Fandom: December Talking Meme #6: Werewolves in Fiction

[escritoireazul]

December Talking Meme Master List

(There are still some days left open in the meme, if you want to suggest a(nother) topic.)

Day 6 suggested by lilacsigil: werewolves in fiction.

I chose December 6 for this topic because it's the full moon, and I thought that was fitting. I've been excited about this topic since she suggested it, and now I don't know where to start. I just love werewolves so much.

My first werewolf movie -- my first horror movie -- was The Howling, and I've loved werewolves ever since. I don't know exactly how old I was, but pretty young. My dad was a truck driver, and I was on the road with him one summer when we stopped at a truck stop to take a break. We got showers, dinner, and settled in the drivers' lounge. When I told this story to Mom a few years before she died, Dad swore he must have fallen asleep, because he didn't remember it at all, and wouldn't have wanted to watch a horror movie in the first place. (We never watched them at the house growing up because even just the sound of a horror movie freaked Mom out hard. Though one day I did get a call from Mom and Dad to tell me all about this movie they watched that they didn't think they'd like but ended up enjoying and watching to the end even once they realized it was a horror movie: Silent Hill.)

I've seen The Howling probably a thousand times now, so I have no idea if any specific part stuck with me from that specific viewing. I know the werewolves themselves stuck with me, though, for three reasons. One, I tend to judge every werewolf transformation against the transformations in that one. Two, as much as I enjoy stories where the werewolves are controlled by the cycles of the moon, I tend to default in my writing to werewolves that can change at will.

And third, I have a very clear memory of walking out of the truck stop after the movie. I don't have a ton of clear memories from my childhood, so it's nice that this is one of them. We were parked quite a few rows back, and we had to walk past line after line of big rigs, all with their engines running. All together, those engines make a rumble that you can feel in your teeth. The smell of diesel was thick and full. Long shadows stretched between the trucks. Dad walked a few steps ahead of me. It was late, and I was tired, but riding the adrenaline of the rush from my first horror movie.

And as we walked, I pictured werewolves on top of the trailers, furred bodies rising up against the glow from the lamps along the edges of the parking lot. They would spring from one truck to another, claws on metal, heads tilted back to howl challenges into the night. They were strong and animal, and I wanted to leap and run with them.

Werewolves running along the tops of big trucks is one of my strongest memories of my childhood. There's another about dinosaurs and interstates from right after I read Jurassic Park for the first time. Always telling stories, me?

I've loved werewolves ever since.

Now, I recognize that one of the reasons I love them is because I identify with them hard, particularly people who struggle to control the wolf. Something monstrous lurking inside, threatening to break free and leave destruction? Why, hello, Carla's experience with bipolar. (This is also why I identified so hard with Ruffalo's portral of Banner in Avengers.) My mental health has cycles, werewolves and their moon have cycles. When I'm at my worst, I can lash out hard, monstrous and destructive.

I love werewolf movies, cheesy, smart, ridiculous. Werewolves in books are more hit or miss, mostly because so many authors rely heavily on alpha dynamics, particularly abusive male alphas. Alpha dynamics have been debunked in wolves anyway, and I particularly hate it when they're treated as nature and inevitable and oh, yeah, it completely makes sense that men more in touch with their animal side are vicious and dangerous, blah blah blah.

Give me werewolf women any fucking day.

I love stories about packs as a fantastic example of created families, people learning to control this new power, the way enhanced senses make them interact with the world in different ways. (J has super hearing and smell. I use him as a guinea pig a lot when writing werewolves.)

One thing I am now poking at is the ABO thing in fandom. I'm curious as to the appeal, and I'd love recs to meta and/or fic, particularly fic heavy on the ladies. Talk to me, people.

In conclusion, werewolves. <3

Comments

[ithiliana]

*love the werewolves too* though I actually don't like werewolf movies (though I fell hard as a kid for Quentin Collins in DARK SHADOWS, OMG!)

