#smotheriness

[bipanicoverthegravessiblings]

Does Gabriel have a toxic trait?

Due to how he grew up, he internalizes someone being upset, angry, or frustrated as something he did, so he’ll try to fix it…which makes things worse more often than not

[swimmingferret]

I can't wait for Inosuke and Kanao to meet in your Iron and Blod fic because their relationship might have differed from the canon. Or it could be the same with just Douma being a dad and Tanjiro and maybe his family dealing with their family because they think some of the stuff they do is weird but don't call it out because they are kinda too nice for that.

You mean the main crew? Tbh I can actually see Zenitsu being really afraid of Kanao from my fic, since she's basically dead inside except for being around her family. Zenitsu would pick that up with his hearing and be really put off by her, since at least Inosuke still behaves like a person ya know?

The idea of Douma and his two deranged kids coming across the Kamado family before Muzan happens is a hilarious idea ngl 'cause they would be rather polite even if its wildly obvious those three are all 'Off'

[muse-of-nothing]

my Beforan Feferi aka )(er Imperial Smothering!

she's... uhhhh... a person in power...

ya let's put it like that

under the cut some more AU bullshit

[fingertipsmp3]

Facebook will jumpscare you for no reason. Like why did I need to know that the girl who used to stalk me is pregnant, and why did I need to know one of my former bullies has just married an ugly man

[strawberrystepmom]

Nono you need your favs to come take care of you ☕︎ I hope you recover soon

gojo asking me to open mouth cough on him so he gets sick too core!!!!! fomo is more terrify than covid!!!!

also thank u ily

[mothiepixie]

Okay but you know those rapid, smothery, little kisses that moms sometimes do to their babies?

That, but with Red, since deep down, he really is a big baby that needs all the loves💕🥺

He just melts

[splickedylit]

Just reread domestic diplomacy, so hype for the 3rd part. Was curious whether you planned on ever including other pale couples? I would love to see the meowrails or vrisrezi in this au where pale romance is actually. Romance. Lol. Anyway keep being cool (and share another snippet of the wip if you want pls 👀)

Aw, hooray! :D Tbh I don't really,,, plan these fics lol. This series especially I very much make up as I go, so I can't discount the possible future in which meowrails make an appearance, but I also have learned to make no promises about what's going to happen in uhhh any fic ever lol. But I can certainly share a snippet, since I'm getting writing done today!

--

Trolls don’t drink wine, it turns out—trolls don’t drink alcohol at all.  When Gamzee sniffs at your cup thoughtfully, he’s already recoiling before Karkat makes an urgent, warning noise and yanks at his arm.

“&lt;NO,>” Karkat says, and Gamzee rolls his lips back from a really startling amount of fangs and makes a low, throaty rising and falling noise that sounds disgusted even to your human ears.  “<Have a cup of (noun, gesturing at whatever’s in the wine bottles with troll labels on them) or something!>”

“<Shit smells like (some kind of descriptor with ‘window’ in it, for some reason),>” Gamzee says, and reaches over to snatch up one of the bottles Karkat pointed him toward, popping the top off with a careless twist of his wrist and taking a much more appreciative sniff.  “<Fuck yeah, that thing right there, makes good for motherfucker to have a good (fatal) time.>”

“<You’ll do good (warning shot) at worst,>”  Karkat says sternly.  “<And not with human home-cleaning liquid drinks. You would die.  Die fast—and boring, not funny, not fun, got it?  Humans drink home-cleaning liquid to get (troll-descriptor).>”

Gamzee chortles.  “<I bet the fuck they do get!>” he says, apparently delighted.  “<And then get (the fatal form of “funny” but flipped around to be a descriptor? A new construction, excellent)  funny-dead real quick for because of they’re nasty.>”

“What are you guys drinking, then?” you say, and reach over cautiously to the bottle Gamzee’s holding; he growls a little, possessively, apparently just as a warning that it’s his now, and then gives it up and watches you hold it up and take your own big sniff.  It doesn’t…smell toxic.  Sweet, mostly, in a weird, thick, smothery kind of way that makes your nose burn a little.

“It is human safe,” says Kanaya, before you can ask.  “I believe you don’t feel…tss.  Intoxated, by it.  But it is still very strong for you, differently.”

That’s all you need to hear.  You pick up one of the glasses and pour some out for yourself—it’s just a little thicker than water, a pure, light gold color, and when you take a sip it’s like getting punched in the sinuses by a sugar cube the size of a building.

“Oh, fuck,” you say, and swallow with an effort.  Your eyes are watering; your mouth feels aggressively candy-coated.  “Whoof.  Wow!”

Rose is laughing at you, just a little—not out loud, but you can tell by the way her eyes are creased and her lips are quirked up at the corners.  “Yes,” she says.  “Nectar requires some getting used to.  Trolls cannot metabolize alcohol but they are…quite sensitive to sucral compounds.”

“Give it,” Gamzee says, and gestures insistently to have his bottle back, then reaches past the nice wine glasses to pick up a distinctly human red solo cup and dumps a hearty half-cupful of nectar into it, then pulls a bottle of something that looks exactly like faygo with alien writing on the label and dumps a hearty measure of that in on top of it.

“<You can have one of those,>” Karkat says, looking appalled.  “<You (something)-less piece of shit.  One, got it?  What the fuck is wrong with you.  And you’re not kissing me until you clean your teeth.  I’ll get (troll descriptor) off your fucking breath.>”

Gamzee grins hugely and runs his tongue over all his fangs in Karkat’s direction, then tosses back a big mouthful of his mixed drink and gives a happy shivering rumble, fins fluttering and claws kneading delicately at his cup.

