So many books and tv shows about werewolves worship this dominance culture, especially a male-centric dominance hierarchy, and sometimes it drives me nuts because it’s regarded as the default. That if humans transformed into beasts, of course most of the survivors would be men, and of course they’d be violent and territorial and murderous, and of course they’d be vaguely chauvinistic because ‘they can’t help it that’s just how werewolves are’.
It’s this idea that the metaphor for a beast as one’s inner nature is reserved for male characters and male violence, tossed in with frequently-inaccurate anthropomorphic assumptions about animal pack culture.
Where are the stories about the werewolf packs that are mostly female? Where are the stories about the fact that women who’ve born children have a higher pain tolerance than men and would better survive the bite? Where are the stories about the women who spend so much time controlling their passions and their emotions and their desires to navigate in a man’s world that they adapt all to well to controlling their mystical transformations too?
What does a pack of all female werewolves look like? Is there a hierarchical structure, or something else? Does it mean the same thing to be an alpha, a beta? What does it mean to be a lone wolf?
I want the stories about how men who are bitten are more likely to go mad from trying to keep a duality in their minds instead of coming to consensus and sharing space with their wolf-spirit. I want stories about the female alpha wolf who only offers the bite to other girls, because dudes have already fucked up ruling the human world, let’s not let them have the supernatural one too.
I want the story about the trans girl who’s trying to change her outside to match her inside, but all of a sudden has to deal with physically transforming her body three nights a month, because hell if you ever wanted a metaphor about not fitting right in your own skin, werewolves are a good option.
I want the story about how the hedge-witches took wolves as familiars and gave them human souls, turned them into human girls, and forced them to give up the wind and the snow and the grass for a life trapped in human flesh.
I want the story about the teenage werewolf girls who hunt down other monsters while they try to find the right shoes for prom and study for their written driver’s test. And when people joke about them going to the bathroom in a pack, it’s not really a joke. Because girls know a journey is not an adventure unless she brings her friends, and when they travel in packs, they travel in packs.
I want more female werewolves.
BLESSINGS BE UPON THIS POST AND ALL OF ITS BEAUTIFUL WORDS.
This concept of violently-enforced rigid hierarchy within werewolf (and plain old wolf) packs is not only overdone and uninteresting, it’s just plain incorrect. A lot of where this idea comes from is really just profoundly bad science from back in the day, when scientists were studying wolf packs and making sweeping generalizations about what they were seeing. They were in fact studying CAPTIVE wolf packs made up of unrelated adult individuals who had been forced into proximity and confinement… so what they were observating as “natural wolf dominance behavior,” was in fact trapped territorial predators reacting aggressively to the stress of forced socialization and imprisonment. It’s a lot like thinking you’re going to study human social family behavior by going to your local prison and observing the interactions of the human beings present in the prison yard.
Actual wolf packs are generally composed of a breeding pair of adult wolves and sometimes several years’ worth of offspring. There might be aunts and uncles and other non-breeding adults in there, who are usually relatives of other wolves in the pack. The concept of “alpha, beta, and omega” is a profoundly flawed one that has really been thrown out by modern wolf researchers, though you’ll still see it cropping up all the time as we try to explain wolf socialization to ourselves. (We’ve also used this model for other animals, like horses, and you’ll often hear about a “lead mare” and you probably have a concept of stallions who direct every movement of their herd and I could give you a ten-page sermon on why I think that’s all wrong, too.) A wolf pack is a family, not a military structure, and families have all sorts of nuance in their dynamics, not to mention a diversity that goes beyond the nuclear. When writers go straight for this hyper-masculine, hyper-aggressive idea of what werewolf pack dynamics should be like, they’re imposing human behavior on the animal, not the other way around.
Like, speaking of female werewolves, can we all become more familiar with and embrace the legend of Yellowstone’s 832F, a wolf who should be a hero to us all? She led her own pack. She could take down a fucking elk single-handed. (Single-pawed?) She had TWO MATES because one wasn’t fuckin’ enough so she was like “oh, you’re brothers? I like you both, let’s all shack up.” They apparently weren’t very useful (I’m sure they were super pretty though from a wolf perspective) so she handled mmost of the pup-rearing, and hunting for those pups, on her own too. And she didn’t rule her pack with an iron fist, though she undoubtedly ruled it because she was the most competent leader they had and surprise, animals recognize and reward competent leadership in ways we humans only wish our jobs could manage. I MIGHT CRY FOREVER OVER THIS FUCKING BAD-ASS OF A WOLF. Let’s have more of THAT and less of the “oh rar the moon is full that means my latent asshole tendencies come out but it’s the wolf I swear!”
