#and that's on being a rat and mouse owner growing up

[joelswritingmistress]

You Scare Me, Professor: Chapter 44

Summary: The reader is taking graduate classes at a local university in the wooded upstate New York. She is drawn to her professor, Dr. Joel Miller, though she is also inherently aware that he has something dark about him that she can't quite put her finger on. As the reader's attraction grows deeper, she has to decide whether to endure the danger or run away as fast as possible.

Pairing: Professor Joel Miller x f!reader

James had decided to keep his efforts quiet as he continued his parade around the Bank Street businesses in search of video footage from the night of the most recent murder. He didn't want some more experienced or egotistical officer to write off the lead he was on, and so he took it upon himself to privately go through the potential evidence collected.

The sneaker shop had been the first to hand over their footage, and while there was no clear shot of the corner the stranger from campus had rounded onto, there was still one helpful tip. The absence of the man or woman, in general, meant that they didn't get that far down the sidewalk.

O’Malley’s, after some grumbling from the co-owner, handed over their footage from that evening.

“Not trying to catch these regulars walking out of here drunk off their asses, are you?” Buck, the co-owner that James hadn't initially spoken with, asked with skepticism. “I ain't getting called out for being no rat. None of ‘em are disorderly here. They're good, paying customers.”

After some convincing, James managed to get his hands on the security tapes without much of a hassle, even being supported by a few of the same men who he’d spoken with initially.

Breaking down the tapes and landing on the exact minutes and seconds necessary to nail down some evidence proved to be a tedious job. And matching that up with the movement of the person in the shadows of Woodbridge was just as tricky.

He didn't make it as far as the sneaker shop. James let his first two fingers dance along the mouse in rapid clicks as he searched for the best angle of the sidewalks outside of O’Malley’s.

Nothing. No one. Nothing.

He knew the person had to be on the footage, unless they turned around and walked back but that would've been on the last Woodbridge tape. It wouldn't make sense for someone to do that, anyway, James knew.

His eyes were starting to sting from the constant staring at the screen. He was squinting, hoping to get a clear view. It had been two nights of sifting through information and videos; and James knew there was potential for several more evenings just like this one.

It's worth it. James didn't have to convince himself of that. It was worth it. The Lady Killer needed to have his ending.

The clock ticked past eleven o'clock, sending him deeper into the night. The school was quiet; still. James wondered if the Lady Killer could be out there right now, on the prowl just beyond his sight.

Was he lurking in the bushes? Stalking on foot? In a car? Did he wear a mask? Was he weilding a weapon?

The thought made him shudder and James refocused on the task at hand. Click. Click. Click.

And then, a shadow entered the frame. It was just that at first - a shadow. The shadow of a human being. It stretched out in almost dreamlike fashion, long and lanky in the odd street lighting.

A man, clad in all black, entered the frame next with a confident stride. His hood was pulled up over his head and James knew this was the same man he had seen in the Woodbridge tapes.

He opened a Manila folder, removing a printed out version of the figure’s still frame from the video on campus. The person was directly under a street light as he rounded off campus and onto Bank Street.

Black clothing. Hood up. Same build. Same time. That was the most important part. The time of the two shots was separated by less than a minute.

James zoomed in on the O’Malley’s footage, attempting to see the person’s face.

“Take your hood off, you bastard,” he said to himself. It was impossible to tell the identity of the person with the hood pulled up in the darkness.

James remained patient. He let the video tick down, frame by frame, and just before leaving the shot, he got his wish.

With two hands, a man pulled the hood down and let it fall against the top of his back. James felt his stomach do a somersault. He paused the video and zoomed in, selecting a setting to depixelate the image as much as possible.

James's eyes squinted for a second as he searched his brain. Something was familiar, but he couldn't immediately put his finger on it. This man was someone he recognized. But where had he seen him?

The lightbulb went on and the elation he had felt from this giant revelation was replaced with dread. He thought of (Y/N) immediately. She was a link in all of this, unbeknownst to her.

Oh fuck. James stared back at the image of the man and hit the button to print out the image for his folder - and, finally, for other law enforcement to view. He had his man. James was certain about that; but first, he began to dial (Y/N’s) phone number.

“Please pick up,” James begged. “Fucking pick up.”

…

Sweet room service. I still laid naked beneath the sheets when Dr. Miller answered a knock on the door donning just a white bathrobe. He returned a moment later barely able to carry the food delivery.

Chocolate covered strawberries and a bottle of champagne would've sounded cliche to me just a few months ago; but now that my lover was setting them down on the nightstand beside the bed I could wholeheartedly see why they were sort of the go-to in romantic settings and stories.

Dr. Miller sat on the edge of the bed and reached for a strawberry. He then leaned over to where I sat up partially against the headboard and placed the tip of it into my mouth.

I smiled as I took a bite and began to chew as he pecked my lips.

“You want a little champagne?” He asked, still hovering close to me.

I plucked the remainder of the strawberry from between his fingers. “I'd love some.” Finishing the bite, I popped the remaining strawberry into my mouth before biting off at the stem.

“Mmm..” Dr. Miller kissed me once more. He rose back up to his feet and reached for the bottle, unraveling the paper around the cork. As he began to carefully work at the cork I chuckled.

“Don't shoot your eye out,” I teased.

A loud pop echoed off the bottle’s interior and the foam only erupted slightly over the top. Dr. Miller looked directly at me, licking his fingers and then proceeded to pour us both a glass.

He handed one over to me and took his own glass as he slid back down beside me, resting a hand on my thigh beneath the sheet.

Dr. Miller’s gaze never left mine. We tapped our glasses together sending a gentle clink into the air. “To us?”

“To a long, happy life,” I began, wondering if I was getting ahead of myself.

“Together,” he finished my sentence and I smiled.

“Together,” I confirmed with a nod.

We lifted our glasses and took a sip. I drew my finger across my lips and then reached for another chocolate covered strawberry, this time reaching over to place it in Dr. Miller’s mouth.

His hand covered mine and he allowed me to place it halfway in his mouth.

“Why are these strawberries so damn sexy?” I asked with a laugh. Dr. Miller chuckled with me and finished the bite before removing another from the rectangular dish, only dunking it in some leftover chocolate drizzle on the plate.

Without warning, he let the chocolate drip down the center of my breasts, making me giggle and lay down flat. Dr. Miller lifted the sheet and a chill left goosebumps all along my body. I swallowed hard and closed my eyes as he let the chocolate trailed all the way down to the lowest part of my stomach.

I bit down on my bottom lip when he positioned his body above mine, kissing along the drizzle and lapping it up as he traveled lower and lower down my abdomen.

My hand tangled in his wavy hair. Fuck, I loved his hair. When he moved down below my waist my legs parted even more.

“Fuck Joel,” I whined, “Dr. Miller.”

Dr. Miller let out an amused chuckle and looked up at me. “You don't know what to call me,” he teased. “And it turns me on a little bit.”

A knock at the door made my body tense up and Dr. Miller glanced over his shoulder as he made his way back to his feet. He tossed the covers over me again.

“Should I get dressed?” I whispered, thinking it must've been one of his family members.

“Stay here for a sec.” Dr. Miller leaned his hands down onto the bed and left a smoldering kiss on my lips as his fingers made home between my legs. The act made me sigh into his mouth. “I'll be right back.”

CLICK HERE FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER

@untamedheart81 @suttonspuds @cesspitoflove @michilandcof @grogusmum @morallyinept @akah565 @brittmb115 @magpiepills @poodlebae @gobaaby-blog-blog @mermaidgirl30 @mandojojo @shotgun-shelby @itscatrodriguez-thepearl @macaroni676 @acciowolfstar1 @smolbeanzzz @sarcasm-theotherwhitemeat @bandluvr97

[rachiesratirementhome]

ANOUNCEMENT: Changes regarding mice

Despite being a rat rescue Rachie's has taken on mice quite a few times, because people have asked us to, and if you're able to help someone, why not?

It's an attitude that has resulted in us helping with multiple dogs, a cat, a beetle colony and a tank of snails from our clients, sharing cuppas at 2am with grieving owners and #Rachie sprinting through residential streets in her pyjamas with a nebuliser to save a suffocating pet in her suburb, among many other wild situations.

If we've had the time and resources to help a fellow human, we've done our very best.

But the past year has seen an ENORMOUS increase in demand for us as a rat rescue and we've found ourselves really needing to focus our time and resources, so we have a lot less wiggle room to try and help outside of what we're most specialised and set up for.

So we won't be taking in mice going forward! We'll be staying true to our boundaries as a rat rescue, rather than overstretching ourselves because we are bleeding hearts who want to help everyone!

Our current mouse residents will be welcome to stay of course, so we'll have them for the next possibly 2 years unless they're adopted. And as always, we're committed to our promise that any animal adopted from us is welcome to come back at any time, so we'll always welcome home our mousey graduates. We're just ceasing new surrenders so we can phase out of our mousey side project and maximise our ability to do what we do best.

If anyone knows of local rescues that are willing to take in mice, please encourage them to get in touch! If we can find an alternative place to recommend that is in line with our welfare and ethics standards, we would be more than happy to help kit them out with our mouse setups and resources.

Thanks for your understanding as we continue to grow and evolve!

#RRHManagement

❤🐭❤🐭❤🐭❤

[chasseurdeloup-retired]

Something Seams Off || Irene and Kaden

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Sew La Ti Do PARTIES: @threadofheart and @chasseurdeloup SUMMARY: Kaden goes to Irene to repair his jacket and they have a snicker-snacker of a time. CONTENT WARNINGS: None

Kaden ran his hands along the leather jacket as he watched the signs of the stores along the street. He didn’t want to miss the repair shop. Clothing wasn’t usually precious to him. It couldn’t be, not as a hunter. Sure, he had to scrounge and save for new clothing back in the day, but any shirt or pants could get destroyed in the wrong monster fight. The best thing to do was usually patch it best as he could for as long as he could before tossing it aside for something else decent. But the leather jacket in his grip was different. This was a gift. Kaden had precious few gifts in his life that he held onto, at least not prior to coming to White Crest. Either way, if anything was worth taking care of, it was the jacket Blanche had given him. To the point he was careful not to wear it on hunts, at least not often. Sometimes it was hard to avoid. Still, he couldn't figure out where some of the holes in the piece were coming from. It didn’t make sense. Definitely beyond his skills to repair. Time to try a professional for once. He gulped before swinging the door open. He had to remember whatever the price, he was fine, he could afford it. Old habits were hard to break. “Hello?” he called out. “Uh, got a jacket that needs fixing. This is the place, right?”

After the online interaction with the owner of the leather shop, Irene was quick to research some tips on how to better mend leatherwork. Since it wasn’t her typical area of expertise, she wanted to improve on it in the event she had customers seeking that specific service. Scattered across her table were scrap pieces of leather she had practiced her stitching. Several of her poor needles already set aside and bent at odd angles. Just then, the jingle of the door chimes caused her to look up at the customer entering her shop. With a warm smile, she got up from her table and walked over to the counter. “Welcome, I’m Irene, and you’re in the right place. What sort of fixing does this jacket need?” she asked, her hands gently patting on the counter indicating for him to set down the piece. Upon brief examination, it certainly appeared to be well-worn, well-appreciated.

“Hi, nice to meet you,” Kaden said, awkwardly and a little stilted as he walked towards the counter. He had no idea what the protocol was in this whole exchange, it wasn’t like he’d ever done it before. Thankfully she took the lead and indicated where to place the jacket so after giving her a slightly startled look, he did just that. Right. Made sense, she had to look at it after all. “Uh, there are some holes in it. Weird spots. I don’t think I made them.” Then again, he got so many injuries and brushed up against so many various fangs, claws, and pincers it was hard to keep track of the damage after a while. “Not that I-- I mean, I work in animal control. With the WCPD. Uh, Officer Langley.” Which probably didn't matter. Why the fuck was he introducing himself? And why was he nervous about a damn jacket repair? “You probably didn’t need to know that or care. Just, yeah. Weird holes. Does it… You think you can fix this? Not to-- I just don’t know what can and can’t be saved. Usually don’t try.”

Irene’s expert hands were quick to search typical areas where jackets typically formed holes. The seams didn’t seem to be split but with some of the holes, she likely would have to reline a couple of spots so that any fixing wouldn’t look like a patch job. Her eyes narrowed as she continued to study the jacket. “Overall, this looks like it’s in good condition, but the holes are… a little strange,” she noted aloud. “Like you said, definitely in some strange places. If this were a weather or cotton piece, I’d say maybe moths or something, but I’m a bit at a loss as to the cause.” Straightening up, she let out a small sigh and another smile. After all, her job wasn’t to determine what caused this but rather how she would fix it. “Well, Officer Langley, this probably will take me about a week. I think I have similar thread and fabric to fix this up, though once I’m done, it’ll look brand new.” It was clear this jacket meant a lot to him; the stress emanating from him was hitting Irene like a wall of bricks, so she hoped her words could offer some relief. “And I could offer you a rough estimate as well if you’re interested.”

Kaden rubbed the back of his neck as he watched the woman work through what was going on with his jacket. Putain, he wasn’t normally this nervous about simple human interactions. Something about it being new, unknown, it left him unsure. “Yeah I didn’t think moths would go for leather, but a brow--” Merde. He caught himself before he started talking about fae and monsters. Barely. “I mean, yeah probably not moths.” He felt his stupid heart pounding in his chest over a stupid conversation with a seamstress. The fuck was wrong with him? Maybe he shouldn’t quit hunting. He clearly couldn’t handle normalcy. “A week? Is that-- I mean, sounds good. I’m not sure how long this would normally take. I’ve never had anything repaired before. I normally just throw away things once they get damaged but I guess if I did that you wouldn’t have any business so anyway this is, uh, new. For me.” He was certain she could tell without him saying shit. Her next assurance had him even more wide eyed. Shit, was he really that obvious? He didn’t think he looked poor. He didn’t right? Fuck, maybe he did. “A rough estimate? Oh. Yeah. That’d be good. To know. If you--” His brow furrowed as he cut his sentence short once more. This time it wasn’t just him not knowing how to speak like a normal person. Something was moving. His brows knit together as he looked closer at the jacket. “You’re not…” His eyes darted back up to her. Her hands were in fact not underneath the jacket. And yet it was wiggling. “That’s not you moving it, is it?”

Irene could feel the intensity of his emotions grow despite her telling him that the jacket could be fixed. Was something else worrying him? In the past, she had worked with clients who held incredible sentimental value to their clothing articles. Perhaps this was one of those instances. With a warm smile, she looked across the counter at the man. “This jacket must mean a lot to you if you’re bringing this in for extra care. I assure you that your jacket is in great hands with me, officer. You’re doing great,” she added lightly with a small chuckle. Grabbing a notepad and a pen, she scribbled a few quick notes about the current condition of the leather jacket and the exact fixes the officer was requesting. That helped her approximate the cost. Just as she was about to write out an estimate, his question caught her by surprise. “Hm? N-no, what do you mean?” she asked, her eyes instantly darting to the jacket to see brief movement. Shoot, did her shop have mice or rodents? “Oh goodness!” Without thinking, she lifted the jacket up, expecting to find some sort of critter there only to spot something… not quite exactly that or anything she had seen before. “What--” she jumped back in surprise, her eyes wide after she immediately dropped the jacket back down.

Kaden nodded a little along with her words. “I mean, sure it, uh, I like it and all. But it’s not that important.” Putain, why did he say that? What if that meant she was less careful with it now that she thought he didn’t care? “Not that-- I mean. Yes. Thank you.” Fuck, what if she was fae? And he just thanked her. And why did she have to reassure him that he was doing fine with a basic social interaction. Sadly, his ineptitude wasn’t the biggest disaster in the room. When she moved the jacket, out hopped a small rodent looking creature. Only it wasn’t a mouse or rat, no no. That was a snicker-snacker. No missing it. “Putain,” he grumbled to himself. “No wonder there were holes.” Out of instinct, Kaden reached for his knife in his back pocket, but his hand hovered and hesitated. Just long enough for the supernatural rodent to scutter off. Shit. But he couldn’t just stab the snicker-snacker right in front of her in her shop. He wasn’t the most experienced with social norms, but he was pretty fucking sure destroying shops with knives was frowned upon. He twisted and turned looking to see if he could find the creature. “Must have been in the jacket. Not sure how I missed that.” Had to have crawled in one night when he was hunting. At least he hoped that was the case. If he had an infestation in his apartment, well, he didn’t want to think about the destruction waiting for him at home. “Did you see where it-- there!” he shouted as he leapt towards a corner of the store, diving onto the floor, trying to clasp the rodent with his bare hands. It skittered just out of reach, running to the other side. Shit. He had to get it or else it could be bad news for her shop. It had definitely gone to the left. Only, when he glanced to the right, he saw it there, too. No, not the original one. There were two. “Uh. Think you’ve got a problem here,” he told her, trying to pick himself up off the floor.

If the rodent-looking creature scared Irene, the man pulling out a knife immediately caused the seamstress to shriek out of surprise and fear. But her attention was quickly drawn back to the thing that jumped off her counter and was not running around her shop. With wide eyes, she pulled her gaze back to the man as she tried to process just what had happened. Irene wasn’t normally one for any sort of judgment, but yes, how had this man conveniently not realize that something like that was burrowing his jacket? Before she could even respond, Irene toward the floor as the creature skittered across her feet to the man’s left. Another yelp escaped her lips as she jumped back in surprise. It was one thing for rodents to be scampering around, but she will not have them messing up her shop. Trying to think quickly, Irene grabbed a broom from the corner and glanced to the right and saw… another one. Confusion etched across her face. “Oh no…” she muttered quietly as she slowly raised her broom. Was this her weapon now or a poor decision of a shield? Who knew. “What are those?” she asked in a soft voice, hoping not to startle these creatures with any sudden noise.

This was a problem. One snicker-snacker was bad news. Two were exponentially worse. And for all they knew, there were more than even that. Kaden started to listen and look for any more signs of them, trying to keep his steps quiet as he ducked down to look at any and every corner. “Snicker--” He paused before finishing his answer. Saying “snicker-snackers” was going to make him sound like he was out of his mind, wasn’t it? And it wasn’t exactly keeping the supernatural a secret at that point either. Putain. “Uh, rodents. Mutated mice. I think.” That worked, right? “They’ll eat through just about anything so be careful.” This whole shop would be in bad shape if an infestation broke out. All the clothes and fabric would never last. He glanced over to see how she was holding up. Broom wasn’t a bad idea on her part. Shit, if only he had his work kit. No nets or cages on him now, unfortunately. “Got anything to trap them with? A basket. A bowl. Anything?” He saw a jar full of pins. This was a terrible idea. “Putain,” he grumbled to himself as he dumped the pins as carefully as he could manage onto the table he picked the jar up off of. “Sorry about that. I, uh, I mean looks like it’ll work.” He caught a blur of motion out of the corner of his eyes and leapt towards it, jar in hand. “Sweep it towards me! Corner it”

Irene watched the man move around expertly ready to attack. She clutched the broom tighter against her chest as her heart pounded loudly in her ears. “Snicker? Like--what, like the candy?” she asked incredulously. Her brow knitted tightly as she tried to keep an eye on even just one of these creatures. “Mutated mice. Wonderful. Thank you evolution,” she muttered under her breath as she took slow, quiet steps through her shop. Rodents weren’t something she was scared of; hell, she’d seen her fair share of very brave rats in New York. This? This should be a piece of cake, though she had no idea what sort of advantages these mutations gave these rodents. Her eyes quickly scanned the room in response to his request. “Uh… how’s this? Wait!” she called out, unable to find a suitable container before the pins were spilled out. Great. But she had little time to process that before she also caught sight of a dashing blur past her. Instinctively, she swept broadly with the broom, the bristles making contact with something, and a loud squeak seemed to indicate she must have caught the rodent. “Coming your way!” she called out as she made one swift broom push toward the man. “Well, that has to be one, right? Is that it?”

“Uh, sort of,” Kaden started. With how often he ran into the supernatural in this town, it was hard to remember how few of the residents actually were in the know. Code said to keep shit secret, he needed to try a little harder. As he dove, he slammed the lar over top of where he’d seen the blur. Only to catch something just to the left of him. Shit. He reached out with the jar again as she swept the lump towards him, capturing the creature underneath. “Got it!” he shouted, keeping both hands on top of the small jar, just in case. There was a sound of something splitting behind him. Putain. He kept one hand on the jar as he twisted to try and look behind him. A table leg had snapped in two and he was certain if they didn’t hurry, there might be less than three legs there. “Shit, shit, shit.” He was making a real fucking great impression here. He had to let go of the jar to get over to the other one. “Uh, do you have a book? Or a weight? Or something? And one more--” He paused. “Maybe two more jars. Just in case.”

Irene's stress levels increased, both from wanting these creatures out of her shop and from the fact that this whole instance was creating a giant mess of her shop. Had these things always been around this entire time? A hazard of her work she never considered before? As the man dove down, Irene held her breath until she saw that he had managed to catch something. “B-book? Um, goodness, I have uh I have a couple of binders of fabric swatches,” she said, frantically reaching for these from the desk in the back. And jars. Her eyes looked for a few more of those, all filled with things like thread scraps or buttons. The priorities now though was definitely in capturing these creatures, so she poured the contents out into an empty box and quickly returned to the man. And then she saw the cracked leg on her table. Oh goodness why was this happening. “I hate to bombard a customer with orders, but please get these things out of here before the rest of my shop is destroyed,” she pleaded.

This was not the first impression Kaden had planned to make. Granted, he didn’t start off on the best foot so guess he didn’t have much to lose. He’d shifted and let his foot rest on the jar while she went to grab more supplies to trap the creatures, untrusting of what would happen if he left it unweighted. He didn’t want to find out if the snicker-snacker could topple over the glass. At least it couldn’t eat it. Well, it shouldn’t at least. It wasn’t exactly wood or fiber. He looked down. Floors should be safe, too. Right, better get them out quickly. “Thanks,” he said, taking the book and the jars from her. He dumped the book on top of the makeshift snicker-snacker trap and hoped like hell it was enough to keep it there. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the little pest run up and back towards his jacket. “Oh no you don’t,” he said, diving towards it and yanking it away off the counter. The mutant mouse went spinning and flying in the air as the rug was pulled out from under it, but landed on its feet and scurried off. Merde. He’d have to be more careful.

