse.  The huge rows of stacks are packed full of boxes and crates, further obscuring your movement around the area.  Bucky is silent, especially since he’s barefoot; he’s every bit the assassin he’s hyped to be, but you can’t take him seriously padding around almost naked with the top of his crack showing and his junk all jiggly in the front.

A radio crackles to life. Three personel down.  Prisoners have escaped.  Cameras last caught them headed your way.  

They must have found the bodies.

“They’re in here somewhere.” A man says, loud and authoritative. “Search the rows, shoot to kill. They’re not low-life mob goons, they’re Avengers and can’t be allowed to live.”

Well that settles that, you think, gone are the chances of mere bodily harm.  It’s death or death.

You watch in awe as Bucky scales a nearby stack to stalk one of the patrolling guards.  When his opportunity arises he yanks the man up by the throat, snapping his neck in the process.  You can’t help but admire that metal arm, so sleek and powerful.  You groan, light and lusty, earning you a concerned look from the owner of said appendage.

Killing that guard has yielded an assault rifle, another knife and another handgun.  You’d think Bucky would be too smart to arm you but apparently he’s not.  Silently he points to his eye and then to the gun where he shows you how to turn off the safety, puts the gun in your hand and moves behind you to adjust your grip. He aims for you, pressing his chest against your back and you swear you can feel his junk against your ass.  Once he’s satisfied that you aren’t going to injure yourself, he’s gone from behind you, crouching low at the end of the row.

He grabs another guard and drags him backward.  The struggle is louder than he would have liked, and the man got out a partial shout before his throat was closed forever but Bucky is hopeful that he can thin the numbers down enough to make it possible to get you into a truck and away safely.

Bucky shoves the newest body under the nearest stack and beckons you to him.  You both move like a two-carriage train, he’s the engine and you’re the caboose following in his wake.  He only leaves you to commit murder but you feel lost when he’s gone, cold even.  There’s something alluring about the way he uses his body and your mind drifts to other carnal things.

A hand on your shoulder makes you jump.  There’s more of a commotion going on in the warehouse now, not just the sounds of men moving goods and silently searching for two prisoners.  There are massive amounts of footfall, boots hitting the concrete at speed; bringing in reinforcements from outside.

Bucky is about to whisper in your ear when the squeal of a megaphone pierces the air; he stills with his lips almost touching your skin before pulling back with a frown.

“Sergeant Barnes?” Bucky knows that voice, he’d heard it for years, worked with it, even obeyed it on occasion.  “Save the girl.  Turn yourself in.”

You shake your head, panicked, urgent.  Don’t leave me, your eyes are saying.

A noise nearby draws Bucky’s attention and he suddenly forces you to the ground under a stack where he slots himself immediately after; the security team are searching for you, stealthily stalking the rows.  It’s cramped and dusty, the bottom shelf above you so close you can barely breathe without your back brushing the metal supports.  How Bucky fits is beyond you, the man is a beefcake, all bulk and magnificently defined muscle.  Thinking of him naked is the only thing that keeps you from succumbing to claustrophobia. Something brushes your hand and you jolt, eyes snapping to meet his.  He grasps your hand properly and gives it a reassuring squeeze.  In your chest, something gives.  Maybe your permafrost heart is thawing, maybe you’re about to have a stroke, maybe you really like him.

When the coast is clear, Bucky pulls you free and you emerge into a different row, one with fewer boxes, one you’ll likely be spotted in.  You can just see the massive doorway of the warehouse, double sliding doors like a hangar, several half loaded trucks and maybe forty men with body armour and guns.  One guy in the middle is wearing a full-face helmet with a white skull etched across the features.

“Holy shit!  Is that Punisher?”  You hiss before Bucky can clamp his hand over your mouth, the warning look on his face is stern as he leans in to you.

“Crossbones.”  He corrects you, barely audible despite the proximity.  You still don’t know who that is but he’s totally not as cool as the Punisher, so it doesn’t matter.

His hand is still over your mouth but there’s no point in struggling, you couldn’t break free of him even if you tried, so you push your tongue out and squirm it against his palm, making him recoil in disgust.  Your chuckle is silent and his frown turns to the ghost of a wry smile before his attention is fully back on the man he calls Crossbones.

Bucky is taciturn at the best of times but he’s in full diagnostic mode now, assessing the situation. His eyes flicker around the warehouse from yet another new position.  It seems like he’s trying to get you closer to the trucks but you suspect that’s what Crossbones expects.  There are more men closer to the trucks too and Bucky has already had to kill another two in the latest relocation.  The missing men haven’t gone unnoticed and Crossbones is issuing orders, plugging the gaps so you can’t escape.

