What if the growls were a warning?
Sweet's Clothing
is a series of Spooky Month oneshot fanfics by ILovetheTalkingClock, starting as one-off called The Night Off before continuing with more a month after.
The series deals with some of the points in life of Candy Club worker Kevin, along with his boyfriend Streber and their close pal Radford. However, one of the things that differs from other stories involving the three is a particular twist: Ever since puberty started for him, Kevin had been dealing with an ancient curse in his bloodline.
Yeah, thing is he's a werewolf.
The series is ongoing, with stories uploading when the author feels like it.
Sweet's Clothing provides examples of:
- Adaptational Gender Identity: The series depicts Kevin as a trans man; for Spooky Month trivia, Pelo confirmed he was canonically cis.
- Alternate Identity Amnesia: Kevin's human mind goes into a sleeplike state around the time he transforms, so he can't remember much, if anything, of what happens in lupine form.
- Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": Kevin's werewolf form is only referred to as "the wolf". It does act and sound like a wolf, and it resembles one in silhouette, but its general look can be more described as a dinosaur-hybrid or a Hellhound.
- Menstrual Menace: The First Change's flashback has Kevin initially experiencing cramps due to his first period, but he gets a high suspicion that something is wrong when his cramps only worsen even after taking medicine, and his father quickly realizes what it is...
- Mistaken for Own Murderer: On The Loose has Radford walk in just after Kevin has transformed during work. When the beast escapes, Radford snaps out of his Stunned Silence to tell an approaching Streber that a "giant dog of some sort" ate Kevin. Thankfully, Streber knows what really happened and explains the real situation to Radford before any action is taken.
- Monster Delay: Kevin's wolf form is obscured for the first three stories, The Night Off ending just as Kevin's transforming, and Love Bites and The First Change having really only the morning after the full moon. On The Loose finally had Kevin's wolf form be more focused on, and an included illustration shows that it's only really a wolf in mentality and general silhouette.
- Multiple Narrative Modes: The series is mostly in third person, but Kevin recounting the first time he transformed is written is first person.
- Open-Minded Parent: Kevin's father is shown to be very accepting of his son being trans. Considering he married and had a child with a werewolf, why wouldn't he?
- Our Werewolves Are Different:
- The full moon transformations and blackouts are true, but the ideas of the curse being The Virus and the Silver Bullet weakness are inventions of myth and cinema. This is discussed by both Kevin and Streber and Streber and Radford during Love Bites and On The Loose, respectively.
- The transformed state of a werewolf has a mentality more in-line of an actual wolf, being still dangerous if not approached properly but otherwise just an animal. The shift between the human mind and wolf mind is described as the human "going to sleep" while the wolf "wakes up".
- The First Change reveals that the abilities don't manifest until puberty, Kevin's first transformation in particular coinciding with his first period.
- It Runs in the Family. Kevin is a werewolf because his late mother was one.
- Kevin's werewolf form is similar to the man-wolf, but with a touch more Body Horror: he's covered head to toe in fur, and his limbs are long and gangly with sharp claws that burst out of his fingers. Unique to this series' interpretation of them is rather than a wolf face, Kevin's face resembles that of a lizard, being completely hairless with multi-rimmed eyes, and lines of skin connecting his jaw together. In addition, there are spikes coming out of his back.
- Painful Transformation: An interesting variation. Kevin experiences an intense amount of pain when the transformation starts, but his mind goes into wolf state right when he begins to physically shift, and the wolf isn't said to feel anything bad.
- Pun-Based Title: The title of the series comes from the classic phrase "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing", rethemed to fit Kevin's job at the Candy Club.
- Secret-Keeper:
- According to Love Bites, Streber found out about Kevin's lycanthropy after he ran off on prom night, and Streber realized it was a full moon. It was actually his first guess, and he was happy hearing he was right.
- After Kevin unknowingly goes to work on a full moon, Radford is let in on his secret after seeing his wolf form in the Candy Club during On The Loose.
- This Was His True Form: The First Change reveals Kevin's mother was shot and killed by a hunter while in wolf form. When the hunter goes to check the corpse, he finds the body of a human woman.
- Werewolves Are Dogs: Downplayed. Kevin in wolf form is especially docile to Streber, raids a trash can, and howls in response to hearing what he thinks is a cat, but he doesn't bark and his behavior is more in line with a moderately tamed wolf than a straight-up dog.
- Wham Line: Built up and implied over the course The Night Off, the final line of the fic fully reveals that Kevin is indeed a werewolf.It was time for him to rest.And for the wolf to wake up.