Jars in hand and ready to pounce, Kaden tried to move quietly around to the back of the counter to see if it had landed back there. A flash of fur and horns darted out, squealing towards the table with three legs. “Not today, you little bastard,” Kaden said as he threw himself at the table, crashing into it, causing all sorts of odds and ends to go flying and clattering to the floor as he wrestled to get the jar on top of the creature. All he got was a spool of thread. Good thing she’d handed him two jars. He reached out with his left hand and slammed the glass down, praying he didn’t break it with his hunter strength and heard a squeal as the tail wriggled out from underneath the lip. If it were a mouse or a rat, he might feel a ping of remorse. But a snicker-snacker? He dug the jar down to the floor a little harder before the tail snaked its way back under the container with another squeal. “Got it,” he said, breathing heavily as he pushed himself off the floor.

Irene watched with astonishment as the man moved so expertly. Her eyes darted back and forth between the now-occupied jar and the precarious situation of her table. “Sure…” was all she managed to respond. With her hands now empty and the man chasing after the other “mutant rodents,” Irene’s attention honed onto the jar. She could hear the skittering of the creature, sounds of tiny claws scraping against the glass in an attempt to escape. Leaning down onto her hands and knees, Irene took a peek at the rodent inside, this snicker thing, and let out a small gasp. It looked like a mouse or a hamster but with horns. What the heck was in the White Crest water that mutated the rodents into something like this? Her thoughts were quickly interrupted by the sudden slam from the man, the sound of another jar crashing onto the ground and securing another creature in its confines. “O-okay, what do we do now? I mean, are we supposed to let these go out in the wild? Is there animal control for something like this?” And how dangerous were these things? So many questions ran through her head. Then her face paled lightly at the next thought. Did these need to be exterminated? Despite the trouble they brought, the idea soured her stomach.

Kaden brushed off his pants and arms after standing and taking a look at the chaos around the room. Putain. Not how he intended this to go. Couldn’t even have a simple interaction in a store in this goddamn town. “Lucky for you, I am animal control. Obviously not on duty right this second. Or else, you know, I’d be prepared.” He sighed and pushed his hair back into place. “They’re pretty destructive, as you can see,” he said, gesturing to the poor table. Shit. “Uh, I can, pay for that, by the way. I sorta brought them here.” No clue how he was affording that but tables couldn’t cost that much, right? Shit. “Reproduce exceptionally fast, too.” He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. This was the worst part. People already had bad takes on animal control half the time. He’d been called an animal killer too many times for his liking. And it’s not like he could tell her these were clearly monsters and out himself. No one liked to hear about dead animals and he couldn’t blame them. But these weren’t sweet little mice, these were pests. Abominations. Capable of destroying full houses if left to their own devices. “For now, I’ll take them out of here. They’re definitely not adoptable, though. I’ll do a relocation out in the woods, though.” He hoped she would buy it. There was no way he was going to chance a snicker-snacker infestation in town.

It was the sudden calmness that stressed Irene out even more. Was this it? Were all of them caught in her jars? “You? You’re animal control?” Had he said that earlier before all of this happened? She couldn’t recall. A hand ran through her hair, the other hand almost resting against her damaged table before she spotted the broken leg. She quickly pulled back and sighed. At least that table was a hand-me-down from the previous tenant of the shop, and Irene had been hoping to upgrade to a more customized work surface. “Um, yea, th-thanks, I think,” she said mindlessly, unable to fully assess the severity of these creatures. “Like rabbits. Or rats. And I thought New York rats were damaging,” she muttered to herself. How did those things even scurry onto him and into her shop? “Right, your jacket though. If uh if you still wanted that mended, I can still take that on but I might need more time now because…” her voice trailed as she gestured to her mess of a space.

“Officer Langley, yeah. That’s me. Animal control.” Kaden almost felt like he should apologize for that fact. Almost. He did catch them, after all. “But yeah, like rabbits or rats. Only they’ll eat through your table legs. Uh, anyway, if you don’t mind, I’ll go get something more appropriate to transport them and come back.” He’d make sure  to bring a knife with him, too. Maybe a few extra cages in case more of them showed up in the interim. He was about to turn and walk out when his eyes shot back to the jacket, brows raised. Right. He almost forgot. “Oh, yeah. If you can. No rush. At all. Um, thanks, and,” he paused to look around the room, “sorry. I’ll be back soon.”

[sorenskyhigh]

Pets They Would Have pt. 2

Karasuno

Hisashi Kinoshita

Hisashi is a Train Company Employee. This means he works a lot of hours and just does not have the time to take care of, love and train any other pets

Fish are a really easy to take care of

All you have to do is remember to feed them and have a water filter to constantly clean their aquarium

Some fish, if handled when young, can get big and will let and love for you to pet them

But, they also are just very nice to have

Just to watch them swim around all of the plants with the light on at night

As I said, they don't need alot either

Hisashi could just let them be

They wouldn't beg or need constant love and attention like a mammal (dog, cat, rat, bird)

They also don't need constant vigilance for health issues or specialized diets like amphibian and reptilian pets

Hisashi is going to be tired when he gets home from work, so he needs a pet that is more ornamental than a chore

I feel if Hisashi were to have fish, he'd get the weirdest ones in the pet store

Hisashi seems to have a very strong inner child

So he would want either the flashiest fish, or the ones that cause a double take everytime their passed by in the store

He may get only one or two or get a whole tank full

I honestly feel like it could go one of two ways:

A- He has an aquarium for a wall in his house filled with his wild choice in fish or

B- He has a small, round, spherical bowl with two fish in it

It'd be funny if he had just the two fish to start with then they had babies even though the worker said they were both female

Obviously they weren't

They laid eggs and he had to transfer the female and daughters to one large tank and the father and sons to another so they wouldn't keep having babies

After this he has like 14 fish in total

Then he keeps finding himself at the pet store looking at the "ugly" fish no one wants

He buys these fish and ends up having two tanks that cover a whole wall

One's for his male fish the others for the females

But he screws up and learns the hard way that clownfush can change genders to help make babies

I'm being terrible to this poor guy let me stop

He so would be that fish owner to get real plants and "not those toxic plastic ones, how do they not hurt the fish???"

I honestly love the thought of Kinoshita just spacing out in front of his fish as he just watches them swim and do their own thing

Or if he were to only have a couple fish and he lets them get really big and pets them

Kazuhito Narita

Now, I know what you're thinking

Aren't Ferrets incredibly high maintenance?

Not really

Kazu ends up working at a Realty Firm

Generally their work hours are supposed to be around 40 hrs a week

But they often have to stay longer considering most clients can only meet up on weekday afternoons

So this means Kazu has to work a lot

Ferrets may be mischievous and a little destructive, but that's easy to fix

If a ferret is to be left at home alone for hours at a time, just get it a really big cage and tons of toys to play with

Plenty of food and water too, of course

But ferrets are honestly pretty chill

All they need is for you to clean out their cage around once a week, some light grooming here and there, and some time to run around

Apartment or house doesn't matter with ferrets

They love to just mess around and only need a couple hours of free time a day

They sleep most of the day, 17 to 20 hours usually

They also aren't very vocal

They have a specific noise they make when excited thats barely heard by most human ears

Fun fact about ferrets is they actually have pretty poor eyesight, but their sense of smell and hearing more than make up for it

The only real problems Kazu would have to worry about are hairballs getting lodged and dental issues, no different than a cat

I didn't pick a cat though bc, Kazu seems like the kind of person to have something that doesn't get riled up on a whim like a cat

Cats often have unpredictable moods, ferrets on the other hand can be energetic but won't get into a bad mood at the drop of a pin

They're generally very fun loving

Though, it is always recommended to get a pair

Ferrets are highly social animals, so they would need a buddy for when your not able to be there for them

Kazu would probably get one almost all white ferret and one almost all dark brown ferret for the symbolism

I love the thought of Kazu wrestling with one ferret, it wrapped around his hand, and then the other one if climbing on his back and sliding down the back of his shirt in playful retaliation

Tobio Kageyama

I really really wanted to give Tobio a turtle, but with him being a volleyball player in his adult life, that just won't work

Turtles need very specific temperatures and surroundings so they can live happily and healthily

I honestly feel in terms of personality, nothing but a cute little Eastern Box Turtle would fit him perfectly

I honestly struggled to find something that, to me, fit Kageyama Tobio but also would be manageable for him as a pro athlete

He's a very complex character and something with fur or feather just did not seem to suit him to me

The only problem is.......reptiles and amphibians are generally really demanding pets

From the food they eat, the the temperature their home has to be set at, its a lot of constant care

Some of them may not like constant physical touch, but they still need to be cleaned and have a constant watchful eye to check for any skin abnormalities

I decided on the African Fire Skink after much much MUCH consideration

These lizards don't get large, onky around 14-15 inches

And, unlike many reptilian nd amphibian pets, they don't require any specific heating or lighting

As long as your house isn't like consistently hot or cold or constantly changing between the two, their fine

They do need a substantial amount of dirt to dig and hide in

They mostly eat insects and one very rare occasion would appreciate a pinky mouse

These lizards are also shy and like to be admired from a distance

They don't like to be touched too much

They also have few and far between health problems uike other lizards

The only real problem is you can't find them at local pet stores but, they generally sell for around 25-70 USD

They also live for around 15-20 years

I feel like Tobio would have gotten his lizard as a middle schooler bc he didn't have very many friends, but he also didn't want a really needy pet since he doesn't know how to socialize well

Since this lizard like to be left alone, he could admire it from afar and this lizard could help him learn how to social better

Sorta.....

Imagine Tobio at a table in his room, doing some homework and the little Skink is just lazing about in a sunspot next to him 😍

Shoyo Hinata

YES YOU ARE SEEING CORRECTLY

At first for Shoyo I thought, okay maybe a hamster or a Guinea Pig or something like that

Ya know, something small but mighty and also, incredibly cute!

But I took a look at a list of pets that travel well and one of pets that can be left at howm for days with a proper care taker

I nearly shot myself bc I totally forgot that Hermit Crabs can be pets!!!!!

And they suit Shoyo so well!!!

They are small and sturdy

They fight back and pinch when threatened but can be very nice little pets to have

Hermit Crabs also love, sadly, for only around 10 years and can grow up to 6 inches long

Also, three to five shells per crab should be available

I am living for the idea that Hinata bought a bunch of shells for his crabs and painted them with little volleyballs and crows and ornage and black 🥺

These are good bc as long as you have someone reliable to feed them when they need to be while you're gone

Usually, if they're small, they're tiny wittle claws can't grab onto pellet food, so heir is a specific kind of almost dust like food for Hermit Crabs

Also, dark leafy greens like kale and broccoli or fruits like apples, bananas, and grapes are good too

Just choo them up really really tiny

They also need 2-3 inches of soil, silica play sand, and (optional) coconut fibers for them to burrow in when they molt

They also need a place for water to keep their little shells moist

They also need specific temps and maybe even mist their terrarium with water now and again

Something that us important and why Shoyi would need someone to come in and check on them is bc they are every vulnerable when molting

When a Hermit Crab molts they need to be separated from others so they don't get hurt

Like with many smaller pets you also have to thoroughly wash your hands before and after you touch them

Shoyo would fight Tobio when Tobio said his Crabs are boring and go into a long detailed argument about how each Crab has his/her own personality and how interesting they are

Kei Tsukishima

Did you expect this Dino loving nerd to have anything else other than a reptile?

I tried to find one, as you can imagine, that would fit his adult life schedule but also his personality

I really wanted to give him an Iguana or Chameleon butbthey were really demanding with care

Now.....I know

Anole are native to the Southern US and Southern Hispanic countries such as Mexico, Clolombua, and Venezuela

They are around 20cm long and only live a very short 3-5 years

Also if you own many most should be female and only one should be male if you choose to have any males at all

The males get very territorial and will fight one another

Also the males flair our their dewlaps (skin flap under their chin) in defense and when they feel threatened

The dewlaps are usually pink, red, or on the rare occasion blue

Females have these as well but don't flair them out as much

Anoles are very high energy but don't care to be touched too much

These lizards also can't be picked up by their tales as they have evolved to lose their tales and grow them back

Kei would like these as they are so odd

They're not only descendants of Dinosaurs but they can lose their tales and grow them back at will???

I feel like Kei would constant have new ones

His massive tank (you need big ones for these guys, they are very active and will resort to cannibalism if their space is too small) is never empty, always at least three

He has analbum on his phone of all of the Anoles he's owned and maybe even has a picture book with their names on it

Yamaguchi to this day is the o ky one that has had the privilege to see said book

Yamaguchi is also the only person Kei trusts to take care of his precious Anoles

And when one dies he has really small but none the less grand ceremony for a descendant of the mighty race of Dinosaurs

Yamaguchi always helps him set these up

I fell like he would give them really weird names as well

Like twig, stick, sock, glove, kneecap or some weird shit idk

I'll have Yamaguchi, Yachi, Yui, Natsu, and Saeko in the next one

My requests are open and I hope you enjoyed

@popcorntime-doodles @multifandombrainrot @kneecapstealingalien @jiheonity @weareallhumans123 @smallmangi @canadian-crow @just-jellyfish @immiamarais @i-need-coffee-now-pls @shadowsbutdead @ghostexhibit @goshikisimp @anothershadeofpink @mestayanon @all-around-fandoms31 @thatfunnysprout @itsallgonnabokayihope @g00s3 @boreateo @backalley-astrologer @vaniatslover @lil-mellow-bunbun @strawberrymakki @beelziee @taiyahhh @sakusasgerm @cr4z3d-cl0wn @brendanfkelley @mainnews32 @beelshumanworldburger @mehreenackerman @detective-bakugou

[thottyhrs]

Just a lil world building and build up between myself and a certain... rat.

Not my best work, but I finally had the motivation to push myself and write something I’ve been wanting to make for a while ;;

Blasted thing!

Ratigan growled, outstretching his cloak and observing the long tear. He usually kept his attire in pristine order, so something like this was more than just a tad irritating. As he wondered where such a tear could have come from, the bigger question popped in his mind— where would he go to stitched? He wasn’t well versed in sewing, nor did he trust any of his idiotic goons to fix it properly. As he walked along the streets of London, he kept his eyes peeled. He couldn’t exactly stroll into any boutique, considering his face was all over the papers. Perhaps he could just manipulate some poor worker?

That seemed to be the plan as he walked up to a small shop, nestled just outside of Baker Street. He rubbed his chin, looking around the empty city. He wasn’t too keen on the idea of potentially running into trouble if he went further down the street. His worst nightmare would truly come to light if he ran across that second rate detective while he was out in the open. Time to test his luck, he thought.

He walked onto the porch, noticing the little bell strung just above the door. He gave it a tug. The soft ring went off, sounding similar to a wind chime. However, no one showed up. He tapped his foot, his patience quickly growing thin. He tugged the thread of the bell once more, glaring at the door. He pulled out his pocket watch, checking the time. He couldn’t wait around all night— and despite his better judgement, he’d prefer to just head home with tattered clothes than stand outside in the dreary night.

Just as he was about to call quits, a small voice broke him out of his train of thought.

“Excuse me, sir?”

He looked behind him, seeing the mouse at the bottom of the stairs. At least, he assumed she was one— she was quite tall, much taller than many other mice he’s met. However, her large eyes and small tails proved to him she wasn’t a rat. She took off her hat, showing off her puffy brown hair. She smiled up at him before speaking. “May I help you?”

He raised an eyebrow, smirking softly as he slid his watch back into his jacket. Considering she didn’t look at him with fear or suspicion, Ratigan suspected he caught a lucky break. She didn’t recognize the criminal— he wasn’t sure how, but he surely wasn’t going to complain. “Good evening, my dear. I assume you’re the owner of this little boutique.”

She nodded in response. “Yes. I hope you weren’t waiting too long.” She said, walking up the stairs to speak with him face to face. “Are you here to pick up a suit or—?”

He snickered. Such a polite little thing, he thought. “I don’t suppose you would be able to stitch up something for me?” He asked. He watched as her eyes brightened up with a smile on her face. “Of course! Please, come in.” She said, slipping around him and pulling out her keys, unlocking the door for the both of them. The professor was taken aback by the young woman’s generosity— if he didn’t know any better, it was almost like was walking into a trap. Though, judging on cover alone, so to speak, she didn’t seem like the detective type. He stepped inside without a second thought, taking in all of his surroundings. The shop was quite... quaint— if you could even call it a shop.

It looked more like a home. If the many mannequins weren’t present, adorned with their beautiful gowns and handsome tuxedos, it would look like a typical living room. Upon further inspection, he saw the small basket of threads and needles that stood beside the lounge chair— which sat in front of the brick fireplace. All those put together, Ratigan was able to deduce that this young woman lived alone and wasn’t very well off. Much of her furniture looked to be hammy downs, most likely from her grandparents, as the manufacturing seemed old fashioned.

Normally, he wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this. However, he didn’t have much choice at this point. “I’m sorry if it looks kinda messy.” She said, a hint of nervousness was present in her voice. “Would you like something to eat? I have some crumpets fresh from the oven.”

“No thank you, my dear. However... a cup of tea does sound rather nice.”

“I’ll brew a pot, then! How does earl grey sound?”

“Perfect. No sugar, please.”

She gave a quick nod before rushing to the kitchen, just a few steps across from the front room. He sat down on the doily couch, resting his elbow upon the arm rest. He couldn’t deny, being offered tea and crumpets out of the blue from a random stranger felt... odd. Civility wasn’t something he normally came across, especially in his line of work. Then again, that didn’t mean he was against it. She was clearly a naive, overly trusting person— the kind of mouse that would be a victim of his blackmail. If he didn’t have to work in order to get some obedience, then there was no need to complain. That reminded him... her voice— she clearly wasn’t British, or European for that matter. She sounded foreign... American perhaps?

Before he could pounder further, the smell of freshly brewed tea enveloped his nose. He couldn’t help but smile— it smelled absolutely delicious. The young lady placed the cup in front of him, the saucer gently clicking against the wooden table. “There you are.”

She sat down in the lounge chair across from him, watching as he took a sip of his tea. It wasn’t the most delectable, but it was certainly above average. It almost made him forget why he was there... wait a minute—!

“So, what did you need stitched up?” She asked. He cleared his throat, feeling a touch embarrassed that the reason he was here had completely slipped his mind. “Ah, yes. Pardon me.” He began.

“It’s my cloak, you see. Damn thing caught on something. Quite the nasty tear.”

“Oh! May I see?”

She quickly stood back up, approaching him and undoing the clasps on his cloak. Once she saw the rip in question, she let out a wondering hum. “Hmm... shouldn’t take too much time, nor would you need any patches. I can sew it back up no problem, will only take a few minutes.” She said, returning back to her chair and pulling out the basket of threads he saw before. “I’ll try my best to hurry. I don’t wish to take up anymore of your time.”

“Not to worry, my dear. I’m a patient man, especially in the presence of such a lovely image.”

He couldn’t help but smirk as he watched her fur fluff up, her gaze quickly avoiding him and down to her fumbling fingers. “You’re too kind, sir.” She muttered softly, a soft blush now present on her cheeks. Ratigan was no stranger to swooning others, men and women, but that was a little too easy. “Actually... would you be so kind as to tell me your name before showering me with compliments?” She asked, peeking up at him with a raised eyebrow and sly smile. He let out a deep chuckle, resting his chin on the palm of his hand and looking at her with half lidded eyes. He didn’t mind a little playful banter. Although, would it truly be wise to out himself? She didn’t seem to recognize him when they first met, so it’s possible that perhaps... she truly didn’t know who he was. He wasn’t much of a gambling man, but he was willing to make that risk— worst case scenario, he can manipulate and threaten her.

“Professor Padraic Ratigan. And you are?”

“Pleasure.” She said, bowing her head. “Oh! Um... it’s Madelyn. Though, I’m not too big on formalities— Maty is just fine.” She added.

Hmmm... Madelyn, if he remembered correctly, it was a name of French origin— it’s more popular meaning being ‘high tower’. He held back a laugh, finding the name rather fitting, given her height. Her continued politeness lead him to assume that she truly had no idea who he was or that he had even existed prior up to this point. What luck, he thought.

The room became quiet as Maty continued to sew. He was impressed that she was able to work while they spoke, even when her eyes weren’t on the garment. It was clear she was very experienced. His eyes followed her supple fingers as they gently and carefully threaded through the fabric. Feeling his gaze on her, Maty cleared her throat. “Um... so... Professor, may I ask what you are a professor of?” She questioned. She seemed a bit uncomfortable by his staring. Noted.

“Ah, I’m afraid it isn’t anything too extravagant. I was a mathematician for a university.” He answered. That seemed to peak her interest, her gaze moving away from her work and back towards him. “Really? What made you want to leave?”

“Oh... a change in occupation, shall we say.”

That seemed to satisfy her, as she let out a content hum. For a moment, he assumed she was trying to interrogate him. Maybe he should do the same. “If we’re exchanging personal information. I’m curious why an American mouse would move so far from home. Considering it seemed to be a heavy burden on your finances.”

He grinned, seeing the shock on her face. What looked so obvious to him probably wasn’t to others. She seemed a little offended by his assumption, retorting with a not so humored stare. “For a man who most likely came from nothing, that’s quite the stone you threw from your glass home.”

Ooo, feisty. Usually, he would get rather insulted by such an insinuation, but her precious little smirk made it more forgiving. “Oh, I don’t mean any offense. I was just intrigued, that’s all.” He said. She sighed, laying the cloak on her lap. “I’m sorry. I’ve unfortunately heard that question many times from... not so friendly people.” She said. “If you’d really like to know— I’ve wanted to challenge myself and travel from a while now. I figured London was a nice place to start. It’s been an interesting change of pace, especially compared to Florida.”

Ahh, so that’s where she was from. He couldn’t hear a southern accent, so he was curious what part of America she was from. Florida certainly wasn’t his first guess. “I’m surprised such a charming woman like yourself is from a swamp of all place.”