“I will find you Barnes.” Crossbone’s voice sounds wet through the megaphone, like he’s salivating with excitement at the prospect of getting his hands on you both again.  “If you turn yourself in, maybe I’ll let the girl live.”

Bucky’s eyes are downcast, like he’s actually considering it, but the moment passes and Bucky’s resolve hardens.  He drags you away towards the end of the row.

“The end of this row has a direct line of sight to the exit.  I need a distraction.  Can you do that for me?”  He whispers.

You nod, lips set in determination.  “One disco ball distraction coming right up.”

“On my mark.”

The fluorescent strip lights overhead create more than enough light for you to use.  With your right hand flat against Bucky’s left shoulder blade and your left manipulating the air to create a huge show of dancing lights, you move in tandem.  Bucky steps out of hiding, keeping you just behind him with his metal arm, he surges forward squeezing off four shots.  The way his arm snaps to aim so quickly is astounding, like he has a targeting chip implanted in his brain.  Who knows, maybe he does.  Four men fall and remain still.  Another three shots, then another two and he’s pulling you into another row at a crouching run to the opposite end as he discards the empty gun and pulls out another. He’s saving the assault rifle for Crossbones.

“Again.”  He instructs gruffly.  “Can you get their eyes?”

“It’s not an exact science this, you know?”  You huff and he seems to know that you’re saying you’ll try your best.  Of course you’d try, but you don’t know much about your power, even after the few months you’d been training with the team.  If it meant you both got out of this alive, you’d flash your tits at the enemy for Christ’s sake.

You emerge again, him with the gun in his metal hand this time, stepping out with you at his back. This time they are ready for you and they start firing before Bucky gets off his first shots.  He makes a dash for a fork-lift with a huge pallet of crates sat at floor level.  He shoots his rounds in threes until the 9-round magazine is done.  The gun is discarded as you both slide behind the cover of the pallets.  Machine guns rattle, pummelling the crates with round after round.  Bucky prays the crates don’t contain munitions.

“I make fourteen down. Twenty-two left.”  His breathing smooth where your is ragged.  You curse yourself for being so unfit that even a tiny bit of stress and exertion leaves you heaving air like a couch potato made to climb stairs.  “Crossbones is a problem.”

“What do we do now?”

Bucky has two handguns, four knives and an assault rifle, you have one gun and your rainbows.  This isn’t going to go well, you think.

“You’re going to hide over there and watch the rear.”  He points to your left.

You smirk.  Now isn’t’ the time for joking.

“I’m going to thin the crowd some more and, if I can, take Crossbones out.”  He looks determined but ridiculous in his underpants, dusted with dirt and debris from the floor that’s stuck to the slightest bit of moisture on his skin.  “This might not work.  Run to the left, hide in the stacks again, stay down and don’t expose yourself.”

You nod and he readies himself to break cover.  The shooting has stopped now and it sounds like the guards are changing positions again. His muscles clench, coiling ready to spring.

“Wait!”  You stop him with a hand on his arm, the metal is unnervingly cool.  Tension builds.  “I wanna fuck you until you pass out.”

“Ummmm.”  Bucky blinks, eyebrows raised in surprise but he’s smiling.  “You’re serious?”

“Yeah, well, no, but, uhhhh.”  You splutter, this hadn’t gone well at all.  “I couldn’t let you go without telling you, you know, what Captain Dick Down said to his girl.  You asked, for future reference, and all.”

“Oh.  Right.”  He frowns, turning away again.  “Move when I do.”  He orders stiffly, preparing to move.

Well, shit!

“Bucky, wait.”  Your voice is softer this time, tears prickling your eyes.  There’s a chance that neither of you will make it through this and it’s suddenly hit you that there’s something missing.

“What now?”  He grumbles, turning to find you closer than he expected.

You surge forward, cupping his jaw in your hands as you capture his lips in a kiss that’s both urgent and needy.  You don’t care if he doesn’t respond, you need to feel this before it’s too late. All this tension between you, the jibes and snarky banter, it’s unresolved and sexual in nature.  You want him, and if this is all you can have then so be it.  One stolen moment before it all slips through your fingers, and you both go to your graves.

You’re already pulling back when he snaps back to attention, quickly pulling you back for another kiss. His tongue delicately touches between the seal of your lips and you sigh with longing.

“You ready?”  You pull away but he’s still clearing his head, trying to focus again.