I s2g I am not here for dudebros using their lycanthropy as YET ANOTHER REASON why they can’t just fuckin control themselves.
Wolf rants are my favourite rants.
@jolantru has a werewolf series in which the leader is a woman and a mother of two.
An old and homely grandmother accidentally summons a demon. She mistakes him for her gothic-phase teenage grandson and takes care of him. The demon decides to stay at his new home.
It isn’t uncommon for this particular demon to be summoned—from
exhausting Halloween party pranks in abandoned barns to more legitimate (more
exhausting) ceremonies in forests—but it has to admit, this is the first time
it’s been called forth from its realm into a claustrophobic living room bathed
in the dull orange-pink glow of old glass lamps and a multitude of wide-eyed,
creepy antique porcelain dolls that could give Chucky a run for his money with
all of their silent, seething stares combined. Accompanying those oddities are
tea cup and saucer sets on shelves atop frilly doilies crocheted with the
utmost care, and cross-stitched, colorful ‘Home Sweet Home’s hung across the wood-paneled
walls.
It’s a mistake—a wrong number, per se. No witch it’s ever
known has lived in such an, ah, dated,
home. Furthermore, no practitioner that ever summoned it has been absent, as if
they’d up and ding-dong ditched it. No, it didn’t work that way. Not at all.
Not if they want to survive the encounter.
It hears the clinking of movement in the room adjacent—the kitchen,
going by the pungent, bitter scent of cooled coffee and soggy, sweet sponge
cakes, but more jarring is the smell of blood. It moves—feels something slip
beneath its clawed foot as it does, and sees a crocheted blanket of whites and greys
and deep black yarn, wound intricately, perfectly, into a summoning circle. Its summoning circle. There is a small splash
of bright scarlet and sharp, jagged bits of a broken curio scattered on top,
as if someone had dropped it, attempted to pick it up the pieces and pricked their finger.
It would explain the blood. And it would explain the demon being brought into
this strange place.
As it connects these pieces in its mind, the inhabitant of
the house rounds the corner and exits the kitchen, holding a damp, white dish
towel close to her hand and fumbling with the beaded bifocals hanging from her
neck by a crocheted lanyard before stopping dead in her tracks.
Now, to be fair, the demon wouldn’t ordinarily second guess
being face-to-face with a hunchbacked crone with a beaked nose, beady eyes and
a peculiar lack of teeth, or a spidery shawl and ankle-length black dress, but
there is definitely something amiss here. Especially when the old biddy lets
her spectacles fall slack on her bosom and erupts into a wide, toothy (toothless)
grin, eyes squinting and crinkling from the sheer effort of it.
“Todd! Todd, dear, I didn’t know you were visiting this year!
You didn’t call, you didn’t write—but, oh, I’m so happy you’re here, dear!
Would it have been too much to ask you to ring the doorbell? I almost had a
heart attack. And don’t worry about the blood, here—I had an accident. My favorite
figure toppled off of the table and cleanup didn’t go as expected. But I seem
to recall you are quite into the bloodshed and ‘edgy’ stuff these days, so I
don’t suppose you mind.” She releases a hearty, kind laugh, but it isn’t
mocking, it’s sweet. Grandmotherly. The demon is by no means sentimental or
maudlin, but the kindness, the familiarity, the genuine fondness, does pull a
few dusty old nostalgic heartstrings. “Imagine if it leaves a scar! It’d be a
bit ‘badass,’ as you teenagers say, wouldn’t it?”
She is as blind as a bat without her glasses, it would appear,
because the demon is by no means a ‘Todd’ or a human at all, though humanoid, shrouded
in sleek, black skin and hard spikes and sharp claws. But the demon humors her, if only
because it had been caught off guard.
The old woman smiles still, before turning on her heel and
shuffling into the hallway with a stiff gait revealing a poor hip. “Be a dear
and make some more coffee, would you please? I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
Yes, this is most definitely a mistake. One for the record
books, for certain. For late-night trips to bars and conversations with colleagues,
while others discuss how many souls they’d swindled in exchange for peanuts, or
how many first-borns they’d been pledged for things idiot humans could have
gained without divine intervention. Ugh. Sometimes it all just became so pedantic
that little detours like this were a blessing—happy accidents, as the humans
would say.