She giggled, her hand over her mouth, barely covering her smile. Seems buttering her up works wonders. “I wouldn’t consider it a swamp, but since you’re British, I’m sure you’d assume any place in the world that doesn’t have an obnoxiously large clocktower to be just a rickety old swamp town.” She taunted. Not bad, she knew how to tease back. To be fair, they were childish and surface leveled, but it’s not everyday he meets someone with a little backbone.

She stood up, showing off the sewn up cloak to him. “All done.” She announced. He was pleasantly shocked— the craftsmanship was superb, you couldn’t even see the thread. “I suggest being more cautious. The stitch work, if ripped and teared again, might do more damage to the fabric.” She explained as he had him stand up, buckling the cloak back around his shoulders. The two were rather close to each other, he could see some of the details on her face. She had a freckle just below the right side of her lip, long eyelashes along with greenish blue eyes. She was quite beautiful, even the professor couldn’t deny that. “Thank you for your service, my dear.”

He took her hand into his, bringing it up to his mouth and planting a kiss upon her fur. She smiled wide, looking to the side and gently batting her eyes. “It was nothing, really.”

“Now, how much would this cost?”

As he was about to pull out his wallet, Maty quickly grabbed his wrist, stopping him in an instant. “Oh, thank you, but... I do stitching for free. Besides, I was a bit rude earlier.” She said, muttering the last part under her breath. Perhaps others would consider it rude— he thought of it as nothing more than cheeky banter. Other than that, he was surprised that she was offering her work for free. Why would you look a gift horse in the mouth, right?

“Very well. Oh! Before I leave, I would like to try one of your crumpets, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course, one moment.”

She rushed to the kitchen, taking a small baggy and placing a couple crumpets inside, tying it up with a bow. She figured it was better than giving him one with just a napkin or something. As she came back out, she was surprised to see that the man was gone. She blinked a few times, looking around the room. “Professor?”

As she made her way back towards the coffee table, she noticed from the corner of her eye— a subtle shimmer. She looked over and saw a diamond, a small pouch filled with coins, along with a letter. Did she really take that long or was he really that fast? She picked up the paper, scanning it with her eyes and reading out loud. “Thank you for your work, hope to see you again soon. Sincerely, Professor Ratigan...”

Her heart skipped a beat as she finished. She looked back down at the pouch, picking it up and looking inside. Her eyes shot wide— there had to be at least a hundred pounds or more, not to mention the beautiful diamond he left behind. She was honestly so overwhelmed— a part of her wanted to rush outside, look for the man and return the money. However, she had barely enough to get by lately— some nights she had to go to bed hungry. All of this could keep her fed and stable for a while. She smiled wide, hugging both the letter and pouch close to her chest. What luck, she thought. Who knew London would have such a kind soul?

[xalasmeno-podhlato]

Pest Removal West Midlands Near Me

Table of ContentsThe 7 Best 24 Hour Pest Control Birmingham B16 solutionsVermin Control Birmingham Near MeHidden Secrets about Best Pest Control BirminghamThe 5 Best Pest Company Birmingham fixesPest Control Services Birmingham Near MeLocal firms for Pest Catcher BirminghamPest Company Birmingham Near MeFinding the 5 Star Rated Pest Catcher Birmingham

To start with, numerous of us as house owners, occupants and property managers can control home pests through a combination of preventive procedures, including appropriate sanitation and good house upkeep practices - pest exterminator. Nevertheless, some pest problems may be comprehensive, or a specific pest may be challenging to control, needing the services of a pest control company.

When choosing a pest control service, cost must not be the only element that identifies the company you select. It is essential to ensure the pest control company you select is competent. If pesticides are misused, both health and residential or commercial property can be harmed. Before contracting with a pest control company, consider the following: When the majority of people discover a pest issue, they desire the problem eliminated immediately.

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It is smart to get a number of quotes from potential companies. Most companies will offer free estimates. Contact organizations such as the Bbb, the States Departments of Agriculture, or the States Chief law officer's Office, or the EPA to identify if problems have been filed against the company or its applicators for misusing pesticides.

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Each company needs to have at least one licensed, licensed commercial pesticide applicator in the proper service classification. Other company applicators should be accredited applicators or licensed technicians under the direct supervision of a qualified applicator. Licenses may be validated by calling the different State Departments of Agriculture. Trusted applicators will show you their credentials and will be able to supply you with copies of pesticide labels that suggest how the item should be applied, consisting of the proper application rates, and the essential precautions.

Don't have actually a listed or working telephone number. Sell services door-to-door or target the elderly or infirm persons who live alone (vermin control). Show up suddenly and show you bugs they have found in your neighbors house as evidence of an area problem. Price quote a per-gallon rate. Termite control can require numerous hundred gallons of diluted insecticide.

All pesticide products need to be signed up by the U.S. EPA and the States Departments of Agriculture. Registered pesticide labels consist of a list of active components. Try to press you into right away signing a contract by recommending your house is structurally unsound and may collapse if not dealt with. Claim to have excess material left over from a previous job and use a minimized price for immediate treatment.

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EPA or other government company. Government companies back any service company or specific pesticide product. Some pest control companies use service agreements in which structures are consistently dealt with for a specific pest. Contracts might be necessary in some circumstances such as storage facilities that get cages typically plagued with cockroaches. In general, routine pesticide applications around your home are bad unless there is a continuous infestation by a pest and non-chemical approaches have stopped working to control the pest.

Normally, it is customary for termite control work to be ensured from one to 5 years. Make certain you know what the guarantee covers and figure out if there is an annual examination charge. In addition, learn if the pest control company is accountable for structural damage if the treatment stops working to control the termite problem.

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If the service person asks you to do particular things previously, during or after the pesticide application, cooperate and follow guidelines. For example: If the service individual asks you to remove personal products from the flooring, empty kitchen area cabinets and remove animals, ensure you have actually done this they get here.

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Remove other household animals from the treatment area. If the service person suggests non-chemical techniques of pest control in addition to the pesticides, be sure to follow the guidelines. Good cooperation in between you and the pest control company will help remove pests and lower pesticide usage. Pesticides are naturally poisonous and may trigger illness and/or damage to the environment if utilized in a way irregular with the label instructions.

To figure out the pesticide that finest fits your requirements, contact your local University Extension Service. Info in this short article was adapted from Missouri Department of Agriculture and Illinois Department of Public Health publications.

5.0 (1) We provide complete pest control including lawn, termite, fumigation, and rodent removal. We exist to honor Jesus while offering pest solutions that secure your house, residential or commercial property, and environment. Revealing we care, building trust, showing professionalism, and delivering fantastic service are the worths that are most imporant to us.

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How to Choose the Right Pest Control Services? Pest control is the requirement of the hour. With the growing population, the threat of pests has likewise grown. The pests create a great deal of nuisance; couple of produce minute negligible damages whereas few create significant damages. The main issue starts when you let the pests to increase in numbers.

However, the primary task depends on discovering the ideal pest control services. Discovering the best pest services isn't a herculean task if you follow the suggestions discussed listed below. It is always much better to choose the companies that are registered and have the required licenses from the government. There are several reasons regarding why you require to choose the pest control services that have real accreditations.

The pesticides that are not really certified by the federal government are not good for body. The fake companies typically do not use good quality items. So, before you choose a company, request their qualifications It is not simply enough to look for the evaluation of the pest control company online, it is also advised to request evaluations to individuals who reside in your same locality too.

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This will provide you with the list of pest control services in Adelaide. Choose the one which is near to your house. Your next-door neighbors would have absolutely used any of these services at least as soon as. So, ask evaluations from them. Furthermore, if you pick a pest control services that are not too far off from your location, you can get in touch with the company if in case there is any problem.

Just those companies which do not have correct consumer base would go on trying to find consumers door to door - pest catcher. It is not recommended to go for such services. While you are planning to phone a pest control services company, just don't stick on to a specific company alone. Compare the rate and the quality of the services of 2 or more companies.

A thorough background check of the company is likewise appreciable. Pests have the capacity to take down a house if they are enabled to multiply. The reproduction of the pests occurs just if you do not call for pests' services at least once in 3 months. And, these are some of the ideas that help you select the best pests control services.

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These pest control companies can assist rid a house that has actually currently been infested with rats, mice and other rodents or established preventative measures, like mouse traps, steel wool-fillers and repellent chemicals so these animals never ever enter a home. Insect control professionals rid both homes and organisations of spiders, flies, ants, roaches and other typical insects. Ask Pest Busters Birmingham for more local details.

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Insect control companies have specialized knowledge of how to get rid of insects, and they are typically geared up with a large range of chemicals to do so. Some pest control companies focus on an extremely particular kind of pest control, such as bed bugs, termites, or raccoons.

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Given that 1997 Cockroaches, Mice, Flies, Squirrels, Rats, Insects, Pigeons, Ants, Bed Bugs, Wasps, Mites, Fleas, Ferrell Cats, Waste Removal, Residential & Commercial Independent Pest Control & Health Services are finished within tight controls and environmentally sensitive. They belong to BPCA British Pest Technicians Association, the NPTA National Pest Technicians Association, CHAS Professionals Health & Safety Evaluation Scheme, they are likewise Safe Contractor Approved.

Eventually throughout service, the specialist should make recommendations for future prevention. Depending on the service being performed, it is possible that this could come previously, during, or after service. For example, if the evaluation reveals a possible pest harborage location, the service technician should notify you and suggest instant clean-up.

Local Recommended Support:

Pest Busters - Birmingham

Birmingham Office, Highfield Farm, Middle Ln, King's Norton, Birmingham B38 0DX +441216959076

[gatorsnot]

a bunch of personal warriors headcanons because why tf not

kinda a long post so check them out below the cut!

- “brat cat” is a derogatory term for a kittypet. the kittypet stereotype falls into two categories: the “fat and lazy” types that are most frequently brought up in canon and the “spoiled, holier-than-thou” types that openly denounce clan cats and other ferals because they don’t have the “alliance” with twolegs that allows them to be fed and protected by them. these “brat cat” kittypets are the smug assholes that look down their noses at the clans because their beloved owners chase them off with brooms for being “lowly, unbecoming strays” that have to actually HUNT for their food and FIGHT for their turf while THEY just have the luxury of having it all handed to them. undoubtedly more likely to taunt the clan cats into a fight but they definitely get cold paws and the last minute and fuckin bounce because they’re humongous cowards that just like to talk big

- cinderpelt has the doofiest, purest smile than could brighten anyone’s day. she gets it from her dad lionheart

- whitepaw got teased a lot at her first gathering because the other apprentices found out she was brightheart’s daughter and would LOUDLY and OBNOXIOUSLY shout awful shit like “mutant spawn incoming!!” and “UGH i wouldn’t DARE show MY face at a gathering or even on a PATROL if MY mother looked like THAT” and birchpaw just strolled up and was like “haha yeah and if you keep saying that shit you won’t have to worry about showing your face anywhere because i’LL CLAW IT OFF” 

- darkstripe admired tigerstar so much because he was the only kit in the nursery during his youth and tawnyspots was too sick to spend much time with him. like, he admired tigerclaw a great deal because he was constantly trying to show off how strong and cool he was and while the warriors mostly got annoyed with him and the apprentices always made fun of him, tigerclaw mostly just...tolerated him more than the others (perhaps out of a bit of pity because his father was never around for him either and he was the only kit in the nursery once, though he’d never admit this out loud). once darkpaw became tigerclaw’s apprentice the pitying definitely came to a halt because darkpaw turned out to be a poor fighter and sub par hunter, but was very cocky and just tried waaaay too hard to gain attention and praise in general, and as he gradually got better at things, the arrogance got to his head a lot more. needless to say, tigerclaw was IMMENSELY relieved once darkstripe became a warrior, only to be dismayed that darkstripe would always stick to him like a burr on his haunches regardless.

- runts aren’t necessarily considered helpless by default or lost causes by the clans. in windclan, they’re believed to be able to run much faster than their clanmates on the moor or become the best tunnelers. in thunderclan, they’re lighter on their paws and can sneak up on prey much quieter than their heavier counterparts. in riverclan, they’re very efficient swimmers and fishers that are especially good at diving. in shadowclan, they can chase frogs and rats and can be concealed better in shadowy areas of the marsh. all smaller-than-average cats are also praised in battle for their agility and speed, as their size makes them difficult targets. the only main concerns for them are illnesses being too hard for their bodies to fight off.

- firestar didn’t enjoy the kittypet life at all, but he did secretly miss his twolegs for a time and worried about them until he found out about them adopting hattie. their happiness was the most important thing to him even after he joined thunderclan.

- willowpelt didn’t conceive graystripe with patchpelt, but instead with a kittypet she had a classic summertime romance with. they ended their relationship on good terms after the father decided the kits would fare better as clan cats, and willowpelt raised graystripe alone without naming a father to the clan. everyone silently assumes that whitestorm sired graystripe (i just hate that the patch x willow thing...they’re siblings)

- the grief he felt after silverstream’s death (added on by the additional stress of his whole life catching up to him in his old age) very likely contributed to crookedstar’s death from greencough.

- swiftpaw had a really fantastic and close relationship with bramblekit and tawnykit as their half-brother, he always visited them and their mother in the nursery and played with them or brought them treats whenever he could. the pair were utterly destroyed when they learn that he was killed by the dogs.

- appledusk looked remarkably similar to crookedstar, hence why mapleshade targeted him specifically (tho it WOULD be interesting to wonder if she haunted reedshine’s kits and / or shellheart or at least attempted to...hmm)

- cloudtail’s kittypet name was “cotton” during the time he was sneaking to twolegplace for food as an apprentice (after his super fluffy white fur), pinestar’s was “dusty” after he left thunderclan (i know he refers to himself as “pine” at the end of his novella but i honestly doubt his owners called him that lmao; they named him that because he was dirty all the time), and graystripe’s was “pouncer” when he was captured (because of his numerous escape attempts and stuff)

- reena undoubtedly had a crush on talltail and wanted to be his mate, but she was perfectly fine after she put two and two together and realized that he loved jake and didn’t want to interfere with their happiness

- snowfur was completely and utterly disgusted by thistleclaw’s actions toward spottedpaw, and the first thing she does when spottedleaf dies and comes to starclan is apologize profusely for her former mate’s despicable behavior. spottedleaf tells her not to apologize for his atrocity and the two become quite good friends

- sunfall / sunstar had romantic feelings for moonflower and the two of them had always been close friends, but he ultimately respected her decision to be with stormtail. however, he did quietly disapprove of how emotionally distant he was towards his mate and daughters, as he never seemed to interact with them much or even seem to care that he had a family. after moonflower’s death and stonepelt’s early retirement, sunfall directly asked pinestar if he could have bluepaw, feeling that he owed it to the late moonflower to ensure that her kit had the best education. pinestar likely knew about his loyalty to the fallen warrior and his interest in her, so he agreed.

- brambleberry and echomist [nudge nudge lesbians in my stormstar au nudge nudge] DEFINITELY took on the roles of being crookedstar’s adoptive mothers after rainflower disowned him

- breezepelt is a very good daddy to smokehaze, brindlewing, woodkit/paw, and applekit/paw as he always had the desire to be a better parent than crowfeather ever was to him [yes...i read crowfeather’s trial and know all that went on, but still]. his relationship with heathertail is ridiculously dorky in private, since he’s always had a soft spot for her

- sometimes cats with some kind of plant in their name [stuff like “leaf”, “flower”, “stem”, “branch”, “petal”, and so on you get the drill] try to have a piece of whatever plant from their namesake in their fur somewhere [ex: hollyleaf had a holly berry and leaf tucked in by her ear, goldenflower had the stem and flower of something woven around her tail, so on and so forth]. cats with feather or bird prefixes or suffixes try to do the same with feathers

- there’s an old myth that says kits born on the night of a full moon are suspected to grow up and become leaders someday. some cats believe this to be true, while others don’t

- as it is stated that cats must fast during their journeys to the moonstone and moonpool, it is considered a sin to kill prey at both sites. for example, if a cat were to kill a mouse or something in the caves of mothermouth or around the moonpool, their kill is considered to be pollution of the sacred ground and is to be promptly discarded somewhere else, as it would be considered insulting to starclan if they eat it. punishments for breaking this rule depend on the medicine cat or the leader.

- killing a medicine cat is like, one of the WORST atrocities any clan cat could do. it’s as horrific and treasonous as killing a leader, as the medicine cat not only keeps the clan healthy, they also communicate with starclan. imagine someone walking up and killing some sort of religious leader right in front of their congregation. pretty heinous, right? exactly the clans’ point. the only reasons a medicine cat would be killed was if they were intentionally committing treason against their clan [intentionally causing harm through malpractice or intentionally sending false signs from starclan] or if they were gravely ill or injured themselves to the point where they would be better off put out of their misery

- female leaders and deputies can indeed have kits of their own. mothers who happen to be leader usually keep her litters inside the leader’s den instead of moving to the nursery; it’s private, warm, clean, and well-protected. leader mothers can still partake in regular duties such as arranging patrols and hunting parties, addressing the clan, and holding ceremonies, and either has another queen look after her kits should she be absent for some occasion [like a gathering] or leave them with their father if he is involved. deputy mothers, while they most often end up going to the nursery since they usually sleep in the warriors’ den, can also carry out their own duties while another queen looks after her kits in her absence. all that matters is that the kits are loved and properly cared for.

-  as for the unnamed diseases that have killed characters, here’s my takes: tawnyspots died of feline leukemia, pebblefur and shellheart died of stomach cancer, sweetpaw died from complications caused by intestinal parasites (very likely worms that resulted in a blockage), leopardstar died of diabetes (confirmed), ravenpaw died of liver cancer (confirmed), goosefeather died of encephalitis (inflammation of the brain usually caused by infection, confirmed), petalfall died from epilepsy (confirmed), and dandelionkit, mistkit, and nightkit died of fading kitten syndrome (essentially the cat version of failure to thrive). i also think the whitecough is a chest cold, greencough is pneumonia, and that yellowcough could’ve very possibly been feline distemper, but idk

- adoption is considered very noble. i personally really fucking hate the attitude of characters who were adopted finding out and being like “i have been BETRAYED...i can’t believe these ABSOLUTE SCUM loved me, raised me, fed me, protected me, when they were NEVER even related to me by BLOOD? absolutely despicable, i must find my REAL parents and be loved by THEM instead...even if they are total assholes or want nothing to do with me...i can’t believe i was stupid enough to believe these IMPOSTORS were ever really my parents...” it’s just a really stupid mindset?? taking in another’s kits for whatever reason (the mother dies, the parents didn’t want kits, etc.) is considered a great service on the same level as raising their own biological kits. now whether or not said kits grow up and want to confront their birth parents about giving them to someone else or want to know them better is entirely up to them. the clans see adopted kits are better than abandoned ones that could very easily die from exposure or predators, or going through the possibility of them living in an abusive situation because they weren’t wanted or were unable to be cared for correctly.

- speaking of kits, the reason we have the standard “one to four” litter sizes is that overpopulation would be a problem. the average queen in real life can give birth to three to five kittens in a litter, which isn’t too far off from the quantity in the warriorsverse, but also bear in mind real queens can have as many as TEN kittens in a single litter and occasional more. think about it: the mother would need to eat a lot to produce enough milk for numerous mouths; the kits will grow older and want to explore, and there’s a very high risk of one of them slipping out of camp unnoticed and getting into trouble or danger if they’re from a large litter; plus they’ll wean from their mothers and move on to fresh-kill, and a stampede of ten or so hungry kits is going to leave hardly anything for anyone else in the clan, even if they share their food (not to mention, large litters would undoubtedly suffer the greatest during famine, outbreaks of disease, or prey shortages...that’s a lot of bellies to fill and illnesses spread quickly). so tbh i can see where the erins are coming from with the smaller litter sizes in the series, as we all know feral cats are notorious breeding machines

- i do have a few names picked out for kits and apprentices that didn’t live to be warriors, so here’s a few: mosskit would’ve been named mossheart (after her father, oakheart); swiftpaw would’ve been either swiftclaw, swiftstream, swiftwing, or swiftwind; ravenpaw would’ve been ravenflight or ravenswoop (i know he didn’t die but yknow, fun to speculate); sweetpaw would’ve been sweetberry or sweetsong; shrewpaw would’ve been shrewstep; wishkit and hopekit would’ve been wishlight and hopeshine; mistkit and nightkit would’ve been mistfur and nightstone; seedpaw would’ve been seedfern; molepaw would’ve been molenose; gorsepaw would’ve been gorsefire (named after firestar); willowkit and minnowkit (silverstream’s sisters) would’ve been named willoweyes and minnowclaw; snowkit would’ve been snowcloud; finchkit (tallstar’s sister) would’ve been finchfeather; marigoldkit and mintkit would’ve been marigoldleaf and mintfoot; lynxkit would’ve been lynxfang; adderkit would’ve been adderthroat; blossomkit would’ve been blossomsnow; and juniperkit and dandelionkit would’ve been junipertail and dandeliondust.

- darktail was a HUMONGOUS mama’s boy. he loved smoke with all his heart, would’ve done anything for her, and all he wanted in life was to make her proud of him. smoke was also a pretty good mother to him, feeling like she had to make up for her mistake of mating with a clan cat and fawning over darktail because he was the only survivor of the litter. i like to believe that smoke struggled with mental and emotional issues after being rejected by onewhisker/star, and would go off on furious tangents about how horrible clan cats were. darktail grew up watching smoke have these episodes, so he learned to hunt and fight and practiced really hard to she would be happy. needless to say, he was completely crushed when smoke died and mourned her heavily for a long time, and said grief undoubtedly contributed to him pushing so hard to abolish the clans.