I agree about the problems with abusive alpha male trope, and how screwed up the original research was on wolves ("let's study captive animals and assume it's natural behavior DOH").

I do love Patricia Briggs' series though there is the alpha thing going on, but her main protagonist is a coyote shifter who is seriously resistant to submitting to any alpha shit. (She has a smaller newer spin off series with an Omega, but I don't think it's the same thing as the ABO in fandom though I don't really know enough about the ABO in fandom to say anything about it). So I'd love to hear more about what you're thinking about it!

[lightbird]

Great post. I've actually never seen The Howling but I should probably check it out.

I liked An American Werewolf in London very much, and the old 1980s Teen Wolf is somewhat tacky at times and kind of falls apart, but it's fun and I liked young Michael J. Fox. But my favorite werewolf movie of all time is Ginger Snaps. Werewolf women!

[havocthecat]

The third Ginger Snaps film is even better, in my opinion, because it's a period piece and I am highly susceptible to period pieces with women in long, flowing gowns who are turning into monsters and taking their power back.

[lightbird]

I still never watched the 3rd one. Sounds great. I will definitely have to get to viewing it.

[havocthecat]

It's actually called Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning, which I did not remember, but went to look up because I wanted to make sure I was pointing you at the right film.

[schneefink]

One of my favorite things about werewolf fic is a werewolf pack, that longing for community. A human pack, if there's only one werewolf. a/b/o doesn't have that, so it hits different kinks for me.

snickfic has an Epic List of A/B/O Ladies that you might be interested in :)

[havocthecat]

Werewolves! I love them, but slightly less than vampires, I think mostly because I'm used to alpha werewolf bullshit and I hate it so much, because I love werewolves that don't have the alpha thing going on. Boring. (I'm also allergic to "you do what I say all the time in every situation because 100% of the time I am the best person to be in the lead" which is not how life works. Also, biologically-enforced dominance doesn't allow for character growth and depth when you're not the alpha, so I don't care for that either.)

I think Ginger Snaps and Ginger Snaps 3 are my favorite werewolf films. I like An American Werewolf in London and I haven't seen The Howling, but I should clearly look it up. If you like it, chances are I would also. (I have seen Howling III, which I thought was utterly terrible.) I've seen so many of the old Universal werewolf films, and I love the Underworld films. (I don't know if you noticed, but the lycans are far, far smarter and more strategically minded than the vampires.)

I'm kind of sad that the Lost Boys sequels ended, if only because I really did want them to move into werewolf territory like they were hinting at in the third film. Even if the third film was utterly terrible and more like a Uwe Boll-fest than a Lost Boys film.

I'm developing my wish list post and a large portion of it is asking for recs, so maybe I should ask for werewolf women in fiction lists - especially if it avoids alpha bullshit.

[dhampyresa]

Werewolves! I always feel like I should watch/read/etc werewolf stuff more than I do; I love the idea of them, but I'm hard pressed to point to anything I've loved them in or even that I've watched/read/etc with them in.

Oh! Has anyone done Romans + Werewolves yet? That would be awesome.

[havocthecat]

Oh, the Romans would make excellent werewolves. Why didn't I think of that?

[dhampyresa]

The symbolism is all there already!

[havocthecat]

It really, really is, and I'm mentally facepalming myself at somehow completely missing that connection even though I am an avid fan of Roman history and immediately leapt to, "Oh, Lupercalia would be a perfect festival for the wolves to go absolutely wild during!"

[dhampyresa]

Oh, man, Lupercalia would be the only time where they'd be allowed to be wolves instead of men, because they're Romans, they have standards. I wonder if there would be some sort of pack-bonding enforced in the Legion?

[lilacsigil]

Yes! Thank you for this excellent rundown of your history with werewolves! They've been very hit-and-miss for me, mostly because of the stupid Alpha Wolf trope, but whenever they're done right, they're so awesome!