That’s why the demon does as asked, and plods slowly into
the kitchen, careful to duck low and avoid the top of the doorframe. That’s why
it gingerly takes the small glass pot and empties it of old, stale coffee and carefully,
so carefully, takes a measuring scoop between its claws and fills the machine
with fresh grounds. It’s as the hot water is percolating that the old woman
returns, her index finger wrapped tight in a series of beige bandages.
“I’m surprised you’re so tall, Todd! I haven’t seen you
since you were at my hip! But your mother mails photos all the time—you do love
wearing all black, don’t you?” She takes a seat at the small round table in the
corner and taps the glass lid of the cake plate with quaking, unsteady, aged hands. “I was starting to think you’d never visit. Your father and I have
had our disagreements, but…I am glad you’re here, dear. Would you like some
cake?” Before the demon has a chance to decline, she lifts the lid and cuts a
generous slice from the near-complete circle that has scarcely been touched. It
smells of citrus and cream and is, as assumed earlier, soggy, oversaturated
with icing.
It was made for a special occasion, for guests, but it doesn’t
seem this old woman receives much company in this musty, stagnant house that
smells like an antique garage that hadn’t had its dust stirred in years.
Especially not from her absentee grandson, Todd.
The demon waits until the coffee pot is full, and takes two
small mugs from the counter, filling them until steam is frothing over the
rims. Then, and only then, does it accept the cake and sit, with some
difficulty, in a small chair at the small table. It warbles out a polite ‘thank
you,’ but it doesn’t suppose the woman understands. Manners are manners
regardless.
“Oh, dear, I can hardly understand. Your voice has gotten so
deep, just like your grandfather’s was. That, and I do recall you have an affinity
for that gravelly, screaming music. Did your voice get strained? It’s alright,
dear, I’ll do the talking. You just rest up. The coffee will help soothe.”
The demon merely nods—some communication can be understood
without fail—and drinks the coffee and eats the cake with a too-small fork. It’s
ordinary, mushy, but delicious because of the intent behind it and the love
that must have gone into its creation.
“I hope you enjoyed all of the presents I sent you. You
never write back—but I am aware most people use that fancy E-mail these days. I
just can’t wrap my head around it. I do wish your mom and dad would visit sometime.
I know of a wonderful little café down the street we can go to. I haven’t been; I wanted to visit it with Charles, before he…well.” She falls silent in her
rambling, staring into her coffee with a small, melancholy smile. “I can’t
believe it’s been ten years. You never had the chance to meet him. But never mind
that.” Suddenly, and with surprising speed that has the demon concerned for her well being, she moves to her feet, bracing her hands on the edge of the table. “I may as
well give you your birthday present, since you’re here. What timing! I only
finished it this morning. I’ll be right back.”
When she returns, the white, grey and black crocheted work with the summoning
circle is bundled in her arms.
“I found these designs in an occult book I borrowed from the
library. I thought you’d like them on a nice, warm blanket to fight off the
winter chill—I hope you do like it.” With gentle hands, she spreads the blanket
over the demon’s broad, spiky back like a shawl, smoothing it over craggy shoulders
and patting its arms affectionately. “Happy birthday, Todd, dear.”
Well, that settles it. Whoever, wherever, Todd is, he’s
clearly missing out. The demon will just have to be her grandson from now on.
this is so sweet. it made me want to hug someone.
i had to
I WOULD WATCH SIX SEASONS AND A MOVIE
Okay but she takes him to the little cafe and all of the people in her town are like “What is that thing, what the hell, Anette?” and she’s like “Don’t you remember my grandson Todd?” and the entire town just has to play along because no one will tell little old Nettie that her grandson is an actual demon because this is the happiest she’s been since her husband died.
Bonus: In season 4 she makes him run for mayor and he wins
I just want to watch ‘Todd’ help her with groceries, and help her with cooking, and help her clean up the dust around the house and air it out, and fill it with spring flowers because Anette mentioned she loved hyacinth and daffodils.
Over the seasons her eyesight worsens, so ‘Todd’ brings a hellhound into the house to act as her seeing eye dog, and people in town are kinda terrified of this massive black brute with fur that drips like thick oil, and a mouth that can open all the way back to its chest, but ‘Honey’ likes her hard candies, and doesn’t get oil on the carpet, and when ‘Todd’ has to go back to Hell for errands, Honey will snuggle up to Anette and rest his giant head on her lap, and whuff at her pockets for butterscotch.