- thornclaw and blossomfall were never actually in love, they only had kits together because blossomfall wanted some and thornclaw was getting older and wanted to contribute before he retired to the elders’ den

- brokenstar’s regime was a lot, and i mean a LOT crueler than what the readers were delivered:

she-cats were forced to get pregnant as often as possible, even if they weren’t interested. as soon as their bodies were able to bear more kits after the birth of one litter, brokenstar ensured that they would mate and be impregnated again asap. queens were often overwhelmed by having numerous kits to care for at a time, both older and younger, which led to much neglect the majority of the time. not that brokenstar cared, because to him, more kits meant more warriors. the stolen kits also added to the hoarding. infertile she-cats were often exiled for “not contributing to shadowclan’s destiny of greatness”.

speaking of stolen kits, i like to think that he ordered shadowclan to steal some windclan kits before driving them out of the forest. these kits didn’t fare very well, as they were smaller and skinnier and not as hardy as shadowclan kits, and many of them died save a few. it’s unknown if the stolen kits that did survive brokenstar’s reign ever returned to windclan or spent the rest of their lives in shadowclan since they spent so long there and would struggle to relearn living on the moor.

cats were forbidden from hunting for fresh-kill, as brokenstar believed that all physical and mental energy should be focused on fighting and fighting alone. in the place of prey, they often ate garbage and the carcasses of already-dead animals they found. needless to say, this left everyone prone to illness and nearly all of shadowclan was severely malnourished.

runningnose was forced to present false prophecies and omens to the clan because brokenstar and his main goons forced him to. they were all talk of how shadowclan would rule the forest, all the other clans would fear and serve them and see them as superior in every way. while only brokenstar and his team of muscleheads believed him (and some kits / younger apprentices who were too little to know any better), nearly everyone knew these signs were bullshit. 

fighting among clanmates was nearly constant. most of it was brutal battle practice, while other times it was over pitiful scraps of rotten food or disagreements over how the clan was running. usually cats that tried to leave or go for help were killed or “disappeared”.

- quince went searching for tiny / scourge after she saw that he had run away. she encountered the same two kittypets who warned him not to go into the woods, and explained that he hadn’t listened to them. quince then went into the forest and finally caught scent of her son’s blood and found his bell, and assumed that the clan cats she also smelled in the area had killed him.

- smudge honestly considered following rusty into the forest to join the clans with him despite being terrified of them, as he feared for his best friend’s safety and was heartbroken that he decided to leave. the only reason he didn’t is because he also was worried that his twolegs would miss him and that the clans wouldn’t accept him.

- heathertail and kestrelflight are sister and brother, being born to onestar and whitetail.

- before the whole fire fiasco, ashfur was very, VERY pissed to see that squirrelflight had supposedly gotten pregnant by brambleclaw. when jaykit, hollykit, and lionkit were born and suckled by ferncloud, he ending up straining his relationship with his sister by being very against it, using the whole “brambleclaw’s father killed our mother” thing as a reason why she shouldn’t be caring for them. ferncloud knew that her brother had taken squirrelflight’s rejection very poorly, but she never expected him to take it out on a litter of kits, so she cut ties with him. “those kits should’ve been mine anyway” and “they’ll turn out just like tigerstar” were things often muttered under ashfur’s breath. needless to say, he was less than thrilled to find out he would be mentoring lionpaw, and we all know how their relationship turned out after awhile.

- as stated in canon, daisy and spiderleg’s relationship was never based on the fact that they loved each other; they both felt pressured to supply kits for the clan (daisy because she was tired of some cats thinking she was just there to take up space and made assumptions about her loner roots, and spiderleg because he simply felt that it was his duty). they had a one-night stand, which resulted in toadstep and rosepetal.

- sleekwhisker was like, no doubt trying to force her way to darktail’s side as his main lackey (which she kinda was in canon) and possibly his mate. it was a “love for power” sort of situation rather than her genuinely wanting a life with him, while i don’t think darktail looked at her even as the “boss’s favorite floozy” kind of girl. sleek was more focused on that sweet sense of superiority and control, and darktail likely knew that, so always shot down her advances. they both were pretty much after the same thing, sleekwhisker only kept up a facade of a blushing she-cat wanting a big, strong leader for a mate while darktail was basically more concerned with what he already had going for him, not love or hooking up. 

- bone is barley, violet. hoot / snake, and jumper / ice’s father. though he never actually spoke up about having kits, his sons’ striking resemblance to him and violet’s resemblance to a she-cat bone had been talking to kinda wrapped the question of their parentage among the bloodclan population pretty quickly. their mother fell ill and died unexpectedly, and bone was certainly never active in their lives, so he never stepped up to finish raising them. he didn’t really even care he had children or that his mate died, it was just something that happened. 

- i like to think that berrynose and poppyfrost accidentally ended up falling in love in the midst of helping each other get through the grief of losing honeyfern

- lizardstripe actually ENCOURAGED her kits to bully brokenkit when she wasn’t abusing him herself. she wanted to make it clear to him that he would NEVER be accepted into their family fold, and excused her litter’s behavior as them “toughening him up” since he had to learn to stand up for himself “as he’s got no family outside raggedpelt, it seems”. she was just a shit mother in general, not caring much for her own kits already but she sure as HELL wasn’t going to look after one that wasn’t hers at all. brokenkit was a little burden and pest to lizardstripe, and she wanted to drive that message home as hard as she could, not once stopping to think about the consequences...

[hoodie-lover]

My Multiverse - Part 4

Error was looking at the endless pocket of air above him. It was white, just as the floor, and the walls that seemed to never show, no matter how far you walked. The voices called it the anti-void, Error didn’t understand what that meant, they never said anything about it. They never showed their bodies, they were only voices. Their words were audible, but they were soft, a light buzzing. A mosquito in his ear, never going away. They had described themselves like that, but Error didn’t know what a mosquito was, not anymore. 

They talked about a man named Ink, they said he was a bad person and killing the multiverse. Error asked what that meant. He would later see that as a mistake. The voices began to make him hurt, fire and pain exploded in his bones as he tried to beg for mercy. His muddy memories of colors and brother, family and friends, The Underground and surface world, faded away to dust as he screamed in pain. They called him names he didn’t understand, their words were sounds that no longer registered, and the white becoming the only thing he knew and could even comprehend.

One day, the voices stopped and silence rang. His mind was empty, no thoughts, no comprehension, and no ability to process the world around him. He saw the way the white just stayed, and didn’t move. He felt something creep up on him, something new, something he couldn’t comprehend. His eyes became heavier and heavier, until the world became a new color. 

“Not...all...”

It was something opposite of the white, he couldn’t name it. But it was new, he was curious, even if he couldn’t fathom the thoughts and expressions to show that curiosity. The darkness, a word he managed to recall after hours of trying to the best of his limited ability. 

When the darkness left, he saw what the voices called souls. They were colors such as green, yellow, blue, cyan, purple, orange, and red. Most of them were red. They also had blue strings, as the voices called them, tied around them. It was to keep them here so he could see them. And that they would get more when he saw the darkness. 

Error absentmindedly nodded and loved seeing the darkness, new colors, more souls, he liked the colors, they were pretty. 

“Can I come with you?” Error asked the voices one day, handling one of the souls, inspecting it and playing with it, like a toy. Though he did communicate with the voices, he never spoke. All communications were telepathic.

“No no Error. You need to stay here, it’s dangerous where the souls are. We risk a lot for you because we love you and want to protect you.” One of the voices said, they spoke to him often, more so than any others.

Error sighed and closed his eyes, wanting to see the darkness, he wanted more colors. But the darkness never came, he shifted and squirmed as he tried to see the darkness, but it wouldn’t come. This was new, the darkness always came when he wanted it, why wasn’t it coming now?! He made a whining noise and made a poor imitation of crying, no tears fell from his face and he was mostly hyperventilating and squeaking like a mouse or a rat. Eventually, the voices let him see the darkness and it was comforting, he felt safe, as if nothing could hurt him here. 

This went on for who knows how long, it got to the point where the once endless wihte sky was covered by strings and souls and color. He liked his life, as if nothing could ever change, but he was wrong, very, very wrong.

Error had been given something the voices called, a ball. It was different from anything he had seen before, and often ignored the growing number of souls, instead playing with his colorful ball. It had even more colors than the souls and strings. He was told to throw it, meaning let it get away from him, and he was supposed to go get it. He found it an enjoyable game, something he did all the time. He even wanted to see how far he could make it go, and how fast he could get it back. 

He often saw the darkness, and along with new souls, he got more toys. He was excited to see what the voices would bring him next. Some days they brought blocks, they were like a ball but didn’t roll and they stacked, as the voices said. Other times strings would make their way to him, but they weren’t like the strings that held up the souls, the voices said they were called jump ropes, and they told him how to hold them. He liked what the voices brought him, but their last gift was the best of all. 

They told him it was called sewing. The act of using strings to make things like clothes, toys, and other items. Error was hooked immediately bouncing around like a child on Christmas Day. After a big learning curve, he began to make clothes and plush toys of himself and things the voices talked about. Things like animals and people. After each plush was made, he would ask to go outside and see the things he made plushies of, but his requests were always denied. 

He didn’t know how long he was making plushies and clothes, how long he played with his toys, or how long he gazed at the sparkly souls held up by pretty blue strings. But he was happy, life was perfect. But as they say, all good things must come to an end. One day, Error was running around the anti-void, playing with his ball, when he saw a round thing floating in front of him. 

Colors swirled around the round portal, the voices called it. They told him that they would let him leave the anti-void, and meet new friends. Someone he could touch and talk with, with his voice. At that notion Error was confused, what voice, he was not a voice, but they laughed and sent him through, a doll of a black squid in his black, yellow, and red hands.

His eyes were as big as saucers, looking around the snowy evergreen forest. He kept asking the voices that everything was, but they never answered him. He didn’t feel their presence, he would later say it was like he could breathe for the first time in his life of being submerged under water. As Error wandered the forest, his distress grew and grew. He shouted for the voices to come back and take him home, he didn’t like it here. But all he made were small squeaks and whines as he curled up next to a tree and hugged the squid plush for warmth. He sniffled as he did his best to cry, but no tears would fall, and he couldn’t use his mouth to cry out for help. He was alone, trapped in his own head. 

After hours of crying, a dark shadow leap from tree to tree, circling the crying skeleton. A cold and dark laugh came from the shadow as he stalked the crying child, though adult was his body. A skinny hand rested on Error’s shoulder, and stronger it grew from the distress in his soul. 

“My, my, my, what is the destroyer of worlds doing here all alone, and crying like a child?” He asked stroking Error’s skull like he was a porcelain doll he aimed to steal. 

“My name is Error? Do you know me?” Error asked, though his words fell in deaf ears, as he never spoke these words. 

“Not much of a talker are you?” Nightmare inquired, pulling himself to his feet. “Well, you can come with me, instead of crying like a baby here in the woods and freeze.” He offered and Error tilted his head, not understanding what he meant.

“What do you mean?” Error wanted to ask, but again he was ignored. “Answer me please…” he begged but only a pitiful whine escaped his lips. 

Nightmare sighed in annoyance and picked Error up, throwing him over his shoulder like a potato sack. With this swift action, Error dropped his toy, and whined relentlessly as Nightmare was about to walk off.

“What’re you fussing about?” When Nightmare saw that Error dropped his plush, he used a tentacle to pick it up, Error grabbed the plush from the limb, but grabbed the tentacle and started to examine it.

“What the heck?” Nightmare said, jerking the extra limb away, letting it get absorbed by the goo covering his body. 

Error continued to whine and fuss like an infant as he hugged Nightmare’s neck and nuzzled him, trying to see the darkness. But the jerking of Nightmare’s body kept the darkness at bay. Much to Error’s annoyance. 

They eventually arrived at Nightmare’s hideout, where four skeletons laid on the couch, eating, sleeping, drawing or playing video games. They were all surprised to see the destroyer of worlds get plopped down on a chair, holding a plush, and marveling at the chair. It was like he’d never seen one before. The most disturbing part was when he saw the rest of them. He squealed and fumbled over to them, in awe of them, and his new surroundings. 

“I don’t know. It’s like he’s been wiped clean of all memories, heck, even his ability to talk. Whoever did this, I don’t even know what to think.” Nightmare exclaimed, trying to wrap his head around the scene before him. 

That was the unanimous reaction was to avoid him, but keep any and all eyes on Error so he didn’t hurt himself. Whatever did this to him was something that had to be stopped, they were the biggest threat the multiverse would ever see. 

How wrong they were at the time. For they were already fighting the biggest threat the multiverse would ever face. And unbeknownst to them, their greatest allies had given them an ace in the hole, and a way to understand whom Ink truly was.

Next

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[pestcontrolea0]

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It is strongly recommended to contact pest control specialists to help you eliminate spiders in your house, because the best way to eradicate these creatures is to first identify them and utilize methods that will specifically counter their behavior inside your home. Pest control professionals will use sprays and pest control techniques that will either directly or indirectly kill the spiders.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Pantry Pest

Pantry pests are very common and ordinary in many homes. They are quite irritating and annoying, but you can successfully manage your pests problems through pest control treatment methods with the right pest control business.

There are lots of pests that you can carry into your residence from the wet market. There are moths, weevils and beetles in addition to cockroaches. Flower arrangements or decorative corns that are already dried, cake mix, chocolates, spices, muse and rat baits, cookies, granola, crackers, birdseed, pet food, dried beans, cereal and pasta are just a few examples that can cause pests. If you have this type of situation then you need a high quality pest control service.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Rats

There are a lot of reasons why people do not like rats. First off, they will transport lots of diseases and spread to human beings. They are also notorious for damaging food by contaminating them with their urine or dropping. Their gnawing can result in severe damage to our home or valuables. In America, out breaks of mice have been leading to serious and huge economic losses.

If your home has been invaded by rodents best is to tend to it urgently. Areas infested by rats may be in high risks especially if you have little ones or pets. Any delay in controlling them can cause serious damage to your property and put a huge hole in your finances.

Rats are nocturnal and they generally stay hidden from people so getting rid of them can be tricky. Our pest control service has every solution for your pest problems. We have been helping clients to eradicate rats or mice from their property for years.

Our pest control professionals are properly trained to ensure that each rat or mice control problem is taken care of smooth manner and prevent re-infestation of these pests. We only strive to provide a solution tailored just to provide maximum effect and with products used to eliminating them there is no way our method will harm the environment or cause any unneeded suffering. Our Pest Control treatments will make it easier to get rid of rats efficiently and promptly.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Gophers

It’s very easy to get a qualified pest control gopher specialist pay a visit to your home and rid it of the gophers that are damaging your property. Gophers penetrate backyards, gardens all throughout the year feeding on crops, plants, shrubs, trees, and lawns. They also damage water lines and sprinkler systems which can lead to soil erosion. Gopher mounds on lawns hamper mowing equipment and wreck the aesthetics of well kept turf-grass. We are the pros in Gopher control and have been so for many years. Be prepared to take immediate action as it is easier and less costly to control one or two than wait until the population builds where they cause significant damage.

Our gopher service technicians will examine your property with you and provide an estimate. We will recommend the best treatment options to eradicate the gopher problem completely. Technicians are prepared to complete service at the time of estimate. We offer the best gopher solutions to get the job done. Our gopher treatments are very powerful for maximum effectiveness.

  Pest Control Exterminator Service for Ants

Carpenter ants are not bigger than a quarter of an inch in size, they are small and black, and can have wings. Carpenter ants can definitely ruin wood supports on structures, for example, two by fours and four by fours. Carpenter ants are active all year, but are generally viewed in warmer months, from spring up until early fall. Carpenter ants can quickly do tens of thousands of dollars of damage to your property. Carpenter ants must be professionally treated. Retail products do not work. Winged carpenter ants usually means you have a well developed colony, usually 3 to 4 years old. Find the services you need for any type of ant problem or ant infestation.

Ants talk by touch and smell. They lay down chemical trails and continuously touch one another to pass on their nest odor. Carpenter ant control can be very problematic. It is important to pinpoint the source of the ants and their den. The complete control is accomplished when the nest itself is treated with a residual spray or dust. The ant exterminator will take time to understand the situation and also chat with the client about their personal concerns. If there are pets or kids in the home special care will be taken. If the ant species is harmful to wood the ant pest exterminator may take a look at crawl spaces and other parts of the house to see if there are any infestations of this particular species. This is not only done to see how much infestation there is and how much destruction has been done already.

To completely eliminate an ant condition, a pest inspector may provide an extensive inspection of the home. This is most likely to involve examining each area of the property to establish the parts that may be at risk or have already been infested by ants. They may also examine the area to determine if other pests might be within close proximity to the house. On completion of the property inspection, the professional ant pest professional will offer a choice of services based on the type of ant condition you have and the extent of ant infestation. Services offered might feature ant pre-treatments, ant termination or removal, cleansing the infected areas, as well as repeat visits if needed if you have a heavy ant infestation.

  Pest Control Exterminator Service for Mice

Having mice in your home is nerve-racking and may possibly be unsafe. The main variety of mouse found in homes are the common house mouse. They cause damage to your home, spread diseases, chew on cables, home furnishings, books and clothing. If you have a mouse problem it is best attended to it quickly as they can increase in numbers fast and you could soon end up with a huge infestation. Mice can live and go for of time in sealed containers such as boxes, barrels or crates. Lots of fires may have been caused by mice eating through electrical wiring. In 6 months one set of mice can ingest about four pounds of food and generate some eighteen thousand pounds of fecal droppings. Mice are not blind but have poor eyesight and can not see accurately more than about six inches. They are excellent climbers and can run up just about any roughened wall without breaking stride. They can swim but prefer not to. More than once, a live mouse has been flushed down a toilet and has resurfaced a moment later. They can jump a vertical distance of 12 inches from the ground onto an elevated flat surface area. They can bounce a height of eight feet to the ground without any injury. They can run horizontally along pipes wires and ropes. When you see mice in your home, call a mouse exterminator right away. Mice carry diseases and can pollute and destroy the food in your home and should be dealt with as soon as possible.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Silverfish

Silverfish can be spotted mainly in moist climates and choose to live in dark damp areas such as basements and attics, bathroom and kitchens. They are particularly attracted to paper and moist clothing. Usually found in stored packages in garages and sheds. Silverfish are known for their damaging habits and like to eat clothing, books and wallpaper. Silverfish feed on carbohydrates, particularly sugars and starches. Glue in books, linen, silk and dead insects may be food sources. They have been found in unopened food packages.

Silverfish is a wingless insect that is half an inch in length. It has a silver shade of its scales and the fish-like movement it makes and now they are among the most hated house pests. Silverfish can cause extensive destruction, ruin photos and books, eat wallpaper and cotton. Silverfish are nocturnal and move quickly and can jump. They are found where there is excessive humidity and will do great damage to books, wallpaper, other paper products.

This species is regularly a pest in homes and public libraries. It feeds on starchy materials like glue and stays in high humidity areas of your home. It can live in glass jars where it will feed on potatoes or things like cornmeal and other starchy foods. Thought to belong to one of the most primitive existing insect orders, more than 400 million years old.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Fleas

Flea bites may leave you with puffy itchy bite marks. Fleas can trigger allergic reactions for a number of people and can transfer diseases. Fleas are not the simplest pest in the world to manage. If you do have a flea problem or are worried about fleas, you can give your pet medication as a protective flea pest control measure.

Fleas are parasites. The adult female flea must consume a blood meal before she can lay her eggs. The eggs fall from the host animal and collect on the surfaces below. Flea pest control is essential as they will bite your ankles and legs. Nobody should have to tolerate fleas and as long as you focus on your pet and make allowances for the flea season of summer you and your pet should be thrilled. Fleas are transporters of disease so you need to be extra careful if you even suspect you have fleas.

Having your residence checked and treated by a flea pest specialist, at the same time treating your pets can help remove most future flea problems. Applying the do-it-yourself products found in retail stores is often ineffective against big infestations and can introduce unnecessary chemicals into your environment. Expert flea exterminators have easy access to the necessary equipment and high concentration insecticides. They also have the knowledge and training to use them successfully. Flea pros know the exact concentrations use these chemicals safely and suitably for the situation. You could easily spend more money attempting to treat the problem yourself with sprays from the store and continue to have no success, than it would be immediately seeking help from someone trained in pest control who offers a guarantee with the work.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Beetles

If you experience destroyed clothing, carpeting, upholstery and other items, it probably is carpet beetles. These little pests are a lot more common than most property owners realize. They can possibly be very damaging, and to make things worse, they are quite difficult to control. You may discover one or two beetles or the evidence they leave behind, but the beetle situation can grow if not handled correctly and quickly.

In addition to eating on your belongings, these beetle larvae shed tiny hairs which can create allergies. Infestations of these beetle pests have been linked to the spreading of infectious diseases, like Anthrax. Part of the trouble with controlling carpet beetles is that they reside in many parts of a home and eat more than carpeting. They eat everything containing organic fibers and organic products.

There are 3 types of carpet beetle that are one of the most common problem for property owners. These are the varied carpet beetle, the black carpet beetle and the furniture carpet beetle. Larvae are by far the most harmful stage in their life cycle. Females lay anywhere from 50 to 100 eggs near food sources. An adult beetle can live four years, laying eggs once a year. Eggs are exceptionally resilient. Once the eggs develop into cocoons and larvae, they stay in this stage almost a year. The larvae is the most destructive stage. Both eggs and larvae are very hard to spot since they tend to blend in with the fabric they live in. Once they mature, carpet beetles are scavengers and may be found in areas well away from food sources.

You may find one or two larvae creeping on surfaces. But the first indication of a carpet beetle infestation is usually irregular holes chewed in fabrics. They feed on the nap of fabrics and carpeting without eating the base threads. If you are finding holes in fabrics around your house, and think the damage is due to carpet beetles, look for fecal pellets and skins shed by the larva. They most often feed in dark secluded places, so do a thorough examination for them.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Ticks

Ticks are arthropods that are often mistakenly called insects. Insects have 3 body regions, six legs, and commonly possess wings. Ticks lack wings, have 2 body regions, and depending upon their developmental stage, might have either six (larva) or eight (adults and nymphs) legs. Ticks possess tremendous potential for transmitting organisms that may cause disease in human beings and other animals. These disease-causing organisms include protozoa, viruses, and bacteria. Bites from particular ticks can cause a rare limp paralysis starting in the lower limbs and moving upwards with death resulting if the tick is not promptly removed. In addition, tick bites can cause skin irritations or even allergic reactions in sensitive individuals who are continuously bitten.

