the ideal werewolf novel
just looked through about 700 werewolf books, good grief.
most seem to fall into two categories:
werewolf serial killer mysteries
domineering alpha romances
neither is really what I’m interested in.
here is what I’d want from the werewolf novel of my wildest dreams:
good relationships, especially friendships between packmates (lone wolves are boring)
werewolves who like being werewolves. (angsty wolves are boring)
the practical details of werewolfery: who’s got the bail money for animal control, whether anyone’s microchipped, what you pack in a bag for a night out werewolfing
the uses of werewolfery: hiring yourselves out as trackers or canine rescue, getting certified as service dogs, spending your free time at the library letting little kids read to a friendly doggie
female werewolves, and no weird gross hypermasculine alpha stuff going on in werewolf culture
queer werewolves, and no weird gross heteronormative ‘laws of nature’ stuff going on in werewolf culture
dog jokes.
The standard urban fantasy female protagonist dating a werewolf who is not an alpha. Bonus points for it being a cute beta werewolfess who thinks her girlfriend’s perpetual posturing as the ‘baddest bitch on the block’™ is the most adorable thing ever. Extra bonus points for fuzzy baby werewolves and adopted babies. (Because actual wolf packs? Exist to raise children. They’re family units, focused around rearing cubs.)
#werewolves #queer wolves #werewolves as the foster parents of the supernatural world #if there’s a kid so much as sniffling in their general vicinity they’re going to get adopted #the fae discovered that they could straight-up hand off changlings to werewolf packs #no deception needed #magic using children of mundane parents who can’t handle it? #every pack has a dozen of them #fic ideas
okay this is one of the cutest reblogs I’ve gotten.
imagine it
werewolves just going YES FAMILY GOOD and adopting everyone and making sure they get attention and food and understand that it’s fine to be who you are and that you’re not alone, you’re pack now
and the kids that can’t turn into wolves get to ride on the dogsleds to make sure they’re not left out during the full moon family bonding time (… you have to be an adult to pull a dogsled. mistakes have been made.)
werewolves on the PTA. werewolf den mothers. werewolf little league coaches. werewolves filling the bleachers and auditioriums and dance halls and galleries, cheering for their kids. werewolves helping kids with their homework, werewolves sewing costumes for the school play, werewolves showing kids how to change a tire
werewolves with battered kitchen tables with chewed legs. werewolves with huge family dinners. werewolves ferrying pies and casseroles and fresh baked bread back and forth between family members’ houses. werewolf extended families. massive werewolf packs that are technically only about 25% werewolf but still definitely packs
puppy teeth being left for the tooth fairy. fangs being left for the tooth fairy. cuttlebones being left for the tooth fairy. stolen teeth being left for the tooth fairy. werewolves with giant families full of kids with different needs and species.
werewolves adopting everyone. werewolves fostering everyone. werewolves who wind up with dozens of kids, all of whom are family and therefore pack.
yes good, give me more like this
ladyzolstice
i feel this in my soul
WEREWOLVES BASED ON ACTUAL WOLF PACK BEHAVIOR INSTEAD OF BULLSHIT DOMINANCE THEORY! All the werewolf fiction I’ve read involves everything falling to shit due to infighting over who gets to be alpha like WAY TO ILLUSTRATE EXACTLY WHY THIS IDEA DOESN’T WORK. You really think wolves would be successful hunters if they were constantly getting injured and wasting energy fighting each other?!
The whole idea of “alpha” dynamics is based entirely on the behaviour of wolves in captivity! If you so much as google “wolves in captivity alpha”, you’ll get a bunch of results about why it’s not representative of actual wolf behaviour.
As it turns out, if you capture, restrain, and shove together wolves from unrelated packs, they will fight and form a hierarchy of power.
Kind of like prison. Because, functionally, the exact premise of that kind of captivity is kind of like prison.
Wolves are social animals, and they interact in the wild pretty much the same way other family-centric social animals do.
Hey, you know what another family-centric social animal we’re all familiar with is? People. Just, you know, take away the oppressive idea that one parent is the definitive and unchallengeable head of the household that most of us have lived under for so long first.
Wolves are apparently group problem-solvers, and presumably, in large packs, you’re going to get squabbling and older pack members mitigating it, just like that one patient aunt or uncle or grandparent or close family friend who is essentially a relative often does in big families.
There’s a very legitimate basis for writing werewolves as friendly, community-minded folks. If your werewolves view their human neighbours as other packs not in competition with themselves, they’re likely going to be those people that the entire neighbourhood views as very nice, but “a little overwhelming.” (And maybe a little too indulgent with their kids, according to the neighbourhood snobs.)
Your gigantic werewolf family is probably going to be a litle less threatening and overtly secretive and a little more “we’re having a barbeque, when can we expect you??? you didn’t come last week, were you sick??? we were all worried- do you not eat meat?? oh, okay, I’ll have Sophie and Thaddeus pick up some Halal burgers and we’ll scrub off the second barbeque for them and some vegetable skewers, too, does that sound good?? so when can we expect you????”
(Also: werewolves taking in queer kids and mentally ill kids and kids from broken homes even though they’re mundane because they can’t comprehend how someone could not want them. Werewolves taking in street kids.)
So my favorite series ever isn’t centered around a werewolf protag, but the books are heavily saturated with werewolves (and many other species) and a very healthy pack dynamic and includes characters of many races, sexualities, and dozens of empowered, multidimensional female characters that aren’t hypersexualized!! Frick yeah!! The Mercy Thompson novels by Patricia Briggs are my absolute fave, and if you like a long series, she already has 10 books out (just in THIS series) with roughly 280 pages per novel. If y'all really dig fantasy set in a modern era, these books includes many character species like fae, vampires, werewolves, and a Coyote “shifter” as the main protag. *I don’t know if her character holds accurate to Native Blackfoot beliefs*
(9/10 because the main does fall for the alpha and that’s a little cliché these days but otherwise a great read)