On your feet you’re running out, pumping your legs as fast as you can, heading to the wrong place. Machine guns stutter to life and Bucky is on your heels a second later, fear contorting his features as he scoops you up in his metal arm and returns fire almost blindly.  He’s shielding your body with his own and yips like a wounded pup when the bullets find him.

On your knees beneath the curved shield of his back you see the enemy are far closer than you thought. Everything in you yelled stop and you felt the pressure rise through your body and out, cascading off you like a roiling storm.

The bullets stop but the guns are still firing, muffled by the thickness of the air.  Despite the pain in his lower back and hip, he turns to see what’s happening.  Bullets sluggishly pushing through the air like flies in syrup, all but stopped and slightly redirected on a path that will take them away from a central focal point that is you.  You’re doing this, shielding you both as if by some miracle, your power not only refracting the light causing rainbows but acting like a forcefield.

“As much as I have to break up this little party, I really can’t have you killing my friends.”  The voice of Tony Stark is heard a second before the Iron Man himself and several of his Iron Legion appear and shoot each and every remaining guard with a taser disc, stunning them into unconsciousness.

Crossbones is a different matter and is somehow resistant to the zapping he just got.  He levels a grenade launcher at the stacks near where you and Bucky are crouched and fires.  No air shield will save you from all of that falling metal, but Bucky is still fast despite his wounds.  There’s blood running down his leg in rivulets as he pulls you to safety, and shields you instinctively with his body once more while the sound of explosions and grinding metal fill the air.

“I did not know I could do that.”  You praise yourself.

“I still got shot.”

“It’s just a flesh wound.” You snort.  “Walk it off.”

“You’re a real ray of sunshine, you know that?”

“I must be something special if you took one in the ass for me.”  You wink.  “I hope it heals puckered, then you’ll have two rusty bullet holes.”

“STARK!”  He shouts but pulls you closer to him.  “Evac for one.  She’s walking hom-owwww!”  You pinch the skin on the inside of his thigh viciously enough that he shoves you out of his embrace.

You both stay close on the Quinjet home.  Bucky had been confused as to how Stark had known to mount a rescue mission but when you produced Captain Dick Down’s phone from your uni-boob bra it all became apparent. All of the comms in the facility had been locked down but that was a personal device, one that probably wasn’t allowed to be carried.  Good old Captain Dick Down.

The facility had been put to a far worse use than drugs and weapons trafficking.  iGoddess was a front for human trafficking and also human experimentation.  The restraint chair they had strapped Bucky into had been used to restrain test subjects; Alexander Pearce was trying to replicate the super serum that made Steve and Bucky what they were.

“So, this was a win for us.” Steve said in the debrief.  “Our intel was lacking but it worked out in the end.”

“Says you who didn’t get shot in the ass cheek.”  Bucky grumbled, shifting cautiously on the Mr Glitters cushion you’d given him as a joke.

“I got to see some wonderful scenery,” you grin brilliantly, “so I’m not complaining.”

There had been no further discussion about the kiss you and Bucky had shared when you thought you might die in that place, but that’s ok.  Your daily thrills are made up of making him squirm, and since you two had become closer since your ordeal, you have had several of moments like those.  There’s plenty of time and you’re prepared to play the long game, starting with your newest idea.  You pull out your phone and casually write a text while Steve is rambling on about seized research and assets.

[I’m so turned on right now].

Bonus add-on for this work:  Captain Dick Down - External link to AO3

Because apparently 7k words wasn’t enough and I just had to try my hand at a little text chat/social media piece.  It’s more of an embellishment.  Enjoy

And if you liked this story, why not try Good Ole Stuffing, a smutty follow on for the same reader/character.

[mayvinwrites]

Stereotypes of witches

The stereotypical look of a witch is reminiscent of 15-17th century Brewsters.

“In the dark ages, brewsters, women who brewed beer, had some rather odd advertising methods. To be noticed in crowded markets, they tended to wear tall, pointed hats. To indicate when a brew was ready, broomsticks would be placed in the doorways of alehouses. Images of frothing cauldrons full of ready product and six-sided stars to indicate the quality of the brew also abounded. Lastly, out of manifest necessity, cats would be kept in the brewhouses to protect the grains from mice.“

“It would also be dangerous to be a woman with extensive knowledge of how herbs and plants could mix well together to provide nourishment and healing to the drinker when the inquisitions were at their height across Europe. As the production of beer would require these very skills, it wouldn’t be difficult to confuse the local alewife with a witch without malice.”

“Many of the women and men tried as witches in Europe during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance practiced midwifery or medicine. Doctors were scarce, and for members of Europe’s lower classes, local healers were often the only option. When medicine started to be regulated around 1200, women were barred from formal medical training at universities, and those that continued as physicians or midwives were sometimes labeled witches. A few were even tried for illegally practicing medicine.” 