Ticks affix themselves for a period of time, and then drop off their host to lay eggs. They need a blood meal at each stage of life in order to grow. The female tick must engorge herself with blood to obtain the nourishment necessary to generate the thousands of eggs she lays. Despite the large number of eggs produced, only a small percentage will make it to maturity.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Squirrels

Squirrel pest control can possibly be very tricky, but as with most pests it begins with prevention. Cover all holes to your house, replace damaged house windows, and inspect your house for openings or structures that provide squirrels access to the building. After you are sure all entry points have been secured, you may look at an electric fence around your garden or property. Funnel-shaped plastic collars can be installed at the top of posts that support bird feeders to prevent squirrels from accessing seeds or nesting babies. Limbs that hover over your roof should be trimmed to protect against squirrels from accessing your chimney. Lastly, get rid of outdoor food sources squirrels may find such as garbage or pet food. Regrettably, removing squirrels from your own property can be quite dangerous. As such, professional pest control is likely your best option.

Generally, squirrels are enticed by woods and trees, so if your home features trees you are more likely to have squirrel pest control problems. Once they enter your house, usually using a chimney or fireplace, they chew electric wires, mattresses and blankets, and other parts of your house. One of the primary concerns associated with a squirrel infestation is electrical fire, as these pests can weaken your home’s electrical system by chewing through wires. However, squirrels can decimate your garden by eating plant bulbs, seeds and buds as well as ripe vegetables. They may even ruin your lawn as they bury food reserves.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Voles

Voles, also referred to as meadow mice, are generally gray or brown in color and are pretty compact rodents. They have short tails, compressed legs, and stocky bodies. They flaunt eyes that are exceptionally little and have ears that are partially hidden. They have a layer of underfur that is typically dense and covered with much longer, thicker guard hairs.

Voles do not have specified times that they are active so they can be seen scurrying about all year round in the day or night. Voles dig lots of shallow burrows and make below ground nesting areas that are made up of leaves, grass, and stems. They have no trouble tunneling through snow in the winter months.

Despite the fact vole numbers vary from year to year, their numbers often increase unexpectedly and rapidly. This is often when wildlife control services are really needed. Very few homeowners know how to eliminate voles and require trained experts.

Voles are extremely poor climbers and do not usually enter into houses. However, vole control is often required for the exterior of the house. This is primarily due to the amount of destruction a vole can cause.

Voles feed on a wide variety of garden plants. Some of these include carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, and turnips. They also damage garden plantings such as lilies. These undesirable pests will gnaw the bark of fruit trees and damage tree trunks. This damage will disrupt the flow of nutrients and water to the trees and can kill them entirely.

For these reasons, wildlife control services are needed to protect and maintain the vegetation and plants that exist on your property. Trained specialists understand vole behavior and know how to get rid of voles.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Slugs

As I’m certain you know, slugs are among the most typical and most uncooperative landscape pests on the globe. They have a voracious appetite, especially for soft vegetations like the ones you have in your backyard. Their most preferred targets include cabbage, lettuce, sprouts, asparagus and strawberries, but they will certainly eat and destroy just about anything you try to grow.

There are a wide range of backyard pests that you have to deal with when trying to grow things in your garden. One kind of pest that can turn into a problem over time are slugs. These can overrun a garden very quickly if you don’t take care of the problem. There are numerous ways to deal with slugs in your garden.

The first thing that you should do is to make certain that your garden isn’t actually drawing in slugs to it. Many make the mistake about providing things in the back garden that makes slugs want to be there. Do not provide the slugs the needed sanctuary from the sun. Many will leave out garden containers or other things that will make a nice home for slugs to be in during the day. Remove these things.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Snails

The common garden snail will chew through the tender leaves of greeneries, which at best, looks unpleasant, and at worst, will kill the plant. If these little buggers have had you asking yourself, “How to control garden snails?” then you are at the right place. We are specialists at successful snail pest control.

 Snails are an intriguing species to many individuals. However, the enthusiasm stops once these pests find their way into a well groomed garden. This usually happens to some extent as these slow pushing creatures are regularly on the prowl for a good meal. The snail as a pest is a terrible thing. They can kill young plants by chewing their stem or eating the seeds right before they finish germinating. They will eat irregular notches in leaves and this can lead to quick browning. A solitary snail can do enormous damage to a single plant in even the space of one evening.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Earwigs

Earwigs hide during the day underneath debris or in dark places, surfacing at night to feed on plants, organic wastes, and smaller sized insects. The standard name emerges from a totally unfounded superstition that these insects crawl into people’s ear canals at night to bite them. Earwigs are harmless, only occasionally damaging flower blossoms.

While Earwigs are scavengers, eating dead bugs, decomposing plant materials they can also eat live vegetations and damage your vegetables and feed on the flowers of plants, including marigolds, petunias, hibiscus, and lots of other plants. Earwigs leave many little holes in plant leaves and flowers.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Rodents

Rodents for instance rats and mice contaminate our food and living areas with their pee and feces and they bring diseases. Rats chewing through wires are known to result in over 50,000 building fires per year with another 100,000 plus fires that are probably caused by rodents chewing through house wiring. Rodents will get into your home or building in search of housing, food, water and warmth. Roof Rats can access your house by tree limbs that touch your roofing, and Norway Rats and Mice normally find entry through tiny openings as small as a dime.

Rats and mice can possibly be some of the most significant pests we have to deal with. Rats and mice will continuously attempt to co-exist with us in just about every facility we live, eat, and work in. Rodents have been known to transport and transmit diseases, damage and destroy our structures, electrical wires, and water lines through their gnawing. Most people have a more substantial fear of rats and mice than they do of spiders. This anxiety can make you, your workers, or customers very uncomfortable.

Working with an pest control expert is the first step in resolving the problem. At Go-Pher The Kill, we perform rodent control like nobody else. As well as trapping, baiting, and exclusion, we include video into our service. You will have a live video stream to the locations of activity so you can monitor our progress, and spy on your intruders, even at night! This service also provides our customers proof that their current concern has been resolved.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Moles

A mole will eat up to 200 worms a day. A mole will eat up to 200 worms a day. Probably the most successful method to prevent nearly every pest is to remove their food supply. This is possible with earthworms, but challenging mainly due to the job worms provide to the soil. It is a fact of good lawns, that if you have good lawns– there is a strong possibility that moles will also be a threat.

Proofing is possible, but again not very easy. The aim would certainly be to set up a physical shield between the sub-floor surface where the moles channel and the surface. A wire or grid method is possible that is then recuperated with soil and grass. Possible, but expensive– but then it depends on the value of the lawn surface. There is a hypothesis that vibrations keep them away. Commercially available sonic devices, which are placed into the ground, aim to create vibrations which are supposed to dissuade moles. Nevertheless, there is very little scientific study into how effective this is in preventing activity.

Protecting against moles is either difficult to replicate the work of worms, or expensive due to the scale of area to protect. So control of the actual mole is usually the only method to eliminate their damage, and this is why it is essential to call in pest control pros whenever you have a situation with moles. We know all of the best and least uncomfortable ways to tackle mole removal issues, ensuring minimal pain for the moles, with the highest possible level of success.

The additional reason why it is a really good idea to call in pest control professionals to handle your mole removal problem is that they are very challenging to trap. There are a number of ways of undertaking mole control treatments, all of them calling for some level of skill. The biggest problem is quite obvious of course, in that as they live below ground, equipment must be considered and position based on evidence and mole behavior and in their darken world, they will escape at the first sign of threat when their tunnels system has been interfered with.

Go-Pher The Kill Pest Control Riverside 9880 Indiana Ave STE 23, Riverside CA 92503 https://www.gopherthekill.com (951) 977-8183

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Pest Control Exterminator Service Celebration Dr Eastvale CA 91752

Pest Control Exterminator Service Celebration Dr Eastvale CA 91752

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Crickets

Immediately after a female cricket makes it into your home, it can lay its eggs – hundreds or even thousands of them. Cricket eggs takes about a year to hatch, so discovery is quite tough, or even impossible.

Crickets can cause destruction and a lot of inconvenience, especially if you have just bought brand new clothing or if you have just had your furniture repaired or replaced.

Crickets are small insects that make chirping noises to entice females for mating. There are roughly 900 known species of crickets around the world. Popular species of crickets include ground crickets, field crickets, and house crickets. Normally, crickets are found in temperate climates and are located inside homes, meadows, and gardens. They are considered to be pests inside homes and buildings due to their high-pitched chirping sounds. Typically, they feed off organic materials, but will eat almost anything including wood, wallpaper, clothes, food, and wrappers.

Contact the pest control professionals that have the professional experience and expertise needed to eliminate crickets infestations successfully in your home or workplace. Pest Control For Ticks

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Wasps

A trusted company offering pest control for wasps is set up with the necessary equipment but is also knowledgeable in safely and efficiently clearing away wasps. If you wish to totally get rid of wasps in your home call us today.

Companies specializing in pest control have a team of experts who are trained to remove wasps and wasp nests, and as well prevent them from returning. The first thing that a professional would do is to make a survey of your area, identify sources of wasps, make an assessment, and then select the proper, and the safest and most effective approach to getting rid of the wasps and their nests.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Cockroaches

All cockroach species are scavengers, eating garbage, dead insects, or human food items, which they contaminate with their excrement. Because of the threat of transmitted diseases much work and expense have been invested in the chemical control regarding this pest. Insecticides have been successful before but lots of cockroaches have developed very high levels of resistance to the most widely used poisons.

With society’s growing concerns over the health and wellness and environmental effects of insecticides, one fact remains, cockroaches will need to be controlled to maintain the best possible health conditions. Thus, the professional pest control industry has been looking for new methods that utilize pest techniques and also address the home owners need for safe effective control.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Spiders

Spiders are feared by lots of people when spotted around the property or yard. No matter what size the spider, they generally deliver troublesome and often lethal bites. Pest companies offering pest control for spiders discourage people from trying to use eradication procedures using hazardous chemicals in their homes as it not safe to do it yourself. It is best to immediately call a qualified pest control service for spiders to utilize appropriate and safe spider control techniques.

It is strongly recommended to contact pest control specialists to help you eliminate spiders in your house, because the best way to eradicate these creatures is to first identify them and utilize methods that will specifically counter their behavior inside your home. Pest control professionals will use sprays and pest control techniques that will either directly or indirectly kill the spiders.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Pantry Pest

Pantry pests are very common and ordinary in many homes. They are quite irritating and annoying, but you can successfully manage your pests problems through pest control treatment methods with the right pest control business.

There are lots of pests that you can carry into your residence from the wet market. There are moths, weevils and beetles in addition to cockroaches. Flower arrangements or decorative corns that are already dried, cake mix, chocolates, spices, muse and rat baits, cookies, granola, crackers, birdseed, pet food, dried beans, cereal and pasta are just a few examples that can cause pests. If you have this type of situation then you need a high quality pest control service.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Rats

There are a lot of reasons why people do not like rats. First off, they will transport lots of diseases and spread to human beings. They are also notorious for damaging food by contaminating them with their urine or dropping. Their gnawing can result in severe damage to our home or valuables. In America, out breaks of mice have been leading to serious and huge economic losses.

If your home has been invaded by rodents best is to tend to it urgently. Areas infested by rats may be in high risks especially if you have little ones or pets. Any delay in controlling them can cause serious damage to your property and put a huge hole in your finances.

Rats are nocturnal and they generally stay hidden from people so getting rid of them can be tricky. Our pest control service has every solution for your pest problems. We have been helping clients to eradicate rats or mice from their property for years.

Our pest control professionals are properly trained to ensure that each rat or mice control problem is taken care of smooth manner and prevent re-infestation of these pests. We only strive to provide a solution tailored just to provide maximum effect and with products used to eliminating them there is no way our method will harm the environment or cause any unneeded suffering. Our Pest Control treatments will make it easier to get rid of rats efficiently and promptly.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Gophers

It’s very easy to get a qualified pest control gopher specialist pay a visit to your home and rid it of the gophers that are damaging your property. Gophers penetrate backyards, gardens all throughout the year feeding on crops, plants, shrubs, trees, and lawns. They also damage water lines and sprinkler systems which can lead to soil erosion. Gopher mounds on lawns hamper mowing equipment and wreck the aesthetics of well kept turf-grass. We are the pros in Gopher control and have been so for many years. Be prepared to take immediate action as it is easier and less costly to control one or two than wait until the population builds where they cause significant damage.

Our gopher service technicians will examine your property with you and provide an estimate. We will recommend the best treatment options to eradicate the gopher problem completely. Technicians are prepared to complete service at the time of estimate. We offer the best gopher solutions to get the job done. Our gopher treatments are very powerful for maximum effectiveness.

    Pest Control Exterminator Service for Ants

Carpenter ants are not bigger than a quarter of an inch in size, they are small and black, and can have wings. Carpenter ants can definitely ruin wood supports on structures, for example, two by fours and four by fours. Carpenter ants are active all year, but are generally viewed in warmer months, from spring up until early fall. Carpenter ants can quickly do tens of thousands of dollars of damage to your property. Carpenter ants must be professionally treated. Retail products do not work. Winged carpenter ants usually means you have a well developed colony, usually 3 to 4 years old. Find the services you need for any type of ant problem or ant infestation.

Ants talk by touch and smell. They lay down chemical trails and continuously touch one another to pass on their nest odor. Carpenter ant control can be very problematic. It is important to pinpoint the source of the ants and their den. The complete control is accomplished when the nest itself is treated with a residual spray or dust. The ant exterminator will take time to understand the situation and also chat with the client about their personal concerns. If there are pets or kids in the home special care will be taken. If the ant species is harmful to wood the ant pest exterminator may take a look at crawl spaces and other parts of the house to see if there are any infestations of this particular species. This is not only done to see how much infestation there is and how much destruction has been done already.

To completely eliminate an ant condition, a pest inspector may provide an extensive inspection of the home. This is most likely to involve examining each area of the property to establish the parts that may be at risk or have already been infested by ants. They may also examine the area to determine if other pests might be within close proximity to the house. On completion of the property inspection, the professional ant pest professional will offer a choice of services based on the type of ant condition you have and the extent of ant infestation. Services offered might feature ant pre-treatments, ant termination or removal, cleansing the infected areas, as well as repeat visits if needed if you have a heavy ant infestation.

    Pest Control Exterminator Service for Mice

Having mice in your home is nerve-racking and may possibly be unsafe. The main variety of mouse found in homes are the common house mouse. They cause damage to your home, spread diseases, chew on cables, home furnishings, books and clothing. If you have a mouse problem it is best attended to it quickly as they can increase in numbers fast and you could soon end up with a huge infestation. Mice can live and go for of time in sealed containers such as boxes, barrels or crates. Lots of fires may have been caused by mice eating through electrical wiring. In 6 months one set of mice can ingest about four pounds of food and generate some eighteen thousand pounds of fecal droppings. Mice are not blind but have poor eyesight and can not see accurately more than about six inches. They are excellent climbers and can run up just about any roughened wall without breaking stride. They can swim but prefer not to. More than once, a live mouse has been flushed down a toilet and has resurfaced a moment later. They can jump a vertical distance of 12 inches from the ground onto an elevated flat surface area. They can bounce a height of eight feet to the ground without any injury. They can run horizontally along pipes wires and ropes. When you see mice in your home, call a mouse exterminator right away. Mice carry diseases and can pollute and destroy the food in your home and should be dealt with as soon as possible.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Silverfish

Silverfish can be spotted mainly in moist climates and choose to live in dark damp areas such as basements and attics, bathroom and kitchens. They are particularly attracted to paper and moist clothing. Usually found in stored packages in garages and sheds. Silverfish are known for their damaging habits and like to eat clothing, books and wallpaper. Silverfish feed on carbohydrates, particularly sugars and starches. Glue in books, linen, silk and dead insects may be food sources. They have been found in unopened food packages.

Silverfish is a wingless insect that is half an inch in length. It has a silver shade of its scales and the fish-like movement it makes and now they are among the most hated house pests. Silverfish can cause extensive destruction, ruin photos and books, eat wallpaper and cotton. Silverfish are nocturnal and move quickly and can jump. They are found where there is excessive humidity and will do great damage to books, wallpaper, other paper products.

This species is regularly a pest in homes and public libraries. It feeds on starchy materials like glue and stays in high humidity areas of your home. It can live in glass jars where it will feed on potatoes or things like cornmeal and other starchy foods. Thought to belong to one of the most primitive existing insect orders, more than 400 million years old.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Fleas

Flea bites may leave you with puffy itchy bite marks. Fleas can trigger allergic reactions for a number of people and can transfer diseases. Fleas are not the simplest pest in the world to manage. If you do have a flea problem or are worried about fleas, you can give your pet medication as a protective flea pest control measure.

Fleas are parasites. The adult female flea must consume a blood meal before she can lay her eggs. The eggs fall from the host animal and collect on the surfaces below. Flea pest control is essential as they will bite your ankles and legs. Nobody should have to tolerate fleas and as long as you focus on your pet and make allowances for the flea season of summer you and your pet should be thrilled. Fleas are transporters of disease so you need to be extra careful if you even suspect you have fleas.

Having your residence checked and treated by a flea pest specialist, at the same time treating your pets can help remove most future flea problems. Applying the do-it-yourself products found in retail stores is often ineffective against big infestations and can introduce unnecessary chemicals into your environment. Expert flea exterminators have easy access to the necessary equipment and high concentration insecticides. They also have the knowledge and training to use them successfully. Flea pros know the exact concentrations use these chemicals safely and suitably for the situation. You could easily spend more money attempting to treat the problem yourself with sprays from the store and continue to have no success, than it would be immediately seeking help from someone trained in pest control who offers a guarantee with the work.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Beetles

If you experience destroyed clothing, carpeting, upholstery and other items, it probably is carpet beetles. These little pests are a lot more common than most property owners realize. They can possibly be very damaging, and to make things worse, they are quite difficult to control. You may discover one or two beetles or the evidence they leave behind, but the beetle situation can grow if not handled correctly and quickly.

In addition to eating on your belongings, these beetle larvae shed tiny hairs which can create allergies. Infestations of these beetle pests have been linked to the spreading of infectious diseases, like Anthrax. Part of the trouble with controlling carpet beetles is that they reside in many parts of a home and eat more than carpeting. They eat everything containing organic fibers and organic products.

There are 3 types of carpet beetle that are one of the most common problem for property owners. These are the varied carpet beetle, the black carpet beetle and the furniture carpet beetle. Larvae are by far the most harmful stage in their life cycle. Females lay anywhere from 50 to 100 eggs near food sources. An adult beetle can live four years, laying eggs once a year. Eggs are exceptionally resilient. Once the eggs develop into cocoons and larvae, they stay in this stage almost a year. The larvae is the most destructive stage. Both eggs and larvae are very hard to spot since they tend to blend in with the fabric they live in. Once they mature, carpet beetles are scavengers and may be found in areas well away from food sources.

You may find one or two larvae creeping on surfaces. But the first indication of a carpet beetle infestation is usually irregular holes chewed in fabrics. They feed on the nap of fabrics and carpeting without eating the base threads. If you are finding holes in fabrics around your house, and think the damage is due to carpet beetles, look for fecal pellets and skins shed by the larva. They most often feed in dark secluded places, so do a thorough examination for them.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Ticks

Ticks are arthropods that are often mistakenly called insects. Insects have 3 body regions, six legs, and commonly possess wings. Ticks lack wings, have 2 body regions, and depending upon their developmental stage, might have either six (larva) or eight (adults and nymphs) legs. Ticks possess tremendous potential for transmitting organisms that may cause disease in human beings and other animals. These disease-causing organisms include protozoa, viruses, and bacteria. Bites from particular ticks can cause a rare limp paralysis starting in the lower limbs and moving upwards with death resulting if the tick is not promptly removed. In addition, tick bites can cause skin irritations or even allergic reactions in sensitive individuals who are continuously bitten.

Ticks affix themselves for a period of time, and then drop off their host to lay eggs. They need a blood meal at each stage of life in order to grow. The female tick must engorge herself with blood to obtain the nourishment necessary to generate the thousands of eggs she lays. Despite the large number of eggs produced, only a small percentage will make it to maturity.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Squirrels

Squirrel pest control can possibly be very tricky, but as with most pests it begins with prevention. Cover all holes to your house, replace damaged house windows, and inspect your house for openings or structures that provide squirrels access to the building. After you are sure all entry points have been secured, you may look at an electric fence around your garden or property. Funnel-shaped plastic collars can be installed at the top of posts that support bird feeders to prevent squirrels from accessing seeds or nesting babies. Limbs that hover over your roof should be trimmed to protect against squirrels from accessing your chimney. Lastly, get rid of outdoor food sources squirrels may find such as garbage or pet food. Regrettably, removing squirrels from your own property can be quite dangerous. As such, professional pest control is likely your best option.

Generally, squirrels are enticed by woods and trees, so if your home features trees you are more likely to have squirrel pest control problems. Once they enter your house, usually using a chimney or fireplace, they chew electric wires, mattresses and blankets, and other parts of your house. One of the primary concerns associated with a squirrel infestation is electrical fire, as these pests can weaken your home’s electrical system by chewing through wires. However, squirrels can decimate your garden by eating plant bulbs, seeds and buds as well as ripe vegetables. They may even ruin your lawn as they bury food reserves.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Voles

Voles, also referred to as meadow mice, are generally gray or brown in color and are pretty compact rodents. They have short tails, compressed legs, and stocky bodies. They flaunt eyes that are exceptionally little and have ears that are partially hidden. They have a layer of underfur that is typically dense and covered with much longer, thicker guard hairs.

Voles do not have specified times that they are active so they can be seen scurrying about all year round in the day or night. Voles dig lots of shallow burrows and make below ground nesting areas that are made up of leaves, grass, and stems. They have no trouble tunneling through snow in the winter months.

Despite the fact vole numbers vary from year to year, their numbers often increase unexpectedly and rapidly. This is often when wildlife control services are really needed. Very few homeowners know how to eliminate voles and require trained experts.

Voles are extremely poor climbers and do not usually enter into houses. However, vole control is often required for the exterior of the house. This is primarily due to the amount of destruction a vole can cause.

Voles feed on a wide variety of garden plants. Some of these include carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, and turnips. They also damage garden plantings such as lilies. These undesirable pests will gnaw the bark of fruit trees and damage tree trunks. This damage will disrupt the flow of nutrients and water to the trees and can kill them entirely.