“You want?” he says in English, and holds it out at you, grinning exactly like he did earlier when he snuck a horn under your butt—like this is the kind of joke that has a winner and a loser, and he’s pretty sure he’s already won.

“Jade,” says Dave.  “He’s bein’ a dick.  You know you don’t have to take shit from this guy, right?”

“I know!” you say, and reach out to take the cup from Gamzee’s hand, holding eye contact in a way you’re pretty sure is kind of socially unacceptable.  Karkat starts “Jade—” and then you take a deep breath and throw the cup back.

[reverthestarryeyed]

So I've been seeing the love clones of Hantengu being a thing, so I decided to do my own

I had to use a PLETHORA of references

I tried my best trying to draw the chibi 😓 If you couldn't already tell I took inspiration from Penny the Chicken

i couldn't decide what his face should look like, so you make the decision. I also tried making his eyes the same color as blush, I just looked it up and got Ff8080, tell me what you think

I tried giving him a sort of purplish/pinkish tinge in his hair, like how Sekido, Karaku, Urogi and Aizetsu have a color tinge in their hair, The etching on his tongue is obviously 愛 And here we have his outfit

I tried my best 😓, I basically just looked up "Taisho Era wedding outfit" and then recolored what I found, I was actually thinking of making the little fuzzy thing at the middle to be a rose, but I'm not sure. His footwear is just socks and slippers.

His weapon is a shotgun, he originally had red rope he uses as a weapon, but then changed it to a shotgun. I took inspiration from the song Bang Bang, "She was walking around with a loaded shotgun" "Bang, Bang, Bang, straight through my heart". As for his original weapon, I took inspiration from the idea that in Japan, there's a legend that humans are tied by a red string to their soulmate (I don't think I need to draw that, right?)

Eito is the only known clone that changed his blood demon art in such a drastic matter

I got the name Eito from Japanesenameinfo when I inputted 愛, I actually couldn't decide on which one I should pick 😅 so I'll leave it up to you. Me personally I'm gonna go with 永 meaning "eternity, permanence." So his name literally means "Forever in love"

Now we have his personality: As the manifestation of Hantengu's love, he is in a constant state of infatuation, like Hantengu in his human life he does genuinely love, but it doesn't last long (obviously, that's what infatuation means). He is also intensely narcissistic (philautia), and he also has a weird love obsession with humans (mania). Though, despite all of that, he still would not hesitate to kill a human (like I said I took slight inspiration from Penny the Chicken), contradicting that; he has a soft spot for humans, think a lot of them looks adorable, so cute when they squirm around like bugs trying to survive and escape.

Due to being narcissistic he also has a weird obsession with the other clones (seeing as they're literally him and vice versa), whether or not this is selfcest, I'll leave it up to your interpretation.

As I've mentioned before, Eito has a weird love obsession for humans, for example: When he and Genya first met, Eito immediately felt infatuated towards Genya simply because the both of them wielded a firearm, when Eito met Tanjiro he also felt infatuated to him because of his determination, and Tanjiro sorta reminds Eito of Sekido a little bit, same with Inosuke, and many more. Now before you say anything -- "infatuation" means "an intense but short-lived passion or *admiration* for someone or something" so no, he is not pedophilic

His original BDA: Red Thread of Fate (運命の赤い糸 Unmei no Akai Ito): Eito is able to attach a red string onto a person without them knowing due to being invisible, giving him the ability to track them down anywhere, he's also able to take away their energy via the string, slowly killing them in the process (I was kinda thinking of a deadlier version of an Energy Vampire https://youtube.com/shorts/c3bf9PqN9r4?si=3kbCL11t4HWQS33Q)

He is also able to use the rope itself as a weapon because, well, it's a rope

His new BDA: Smothery Loving Bullets (息苦しい 愛する 弾丸 Ikigurushī Aisuru Dangan): Instead of bullets like a normal shotgun, instead he shoots out this liquid-y substance (I'm thinking something similar to bubblegum) that shoots out like those things that shoots out bubbles (and I'm just now realizing that this is very similar to Sigewinne 😓). The slime (for now I'm just gonna call it slime lmao) will then slowly float towards a target and latch onto them little by little until they're fully covered, due to it being air tight the victim will slowly die of asphyxiation, and due to how sticky and flexible it is, it's nigh on impossible for someone to cut through it, though with enough speed to create momentum someone could tear through the slime (I think that's how it works 😅).

I'm planning to do another clone because

And I dont think anyone has made a Desire clone yet

[gellavonhamster]

the wolf and the moon

Turn: Washington's Spies || Caleb Brewster/Benjamin Tallmadge || unspecified fantasy/magic AU ao3 link eng || this was first written and published on ao3 in Russian in 2017 but I didn’t attempt to translate it into English back then. 

You must not be afraid of the changes that I've made

I have come now to bring you away

To our bed that I have made with the seven stones I've laid

And covered in the finest of clay

Lay your head upon the ground, you shall never be found

I will guard against dangers that be

Until dawn comes around you must not make a sound

And I swear you will forever be with me

(Birch Book – Werewolf’s Eyes)

Looking back, Ben is utterly angry at himself for not catching on to what was happening to him until it was too late.

First he notices all smells become sharper. Gunpowder, sweat, horse dung, damp earth, campfire smoke, hair pomade. Hundreds of smells that were not as distinct before surround him in a smothery cloud that seems dense enough to spoon it up like fat broth. Ben frowns, dizzy with this suffocating mixture, and steals furtive glances at the others, trying to find out if they feel the same, but everyone is acting like everything’s normal. He does not dare to ask, suspecting how strange that would sound. The other officers keep their guard up with him as it is – sure, he’s well-mannered and all, but still, heaven knows what to expect from those magicians.