Anette never gives ‘Todd’ her soul, but she gives him her heart
In season six, Anette gets sick. She spends most of the season bedridden and it becomes obvious by about midway through the season that she’s not going to make it to the end of the season. Todd spends the season travelling back and forth between the human realm and his home plane, trying hard to find something, anything that will help Anette get better, to prolong her life. He’s tried getting her to sell him her soul, but she’s just laughed, told him that he shouldn’t talk like that.
With only a few episodes left in the season Anette passes away, Todd is by her side. When the reaper comes for her Todd asks about the fate of her soul. In a dispassionate voice the reaper informs Todd that Anette spent the last few years of her life cavorting with creatures of darkness, that there can be only one fate for her. Todd refuses to accept this and he fights the reaper, eventually injuring the creature and driving it off. Knowing that Anette cannot stay in the Human Realm, and refusing to allow her spirit to be taken by another reaper, so he takes her soul in his arms. He’s done this before, when mortals have sold themselves to him. This time the soul cradled against his chest does not snuggle and fight. This time the soul held tight against him reaches out, pats him on the cheek tells him he was a good boy, and so handsome, just like his grandfather.
Todd takes Anette back to the demon realm, holding her tight against him as he travels across the bleak and forebidding landscape; such a sharp contrast to the rosy warmth of Anette’s home. Eventually, in a far corner of his home plane, Todd finds what he is looking for. It is a place where other demons do not tread; a large boulder cracked and broken, with a gap just barely large enough for Todd to fit through. This crack, of all things, gives him pause, but Anette’s soul makes a comment about needing to get home in time to feed Honey, and Todd forces himself to pass through it. He travels in darkness for a while, before he emerges into into a light so bright that it’s blinding. His eyes adjust slowly, and he finds himself face to face with two creatures, each of them at least twice his size one of them has six wings and the head of a lion, one of them is an amorphous creature within several rings. The lion-headed one snarls at Todd, and demands that he turn back, that he has no business here.
Todd looks down, holding Anette’s soul against his chest, he takes a deep breath, and speaks a single word, “Please.”
The two larger beings are taken aback by this. They are too used to Todd’s kind being belligerent, they consult with each other, they argue. The amorphous one seems to want to be lenient, the lion-headed one insists on being stricter. While they’re arguing Todd sneaks by them and runs as fast as he can, deeper into the brightly lit expanse. The path on which he travels begins to slope upwards, and eventually becomes a staircase. It becomes evident that each step further up the stair is more and more difficult for Todd, that it’s physically paining him to climb these stairs, but he keeps going.
They dedicate a full episode to this climb; interspersing the climb with scenes they weren’t able to show in previous seasons, Anette and Honey coming to visit Todd in the Mayor’s office, Anette and Todd playing bingo together for the first time, Anette and Todd watching their stories together in the mid afternoon, Anette falling asleep in her chair and Todd gently carrying her to bed. Anette making Todd lemonade in the summer while he’s up on the roof fixing that leak and cleaning out the rain gutters. Eventually Todd reaches the top, and all but collapses, he falls to a knee and for the first time his grip on Anette’s soul slips, and she falls away from him. Landing on the ground.
He reaches out for her, but someone gets there first. Another hand reaches out, and helps this elderly woman off the ground, helps her get to her feet. Anette gasps, it’s Charles. The pair of them throw their arms around each other. Anette tells Charles that she’s missed him so much, and she has so much to tell him. Charles nods. Todd watches a soft smile on his face. A delicate hand touches Todd’s shoulder, and pulls him easily to his feet. A figure; we never see exactly what it looks like, leans down, whispering in Todd’s ear that he’s done well, and that Anette will be well taken care of here. That she will spend an eternity with her loved ones. Todd looks back over to her, she’s surrounded by a sea of people. Todd nods, and smiles. The figure behind him tells him that while he has done good in bringing Anette here, this is not his place, and he must leave. Todd nods, he knew this would be the case.
Todd gets about six steps down the stairway before he is stopped by someone grabbing his shoulder again. He turns around, and Anette is standing behind him. She gives him a big hug and leads him back up the stairs, he should stay, she says. Get to know the family. Todd tries to tell her that he can’t stay, but she won’t hear it. She leads him up into the crowd of people and begins introducing him to long dead relatives of hers, all of whom give him skeptical looks when she introduces him as her grandson.