For these reasons, wildlife control services are needed to protect and maintain the vegetation and plants that exist on your property. Trained specialists understand vole behavior and know how to get rid of voles.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Slugs

As I’m certain you know, slugs are among the most typical and most uncooperative landscape pests on the globe. They have a voracious appetite, especially for soft vegetations like the ones you have in your backyard. Their most preferred targets include cabbage, lettuce, sprouts, asparagus and strawberries, but they will certainly eat and destroy just about anything you try to grow.

There are a wide range of backyard pests that you have to deal with when trying to grow things in your garden. One kind of pest that can turn into a problem over time are slugs. These can overrun a garden very quickly if you don’t take care of the problem. There are numerous ways to deal with slugs in your garden.

The first thing that you should do is to make certain that your garden isn’t actually drawing in slugs to it. Many make the mistake about providing things in the back garden that makes slugs want to be there. Do not provide the slugs the needed sanctuary from the sun. Many will leave out garden containers or other things that will make a nice home for slugs to be in during the day. Remove these things.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Snails

The common garden snail will chew through the tender leaves of greeneries, which at best, looks unpleasant, and at worst, will kill the plant. If these little buggers have had you asking yourself, “How to control garden snails?” then you are at the right place. We are specialists at successful snail pest control.

  Snails are an intriguing species to many individuals. However, the enthusiasm stops once these pests find their way into a well groomed garden. This usually happens to some extent as these slow pushing creatures are regularly on the prowl for a good meal. The snail as a pest is a terrible thing. They can kill young plants by chewing their stem or eating the seeds right before they finish germinating. They will eat irregular notches in leaves and this can lead to quick browning. A solitary snail can do enormous damage to a single plant in even the space of one evening.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Earwigs

Earwigs hide during the day underneath debris or in dark places, surfacing at night to feed on plants, organic wastes, and smaller sized insects. The standard name emerges from a totally unfounded superstition that these insects crawl into people’s ear canals at night to bite them. Earwigs are harmless, only occasionally damaging flower blossoms.

While Earwigs are scavengers, eating dead bugs, decomposing plant materials they can also eat live vegetations and damage your vegetables and feed on the flowers of plants, including marigolds, petunias, hibiscus, and lots of other plants. Earwigs leave many little holes in plant leaves and flowers.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Rodents

Rodents for instance rats and mice contaminate our food and living areas with their pee and feces and they bring diseases. Rats chewing through wires are known to result in over 50,000 building fires per year with another 100,000 plus fires that are probably caused by rodents chewing through house wiring. Rodents will get into your home or building in search of housing, food, water and warmth. Roof Rats can access your house by tree limbs that touch your roofing, and Norway Rats and Mice normally find entry through tiny openings as small as a dime.

Rats and mice can possibly be some of the most significant pests we have to deal with. Rats and mice will continuously attempt to co-exist with us in just about every facility we live, eat, and work in. Rodents have been known to transport and transmit diseases, damage and destroy our structures, electrical wires, and water lines through their gnawing. Most people have a more substantial fear of rats and mice than they do of spiders. This anxiety can make you, your workers, or customers very uncomfortable.

Working with an pest control expert is the first step in resolving the problem. At Go-Pher The Kill, we perform rodent control like nobody else. As well as trapping, baiting, and exclusion, we include video into our service. You will have a live video stream to the locations of activity so you can monitor our progress, and spy on your intruders, even at night! This service also provides our customers proof that their current concern has been resolved.

Pest Control Exterminator Service for Moles

A mole will eat up to 200 worms a day. A mole will eat up to 200 worms a day. Probably the most successful method to prevent nearly every pest is to remove their food supply. This is possible with earthworms, but challenging mainly due to the job worms provide to the soil. It is a fact of good lawns, that if you have good lawns– there is a strong possibility that moles will also be a threat.

Proofing is possible, but again not very easy. The aim would certainly be to set up a physical shield between the sub-floor surface where the moles channel and the surface. A wire or grid method is possible that is then recuperated with soil and grass. Possible, but expensive– but then it depends on the value of the lawn surface. There is a hypothesis that vibrations keep them away. Commercially available sonic devices, which are placed into the ground, aim to create vibrations which are supposed to dissuade moles. Nevertheless, there is very little scientific study into how effective this is in preventing activity.

Protecting against moles is either difficult to replicate the work of worms, or expensive due to the scale of area to protect. So control of the actual mole is usually the only method to eliminate their damage, and this is why it is essential to call in pest control pros whenever you have a situation with moles. We know all of the best and least uncomfortable ways to tackle mole removal issues, ensuring minimal pain for the moles, with the highest possible level of success.

The additional reason why it is a really good idea to call in pest control professionals to handle your mole removal problem is that they are very challenging to trap. There are a number of ways of undertaking mole control treatments, all of them calling for some level of skill. The biggest problem is quite obvious of course, in that as they live below ground, equipment must be considered and position based on evidence and mole behavior and in their darken world, they will escape at the first sign of threat when their tunnels system has been interfered with.

Go-Pher The Kill Pest Control Riverside 9880 Indiana Ave STE 23, Riverside CA 92503 https://www.gopherthekill.com (951) 977-8183

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[tokensfortalkers]

d100 ONLY IN THE WOOD

From pulsing spiral shells

of perfect, woven red scales

our tribe extracts rich music

to sweat the land in dance

til vice weft seed in set.

The flowers of lava trees open like shattered glass spilling liquids of molten pollen

A single bud rests in a fallow field, shimmering a sign planted next to it reads "Needs blood"

For each fallen limb stepped upon, a tree breaks into splinters; limbs crack at the slightest touch.

Swamps travel swiftly and quickly. The same swamp can be seen many days from many mountains

Rock splits in a cacophonous crack, oozing red and blue liquid, when hardened go back in time.

A craft falls from the sky, blazing with heat and, eventually, berths opportunity

As it's marked, tree hisses -- a faint whistle (Return in 2d10 days to a deflated tree -- and a sapling).

Winds braid walkable paths of leaves in the air. Only as the wind dies, do the leaves fall away

Moles' noses are carved into stones, creating a fern gully of sniffing sculptures

Floating woven metal drip beeswax around a wick of living hemp positioned below an exposed bladder.

Pits in the skin caused by biting insects deepen into darkening and widening maws until the next day.

Boats along the lake shore are all shells for crab-like crustaceans

Footsteps are Taken away -- stored in vials to be poured out for later use.

Illusion barrier of ancients' lost city is on the fritz; such sensually polluting defenses nauseate.

Writing in the fog lights up where fireflies flutter from one location to the next

Oars cause lake water to be shoveled rather than pushed. Water sticks to implements, weighing them

Spiders in the forest have been cursed with human customs. Like to picnic and play volleyball.

Water shrine of exotic wood caused a lake to explode and freeze at the same time, resulting in ice caves.

Single bed and breakfast hosted by a ghost. Good meals, fascinating guest log, excellent books.

Drunk frogs defend an artisan well of wine fed by a massive pitcher plant suffering from allergies

Lamppost mill, owners tend to the lampposts, growing them from single crystals in careful vats.

Servile-yet-serpentile signs read what actions PCs took last, in an attempt to annoy them away

Flash flood is an illusion (unfortunate actions of panicking characters are not.)

Gruesome sculptures with pivots stand before picketed signs reading Tip Me.

Piles of leaves dart about wildly, clamboring in a cacophonous emsemble, deafening all other sound

Wellsprings of gasses hiss in notes. Covering them plays a flute-like melody, enchanting victims

Chasm blows anything blown into it back out and 10x smaller; thrown in again, reverts to normal.

Snails with numbers on shells litter the forest floor and trees. Snails are purple with black spots

Wisps travel from tree to tree like high traffic. Sign posted says Experimental Area: Keep Out

All equipment hums and wilts when held by an owner who isn't at least humming if not singing

Cairns of stacked pumice float from one spot to the next, rearrange their stacks, and continue

Odorous flowers create paths. Follow the fresh bread odor? Or the smoked meat one? Or some other?

Seeds in the shape of fetuses wriggle in warm areas, like in sunlight or the palms of ungloved hands

Pool of glass hatches and walls of plasmatic liquids make a maze of this deathly-still lake

Boxes of quartz contain tiny plants growing tinier morsels. Opening a box usually kills the plant.

Sky flickers between day and night as though it can't remember what time it's supposed to be

Cat rests atop a floating, bloated carcass, pounces upon a mouse, and returns to the carcass to dine.

Fruit dries quickly when plucked, its wrinkles taking on the face of the one who plucked it

Every tree has a name carved into it. A fallen tree's root ball harbors an unearthed prisoner

Boulders crack, revealing stone chicks. it would seem this particular part of the forest is a nest.

Silent beast work tirelessly at weaving spider webs into cocoons for sick caterpillars

Driftwood in the lake each have a hand in their centers bobbing in and out of view

Field of view shifts in parallax, at 5 frames per second. Woodland beasts appear and disappear wildly.

Whispers from holes dug in the ground reveal the names and notable deeds of those buried here

Fire blooms from grasses bent too quickly, their blades passing one another produce the spark.

A thick, sweet pollen clouds vision and clog up uncovered airways, causing light asphyxia

Baubles or trinkets are grown into tree bark, assumedly pulled up by the capillaries by mistake

Breezes fill in pockets of thick air, erupting when touched, causing a furious blowback

Expansive circles or carefully cut and laid stone course a map to old civilizations

Animal path cuts through a canopy of ever-shrinking oaks. Leaves of the oaks drip a shrinking tonic.

At night, animal sounds are mistaken for mad ramblings, philosophical musings, and arguments

Tapestry of quilted hemp died with shells and treated with aromatic oils blanket the area

Cylinders of colossal, rusting, fallen chimes chamber the only accessible paths through the forest

Pustules on the hillside reveal the mad workings of a unindustrialized colony deep below

Flute sounds emanate from cracks in the stone cliff and stop when the cliff is touched.

Sticks crossing one another reveal the true forest floor -- a barren desert.

Howls and screeches leave the players mouths, their hollow words swallowed up by something high above

Animals will only eat from the hand. Beg players to feed them. Starvation abounds.

Blossoms of a tree paint pictures in the sky as they fall. If shaken, produces a vision of the future

Salt deposits litter the forest floor from red trees puking fresh water over themselves.

Tree roots reach out of the riverbed. Stepping into the river inverts the forest's orientation.

Eels swim through the air, casting crude shadows in the shape of animals once presiding here

Croaking of ghostly frogs echo through the forest. Bumping into one causes it to spew fiery vomit.

Red dust litters the forest floor. When exposed to rain, turns into rivulets of blood.

Tress drink so much light, they are too black to see. Useful light is only produce pointing downward

Bushes restructure the limbs sporadically, limbs fighting over sunlight

Herd beasts chew vegetation growing on their backs, reluctantly move only when aggressively persuaded

Ghosts of a pilgrimage performed time and time again fill the ancient steps of this mountainside

Owls with heads turned in the direction of safety become parts of trees when viewed up close

Distending mosses sprinkle spores onto coats and cloaks, turning fabric slowly to more moss.

Dollops of cream leak from fleshy termite mounds. Animals congregate around, lapping the cream

In a stony nook rests a single hut. In the hut rests a single book, in the book, a single word: Run.

Snot eventually pours from trees periodically sniffling and obviously allergic to visitors

Groups of birds vanish from the sky. Reappear again and vanish again in the same spots.

Magenta plants leave the forest floor a royal, mossy color. Sleeping here feels deep. Forever, even.

Every strike makes a weapon sharper, a bow tighter and a blade swifter until, of course, they shatter.

Trees all appear as doors and are, in fact, door trees. Should probably knock before harvesting.

Animals incessantly beg to be ridden and then race at top speeds until players fail Ride checks.

Wood is lopsided. Limbs slowly move between trees to grasp at the light, feverishly and frightened.

Fetid bog's algae moves like lips, spewing low hums, sharing secrets of the wood's history

Jewelry in scattered piles brighten vision when worn and turn to bloody briars once leaving the area

Short afternoon showers morph brambles into herds, twigs into serpents, and rocks into turtles.

Furs nailed upside down to trees speak quickly hushed warnings of what lies ahead

Single silken bamboo drips milky sap from a cut, trapping all who enter until the cut is mended

Animals stop what they are doing to stare at visitors, moving closer and drop dead when touched

Single-occupancy thatched shelters litter the wood where a single well-dressed skeleton lies face up.

Leaf-vested and well-spoken asks to join visitors. Becomes a dagger in an inventory outside the area

Abandoned wine cave leads down, into a burial tomb filled with statues in the likeness of players

Thrown rocks never hit the ground, loop back around behind players in d10 hours.

All wine taken into the wood is greedily hunted by ever-agitated vines eventually hissing, barking.

Well-kept signs argue in text about which way to go and must be separated before being of any use

Shanty ranch house bigger on the inside is home to giant talking bats drinking blood from pet rats.

Fruit launches from trees instead of falling, is picked off by swift birds with sword-like beaks.

Village performs odd festive rituals to entice visitors to move in; keeps a log of failed rituals.

Meticulously decorated massive nut shells are filled with villager bodies (filled with exotic seeds)

Farmers moving a waterwheel state their river's reversed direction just as the river reverts again.

Baby birds fall from nests left and right, crying for help, they beg, plead. Where are their mothers?

Sign reads Wondrous Shop Right At the Boulder. There is no boulder. There is no shop.

Elk sheds, disembodied, crack and strike one another. Best not get between them.

Rivers of trailers filled with kids teaching kids how to manipulate space without time.

d100 Only in the Wood by shwac

[howlingwind]

SERRA DELIA KELLER who strongly resembles MELISA PAMUK, has been spotted in Pandæmonium. The CISFEMALE is a TWENTY SIX / ~150 year old DHAMPIR, and has been in Pandæmonium for FIVE YEARS. I hear they’re CUNNING & ADAPTABLE and UNSCRUPULOUS & WICKED. If you’re lucky you may catch them working at EQUINOX as the OWNER.

ok so full-ish bio down below but cliff notes, she’s the actual jack the ripper.

likes: long walks down dark alleys, gutting randos (particularly women, especially of the homophobic variety), the taste of blood, using sex as a weapon, using other things as weapons, manipulation, and torture.

dislikes: a fucking lot

has the weirdest mash-up of accents ever. she was raised early on by her father, a native of turkey (turkish accent), grew up in london’s east end (cockney accent), moved to notting hill (queen’s english). however for the majority of her life, she’s lived in new orleans (uptown nola accent). it’s odd and she knows it, but doesn’t shy away from it.

had a thing with ana volkov once. met her early in life when she required her services, and has sought her out a few times since. still need to work out the details more w/ dani, but she’s definitely met her match there. in more ways than one as far as serra’s concerned.

had a phase during her jack the ripper days where she ate human organs. it was a thing. she liked the idea of it more than anything, and eventually it lost its appeal.

in case you couldn’t tell yet, she’s sadistic and twisted as fuck. not as much as she used to be, but yeah, still not normal lol

pretty rich. owns equinox, used to own a restaurant in new orleans, owns a lot of properties all over the world. she got inheritance money from a family she compelled to adopt her.

has the personality of a spoiled teenage heiress tbh so i’m sure everyone she meets will love her lmao

this is the story of the woman behind the ‘whitechapel murders’ of 1888 and other slayings attributed to the unidentified serial killer known as jack the ripper.

london, england. early 19th century. a turkish vampire has made a humble life for himself on the east end after being hunted and chased out of his home country. he meets a human woman, falls in love. she bears him a child. the birth had complications, she required a cesarean delivery. the man insisted on being by his wife’s side throughout. it was the first time he’d ever seen her bleed. he’d been living on the blood of rats to survive, keep his head down, and keep the promise he made to his wife not to harm anyone. he broke that promise. slaughtered everyone in the room. doctors, nurses… his wife. he drank every last drop of her, then took the baby to raise on his own. named her serra, after her grandmother, and delia, after her mother.

serra’s early childhood was full of nothing but fond memories, as are most. her father was her hero, her protector, her entire world. their lives were humble and secretive, but it was all she’d ever known. then one day her world’s ripped to shreds when a hunter breaks into their home and slices his head clean off while she hides under the floor boards. after that she lived on the streets, a beggar and thief before the age of ten. it’s around this time she begins to realize she’s not like the other children. she’s faster, stronger, can hear the blood coursing through people’s veins. it’s scary at first, but she spends the next year on the streets, exploring her powers, honing her ability. one day, lying in an alley, eating scraps, she has a crucial epiphany — she has the power to change her situation. so she stands up, marches herself from brick lane all the way over to notting hill, finds the richest looking woman she can, walks up to her, looks her in the eye, and says “love me.” so the woman takes serra home to her husband and children, and serra compels them all just the same. she was adopted soon after, and from then on, she lived in the lap of luxury.

her life was relatively quiet and happy after that. she settled into her new family nicely, and she actually thought they may have grown to care for her even without the compulsion. that wasn’t necessarily a good thing, however. serra was only sixteen when she began to notice it. the lingering looks, intense stares… the innuendo that her adoptive father would lace into every word he spoke to her. for a while she thought she was just imagining it, until eventually over the next couple years the advances became more overt, and moved beyond just words. “love me,” she’d instructed all those years ago. she should have been more specific. to this day she’s still unsure if it was just her nerves and fear, if she’d let it fester too long to be fixed, or if it wasn’t the compulsion at all, but despite her best attempts, she was never able to reverse what she thought she’d done. so she went back to the east end for the first time since the day she left, made some inquiries, influenced some poor souls to divulge information they shouldn’t have had. serra needed someone to clean up a mess by creating one, and thus she sought out the services of anastasia volkov.

serra wanted to be party to the murder. the fiend in her home was growing bolder by the day and it made her skin crawl. she wanted to see the life leave his eyes and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d never be back. serra stayed close to ana as they approached the man, and smiled as she watched his throat be splayed open. having such a close, front row seat, she’d gotten blood on her face, dripping down onto her lips, slipping between the cracks and dancing on her tongue. it was the most delightful thing she’d ever tasted, but she knew it was wrong to enjoy it like she did and vowed never to taste another drop of human blood. that vow was broken within two weeks, obviously. 

england at the time was fairly bigoted when it came to the matter of same sex relationships, but it just so happened those were the only kind that serra was interested in pursuing. but simply being attracted to another woman and making her move was considered a shameful, criminal act. when at her best friend’s house in whitechapel — they’d become friends before she realized the girl was poor — serra felt a sort of spark that she was sure the other girl felt too, so she kissed her. the other girl freaked out, and told her she was going to have her arrested. serra couldn’t have that. (at the time, she didn’t realize there was no legislation against lesbians, she only knew the hatred and fear behind her friend’s threat). she wrapped her hand around the girl’s jaw, muffled her screams, and fed until she’d drained all the life from her body. then she went downstairs. she was so exhilarated and giddy at the feeling of all that blood rushing through her system. she felt powerful. so she decided to exert a bit of that energy on the girl’s mother, using only her fingernail to rip her abdomen wide open. serra was absolutely enamored with the feeling. addicted to it. she had a new hobby. so she continued on down that path, killing a new woman every now and then, getting more creative — artistic with the murders, taking delight in her craft, taunting the police with letters and other obvious evidence just lying around. but of course, no one ever suspected a woman. especially not a young, unassuming woman like serra keller. a serial killer. she liked the sound of that.

eventually the murders lost their luster. either serra was growing up, or it was no longer fun to play the game of cat and mouse when she was never in danger of being suspected, let alone caught or imprisoned. after some time, with nothing left for her in london (except for some questions about why she appeared to be twenty when she should have been in her fifties) she moved across the pond to new orleans, opened a restaurant, and settled into a mostly quiet life. still occasionally having her fun with some unfortunate party-goers during mardi gras, or taking trips abroad to take in the view, enjoy the local “cuisine”, or get up to some other deplorable high-jinks. it was a good life, if not a tad bit boring. until recent years. she heard of a town called pandemonium, a supernatural haven, and the thought of it was enticing. a place where she could live freely as the dhampir that she was, and perhaps even find companionship with people that shared her taste for blood and murder. at the drop of a hat she picked up and left to see what awaited her in a town of monsters.

[hraeth-ethile]

The Gambit Standoff was the first conflict of the Civil War when Archer Gambit, a bartender and community leader in Württemberg, Massachusetts instituted a coup against the Aequitas Union of Slavers. The coup was in response to a Massachusetts state bill that was passed two years prior which gave Württemberg a 'special exemption' status that allowed it to both promote slavery and act freely in the sales of all forms of slavery.

Massachusetts overwhelmingly disapproved of the exemption, and spies from every major city in the state, over the years leading up to the Gambit Standoff, were sent in to either sabotage or disrupt Württemberg's slavery programs - all of which were led, funded, and were provided security for by the Aequitas Union of slavers. Aequitas Union was the largest slaving organisation in the nation and, at the time, the only major security competitor to the Pinkertons.

Württemberg was flooded with rabbit and mice slaves. To give these slaves the space they needed to live until they were purchased, the city government - which was increasingly anti-abolitionist - gave Aequitas Union the Monroe Museum of World History, which was the largest museum in the United States until the Incident of Flight 999 in 1981. The museum's goods were all stripped away and given to other museums in the city, to Washington D.C. (as a show of good will), or were lost and never found. This began the long and rapid decline of the trust and acceptance between Württemberg's city government and its free population, who were already majority abolitionists when the city won its exemption status.

Archer Nicator Gambit was a bartender employed in the industrial section of the city where he served drinks at the bar Queen of Scotland, which was hidden beneath a street bridge. Archer, a bull terrier, had a reputation for being a paragon of that section of the city - and for his large handlebar moustache. Before the Aequitas Union, he served many different kinds of 'slave species' (i.e. rabbits, mice, rats, possums, etc.) who had all come to respect him as someone who would act for them in their personal lives. Sometimes this would mean giving his home up for runaway slaves, other times it would be something as simple as watching over someone's child while they worked sudden shifts.

After a wealthy crowd of slave-owners began to replace his usual patrons, Archer began to have issues with his employers. Discomforted and unnerved by their willingness to accept money from slavers, he left his bartending job. On the night that he quit, he encountered two people beating a mouse in an alley. These were Aequitas Union security agents who were chasing down an escaped slave that they claimed was putting up a violent defense, but upon close examination, Archer discovered that she'd been unconscious for most of the fight.