On the last night before the full moon, he blows out a candle in his tent, and suddenly realizes he can see perfectly in the dark. Then he begins to understand – although just what, not how. If he was bitten, he would have remembered it – or would he not? Leave it to Rogers and his men to wipe out his memories. Everyone knows his unit is made up of only those endowed with at least middling witchcraft powers. It is for this reason that much later Ben is so surprised to find out that Jordan – that is, Akinbode – has joined the ranks of Rangers. It is odd and upsetting to know that all those years someone else in Setauket was able to do magic apart from the four of them, and they had not the slightest idea.

It might be that the bayonet he was wounded with was soaked in something. Werewolf’s blood? Werewolf’s saliva? The next day, Ben all but runs to his tent each time he has a minute to spare and leafs through his papers frantically, his own notes and torn-out book pages alike. His command of sorcery is much poorer than imagined by most people in their army, Washington included. Compared to those who couldn’t even deal with a simple spell, he’s a magician indeed. In truth, however – and being aware of it has never made him feel as dejected before – he’s just another self-taught amateur. If what is happening to him is exactly what all the evidence suggests, then he is helpless. All he can do is steal out of the tent when it gets dark and the moon’s silver disk starts to glisten behind the clouds, and rush towards the forest. He manages to put on a smoke-and-mirrors spell so that no one notices he’s gone; at least he’s good enough for such trifles.

He makes it to the woods in time – as soon as he steps into the thicket, he convulses with excruciating pain. A bayonet is like a mosquito bite compared to that; worse, finishing off his brother in arms so as not to give himself away in front of Rogers and his band of warlocks is like a mosquito bite compared to that. It feels as if huge invisible hands are kneading him like dough and sculpting his flesh and bones into something else, ugly and unnatural. Ben struggles to keep his mouth shut, but he still screams.

Then he howls.

Then he’s racing through the woods surrounded by thousands of smells, which don’t seem as obnoxious as before, and he feels good – as good as never before, especially compared to that terrible pain earlier. The moss is springy under his paws and the air is fresh, and the blood of the hare he caught is hot and tastes better than any food he’s ever tried. There is no trace of the fear that has weighed down on him that entire day. How could he be afraid of this?

But when he wakes up at dawn in the depths of the forest completely naked, shivering with cold, his human face smeared with blood, the fear returns.

And the night after it proves itself justified.

***

After the second night, Ben returns to the camp, slips into his tent, falls down on his knees and howls and howls more than he did at night in honour of the full moon.

He has only vague memories of what happened. A dark silhouette sneaking through the woods. A jump, a loud cry, the cracking of neck vertebrae. A blue uniform torn to pieces. A warm throat in his maw. All of it blurred, befuddling; an unpleasant dream right before waking up. But what he saw in the morning he remembers clearly – and will never forget.

He’s not throwing up. He’s choking on tears, he’s shaking with disgust, but he’s not throwing up at all. God, why isn’t he throwing up from the thought of having gorged himself of human flesh last night?

Ben forces himself to get up. His body moves as if by itself – and is it his own anymore, really? Or is the only body he inhabits now that of a wolf, for which that nightmare is just another hunt, and not the most heinous crime imaginable? He keeps looking around the tent dully, until he understands that the thing he needs, the only thing that can save him and the others, is already at hand.

He cocks the pistol and puts it to his temple.

“No!”

An unseen force wrenches the pistol from his hand and throws it into the corner. A shot rings out – in vain.

“You shot a hole through my wall,” Ben says, tired. He doesn’t turn around; he can’t look Caleb in the eye, not after what he did last night. But Caleb is beside him in a blink of an eye, grabs his hand painfully, and makes him turn around – and then he has to look.

Ben isn’t sure he’s ever seen Caleb in such rage before.

“Screw you, Tallboy,” Caleb spits out wrathfully, looking up at him. “Have you lost your mind? What the hell was that?!”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Yeah, ‘cause it’s easier just to blow your brains out, right? Ben,” the tone of his voice changes, and so does his look, and now Caleb is looking at him with a desperate plea and fear and concern, and Ben wants to push him away and shout at him leave, I don’t deserve this, I don’t deserve a single drop of your worry, leave. “What’s going on?”

Ben wants to push him away – and yet he cannot.

“You’re going to hate me if I tell you.”

“No,” Caleb says firmly.

That’s what I fear, Ben thinks.

When he comes to the part about him killing someone – no, not just killing but half-devouring him, tearing him to pieces to the point of barely being able to make out the face in the morning, not a familiar one yet still striking horror and grief into him – he realizes he’s crying again. Ben wipes off his tears with his sleeve violently, hoping that Caleb doesn’t think he’s asking for pity. Pity he does not deserve. All he deserves is the pistol, now picked up off the ground and lying on the table, in wait for its hour. Ben knows what he’s going to ask of Caleb when he finishes his story. Ben is tormented by an almost complete certainty that Caleb will refuse him.

“We-e-ell,” drawls out Caleb when Ben is done. He was listening with uncharacteristic sobriety, but with no apparent fear, and that is wrong. He ought to be scared. “What was that poor devil even doing in the woods at night…”

“Caleb, what’s the difference?”

“Was he tryin’ to desert or what?”

“What. Is. The difference?” Ben draws back and stares at his friend with outrage. “What of it if he was? Even had it been a redcoat – Caleb, I bit a man to death! Tore out his throat like he was a rabbit!”