[Source] [Source]

Familiars

“The concept of magical spirit creatures has resonated throughout history in creation myths, tribal traditions, and religions, but it’s only relatively recently that magical animals and familiars became re-imagined as evil or dangerous companions. Historically, familiars or spirits were often seen as a type of guardian angel rather than an evil demon.”

“Most people conjure up thoughts of the witch with a cat or toad when speaking of familiars. In the days of widespread persecution of witches in Europe and North America during the Medieval and Early Modern periods, women accused of magic use and witchcraft were assumed to have a familiar, most often in the form of cats, dogs, owls, mice, newts, or toads. These servants to witches were considered low-ranking demons, or even fairies.”

“Because of the assumed dangerous nature of the familiars, many animals were massacred, especially cats . These killings resulted in a tragic situation. In the middle of the 14th century the Black Death was ravaging Europe. Some scholars suggest the huge reduction in cat numbers allowed rat and rodent populations to boom, in turn increasing the number of plague-carrying fleas, and ultimately leading to the near-decimation of the human population.”

[Source]

Spells, charms, etc

Witches bottle: 

“A witch or folk healer would prepare the witch's bottle. Historically, the witch's bottle contained the victim's (the person who believed they had a spell put on them, for example) urine, hair or nail clippings, or red thread from sprite traps.

“Folk magic contends that witch bottles protect against evil spirits and magical attack, and counteract spells cast by witches; they are counter-magical devices, the purpose of which is to draw in and trap harmful intentions directed at their owners.”

[Source]

They also filled them with herbs, nails, blades, (sharp or broken things stuff)

If a witch thought they were already cursed they sometimes threw the bottles into fire so that it would explode.

You can get other information on witch bottles here

Talisman [art]

Amulets, Charms and Talismans [2]

Incantation

A brief history

“Want to get rid of an unwanted husband? Coat yourself in honey, roll naked in grain and cook him up some deadly bread with flour milled from this mixture. Want to increase the amount of supplies in your barn? Leave out child-sized shoes and bows-and-arrows for the satyrs and goblins to play with. If you’re lucky, they might steal some of your neighbour’s goods for you in return. These unusual charms and medical tips, which featured in medieval books, sound suspiciously like magic.”

[Source]

This is a post about witchcraft which includes talk of the trails, and how witches were executed, so please only click the read more if you are okay with reading that.

Myths and facts

Witches were burned at the stake. “Not in English-speaking countries. Witchcraft was a felony in both England and its American colonies, and therefore witches were hanged, not burned. However, witches’ bodies were burned in Scotland, though they were strangled to death first.”

“The common image of a witch’s execution shows a large group of hysteric people surrounding the guilty person on a burning pyre—but immolation was not the primary means of execution used for those accused of witchcraft. During the Salem Witch Trials, no one was burned to death; all of the accused that pled their cases and were found guilty during the Trials in 1692 were hanged. In fact, no one found guilty of witchcraft was ever executed by burning in the American colonies—immolation wasn't permissible by English law. But one person was pressed to death by large stones: Giles Corey, a man who refused to plead guilty or not guilty for charges of witchcraft during the Trials. The court found Corey guilty despite staying mute by using the French legal precedent of “peine forte et dure.” Corey is the only person in US history to be pressed to death by court order.“

Nine million witches died in the years of the witch persecutions. “About 30,000–60,000 people were executed in the whole of the main era of witchcraft persecutions, from the 1427–36 witch-hunts in Savoy (in the western Alps) to the execution of Anna Goldi in the Swiss canton of Glarus in 1782. These figures include estimates for cases where no records exist.”

Once accused, a witch had no chance of proving her innocence. “Only 25 per cent of those tried across the period in England were found guilty and executed.”

Millions of innocent people were rounded up on suspicion of witchcraft. “The total number of people tried for witchcraft in England throughout the period of persecution was no more than 2,000. Most judges and many jurymen were highly sceptical about the existence of magical powers, seeing the whole thing as a huge con trick by fraudsters. Many others knew that old women could be persecuted by their neighbours for no reason other than that they weren’t very attractive.”

But...

“ During the Salem Witch Trials, most of the legally-recognized evidence used against those accused of witchcraft amounted to spectral evidence, or “witness testimony that the accused person's spirit or spectral shape appeared to him/her witness in a dream at the time the accused person's physical body was at another location,” which was accepted “on the basis that the devil and his minions were powerful enough to send their spirits, or specters, to pure, religious people in order to lead them astray.” Other evidence used against them were so-called “Witch’s Marks” on their skin that allegedly proved they had made pacts with the devil. Contemporary research suggests these marks were possibly small ordinary lesions or supernumerary nipples.”