The agents left her for dead and resumed their night patrol. Archer went to her side and held her until she died. The next day, he began to use his community clout to rally support for his plan to rebel against the city government. He was met with skepticism, but the story of the dead mouse girl - and his raw display of emotions - burned away the doubts of any who had them. Within a week, he was able to secure rifles and munitions from sympathetic Bostonians and Pinkerton spies who wanted nothing more than to claim the business that Aequitas Union denied them.

Between 1859 and 1860, and with the help of a Pinkerton special agent known only as Walter, Archer was able to begin a smear campaign against Württemberg's government body. The campaign was a red herring that kept their eyes on Archer and away from the growing stockpile of weapons, as well as the increasing number of people who were arriving to be trained in their use.

But a betrayal made Archer have to act quickly with what he had up to that point, and he forced a confrontation with Aequitas Union. He and Walter used the Queen of Scotland, which had only one way in or out, as the main line of defense while sending secret runners to free the slaves in the Monroe Museum of World History. The success of the latter depended on the former, so Archer attempted to make the standoff something too important not to commit every resource to. To accomplish this, Archer allied with the daughter of Franklin McAfee, who founded and led all of the Aequitas Union.

Franklin, furious at the risk of being humiliated by his own daughter, arrived from Louisiana to personally oversee the attack on the Queen of Scotland. At first expecting his daughter Elodie to be confused or misunderstood, he held a speech in an effort to return her to his side. She shot him in the shoulder early into his speech, and so the assault began. Archer was outnumbered 8-1, but every minute was critical to the survival of the coup.

The Museum's security was slowly pulled to bolster the battle at the Queen of Scotland, which Archer's runners kept a steady eye on. When a crack in the defenses appeared, they were able to break inside and began to free each slave inside, who began to free all the rest. In thirty minutes time, 500 slaves were free and armed with rifles and grenades. These slaves, led by the former slave-rat and abolitionist Jamie Taft, began to tear through the city on their way to the Queen of Scotland.

More slaves continued to be freed in the Museum during this time, which only bolstered the insurrection to a point where it could not be contained without risking the life of every Aequitas Union agent in the city. Most fled the city, rather than defend it, when they saw the streets fill with smoke from rifles and explosions.

When Taft and his army reached the Queen of Scotland, they found Archer and Walter still alive - but barely; most of those who had helped Archer defend the bar perished in the assault. Franklin fled with his own army when he learned of the revolution and its march towards him. Walter succumbed to his injuries later in the evening.

The news of the coup and its success emboldened abolitionists across the nation, who began to take up arms. Rather than risk widespread revolt, the newly-elected Abraham Lincoln rallied the rising support and unified it against the recent succession of states and their ratified military. Archer went on to become an officer in the Union Army, where he later perished during the First Battle of Lexington.

A statue of Archer Gambit stands outside of the FBI Headquarters. The Queen of Scotland was later renamed to Gambit's Hall in his honour, and Archer Gambit Day is a celebration held in Württemberg every year after 1870. Victor Gambit, a living descendent of Archer Gambit, is a U.S. diplomat of some renown.

Elodie McAfee, who outlived both Archer and Walter, fought through the entire Civil War as one of the few women who had a role in the military. She was an irregular soldier who was often deployed as a saboteur and assassin. She was invited to Ford's Theatre by Lincoln as a reward for her service where, like Lincoln himself, was murdered. Her brother, Franklin McAfee Jr., shot her in the head during the chaos that came from Lincoln's own death.

[daphnewritings]

Chapter 1: Ten Years Later

Summary: I’m just a girl, living in a world wondering why there was never a single chapter in Harry Potter from Draco’s POV. My mission is to now give him many (no one tell the transphobe, I have no money if she sues me).

Warnings: Lucius Malfoy’s thoughts

Word Count: 2.9k

- Chapter 2 -

Lucius Malfoy paced before the wrought iron gates that barred the path to Malfoy Manor on Halloween night, listening for even the slightest snap of apparition. The Dark Lord had shared his plans to kill the Potters only with his most trusted followers, and Lucius felt overwhelming pride that he had been included. He hadn’t even told Narcissa what was to happen tonight since it was to be kept secret to prevent any intervention from the Order.

The wind rustled through the leaves of the hedgerows on either side of the path, their shapes looming and dark in the growing twilight as Lucius looked back down the path to the manor. He could see Narcissa, moving about the porch floating candles into their respective places within the jack-o’-lanterns that sat on the steps. He smiled as he turned and swiftly resumed his pacing, thinking back to earlier that evening as he’d held Draco in his arms while Narcissa had magicked the traditional leering faces onto the pumpkins with a few swift cuts. The small bundle had giggled every once in a while at the faces, and it had warmed even Lucius’s cold heart to hear those small noises of joy.

Running a hand through his hair, he shook himself. He had more important things to think about, like why this mission was taking so long. The Dark Lord should have arrived Godric’s Hollow by now. Cursing softly under his breath, Lucius wished he could have joined him, if only to end this waiting. But the Dark Lord had not wavered in his position the night before: the Potters had to die, and it had to be by his hand, no one else’s. So, Lucius paced.

His thoughts on Draco inevitable turned into thoughts about the Potter’s own young son. He had heard about the birth through the few connections that the Death Eaters had at St. Mungo’s, but it had been decided that the couple would be so heavily guarded that it wouldn’t have been worth it to attack the Order members on the night that their son was born. Harry, they’d named him. Lucius scoffed as he turned around at the border of leaves to walk back through the track he was surely wearing into the ground. Such a common name. No doubt the influence of that mudblood Lily-

Lucius’s thoughts were cut off by a violent pain that lanced up his left arm. He shrieked, crashing to his knees in the dirt, feeling as if a hot iron had been pressed to the tender skin. He distantly registered the sound of Narcissa screaming his name as she ran down the drive towards him. He gingerly pulled the sleeve of his robe up over the skin, hissing at the rough drag of the fabric over his forearm, the pain was momentarily forgotten as what he saw made him fall backwards against the iron gate. The metal clanged, but all he could do was stare in horror at the Dark Mark and mumble softly, “That’s not possible” over and over as the once defined black ink seemed to drip away, leaving behind only faded grey.

Lucius looked up at his wife, who was now bent over him, her breaths coming in short, controlled pants as she drew his arm towards herself, cradling it in her hands. They could only stare at the brand in silence, the wind continuing to flutter the leaves around them. Pressing her fingers lightly to the faint lines and ignoring his screech of pain, Narcissa asked, “What happened?”

Lucius yanked his arm back towards himself protectively, causing the gates to bang against one another again. “I don’t know, the Dark L-Lord, he went to… the Potters, they must’ve… Snape…,” Lucius was stammering. He had never stumbled over a word in his life, and yet he had been reduced to this blubbering mess in the dirt. Breathing deeply, he reached up with his right arm behind him and clawed his way into a standing position, holding his left arm against his side protectively and pushing past Narcissa as he walked towards the manor.

“Lucius, talk to me,” she said at his elbow. When he didn’t say anything, she grabbed his left elbow, making him hiss in pain, and yanked him to a stop. “Lucius, tell me what the hell is going on or I’ll-”

Ripping his arm from her grasp, he continued striding up the driver, climbing the steps to the large double doors and pushing through. He heard Narcissa’s heels clicking behind him as she followed him into the manor and slammed the doors shut behind them. Her temper at being in the dark was palpable, but Lucius’s growing dread was ruling all of his actions, driving him towards the massive fireplace as he sliced his wand through the air. Flames leapt to life as Narcissa scooped Draco into her arms, making cooing noises while Lucius said to the flames, “Severus.”

When no one answered his call, he said louder, “Severus Snape!” Still the flames continued to dance, no answer coming through. Running an agitated hand through his long white hair, he yelled, “Wormtail!”

A disheveled head suddenly appeared in the flames, and Lucius had never been so relieved to see the rat-faced Peter Pettigrew in his entire life. “Lucius, hello, hello, what can I help you with?” Wormtail asked, his voice high-pitched and wobbly.

“What. Happened?” Lucius snarled.

He watched Wormtail’s eyes become rounder as they darted around in his skull as he started falteringly, “Well, Lucius, you have to understand… not my fault at all really… how was I to know…”

“Out with it Wormtail!” Lucius roared and the man gave a very mouse-like squeak of fear.

“Half of the house just collapsed! What was I supposed to do?!”

“Where’s the Dark Lord?”

“He didn’t-”

“WHERE IS HE?”

“He’s dead!” Wormtail shrieked.

Lucius stood in shocked silence as Wormtail’s head retreated quickly from the fireplace to be replaced by the flickering flames once again. Lucius felt one of Narcissa’s hands rest against the small of his back as he turned to her with imploring eyes. All he received in response was impassivity, her expression unsympathetic as she stared stonily back, “What do we do now, Lucius?”

Lucius eyes flicked between hers and the bundle in her arms. Reaching for his son, Lucius saw a small hand reach out and allowed the tiny fingers to wrap around one of his own, his thoughts racing. No doubt the aurors would be breaking down the doors soon, arresting them in their own home, like the animals they had been trained to be. Lucius would not allow them to take his family, no matter what it cost him. The Malfoy name had to survive.

Finally meeting his wife’s eyes once more, Lucius whispered possibly the most damning thing he’d ever said, “We lie.”

><

About ten years later, Draco Malfoy quickly dropped his parent’s hands as the pale trio stepped out onto the crooked main cobblestone street of Diagon Alley. He resisted the urge to race across to Quality Quidditch Supplies where a small crowd of other young boys and girls had gathered to press their noses up against the glass window to stare at the Nimbus 2000 display. He stood obediently, waiting for his mother to magic the school list that he’d received only a few days ago from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry out of her small bag. “Where should we go first my darling?” she asked him, running her finger down the parchment. His father stood like a silent spectre on his right, and Draco wondered for the umpteenth time that morning why his father had insisted on accompanying them.

Dragging his eyes away from the sleek racing broom, Draco drawled, “We should probably start with the boring stuff first.”

“Too right you are darling. We’ll leave you at Madam Malkin’s to get your school robes fitted while we get your books and things.” Draco’s nose wrinkled at the idea of someone other than Dobby pinning his clothes for him. Resigning himself to the ordeal, he followed his mother across the street and deeper down the crooked lane of magic shops, his father following close behind.

Every time Draco tagged along with his mother on her trips to Diagon Alley, he couldn’t help being bewitched by every shop window they passed. In Gambol and Japes Wizarding Joke Shop, he saw a few older boys throwing small fireworks back and forth, much to the shrieking chagrin of the shop owner. Laughing, he looked into the next window they passed and was greeted by the slow blinking eyes of two large great horned owls. Then he nearly followed his nose right off the sidewalk as the irresistible heavenly smell of chocolate and caramel and baking things drew him towards the door of Sugarplum’s Sweet Shop, but was stopped by a firm hand on his shoulder. Smiling sheepishly, Draco looked up at his father, but he’d already moved on after his mother and Draco let the smile fall as he rushed carefully over the cobblestones to keep up.

Stopping before the door to Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions, his mother patted his cheek and said, “We won’t be long Draco.” And then she and his father allowed the crowd to spirit them along towards Flourish and Blotts. Draco frowned after them and looked up at the storefront with a sigh as he pushed the door open.

Madam Malkin smiled at him jovially from behind the front counter, “Hello dear, are you here for your Hogwarts robes?” Draco nodded and hoped that his smile didn’t look too pained as she clapped her hands together, summoning a second witch from a curtain behind the front counter. “Splendid! I’ll have Suzanne here give you a hand.” Draco followed the dark skinned witch towards the back of the shop and stepped up onto one of the waiting footstools in front of a massive gilded mirror. Suzanne slipped a long robe over his head and began to pin it to shape. Draco silently thanked whatever god or gods that were smiling down at him in this moment for the fact that she didn’t try to make small talk.

A few minutes later, he heard the bell on the front door of the shop ring as another person entered. He heard Madam Malkin say, “Hogwarts, dear?” before she was sweeping towards the back of the shop. Draco tried to stand a little taller to get a look at the newcomer, but they were hidden behind Madam Malkin’s considerable frame. Finally, Madam Malkin stepped to the side, revealing a small black-haired boy. As he stepped up onto the stool besides Draco, grey eyes met vivid green in the mirror before a robe was slipped over the other boy’s head, breaking his stare for a second.

When his head reemerged, Draco searched for something to say and finally landed on, “You’re starting at Hogwarts too?” as if he hadn’t just heard Madam Malkin ask the boy that exact same question.

“Yes,” the boy replied, his eyes kept darting between Draco’s own in the mirror and elsewhere around the shop as if he’d never seen anything like it before.

Deciding he wanted the boy to look at him and him only, Draco continued, “My mother and father are up the street getting my books and then I suspect we’re off to the wand shop after this.” The boy’s eyes met his again in the mirror as he adjusted the glasses that had been knocked askew and Draco grinned at him, “Might try to drag them over to look at the racing brooms a few shops down afterwards. I don’t understand the ban at Hogwarts against first years having their own brooms. Maybe after I make them buy a Nimbus for me, I’ll try to sneak it into the castle in my trunk.”

He saw the boy’s nose wrinkle slightly as he waited for him to pick up the conversation. When he didn’t, Draco kept going, starting to get annoyed with his unresponsiveness, “So do you have your own broom?”

“No,” said the boy.

“Do you play Quidditch?” Draco asked.

“No,” the boy said again, fiddling with his glasses as he glanced away.

Do you know any words besides no? Draco thought. “Well, my father says I’m so good that if I’m not picked for my house team he’s going to write to Dumbledore,” Draco said, not bothering to keep the pride out of his voice. “Do you know what house you’ll be in?”

“No,” the boy said for the third time and Draco ran a hand over his white-blonde hair in annoyance.

“Well, I guess no one really knows until they arrive, but I know I’ll be in Slytherin. My whole families been in it.” He chuckled soundly and said, “But imagine ending up in Hufflepuff! I think I’d just walk right back onto the train, wouldn’t you?”

The boy hummed in response and Draco had just about had it with this one-sided conversation when he looked out the window and gasped, “Good god, who the hell is that?” The largest man, or rather creature, he’d ever seen stood out front, waving around two ice creams. He looked back into the mirror and saw the other boy grinning, his face turned towards the giant in the window.

“That’s just Hagrid. He works at Hogwarts.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Draco said, burying the sound of relief in his voice at the fact that this boy could actually say more than just monosyllabic words, “My parents have told me all about him. He’s a sort of servant or something, right?”

The boy met his eyes again in the mirror, “Gamekeeper, actually.”

My word, a whole conversation? Draco thought sarcastically, ignoring the growing look of dislike on the boy’s face as he plunged onwards, “Exactly, a servant. I’ve heard he’s a bit of a savage, living in his hut on the school grounds and trying to do magic whenever he gets too deep in his drink, if you know what I mean.”

“Well I think he’s brilliant,” the boy snapped.

Draco just cocked his head to the side slightly, taken aback by the indignation and sneered back, “Do you really?” The boy’s eyes narrowed and Draco decided he liked annoying him much better than forcing pleasant conversation with him, “Why is he with you? Where are your parents?” he paused for a second and then said in a stage whisper, “Is he one of your parents?”

“My parents are dead,” the boy replied stiffly and Draco was pulled up short.

“Oh, sorry,” Draco replied, unable to keep the drawl from his voice. “They were our kind though, weren’t they?”

The boy’s brows furrowed, “Our kind?”

“They were a witch and a wizard,” Draco deadpanned.

“Oh, uh, yes. Yes they were.”

Draco nodded his head sagely, “Good. My father always says that they shouldn’t let the other kind in. Keep the knowledge in the old wizarding families, y’know? I mean, can you imagine never hearing about Hogwarts until you get your letter? It’s just not the same.” He felt an uncomfortable jab into the skin of his ankle and yelped.

Looking down at the witch that was pinning his robes, she smiled up at him tightly and said, “Sorry young sir. My hand must’ve slipped.” Draco’s lip curled slightly. He didn’t think she was sorry at all.

He heard Madam Malkin say from the floor that the other boy was done and Draco whipped his head up to see the boy jump off the stool. Madam Malkin pulled the robes from the boy’s small frame and led him back out towards the front of the shop. “See you at Hogwarts, then!” Draco called at his back and he saw the boy’s shoulders stiffen before Madam Malkin once again blocked his view.

Draco grinned to himself and watched the witch at his feet finishing his own robes before she waved him down from the stool and pulled them from his body. She led him back out to the front where Draco saw his mother and father were already waiting. His mother spilled a few galleons out onto the counter and then waved her wand over the folded pile of clothes, sending them home wordlessly.

Draco followed his parents out of the shop as his mother asked, “Did you have a nice time darling?”

Draco, busy craning his neck down both ends of the street in search of the giant said distractedly, “Yes mother. Just making friends.”

“You made friends? While getting your robes pinned?”

“Well, not exactly. There was this boy, but he didn’t really seem to want to talk all that much. Seemed more interested in everything else besides me,” he said with a sigh, coming to the conclusion that the giant had disappeared with his quarry, he said, “Can we go look at brooms now?”

“Wait,” his father said, “What did this boy look like?”

But Draco was already on the move, giving his parents little other choice than to follow as he led them back down the street towards Quality Quidditch Supplies, slipping nimbly around other shoppers. It wouldn’t be until later that night, when he was waving around his new hawthorn wand in his room, shooting small sparks into the air, that he realized he had never even bothered to ask the boy in the robe shop what his name was.

Chapter 2 >

[shirlleycoyle]

Why the World May Never Truly Be Rid of Dongles

A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.

As you may guess from the stuff I write about, I have a lot of computers, of various shapes, sizes, and functions.

Some of them I only mess with occasionally; some are frequent companions; some (like my Pinebook Pro) are destined to be frequent targets of tinkering for me. But the one thing that they have in common is that they encourage me to plug in a rat’s nest of cabling to plug into the various gadgets I own. The monitor I got late last year I purchased specifically because I needed a USB hub to go with my high-resolution screen. 

But despite all these efforts to simplify my cabling life, dongles rule everything around me. And around you, too. It comes with the territory. 

Ultimately, the problem the dongle solves may never truly go away.

“We don’t know much, for sure, about the word that has been a source of so much frustration and controversy and, regardless, ubiquity. But that hasn’t stopped people from guessing.”

— Megan Garber, in a 2013 essay in The Atlantic discussing the origin of the word “dongle,” which she noted was fairly unclear. A 1984 article from The Guardian, in reference to Clive Sinclair’s ill-fated Sinclair QL computer makes a reference to dongles as “an ancient piece of computer jargon,” despite the fact that it’s one of the earliest references I can find in a mainstream newspaper. It suddenly showed up in newspapers around 1984, as did one of the earliest patent filings regarding dongles, in the United Kingdom. In technology publications, the first references I see date to October 1981, in issues of New Scientist and Byte, both in reference to antipiracy technology. 

An example of a parallel-port dongle. Image: Raimond Spekking/Wikimedia Commons

The dongle’s original legacy as an antipiracy tool

Last year, when the latest iteration of the Mac Pro came out, one thing that may have confused observers looking at this machine, which they will likely never use, is the unusual placement of a USB-A port on the machine’s motherboard.

To those that only lightly follow technology, the existence of this port likely made no sense. But it reflects a decades-long legacy of tying security to actual hardware that, for some programs at least, persists to this day.

A 1984 New Scientist piece explained the dynamic that led to the growing popularity of dongles throughout the period, but noted that despite their goal of security, they ultimately were seen as easy to break by technical users:

The dongle is a small plastic box which plugs into one of the ports at the back of a computer. A program protected by a dongle contains a routine that asks a computer to check whether the dongle is present and sometimes to read a code from it. If it has not been plugged in the program will not run. Most dongles do not prevent programs from being copied, but they stop the copies from being used, since each copy needs a matching dongle to work.

Unfortunately, there is nothing to prevent the owner of a dongle-protected program from displaying the program code on his computer screen and removing the dongle check from it. One expert says this task takes about two hours.

The dongle system has been refined by some companies. Instead of supplying a program in plain computer code, some or all of the instructions are scrambled. The key to this simple encryption is held by the dongle which passes it to the computer’s operating system (the program which coordinates the computer’s operations). Once unscrambled, the program is loaded into the computer’s memory and runs in the normal way; but it is not difficult to remove the built-in checks. 

For games, these approaches were eventually replaced by copy-protection schemes inside manuals or by different distribution approaches, like shareware. But dongles for more high-end or specialized software products, along with employee security, never really went away. In fact, they got more sophisticated, adding their own processing capabilities that interacted with the software being used.

Of course, people aren’t aware where they actually came from in the first place, as The Atlantic_’s Garber implied. This has led to fun stories, the most colorful of which was invented by the tech company Rainbow Technologies, which, in a 1992 advertisement than ran in _Byte, invented a character named Don Gall who they claimed the device was named after.

“He wasn’t famous. He didn’t drive a fancy car, but dressed in his favorite Comdex T-shirt and faded blue jeans, he set out to change the course of the software story,” the fable started.

While obviously totally made up, it nonetheless became something of an urban legend.

These devices generally hooked up to serial or parallel ports throughout the 1990s, with adapters that allowed users to continue to plug in devices such printers. In terms of video games, cheat tools like the Game Genie could be thought of as dongles.

But in the late 1990s, these devices were able to shrink thanks to USB. These dongles, while less prominent than they once were, have largely stayed in common use in a handful of industries, specifically those that sell computer-aided design or manufacturing software, and those that offer software for digital audio workstations. ACID and Autodesk, two manufacturers that specialize in are probably two of the best-known companies that rely on hardware security dongles in the modern day. These are the kinds of devices for which the Mac Pro has an internal USB-A port.

More common, however, are devices intended specifically for two-factor authentication, such as the YubiKey, which serve a similar security function, but for the user or the organization for which they serve, rather than to prevent piracy. These tools work in similar ways to the dongles of yore, perhaps with additional security mechanisms.

Speaking of USB, the switch of formats, which was ultimately a good thing for technology, helped create a pretty big market for dongles big and small, many of which connect to all variety of objects, from printers to TV sets. (Apple, the company that moved to USB early, is responsible for many of our dongles.)