“Hush,” Caleb raises up both hands as if trying to shield himself from Ben’s voice. “Quit yelling. Here, drink,” he fishes a flat flask of Madeira out of the inside pocket of his coat, and pushes it into Ben’s hands.

“Right,” he begins as Ben drinks, gagging and coughing. “So we have to figure out what to do with that trouble of yours.”

“I’ve already figured everything out, and I was trying to do just that, until you barged in.”

“And thank God I did! Ben, I won’t let you kill yourself!”

“Then you will have to kill me,” Ben retorts, and takes the pistol from the table. “In the woods, now. Let’s go.”

Caleb stares at him in horror.

“No.”

“Lieutenant Brewster,” Ben raises his voice and holds the pistol out to Caleb, “that’s an order!”

Caleb takes the pistol and throws it aside – not by magic this time, but simply by hand.

“Stick your orders where the sun don’t shine, Captain,” he replies, his chin defiantly up. “Listen to me. We’re both magicians, right? We’ll figure it out and no one will have to shoot anyone. I’ll figure it out.”

Ben is silent. He’s scared of death, because he knows for sure he’ll go to hell – a magician, even though the church has a complex stance on magic; a killer, even though everyone kills at war; a werewolf, even though not of his own volition; a sodomite, even though he hasn’t ever dared to proposition anyone. He hates himself for this weakness, but he really is scared, man and wolf inside him alike. Besides, the army needs him, Washington needs him, his friends whom he dragged into another risky business need him. Of course he would prefer to stay alive – but he doesn’t see any conditions under which it is possible without subjecting others to mortal peril.

“Trust me,” Caleb says quietly, resolutely. He stares at Ben, imploring him with his warm, always so endlessly warm eyes, and Ben gives up.

***

At night, Ben returns to the forest, and the wolf returns home.

He throws off the scruples of conscience together with his former appearance. Only a tiny part remains, caught on that scrap of human sentience that still remains with him. That scrap causes him pain, but it also brings him hope – hope that strong as the wolf might be, it cannot beat Benjamin Tallmadge. He’s still here, with his guilt and his fear and his remorse, and he has no intention to leave this head.

But the wolf’s hunger is strong, and now, when the wolf has already partaken of human flesh, it’s all the more dangerous.

The camp is asleep. Only the sentries are walking to and fro, small figures barely distinguishable from the edge of the woods. Ben – no, the wolf, that’s all wolf – looks at them and makes a step forward.

A noise behind his back makes him turn around.

It’s a bear. Not the biggest there is, but undoubtedly still bigger than him. Ben bares his fangs, but is in no hurry to run away. It is the first time he sees this bear, the first time he sees any bear, but this one smells like something very familiar, something like home, and for the wolf it is enough not to be afraid of it.

The bear approaches him, extends a foreleg the way a person would extend a hand to point at something, and growls as if calling him somewhere. Ben turns to look at the sentries again.

The bear growls louder and gently nudges him with its paw, and Ben gives up.

Together they disappear deep into the woods, and then they hunt down a big deer, and its meat tastes almost as good as the meat of that young man – deserter or not – that Ben recently murdered.

When Ben wakes up as a man, he realizes two things. The first is that at night he managed to return closer to the camp, because the gnarled oak under which he’s lying is well familiar to him.

The second is that someone’s lying by his side, hugging him at the small of his back.

Ben detaches himself, pushing off the hugging arm, and sits up abruptly.

“Caleb,” and of course it’s Caleb, naked and muddy like him, with leaves and tiny twigs in his hair and beard. “Caleb, wake up!”

“Why are you yellin’, why d’ya always have to yell?” Caleb mutters drowsily, and bats Ben’s hand away when Ben tries to shake him by the shoulder. At last he opens his eyes and sits up too. “Morning, Benny.”

“Morning?” Ben is positively at a loss. He certainly doesn’t like the most obvious explanation – that is, that Caleb followed him through the woods last night, at the risk of being mauled by a beast that does not care who Benjamin Tallmadge’s closest childhood friends are. “Caleb, how did you get here? How did you find me? Did you go after me last night or what?”

“Yeah,” Caleb shrugs, stretches, and gets up, and Ben does his utmost to look away. Caleb pulls clothes, his own and Ben’s, from a hole beneath the oak roots, and throws him his shirt. “Spent all night with you, don’t you remember?”

When it dawns upon Ben, he is halfway through putting his shirt on, and his sudden shudder almost results in him tearing it.

“You’re out of your mind,” he hisses, leaps to his feet too, and grabs Caleb by the shirt. If someone catches them like that – away from the camp, scantily clad – it won’t be easy to explain themselves, but this is not what he’s worried about at present. “I thought you promised to figure out how to stop the wolf!”

“And I did,” Caleb replies nonchalantly, struggling to pry Ben’s fingers away from his sleeve.

“By becoming the same thing as I?!”

“I’m not the same thing, Ben! You were turned, I turned myself. You become a wolf, I keep a man’s mind in a bear’s body. A curious ritual, I learned about it in Canada,” Caleb covers his hand with his own and grins with delight. “Was eager to try it out for some time, see if I could handle it.”

Ben could say a lot about Caleb’s flippant attitude towards magic, but he has long understood that in some cases, it is no use wasting his breath.

“And how is this going to help up?” is all he asks.

Caleb smiles. Every time it gives him laughter lines; this mirth is going to make him all wrinkles when he grows old.

“Weren’t you lickin’ your lips at the sentries last night? But you didn’t go to them. You went with me. I’m stronger and bigger, I can hold you back if needed,” he gives Ben’s shoulder a friendly slap. “As long as I’m with you, you won’t hurt anybody.”