The Spanish Inquisition and the Catholic Church instigated the witch trials. “All four of the major western Christian denominations (the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist and Anglican churches) persecuted witches to some degree. Eastern Christian, or Orthodox, churches carried out almost no witch-hunting. In England, Scotland, Scandinavia and Geneva, witch trials were carried out by Protestant states. The Spanish Inquisition executed only two witches in total.”

King James I was terrified of witches and was responsible for their hunting and execution. “More accused witches were executed in the last decade of Elizabeth I’s reign (1558–1603) than under her successor, James I (1603–25).

The first Witchcraft Act was passed under Henry VIII, in 1542, and made all pact witchcraft (in which a deal is made with the Devil) or summoning of spirits a capital crime. The 1604 Witchcraft Act under James could be described as a reversion to that status quo rather than an innovation.

In Scotland, where he had ruled as James VI since 1587, James had personally intervened in the 1590 trial of the North Berwick witches, who were accused of attempting to kill him. He wrote the treatise Daemonologie, published in 1597. However, when King of England, James spent some time exposing fraudulent cases of demonic possession, rather than finding and prosecuting witches.”

Witch-hunting was really women-hunting, since most witches were women. “In England the majority of those accused were women. In other countries, including some of the Scandinavian countries, men were in a slight majority. Even in England, the idea of a male witch was perfectly feasible. Across Europe, in the years of witch persecution around 6,000 men – 10 to 15 per cent of the total – were executed for witchcraft.

In England, most of the accusers and those making written complaints against witches were women.”

“Historically-rooted misogyny led many to believe that women were somehow more susceptible to the dark arts or temptation by the Devil, and therefore more likely to be witches. For instance, the Laws of Alfred, written by King of Wessex Alfred the Great in AD 893, specified witchcraft as an expressly female activity. But men practiced, too, and were called many different names, including a wizard, a warlock, or a sorcerer.   Countless women and men were indiscriminately persecuted for witchcraft throughout history. During the Trier Witch Trials in Germany, which lasted from 1581 to 1593, a total of 368 people were executed—and many of the victims were leading male figures of the cities and surrounding villages, including judges, councilors, priests, and deans of colleges. In the Würzburg Witch Trial, which stretched from 1626 to 1631, 157 men, women, and children were burned at the stake for such random reasons as allegedly humming songs with the Devil to being a vagrant unable to give an explanation as to why they were passing through the town of Würzburg.”

Witches were really goddess-worshipping herbalist midwives. “Nobody was goddess-worshipping during the period of the witch-hunts, or if they were, they have left no trace in the historical records. Despite the beliefs of lawyers, historians and politicians (such as Karl Ernst Jarcke, Franz-Josef Mone, Jules Michelet, Margaret Murray and Heinrich Himmler among others), there was no ‘real’ pagan witchcraft. There was some residual paganism in a very few trials.

The idea that those accused of witchcraft were midwives or herbalists, and especially that they were midwives possessed of feminine expertise that threatened male authority, is a myth. Midwives were rarely accused. Instead, they were more likely to work side by side with the accusers to help them to identify witch marks. These were marks on the body believed to indicate that an individual was a witch (not to be confused with the marks scratched or carved on buildings to ward off witches).”

All witches were bad. “Even though we’ve got that common image of an evil witch—a warty old woman dressed all in black, riding a broomstick, with a pointy hat—anybody familiar with The Wizard of Oz knows that there can be good witches too! Glinda the good witch was a representation of the benevolent half of witchcraft, known as white magic. Historically, practitioners of white magic were known as white witches, and they were more folk healers than devious people out for double, double toil and trouble. However, writer C.S. Lewis reversed the notion for The Chronicles of Narnia saga, making one of the main antagonists the icy and evil White Witch.”

We don’t know where the word "witch" came from. All the etymology geeks out there may or may not be surprised to know that the word “witch” is of indeterminate origin. The closest and most obvious possible origin is the Old English word wicce, which means “female sorceress,” and is the basic linguistic root for the modern day pagan religion, Wicca. Another more specific possibility is a split meaning coming from the Old English wigle, meaning “divination” and wih, meaning “idol,” both coming from the Proto-Germanic word wikkjaz, which means “necromancer,” or “one who wakes the dead.”

