Fandom: December Talking Meme #6: Werewolves in Fiction
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
This entry was original posted at http://escritoireazul.dreamwidth.org/381317.html with
comments. Reply here or there.
(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
This entry was original posted at http://escritoireazul.dreamwidth.org/381317.html with
comments. Reply here or there.