No, thinks Ben, but if neither you nor I are strong enough to resist our respective beast, there will be even more victims.

***

Strange as it may be, it works out. From one full moon to another, their lives are nearly the same as before – the military affairs, the spy ring business, magic-related or not. The bear guards the wolf against hunting in the camp of the Continental Army. Lieutenant Brewster guards Captain – now Major – Tallmadge against going mad with self-loathing and self-abhorrence.

Nathaniel Sackett, a seasoned magician, gets to the bottom of it at once.

“You need a suitable amulet, young man,” he says, looking over Ben with the curiosity of a scientist who has caught a peculiar bird. “Then it will be easier for you to control yourself. You’ll even be able not to depend on the full moon and transform whenever it is convenient for you. Like your friend here.”

“Convenient?” Ben echoes, frowning. “It will never be ‘convenient’ for me, sir. It is not about my convenience, but about the safety of others.”

“But you could be useful on the battlefield in this, hmm, capacity.” Sackett doesn’t seem to notice Ben’s indignation. “Haven’t it occurred to you?”

“No,” lies Ben.

Sackett clicks his tongue. “I’ll see what could be done.”

“He’s insane,” whispers Ben in frustration, when Sackett leaves to meet Washington.

Caleb shrugs. “All magicians are a bit out there,” he points out philosophically. “Just look at the two of us. Though we clearly have a long way to go compared to him.”

“Oh, it’s all fun to you, isn’t it? You furry blockhead.”

“No furrier than you,” Caleb replies good-naturedly.

If it was not for his cheerful nature and eternal unshakeable faith in them being able to get through it all, the wolf would have long gnawed down Benjamin Tallmadge’s soul.

***

The amulet that Sackett hands him looks like a flower or an open pine cone – petals made of different species of wood, and a silver core.

“Put it around your neck on the full moon. And don’t you dare take it off even if it hurts. And it will hurt,” he instructs. “Concentrate on the memories of home, family, friends, loved ones – everything that makes you human. Brewster shall watch over you. I believe it sensible for him to do that in his bear form, to be on the safe side.”

“Thank you, sir,” Ben says ardently as he takes the pendant.

The first night of the full moon, he doesn’t succeed. The amulet hurts him indeed – like pressing a hot iron to his chest. Ben musters all his strength, but in the end he cannot bear it, and tears the pendant off. On his chest, a red print remains. That night he howls at the moon desperately, and Caleb lies in a pit and watches him and waits patiently for him to cry it all out.

The following night, Caleb ties him to a tree.

“Are you sure?” he asks for the last time.

Ben snarls.

The moon comes out, and the amulet bites into his skin, into the still-raw yesterday’s burn. Caleb shucks off his clothes and shapeshifts. Ben still cannot get used to how awful the transformation appears to an onlooker – the body mashed and spread and bent, the limbs twisting unnaturally, the fur growing out in an instant. Ben is well familiar with the kind of pain Caleb is experiencing, but even it seems like nothing compared to the one caused by the amulet.

Sackett told him: when he subdues the wolf, the pain will cease.

Sackett told him: keep thinking of what makes you human.

Through pain, Ben reminisces his father and his late mother, his brothers, their sweet old house and the neat small church in Setauket. The memories of home seem like the memories of a past life; none of this exists anymore. The British soldiers sit in their church. Samuel is dead. Nathan, whom he also reminisces, whom he could never forget, is dead as well.

The silver burns his skin, the tree bark scratches even through the shirt, and the wolf inside him howls in pain. It is hard to focus on anything but pain, yet he tries.

Father. Abe. Anna. Washington.

Happy New Year, Tallboy.

Caleb, his sleepy smile, the warmth by his side, the arm on his waist.

I won’t let you kill yourself.

Ben screams until he suddenly realizes that the pain has passed. The bear lying next to him raises his head and nuzzles against his thigh.

The night after, he stares at the moon with human eyes, the amulet pleasantly cooling his chest.

***

Little by little, he learns – not only to trap the beast inside, but also to let it out when it is his own wish, not that of the skies above. When the moon isn’t full, the hunger isn’t as strong, and he need not fear that his feet – his paws – would bring him to the camp; not that Caleb would let that happen, anyway. What he is the most afraid of is losing the amulet in the thicket; he keeps Sackett’s notes, in which it is explained, among other useful things, how to make one, but that would require a long time and a variety of materials that would be hard to come by.

Little by little, he learns to accept that he likes it – the quiet of the woods, the moonlight, the wind singing in his ears, the delicious night air, clear as spring water. The thrill of the hunt and the lazy bliss of fullness. Falling asleep with his nose pressed into the coarse brown fur; waking up with his cheek pressed against Caleb’s chest. Something completely unthinkable and still completely natural, as if someone decided way before they were born that they would sleep best like that – nestled up to each other, not a scrap of clothes between them, the all-forgiving starlight above.

Sometimes Ben is grateful to Rogers for cursing him.

Once, having woken up at sunrise, he goes through the memories of the past night – now that his animal form is subject to the amulet, it is much easier to restore them. They killed a deer and feasted on the hot meat, and then fell down to the ground, sated and tired. The bear tumbled on his back spread-eagle, rolling about funnily and flattening the moss. The wolf climbed on top of him and nipped at his nose. Both had snouts and paws covered in blood, and they licked each other for a long time, played like pups, until the wolf fell asleep and the bear must’ve fallen asleep after him.