People wrote entire books dedicated to witch hunting. “In the 15th century, witchcraft was of grave concern to a lot of people, and major pieces of literature were written about witches. The most famous was the Malleus Maleficarum, a legal and theological document that became the de facto handbook on how to deal with witches and witchcraft, and spurred the nascent hysteria caused by witch-hunting in Europe that would last well into the 18th century. The book was written by two clergyman of the Dominican Order—Jakob Sprenger, the dean of the University of Cologne, and Heinrich Kramer, a theology professor at the University of Salzburg—and used Exodus 22:18, “You shall not permit a sorceress to live,” as its basis to detect and persecute any and all witches.

Even people as important as kings got in on the action. James I of England’s 1597 book, Daemonologie, was a treatise that threw his support behind the importance of the practice of witch hunting. James himself even presided over the 1590 North Berwick Witch Trials when he believed a devious Earl plotted to overthrow the then-King of Scotland with the help of a coven.”

A Pope Once Confirmed that Witches Exist. “The Catholic Church saw witchcraft as a threat to all of its followers. In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued a papal bull titled “Summis desiderantes affectibus” (“Desiring with supreme ardor”) that recognized the existence of witches, saying, “many persons of both sexes, heedless of their own salvation and forsaking the Catholic faith, give themselves over to devils male and female,” and that they “afflict and torture with dire pains and anguish, both internal and external, these men, women, cattle, flocks, herds, and animals, and hinder men from begetting and women from conceiving, and prevent all consummation of marriage; that, moreover, they deny with sacrilegious lips the faith they received in holy baptism; and that, at the instigation of the enemy of mankind, they do not fear to commit and perpetrate many other abominable offences and crimes, at the risk of their own souls, to the insult of the divine majesty and to the pernicious example and scandal of multitudes.” The papal bull effectively gave Kramer and Sprenger—the writers of the Malleus Maleficarum—the God-given authority to begin their Inquisition.”

Laws About Witchcraft were in place in the mid-20th Century. Technically, England’s Witchcraft Act of 1735 was still official and on the books until 1951, when it was replaced with the Fraudulent Mediums Act. The language of the original Act wasn’t about persecuting witches per se, but rather made it illegal for people to claim that others were witches. Yet being legally convicted meant that you purported to have the powers of a witch—and in fact, a woman named Jane Rebecca Yorke was found guilty in 1944 under the law, though she was convicted mostly because she was defrauding people with bogus séances.

Witches really did "fly" on broomsticks, in a way. “The origins of the broom as a witch's preferred mode of transportation is ... pretty weird. People who practiced witchcraft experimented with herbs and potions in rituals that may have used the mandrake plant. Mandrake contains scopolamine and atropine, two alkaloids that cause feelings of euphoria in low doses and hallucinations in higher doses.The rituals—performed in the nude—called for the participants to rub an herbal ointment containing the mandrake on their foreheads, wrists, hands, and feet as well as on a staff that they would “ride.” The friction of the ointment-coated staff on the witches', uh, lady parts would absorb the ointment into their system and cause a floating sensation—and their description of that feeling is what perpetuated the symbol of the witch flying on a broomstick.”  

[Source] [Source]

I honestly didn’t believe the last one so I decided to do a quick look around before adding it to the list and it turns out it is true, there’s more on it: Here

But this wasn’t the only use they found for herbs as I bet you have already guessed. A lot of today's medicine is thanks to people who were believed to be witches.

“From nightshade, 19th-century chemists isolated atropine—a muscle relaxant that was later used to calm patients during surgery before the administration of anesthesia.”

“Atropine also remains the go-to antidote for nerve gas poisoning.”

“Tropane alkaloids continued to prove useful as chemical backbones in 20th-century drug design, most notably producing the anti-psychotic drug haloperidol.”

Willow bark would have been used to treat inflammation, because we now know it contains salicin, a compound that eventually gave rise to salicylic acid and later aspirin.” 

“Garlic was used to treat a variety of maladies from snakebites to ulcers, and today some garlic compounds have been marketed as blood clotting inhibitors.

“Foxglove plants were also in the mix. Seventeenth century herbalist Nicolas Culpepper recommended it for epilepsy. But it’s a Scottish doctor named William Withering who is credited with pioneering the use of the plants’ extracts for heart problems. In 1775, a patient with “dropsy”—a term for swelling probably caused by heart disease—came to Withering’s Birmingham practice. No treatment seemed to work, so the patient sought a second opinion from a local Gypsy woman. She prescribed a potion containing an estimated 20 different plant ingredients, and he was cured.