The USB thumb drive is a great example of a dongle, and perhaps the most prominent example of flash disks around.

Similarly, video standards have a way of adding dongles to our lives. Ever converted HDMI to DVI to VGA to composite to RF? (No, just me?) Then you’ve lived the dongle life.

It’s a fact of life, and one that has only become more of a fact of life thanks to the rise of USB-C creating natural incompatibilities for dongles.

Five of the weirdest dongle connectors I’m aware of

USB-C to MagSafe. As is well-documented, I have issues with the design of the Mac’s default power brick, which I think has serious deficiencies because, prior to its conversion to USB-C, its primary cable is both thin and non-removable. For years, Apple made this port proprietary and failed to allow for alternative devices to be made, but after moving to USB-C, Apple took its eye off the MagSafe ball. I bought this adapter off of eBay, delivered straight from China, and use it with the adapter that comes with my HP Spectre x360, which supports USB-C by default.

Jawbone UP24 to USB. Despite the fact that most people associate exercise bands with the brand Fitbit, it was Jawbone that really set the stage for the category’s success with its UP series of fitness trackers, which actually pulled off the neat trick of looking cool without being showy (a credit to its designer, Yves Béhar). It helped to build a market segment … which Jawbone’s competitors quickly took for themselves. For this discussion, though, The interesting thing about this device is how it charged: You take off the cap and a 2.5mm headphone adapter appears. You plug that into a USB-A dongle with said jack, that isn’t useful for anything else.

DVI to ADC. While VGA is a far more memorable adapter for those looking to get a signal onto a video display, DVI has been a more consistent part of the video experience in recent years, appearing on video cards even today, while DisplayPort and HDMI are locked in a battle for supremacy. But ADC? This was a relatively brief attempt by Apple to try to minimize the number of cables needed to connect cables to its monitors. It was arguably ahead of its time—it took USB-C 15 years to make this capability common across the computer industry—but the problem was that the port was proprietary, and if you wanted to use a computer other than Apple’s G4 towers (say, a PowerBook), you needed to break apart those signals—which required a really big dongle. Apple’s official dongle, released in 2002, is both extremely expensive and as large as a standard laptop power brick, and while there is a smaller third-party alternative, it’s harder to find. At least one hardware-hacker has gone to the trouble of creating a reasonably sized version.

Crazyradio PA USB Dongle. This dongle, an open-source device, is essentially a USB radio that works on the same open 2.4-gigahertz as early versions of Wi-Fi. Why would you want this? Well, it’s effectively a wireless mouse dongle for everything else, except with a much larger antenna. Highly hackable, open-sourced, originally developed for a tiny drone, and with a massive range, it can be used for any manner of weird stuff, and is a popular choice for hardware hackers, though some have gone to the point of hacking those wireless mouse adapters for whatever they want.

The Shugru-covered wireless mouse connector. For those with wireless mice, Apple’s move to USB-C on laptops has made life a lot more frustrating because it requires the use of a dongle with your dongle. Rather than be stuck with that state of affairs, the YouTube channel DIY Perks pulled apart one of those mouse connectors, soldered it onto a USB-C breakout board, and covered the whole thing with Shugru, the moldable glue popularly used for DIY projects. A little hacky, but it totally worked.

There was once a massive dongle for sale that could Hackintosh your system

The very nature of dongles means that they come and go, and no dongle, perhaps, has come and gone as quietly as the EFiX USB dongle.

Unlike the security keys used to protect software from installation, EFiX literally does the opposite—it allows users to install software that its maker would prefer users didn’t.

A gadget modern enough that it was featured on websites such as Engadget, the EFiX (also known as EFI-X

, with both names referencing the UEFI firmware that is common today but Intel Macs were relatively early to) harkens back to a time when installing MacOS on a non-Apple PC wasn’t particularly easy. This object, produced by a firm named Art Studios Entertainment Media, was what the company called a “Boot Processing Unit,” which essentially took all the complicated parts of building a hackintosh (all the messy code and what have you) and hid those from the user.

“EFI-X

is not for everyone. It is not for who wants to save money, at all. It is for enthusiasts that put expandability and extreme performances before anything else in their computing needs. We heard those voices, and we answered,” the company that built this device stated on its website. 

The device, which plugs directly into a USB header on a motherboard rather than a single USB port, essentially handles all the messy parts of installing Mac OS X on a standard desktop PC. (The key word there is desktop; laptops tend not to have user-accessible USB headers.)

A 2008 Gizmodo review of the device noted that while you did have to open up your machine to plug it in, it was incredibly simple to use:

If you’ve got the hardware, the whole process is simple, so that even if you’ve never cracked your desktop before, you could still get this done with a quick search online for the requisite know-how. I plugged the EFiX dongle into a USB header on my motherboard-not, as you might have assumed, to a USB port on the outside. That’s really it for getting your hands dirty, though. I restarted my computer, selected EFiX as the boot device-it was listed under hard drives, actually-and was greeted with a drive selector. After selecting the Leopard disc, it started installing without a hitch.

But those who did get more technical were fairly skeptical about what they found. One Hackintosh blog doing an autopsy of the device in an effort to come up with a software-only solution said that despite the flashy looks and the use of an ARM processor on the module, it was not particularly novel.

“The whole thing, inclusive PCB, case, cable and packaging should cost less than 10 dollars, I guess,” the author wrote.

If this all sounds fairly gray area, it’s worth noting that this device came to life around the time that the Florida company Psystar was getting some negative legal attention from Apple after announcing plans to sell a Mac clone system—a battle Psystar ultimately, famously, lost.

The USA seller of the EFiX dongle, EFiX USA, at one point announced plans to release a clone system of its own … but then quickly changed course, realizing it would probably put them in a world of legal hell.

EFiX and its manufacturers faded away eventually, and the Hackintosh community came up with other solutions for easily turning a computer into a Hackintosh—no proprietary dongle necessary.

The thing with ports is that there is never a shortage of choice in terms of what you can do with them. But when you try shopping for cables with a specific use case in mind, things get confusing, fast.

Last fall, I made a trip to Micro Center, in part because I heard it was the best computer store chain in the country and I was utterly curious about this Mecca to silicon and circuitry. Overall, the experience was fairly positive, but I felt strangely claustrophobic in one section of the store—the section around KVM switches, which are devices (glorified dongles, really) that allow users to swap between different computers.

So many cables. So much switch. Image: Priwo/Wikimedia Commons

These products, generally, require a lot of cables. An absolute ton, a level that will make you never want to see another cable again. And there are a lot of them, of different shapes, sizes, and use cases. Despite the fact that VGA is a dinosaur of a technology, the vast majority of KVM switches that handle video seem to rely on VGA in the year of Our Lord 2020.

The perfect KVM switch is often hard to find if you have a specific need—and they can get ungodly expensive if you’re not careful.

I can’t remember what I was looking for, but I remember vividly that I not only didn’t find it, but I suddenly had a strong desire to leave this store I went out of my way to visit. Again, I’m the guy that loves computers enough that I wrote an entire article about dongles, and I couldn’t take it. I psyched myself out.

The good news is that USB-C has the potential to simplify the use of KVM switches entirely, at least eventually, as they will only require one cable from each device that you’re switching from. The bad news is that USB-C has confused the spec significantly, in some frustrating ways.

By way of example: Recently, I set up a wall stand next to my desk (a floating shelf for DVD players, essentially) that I set up to allow me an easy place to put my laptops and use them without taking space on my desk. Conceivably, I could plug in my USB-C-based laptops using a single cable and get going. The problem is that USB-C adapters have short cables that are embedded into the device.

So, what do you do to resolve this? First, you find a USB-C hub that doesn’t have a cable built-in. Great; here’s the only one I could find that cost less than $50 that had good power-delivery capabilities. But now this cable has to pull double-duty. It needs to be long enough that it isn’t directly next to your computer, able to transmit high-speed data, but able to charge a laptop. This is harder than it sounds. My HP Spectre x360 relies on a 90-watt charger; most cables with the ability to transmit power and high-speed data top out at 60 watts. Want one that supports 100 watts, powerful enough to handle the latest MacBook Pro? In most cases, the speeds will max out at USB 2.0 levels, meaning you may be better off with Thunderbolt 3, which costs even more than USB-C does. I want USB-C for compatibility for multiple devices.

So it took quite a bit of digging to find the right hub and the right cable to make this setup possible. But now I can plug in a single cable to my laptop and start working. (OK, technically two, because the hub transmits HDMI at a slower speed than the port on the laptop itself. Can’t win everything.)

So why am I telling you about the complications of all this? Simply, I think it’s important to point out that we’re replacing dongles with ports that can theoretically take basically everything, but that have specifications so inconsistent and hard to follow that, once USB-C becomes the one port to rule them all, we may be replacing the physical hell of dongles with a sort of technical hell of inconsistent standards, where the value of a specific cable is defined by what it can do rather than what it looks like.

You can buy a working system for a lower price than you can this cable.

We’re already seeing this. Recently, Apple drew a lot of attention for selling a Thunderbolt 3 cable for $129. It was very much a weird-flex-but-OK situation, but part of the reason that it sells for so much is that it’s relatively long (2 meters, or 6.6 feet, or $1.63 per inch), but supports the full Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 specs. Most cables of that type only support certain elements of these specifications; Apple’s expensive cable supports the whole thing, making it an extremely valuable cable for someone who prides maximum compatibility, maximum speed, and maximum flexibility in a single span of braided black cable. This kind of consumer, apparently, exists.

All of this raises the question: Are dongles as bad as they look? Probably not. But they sure look weird.

Why the World May Never Truly Be Rid of Dongles syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[naturecpw]

Can a Cat Have an Existential Crisis?

Treating my cat for depression caused me to question the state of anxiety in animals and us. Nautilus - Britt Peterson

When I first adopted Lucas nine years ago from a cat rescue organization in Washington, D.C., his name was Puck. “Because he’s mischievous,” his foster mother said. Although we changed the name, her analysis proved correct. Unlike his brother Tip, whom I also adopted, a gray cat with white paws and an Eeyore-ish dour doofy sweetness, Lucas was from the start a fierce black fireball, a menace to stray toes or blanket fringes or loose items on tabletops. He was my alarm clock in the morning with his habit of knocking my hairbrush, deodorant, and earrings box off my bureau until I got up to feed him.            

Then, almost four years ago, my husband and I had a child. Lucas, no longer the most important small creature in the apartment, retreated to the top shelf of his cat tree, where he would lie all day, staring morosely over the edge. When he did want attention, his solicitations became aggressive. Instead of waiting until 7 a.m. to start knocking things off of the bureau, he started hopping up there at 4 a.m. We closed the bedroom door and were still woken up at 4 every day by Lucas rattling the doorknob or hurling the weight of his 13-pound body against it. At mealtimes he would gobble down his food and then shove Tip out of the way to eat Tip’s food. He started marking the carpets in our living room and my son’s room, and his play with Tip turned more violent too.            

Cat’s Meow: Lucas did well on antidepressants. But he started avoiding his food that contained them. His aggression, though, declined with play and human attention. Photo courtesy of the author.

I made an appointment, first, with a pet behavior specialist and, five months later, when her initially helpful suggestions didn’t change Lucas’s behavior, with a vet. The vet described Lucas’s condition as “anxiety” and prescribed fluoxetine, a generic for Prozac that’s often prescribed for animals. While I had felt a mixture of frustration and pity toward Lucas, in that moment I experienced a surprising stir of recognition. Over a decade ago, during six months in college, I had panic attacks every other day. I was given a similar diagnosis—panic disorder being a major anxiety disorder—and was prescribed a similar medication. 

More than 50 years ago, behaviorist B.F. Skinner wrote, “The ‘emotions’ are excellent examples of the fictional causes to which we commonly attribute behavior.” For animals, who can’t describe their own emotions in words, this sentiment has proved more enduring than it has for humans. My panic attacks were an anxiety ouroboros: Am I having an attack now, on the subway? How about now, in front of my English class? Oh shit! It’s hard to imagine a rat or a mouse—or even my brilliant cat—ruminating on that obsessive meta-level. As Kierkegaard wrote in The Concept of Anxiety, “anxiety is not found in the beast, precisely because by nature the beast is not qualified as spirit.”  

  In fact, the concept of animal anxiety is something science has been wrestling with for a long time. And while our definition of anxiety, when it comes to animals, may still be fuzzy, it is growing ever sharper with time. That process has taught us much about our own emotions, and continues to teach us more about animal cognition. In the end, it also taught me a lot about my relationship with Lucas.            

***

With all or almost all animals, even with birds, Terror causes the body to tremble,” Darwin wrote in his 1872 book, The Expression of the Emotions in Animals and Man. Today, with a greater understanding of the subcortical basis of fear, we know how closely brain systems resemble each other across mammals.

When a threat occurs, the flight-or-flight response is triggered by the amygdala, then moves to the hypothalamus, which in turn sends a signal to the glands, releasing adrenaline. The same happens in most mammal brains: Mice have tiny hypothalami and amygdalae that react to stress just as ours do. And as any dog- or cat-owner knows, the manifestations of fight or flight in animals are plentiful, complex, sometimes patterned (a dog that always sucks its paws and yowls during thunderstorms), sometimes based on temperament or genetics, sometimes coming out of the blue—very much like human anxiety. 

Giving human drugs to animals isn’t just species narcissism. We know these drugs work for animals because they were originally tested on animals.              

Veterinary behaviorists don’t worry much about whether anxiety is a valid term for what animals experience, or how to diagnosis it. “It’s not terribly difficult,” says Katherine A. Houpt, an emeritus professor of behavioral medicine at Cornell University. Vets look at external display: Does an animal startle quickly, snap, suffer from sleeplessness? Is a cat in a fearful posture like something New Jersey behaviorist Emily Levine called “the meatloaf position” (all four legs under and hunched)? By these observable measures, anxiety exists in great quantities in the animal kingdom, both among pets and far beyond.            

In her book, Animal Madness, science historian Laurel Braitman cites a study by the pharmaceutical giant, Eli Lilly and Company, that states that 17 percent of American dogs suffer from separation anxiety. Braitman also describes anxious zoo gorillas and a bonobo who wouldn’t eat a meal until he went through a series of obsessive compulsive disorder-like rituals, anxious chickens given Prozac to calm down so their flesh will be more delicious, and the “stereotypic” (repeated self-harming) and aggressive behavior of walruses and sea lions at amusement parks like SeaWorld.            

Separation Anxiety: Sea mammals penned into aquariums suffer stress in biologically similar ways as humans. As a result they are given the same kind of antidepressants as us. Photo by Keren Su/Getty Images.

To ease their symptoms, we’ve been giving animals our meds for decades. Starting in the 1970s, captive animals were increasingly medicated, ranging from Gus the bipolar polar bear to penguins bummed out by British weather to the sea mammals at SeaWorld, caught in a scandal in 2014 after court documents obtained by Buzzfeed showed that doctors were dosing aggressive orcas with benzodiazepines, the family of anti-anxiety medication that includes Xanax and Valium. Some of the mine-sniffing dogs in Afghanistan diagnosed with PTSD were given Xanax, as well as other treatments, like desensitization. So many dogs, cats, and other pets are on antidepressants and antianxiety medication today that the industry has swelled to a multibillion-dollar business.            

Giving human drugs to animals isn’t just species narcissism. We know these drugs work for animals because they were originally tested on animals. The underlying similarity between mammalian brains and patterns of anxious and depressive behavior has allowed monkeys, dogs, cats, rats, and mice to stand in for humans in psychoactive drug testing starting with the early barbiturates in the 1900s and continuing through tranquilizers in the ’60s to today’s SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), drugs that, it’s believed, improve the symptoms of depression and anxiety by increasing levels of a neurotransmitter called serotonin.            

  Methods of provoking or measuring stress in laboratory animals to study these drugs are endless, creative, and should come with a trigger warning, if you’re at all an anxious person yourself. In the “forced swim test” (my summer-camp nightmare) mice are forced to swim in cylindrical pools to test their resilience in the face of certain defeat. Some “animal models of anxiety” try to create situations that are especially stressful for animals, like open spaces (the “elevated plus maze”) or being out in the open on a balance-beam like structure (the “Suok ‘ropewalking’ test”).            

Methods of provoking stress in laboratory animals should come with a trigger warning, if you’re at all an anxious person yourself.                    

 In one chronic stress experiment, mice were restrained, shaken, isolated, held under a hot hairdryer, kept under bright lights overnight, or had their cages tilted at a 45 degree angle. In the end—and just like humans who live under chronic stress—the mice became severely anxious and lost any appetite for “exploratory behavior,” like depressed teenagers hiding out in bed.    

There’s plenty of debate over whether the stress tests and other “animal models of anxiety” match up closely enough to human anxiety to make all the animal research on psychoactive medications credible. Even the more subtle tests seem closer to repeatedly punching a human in the face until that human collapses into a shivering puddle, rather than replicating the complex patchwork of genetic and environmental factors that end up producing a human anxiety disorder.            

Researchers rarely use the word anxiety to describe what the animals experience. Studies usually describe “anxiety-like symptoms,” focusing on the behavioral rather than the emotional, the expression of the feeling rather than the feeling itself. The fact that anti-anxiety medication soothes these symptoms in animals suggests they have something in common with the symptoms we call anxiety in humans. But are they a conditioned fear or something else entirely? And can we humans ever really know?            

***

Joseph LeDoux, a professor of neural science and psychology at New York University, and author of The Emotional Brain, has performed some of the most important research on anxiety disorders. “Do animals have mental states? We don’t know, and we can never know for sure,” he said in an interview with BrainWorld magazine in 2012. For LeDoux, observations of behavior aren’t enough to give it a label like “anxiety” when we can’t enter into the animal’s subjective experience. It might be emotion, it might also just be an automatic response to danger, and without any way of entering into the animal’s brain—the way language allows us to, at least to a certain mediated degree, with other humans—we can’t assess that.            

But Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University, disagrees. Most famous for his studies demonstrating that tickled rats “laugh” in high-pitched chirps inaudible to the human ear, Panksepp researches underlying, unconditioned emotional systems. When it comes to fear, this means instinctual, native fears, not fears created in the laboratory by repeated foot-shocks. Using deep-brain stimulation on an animal’s amygdala, hypothalamus, and midbrain periaqueductal gray—the center of the fear system in humans—Panksepp is able to trigger these instinctive fears, and then watch how the animals react. He’s discovered that activating the fear response causes animals not only to go into typical fight or flight mode, but also to try to stop the experience—to turn off the terror in their brain. Humans exposed to deep-brain stimulation in these regions experience existential fear, describing their emotions (according to studies quoted in Panksepp’s 2012 book The Archeology of Mind) in terms like “I’m scared to death” and “an abrupt feeling of uncertainty just like entering into a long, dark tunnel.” Rats and mice, says Panksepp, likely experience something just as unpleasant. 

Of course, fear is not the same thing as anxiety. While fear is a primary-process emotion, anxiety is more complex. “It’s something you’re reflecting upon, your confrontations in the world, who’s treating you poorly,” Panksepp says. “We cannot look at the thoughts of an animal—no one has a methodology for that.” However, Panksepp says, he suspects animals experience their own kind of “thoughtful worries.” “I personally believe they do because they’ve got plenty of upper-brain material in areas that we know control human thinking and worry about basic survival ideas.”            

Some might argue that I am anthropomorphizing, but the result has been positive for everyone.

Other scientists agree, both with the difficulty of defining animal anxiety and with the possibility that it could exist. Lori Marino was a neuroscientist at Emory University and is now the executive director of the Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy. Anxiety among animals “is more debatable because it has a component that fear doesn’t have and the component is time,” she says. A sense of one’s self existing in time is fundamental to anxiety. You worry about your future self—where will I be tomorrow, in three weeks, in a month? You mull over past regrets.

For a long time, most scientists have believed humans are unique in having a concept of ongoing time. But recent studies of Western scrub-jays and Eurasian jays (two corvid, or crow, species) have shown the birds anticipate later feeding needs even when those needs are different from what they want in the present. A 2013 study suggested that chimpanzees and orangutans in zoos may have human-like autobiographical memories—that a single cue can activate a series of remembered events, just the way it does for humans.

It’s still a leap to assume that a more complex relationship with time implies a set of emotions around those remembered or planned for events—although one recent study found that pigs engage in “avoidance behavior,” balking and oinking, when anticipating a negative task in the future. But it does raise some intriguing possibilities.  

  “I think you can say that many animals have some sense of time,” Marino says. “It may not be exactly as sophisticated as that in humans, but I think they are able to anticipate something, they know that something is going to happen in the future, even if it is just a few minutes or a few hours or a few days. It’s just not possible to survive with just being fearful, without also feeling some anxiety about what might happen or anticipate it, even in the simplest sense.”    

For me, labeling Lucas as anxious changed everything in how I thought of his behavior. I had seen him as an adversary: robbing my sleep, peeing on my kid’s rug, bullying me and my family and my other cat. Now he was a fellow sufferer. Some might argue that I am anthropomorphizing, but the result has been positive for everyone. As I became more sensitive to Lucas’s neuroses, I began to notice my role in them. 

Animal anxiety, to say the least, is frequently caused by humans—from our destruction of their habitats to our hunger for their flesh to our imprisonment of them in zoos. But we often cause anxiety in the animals that have evolved to live beside us, that we love most intensely and view as our companions, by imposing our needs on them and ignoring theirs. Dogs and cats alike need lots of stimulation and exercise; we like to live in cities and work all day. Cats like to be stroked on the cheeks and chin; we hug and cuddle them like stuffed animals, even when they are obviously upset by it.

When I thought about Lucas as anxious, I also began to think about his needs more than I had before. I played with him more often and gave him more, smaller meals. He responded as well to the meals and play as he had to the antidepressants, which he had not been taking as much because he rejected the food I put them in. He stopped waking us up in the middle of the night and marking in my son’s room. Science may be only partway to understanding whether Lucas is anxious, in the Kierkegaardian sense, or just acting like he is. In the end, it became more useful to be generous about the definition of anxiety—to recognize a connection, and also my own responsibility, in whatever anxious might mean for Lucas.

Britt Peterson is a contributing editor at Washingtonian magazine and a writer on ideas and culture for Smithsonian, the Boston Globe, Slate, and Elle.com.

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