Ben, having carefully disentangled himself from Caleb, gazes at him and thinks absentmindedly that the dark hair on his chest and belly looks like animal fur. And that the wolf has already fallen asleep, retreated into the farther corner of his mind, and yet he still wants to lick.

Ben has no idea if beasts are prone to the same sin as some men, including him, but he knows that a wolf cannot and would not think of mating with a bear. The shade their night-time games acquire in his eyes does not come from the wolf, which cannot tell right from wrong. It comes from Benjamin Tallmadge, reverend’s son, the honorary virgin of the entire Continental Army, who’d rather die than admit why he never joined his fellows on a visit to a brothel. He remembers Caleb telling him that the ritual lets him keep a human mind in a beast’s body. Ben is not sure it is still so; Caleb turned without him present several times, stayed alone with the bear, and sometimes Ben worries that confident in his power, he might succumb to his second nature entirely. Still, what Ben would like to know most of all is what Caleb the bear, or Caleb the man in a bear’s frame, thought when he ran his rough tongue over Ben’s belly.

He daren’t ask, but in the evening, when they already can sleep peacefully in the camp because the moon has begun to wane, he comes to Caleb’s tent. The candle is blown out, but Caleb, who is now able to see in the dark perfectly well, like Ben, is still awake.

“Tallboy, what is it?” Caleb asks anxiously when Ben enters and carefully closes the tent flaps. “Has something happened?”

Ben steps up to him, heart beating so wildly as if it is going to break out of his body, and tilts his head to lick Caleb’s neck, animal-like, and then kisses him on the lips, as people do.

Caleb sighs loudly, his eyes closed, and leans to kiss him back.

He growls, leaning on Ben with all his weight on the cot too narrow for two, and Ben bites Caleb’s shoulder when he comes, but apart from that they have no reason to blame all that on the animals in their heads.

That night, Ben presses his snout – no, his face – to Caleb’s neck, and sleeps even more soundly than in the open air.

***

Gradually, the truth comes out. Not all of it, fortunately; not about the two of them. And not about Ben, in contrast to Caleb, being turned against his will, not being able to control the beast at first, and tearing a fellow soldier to pieces on top of that. Everyone believes Ben made the decision to turn in order to become a more dangerous foe to the British army. Washington thinks so. Everyone thinks so. Ben is in no hurry to change their minds.

On the battlefield, both of them are of more use on two feet, with weapons and spells ready, but a couple of times, when ambush is required, they face the enemy in their other bodies. This is enough for the British to start talking about them. As Ben learns from Townsend, casting a spell to communicate with him through a bowl of water (at the end of the conversation, Townsend, icily polite, asks him if he could henceforth warn him somehow before appearing in his washbasin – if it is not too much trouble, of course), the blue-eyed wolf even gains some grand nicknames in the enemy camp. The General’s Cerberus, Washington’s Hellhound. The fact that Ben, lofty manner notwithstanding, is still considered to be a dog is insufferably amusing to Caleb. The latter, however, is not accorded anything more sophisticated than the Shaggy Devil or the Hairy Devil or similar variations on the theme of the devil and bears. Ben likes to respond to Caleb’s dog-related teasing by saying that Caleb’s human appearance is as deserving of these names as the animal one, if not more.

In the camp, they’re respected, yet given a wide berth – both of them, even the ever jovial Caleb, and that continues when Anna joins them. The soldiers are intrigued by her, but also intimidated – which is not unwise, to be fair, considering she’s always been the most skilled magician among the four of them. Washington’s coven, soldiers whisper. A witch and two warlocks – only Abe is missing from the set.

Ben is glad Anna is with them – not just because he needn’t worry she might get in trouble away from her friends, but also because they need a safeguard. He’s reached an understanding with his wolf, and Caleb has been in tune with his bear from the start, but at the end of the day they are still wild beasts. He makes Anna a copy of the instruction on how to make the amulet from Sackett’s notes, and tells her to always keep a pistol with at least two silver bullets at hand to stop him or Caleb if worst comes to worst. Or (he doesn’t say that, though) to stop Caleb first and then, regardless of circumstances, him. An amulet is an amulet, but Ben cannot shake off the feeling that the lion’s share of his control over the beast is tied to Caleb’s presence.

He has heard somewhere that wolves mate for life anyway.

“I just hope I won’t have to use it,” says Anna with a sad smile, accepting the pistol.

“You won’t have to,” Caleb says with confidence and hugs her by the shoulders. “It’ll be alright.” Ben looks at them, and the wolf in his head curls up snugly and falls asleep.

[mossymandibles]

(feel free to ignore if you don't wanna answer this about your OCs)

Whats Kraw like in bed? Is he cuddly? Does he like taking the lead or letting his partner do that?

Asking partially cause he hot and partially cause Im wanna know more about whats going on in his noggin cause he's a cool character

I’m okay answering these types of questions if they’re asked in a sort respectful way so you’re good =]

Well I’d say he enjoys both roles, but where he doesn’t normally come in contact with people of his size, he doesn’t tend to take lead very often unless they are absolutely comfortable with it. He’s definitely a generous lover though and open to a lot of things but he relies heavily on communication and wants to know he’s not hurting anyone. When he takes lead it’s usually with well ‘built’ people or someone closer to his body type.

Kraw does not like to be touched in certain ways unless he’s in the mood and/or gives permission, even for partners he’s familiar with (eg. no kissing and gods don’t wake him up by groping him first thing). Sylvaine had to learn this as well, even with medical matters.