“Keen to learn its properties, Withering tracked down the healer and figured out that the active ingredient in her potion was purple foxglove (Digitalis purpurea). He then performed a clinical trial of sorts, testing different doses and formulations on 163 patients. Withering ultimately determined that drying and grinding up the leaves produced the best results in small doses. Digitalis plants gave us the modern heart failure drugs digoxin and digitoxin.

“Plenty of traditional remedies have produced the staple drugs of today. Traditional Chinese medicine gave the world ephedrine for asthma. The Quechua people of Peru gave western medicine quinine for malaria.”

“As is evident from trial records from the late fifteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries, and folklore sources and court cases in the modern era, the diagnosis and cure of witchcraft were an important element of the popular understanding and experience of medicine.” [Opens article]

[Source]

Witchcraft in different region/communities

Africa [wiki page]

Americas 

Asia

Catalan

Europe

Oceania

Russia

Salem

Deities

1) Abonde (also known as Perchta), 2) Aradia, 3) Nicneven, 4) Leonard, 5) Cernunnos, 6) Oya, 7) Cerridwen, 8) Circe, 9) Diana, 10) Hekate

Links to tumblr post that might be helpful

Salem witch trails  and again  Hexs

(And thats it :D I hope this helps some of you)

[evolutionsvoid]

Among the mossy trees and the flooded roots, a gluttonous beast hunts. For those who wade through the cypress swamps, there is one species that keeps them wary and alert. If you find yourself anywhere near these lands, you will hear words of warning about the Wompogos. Some may find no surprise in a large cat being a notorious predator within an ecosystem, but they may not expect one doing so in a manner like this. They are indeed mammals and indeed feline in nature, but many compare these creatures to that of a frog. They do not carry the sleek and elegant frame of other cats, rather they are squat and bulky things. Their posture fits more with a toad, with enlarged hind limbs, a bloating belly and an unsettling large mouth. Many find them ugly creatures to behold, but they have traded beauty for practicality, and are doing quite well with this setup! In a swampy, flooded land such as this, you need certain adaptations to survive! You can see this in many parts of their body like, for example, their limbs! These long awkward-looking appendages are certainly not good for sprinting and chasing prey, but they excel quite well at climbing trees and wading through the swamp. Their paws are webbed, which helps them walk atop the muck and swim through deeper water. They also have retractable claws, which are perfect for climbing the towering trees. Their hind legs are much larger and stronger then their forelimbs, as they use these for pouncing and for pushing themselves up as they climb. They also possess a long thin tail, which looks quite odd coming from such a squat body. This helps them with balance as they traverse the mighty branches above, and it also serves a powerful whip when faced with foes! While these adaptations are interesting, I am sure people are far more interested in their creepy grin and swollen stomachs. Those are not exactly common things in the feline family. Their faces are indeed a bizarre sight, as their skulls are quite flattened and their mouth is much wider than people are comfortable with. This is for two reasons, the first being that the Wompogo likes to hunt within the swampy waters. This flattened dome shape of a head has its eyes and ears moved a bit further up on the skull, which allows them to peek above the water line as they hide in the marsh. Much like toads and frogs, they like to hide in the shallows, waiting for prey to come close. Long thick whiskers help them detect movement in the water, which helps them locate prey and pick a proper ambush spot. If one gets too close to the hiding Wompogo, it will launch forward with mouth agape and claws at the ready. It is at this point where we reach reason number two for their strange faces, and it is because they don't believe in chewing. With their wide mouths and flexible jaws, they can unhinge these gaping maws and swallow prey whole. Smaller animals are instantly sucked in, while larger beasts will have to be slowly pulled in bit by bit. Dozens of small hooked "teeth" line their jaws, which help grip their victims and keep them from escaping. I say "teeth" because a majority of these spiky things are actually barbs of bone that grow directly from the jawbone. These help the true teeth, as they are rather small and spread out on this massive mouth. With such a gluttonous diet, the Wompogo possesses an expanding stomach that can fit in quite a meal! A full grown Wompogo can swallow an entire Sousuin, which is no easy feat! When it comes to ambush, Wompogos do not just use the water as cover. Due to their powerful limbs and claws, they also hide up in the trees and branches, waiting for prey to pass underneath. Their green and brown fur serves as camouflage, allowing them to blend in with the algae-filled water and moss-covered branches. Any attack, either from above or below, will have the Wompogo using its hooked claws to immobilize prey for easy swallowing. Those these are nasty weapons, they are rarely used to kill. Rather, they are meant more to wound and weaken prey, so that the Wompogo can devour them with their huge mouth. It seems that these cats prefer their prey live, as they never take the time to fully dispatch their victims before eating. No one is sure of the reason, but some think it may be out of sheer enjoyment. Regardless, Wompogos like to swallow their victims and then travel to their special resting spot for a nice long nap. Depending on the size of their meal, some may retreat to the treetops to sleep, while those with larger gut loads must snooze in tall grass instead. These huge meals can last a Wompogo for days, even weeks, as they just lazily clean themselves and lounge about. 