The mysterious figure appears next to Todd again and tells him once more he must leave, Todd opens his mouth to answer but Anette cuts him off. Nonsense, she tells the figure. IF she’s gonna stay here forever her grandson will be welcome to visit her. She and the figure stare at each other for a moment. The figure eventually sighs and looks away, the figure asks Todd if she’s always like this. Todd just shrugs and smiles, allowing Anette to lead him through a pair of pearly gates, she’s already talking about how much cake they’ll need to feed all of these relatives.
P.S. Honey is a Good Dog and gets to go, too.
I am crying in a Mark&Spencer, I lovingly hate y’all, this is amazing.
Cemetery forests would be great, if you could get them to work out ecologically. Not only would you have healthy, sustainable burials with physical markers to mourn at, you’d also inspire emotional investment in conservation and promote old-growth forests. No one wants to chop down great-great-great-grandpa Karkat the oak tree for lumber.
You want a haunted forest. That’s how you get a haunted forest
Well, better a haunted forest than a haunted useless plot of land filled with concrete and steel and hundreds of gallons of poison that we have to constantly manicure. Haunted forests are classy *and* contribute to the world by absorbing CO2 and producing oxygen, providing shelter for wildlife, and help get goth teenagers to appreciate nature.
“We laid him to rest up on boot hill. Now he’s a right pretty poplar that moans his killer’s name when there’s a light breeze and a full moon.”
I could get behind this plan.
Also: either all forests are haunted or none are
Hobbyist forester here. All forests are haunted, yes, but not necessarily by things formally human. Also this is a good idea and I endorse it.
Okay so this would depend on where you are in the world, and whether or not they had squatters rights (can’t be evicted and can apply for legal ownership of place once they have been there for X amount of years) but I mean, the dude owns the place, even if it is a run down mess he was still there first and there’s probably some ancient land ownership law which can’t be overwritten by modern laws (you find all sorts of weird things are still technically legal cause no one bothered to update the books since 1645) so basically whoever just bought this castle to turn it into a modern fixer upper, congrats, you also just bought yourself a vampire and he’s not going anywhere.
(Also now I kind of want to write this where a family buys it to turn it into a hotel/wedding venue and the kids find the vampire in the attic and he ends up being the weird uncle who gets roped into hilarious wedding related shenanigans?? Like
“Okay yes fine, you can host weddings here, but registrar only, no religious ones.” “But Theolodious, why?” “Really Sharon, really, do I have to spell it out for you. Really.”
*
“We really should increase the lighting for photographs, what about skylights?” “No.” “But—” “How about I just set all of you on fire while you’re trying to sleep.”
*
“Please, for the love of god, please don’t let people throw confetti or rice, I’m begging you.”
*
“Okay what’s our final head count for the night?” “107.” “Are you sure?” “Did I fucking stutter Steve?”
*
“Uncle Theo, why does the groom have “help me” on the bottom of his shoes, why is everyone laughing?.” “Because small one, humanity has failed collectively as a species and heteronormativity is a constructed lie designed to oppress over half the population for not conforming to arcane and chauvinistic ideals put in place by dead scholars who have long since turned to dust and have no place influencing modern society.” “…” “Permanence is an illusion.”
*
“Madame, flattering as your offer is for a quickie, you’re not my type.” “What is your type then?” 😉 😉 😉 “O negative.”
*
“Whoo, what a day, I could eat a horse.” “Same.” “…” “…well obviously I’m not going to.”
*
“Theo…are you…are you crying?” “Yes.” “You big softie, I never thought someone like you would cry at a wedding.” “…I’ve lived a long life, Sharron. People come and go, the christening you bless will be the funeral you mourn in less than a century. But people keep saying “I love you”, that has to count for something.”
You wake in the night with your arm hanging over the side of your bed. It is still dark, and your bedroom is shrouded with deep shadows. Something unseen seizes your hand.
You grasp it tightly, knowing that first impressions are important and a firm, confident handshake will establish dominance.
Girls Scouts encounter Bigfoot the most frequently. Part of their oath is to keep him a secret because he’s very kind and makes up 30% of their revenue due to his fervent love for thin mints.
Steel Phoenix Studios 