He doesn’t normally fall asleep easily with other partners in bed except Zaander (his fwb) because he tends to get a bit smothery in his sleep. Thankfully he doesn’t roll around a lot but since he was young he’d wrap up with his tail like his own body pillow, so anyone within the vicinity will often get the same treatment. Zaander doesn’t mind and he knows Kraw won’t squeeze or anything, but some partners might find it to be claustrophobic or scary.

Despite enjoying physical contact and cuddling, Kraw can be self aware to a fault just because of his size alone but since Zaander has known him for a while he feels comfortable with him and they’re both familiar with each other’s boundaries (Zaander hardly has any, he even trusts Kraw enough to let him do teeth play type of stuff).

[muse-of-nothing]

IndulgenceStuck!Meenah: there's nothing wrong with me

IS!Meenah: *has anger issues/no real emotional control* *has a lot of trouble trusting others* *thinks hitting people is normal* *is clearly deeply traumatized in general*

IS!Meenah: i am clearly the normal one here

[jomiddlemarch]

The shapes a bright container can contain! 

III. “Who’s looking after you?” Draco asked. 

He was sitting in a slat backed chair he’d dragged up beside her bed. It seemed mean that the few private rooms in the Hogwarts infirmary only held a twin bed and a side-table, far more like a prison cell than he felt was appropriate but perhaps reflective of the very little time anyone at Hogwarts had spent at Azkaban. Hermione was propped up with pillows, her hands laid flat on the white coverlet on her lap. Her hair had been washed but not tended especially well, wrestled back into an unruly, lumpy plait that spoke to unfamiliarity with either charms or potions. There was a cup of tea on the table, apparently untouched, as was the iced biscuit tucked at the base of the saucer.

“What do you mean—”

“I mean, who notices when you leave meals early? That you’re too pale, that you always answer when anyone asks, that you don’t count any danger to yourself too great? Who should’ve been the one to follow you, to stop you. To keep you from drowning?” Draco said, his voice a little too tightly controlled, too calmly even for her to not to be aware he somehow, for some reason, was nearly incandescent with rage. “It shouldn’t have been me. You’d never have thought I’d come running—I almost didn’t come, didn’t run, except that the children were too quiet—"

“They were scared,” she said.

“They bloody well should have been,” he said. “I was terrified—”

“I look after myself,” she said, answering the earlier question. She looked down at her hands but he didn’t think she saw them. 

“You look after other people,” he countered. She looked up, startled. But not offended, not yet. Perhaps she wouldn’t be. “I understand, when we were children, everyone thought you were the brightest witch of our age. You knew better than everyone else, it was all right to rely on you but now—Potter doesn’t try? Neville?”

“Harry was brought up by people who treated him about as badly as your father treated House-elves. And then he lost Sirius and Molly basically commandeered him as an honorary Weasley with years of parenting to be made up for. She can be rather smothery, it’s not an approach he could really model himself after,” Hermione said. “He’s not very good at it. And he uses most of what he’s got to give on his own children, as he should.”

“Fine. I think you’re cutting him too much slack but I am willing to admit you know him better. But Neville? It’s not like him, not to notice, he’s always been so fond of you,” Draco said, trailing off.

“Exactly,” Hermione replied. “I can’t—it’s not fair to him, when he feels one way and I…”

“He’s in love with you and you only care about him as a friend, so you don’t let him get close,” Draco said. 

“You’re as blunt as a bludger,” Hermione said.

“If you mean a Gryffindor, you might as well say it,” Draco shrugged. “You nearly died, I’m trying not to tax you too greatly.”

“You needn’t worry,” she said.

“You’re wrong. I know it’s an unfamiliar experience for you and that you’re likely to tell me I’m the one who’s wrong,” he said.

“Because you are,” she replied.

“No, I’m not. Because I’m the one who dragged you out of a loch in Scotland in November, because you couldn’t get yourself out, despite being one of the most powerful witches alive in England,” he said. “Someone else needs to worry about you. Though I prefer looking after, since worrying is largely ineffectual and won’t stop you from depleting your entire magical core, a real feat, I must add, given your previously mentioned magical strength, and getting yourself killed or at least maimed without the prospect of any recovery, if we go by your predilections. And it will surely be in a way that creates maximum guilt in your friends and associates. Neville will be beside himself and Potter may end up going through a midlife crisis and becoming the next Dark Lord.  He’ll grow a goatee and be generally intolerable.”

“You know what a midlife crisis is?” Hermione said. Her lips curved and he realized it was the first time he’d seen her smile in months. A real smile, where the expression in her eyes matched.

“Yes, I don’t live under a rock. Potter would be a little young by Wizard standards, but I think like you, he still sees himself as a Muggle first,” Draco replied. 

“Not wrong,” she said.

“Oh, are we playing a game now?” Draco said. “I’ll win. You’ve always been pants at chess and you can’t stand Quidditch.”

“Draco, what do you want?” she said. She settled back against the pillows and he could feel her exhaustion. The Hogwarts linens were too thin. She ought to be covered in a fluffy duvet, supported by a featherbed. There should be a pair of sheepskin slipper warming on a fender.

“I want you to be properly looked after. I’ve—we’ve both lost too many people in our lives. I don’t want you to be someone else who’s lost,” he said. “I spoke to Abbott and the Headmistress, they allowed me to see whether your quarters were adequate for your recovery and the suite is hardly better kitted out than this room, might as well belong to a hermit—”

“You had no right,” she said.

“You’re right. I didn’t. But I did ask permission from your physician and your superior. When Neville heard, he didn’t scold me,” Draco said. “All the plants he gave you are dead, by the way. Even the metalmalarky cactus”

“You still haven’t said what you want. Not directly,” she replied.