When mating season occurs for Wompogos, the males will let out deep rumbling purrs from their maw while the females call out with a bellowing wail. While these noises are essential for locating viable partners, they are absolutely horrifying to listen to in the night. Some believe that the tales of screaming ghosts and strange presences in the swamp may be due to Wompogos in heat, and don't think they are wrong! Anyways, the males will track down the calling female and hurry to be the first to claim her. Plenty of fighting can occur, but eventually one victor will emerge. Once this is done, the male will leave and the female will be left to raise the litter months later. Wompogo kittens are birthed on dry land and will be reared there for their first few weeks. Before they are born, the mother will look to consume a massive meal, as she will no longer hunt as long as the kittens are vulnerable. Once they reach a certain age and strength, she shall take them into her mouth and carry them into the trees. They will remain in the branches above, safe from predators, while their mother hunts for food. She will go after smaller prey at this time, that way she can climb back up to her kittens. Up there, she will force bits of her digesting meal back into her mouth, and then will hang it open so her young can reach inside and eat. Think of it like birds feeding their young, except the babies climb inside mom's mouth to get the food.   Due to their hunger and size, Wompogos are quite territorial. They stake out their hunting grounds with markings of bile and urine, and they get quite agitated when competition starts moving in. Fights with their own kind are quite vicious and loud, but they rarely end in death. Usually one backs down and scampers away, while the other settles back in for a long night of hunting. Not only do they fight with their own, but they do seem to have a feud with Swamp Basilisks. Both of these hungry beasts love eating prey whole, and there isn't enough room in these bogs for both of them! Wompogos are quick to react when they smell a Swamp Basilisk, and they will rush to oust this intruder. Their sharp claws can easily shred the slimy skin of the basilisk, giving the Wompogo a physical advantage over their opponent. However, the drowse-inducing oral eye of the Swamp Basilisk can slow these cats down and give the basilisk time to sneak in a paralytic bite! In the end, the Wompogo will usually win, as they have their claws and cleverness. Swamp Basilisks may succeed, but it is only about a quarter of the time. That is why the cypress swamps belong to the Wompogos, while the other marshes remain the land of the basilisks. It should be no surprise that the Wompogos are feared beasts by those who live near these swamps. These felines are great at ambush and are quite good at taking down prey. Even us dryads are not safe from these creatures! Like an inquisitive sapling, these beasts are willing to eat anything that interests them, even if said creature is made of plants and not meat. If you are breathing and standing anywhere near a Wompogo, it will try to swallow you. This makes these predators the number one threat to any who travel through the swamps. With them hiding in the waters and lurking in the trees, one must look both above and below! To help prevent attack, locals will wear thorny garbs or cover their boats with spiky bits. Another practice is to wear a mask on the back or top of your head. This makes the Wompogo think you are facing towards them, which will cause them to freeze. They will not move if they think their prey is staring at them, so this ruse can buy you time to get out of attack range. I highly recommend following this advice if you ever decide to enter these swamps. Wompogos are nasty and tricky creatures. Even if you think you checked every angle, there will probably be one lurking somewhere nearby. I myself partook in the mask trick, though I went a little overboard with it. I was nervous during my first expedition into the cypress swamp, so I decided to play it safe. Turns out my big noggin can fit quite a lot of masks on it, so I decided the more the merrier! I am sure the Wompogos that spotted me were baffled for days about the seven-faced creature that floated through their territory! Since they are felines, some have wondered if Wompogos could be domesticated. We have tamed the house cat and other felines, so why not a Wompogo? Well the number one reason is that people find them quite ugly, which means many won't even try. Sure their kittens may be cute, but when they grow up it becomes a very different story. The other reason is because Wompogos think more with their stomach than their brains. Sure they can be swayed by bribes of food, warmth and shelter, but sooner or later that big kitty is going to wonder "can master fit in my mouth?" And like it or not, they are going to figure out the answer to that question.   Chlora Myron Dryad Natural Historian ------------------------------------------------- This species was mentioned in a previous entry, and now they finally got their own! The world needed its own medieval crocodile! I think these guys are kind of like a fusion of the Cheshire Cat and Great Jagras.