“I want to look after you. Myself. I have a property nearby. You know I don’t live in the dungeons like Snape did,” Draco said. The man had been a masochist or Dumbledore had had him under house arrest. There was no way Draco would ever have agreed to live adjacent to his classroom and he certainly wasn’t going to allow the Hogwarts dungeon to be his son’s home. He and Astoria had bought the small estate shortly after Scorpius was born, an act of faith that the baby would not be a Squib and a commitment to being present in their child’s life as neither of their own parents had been. 

“You want me to live in your house?”

“It’s a not insignificant property. There’s a carriage house, entirely separate. But it’s got all the mod cons and a library, a conservatory,” he said.

“A carriage house with a conservatory. Only you, Malfoy. Will you feed me hothouse grapes from your lily-white hand?” she said.

“I’ll stock the library with Regency romances, as you seem to have a taste for them,” he said, slipping the cufflinks out of his cuffs and rolling them back so she could see the calluses on his palms, the spatter of old burns he’d never bothered to fully heal. “Not lily-white. Say yes, Hermione. Let me help—”

“You’ll badger me endlessly if I refuse, won’t you?” she said. She could have sighed and didn’t. He let himself hope.

“I’ll have to. I don’t fancy a repeat of today’s dip in the loch. The Squid is whatever squid is for handsy,” he said. She raised an eyebrow and he decided to pivot. “It was too close. Please. Please allow it.”

“I suppose since you’ve asked so nicely, I’d be an utter wretch to refuse,” she said.

“Yes, I think that would be the consensus. Here and of course, elsewhere. Abroad. Across the pond,” Draco said, relief making him a bit giddy. “Shall I go on?”

“I think I’d rather nap for a little while. Then Hannah can tell us whether I’m allowed to Side-along or whether we’ll have to take Muggle transport.”

“That’s fine. I’ll get everything sorted. Let the looking after commence,” he replied, lowering his voice as Hermione’s eyes grew dozy.

[tenth-sentence]

Yet already it felt to Jill and Eustace as if all their dangers in the dark and heat and general smotheriness of the earth must have been only a dream.

"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair" - C. S. Lewis

[askauradonprep]

Carina: (Singing ) Skip The Drama, Stay with Mama ~ Mother Knows Best!

Young Lampwick: Mama I want to WALK down the isle … NOT Wheel down it!!!

XD Ahhhh Lampwick, sassing his mom again already.

Really though, Carina, you don't need to be so smotheri - oh. Wait. Right. Pleasure Island.

Okay, fine, you can have a smothering phase.

[prophecyguided]

@dreamsofalife || from x

The hug was incredibly comforting, and for the first time since all of this started, she felt safe and content. She was definitely gonna have to do something nice for Barclay for talking her through all of this.

As much as it hurt to hear that he’d been through worse somehow, the message wasn’t lost for it. For once, Shy just listened, absorbing what was told to her, hoping against hope that it wasn’t too late to fix...or, well, not try to fix, her mistakes past. It didn’t hurt that Barclay was so kind in his explanation; he understood and wasn’t saying it to be critical or call her out. He understood the score and wanted things to work out, and if anything that made it an easier pill to swallow.

“You’re right...I’m sorry, I know I’ve been kinda...control-freaky lately, and that’s not the way this needs to be handled. I get so worked up about stuff and trying to make it better that sometimes I think I forget that there’s stuff that you can’t really do that for.” She bit her lip, still troubled by everything, but very clearly taking what he said to heart. “I just gotta take a step back and not get so overprotective and smothery and stuff, and be more of a support and less of a...I don’t think tank is the right term, but I’m not sure what the right one would even be.”

She almost jumped right back to hugging him, but hung back, not willing to dive right back in to acting on pure emotion once more. “Thanks for talking me through this...and for listening. You probably get this a lot, but you’d be a great counselor.”

Good thing for Shy, Barclay was a hugger. He pulled her back into the hug when he saw the hesitation, his hand giving her back a little pat.

"You got it. When he comes back, don't rush him or try to smother him, just give him a little space and ask what he needs. Just don't be too disheartened if he just asks for some space. That may be what he needs most so try not to take it personally."

Barclay gave one last squeeze before he let go, laughing a little. "Well, I'm just speaking from experience. You make mistakes but you learn from them and then you use that new knowledge going forward. Now, let's go see about that power washer and gettin' this graffiti off, okay?"

It was easy enough to find it in storage and it seemed to have all the pieces as far as he could tell. It was loud as all hell when he turned it on but it was enough to get the spray paint off without damaging the RV. After a but he offers it to Shy, hoping actively doing something to help would improve her mood. Or at least keep her mind preoccupied until the others got back.

[maligknightsthorns]

salvia : is your muse possessive over people or things that matter a lot to them ? how do they express that possessiveness , or lack thereof ?

Possessive is putting it lightly :)

She is incredibly possessive of her siblings, it comes across as her being smothering/motherly but its because she needs to be the one who makes them happy. She needs to be mothering and caring, she needs to prove to herself that she isn't her mother.

Here at the officer's academy she's done a bit better, she has more positive distractions (students worries instead of War) which has helped her ease off of her family a bit. She will defend the students fiercely and will butt heads with anyone she thinks is being too stern.

As a note its hard for me, Rosie, to keep track of everyone Camilla is possessive of outside of the Nohrians bc I forgor things but just know that unless ur a lil shit Camilla will probably smother your muse eventually too.

Also I greatly enjoy how the fates cast is constantly sending silly little messages to each other esp for birthdays and such. Yall make it easier for Camilla to be so smothery ^.^