There are only two things in the world Ellie is sure of: all she wants is a quiet life at home with her mother, and the Sanguine Pack is a fierce, infamously barbaric organized group that anyone should know better than to cross. But when Ellie displ...
If I wrote a werewolf story, things would be SO different---and better.
For years, every werewolf story on Wattpad---the stuff of my intellectual junk food binging---has brought this thought to mind. I have so many questions: Why do they always smell each other and say, "Mate"? Why are they all lined up in some bizarre hierarchical system based on the Greek alphabet? Why is everything run by horny teenagers---not to mention, why is everyone so horny? Why is there always a mean girl love rival, and why does the female lead always end up with the macho alpha male douchebag? And why, for the love of god, are they always straight and white?
Werewolves are not---have never been----my favorite mythical creature. (That would be vampires, not only for their impeccable gothic aesthetic but also for their inherent *homoeroticism*). But you know that feeling when you hate something so much, so obsessively, that obsession crosses into the territory of love? I have hate-read so, so many werewolf fics on this site, become so jaded and desensitized to the flawed tropes and cliches of this niche genre, that I've gradually become more and more motivated to contribute something of my own. Hence, pure spite---and, dare I say, hubris---breeds productivity.
By no means do I claim to be better than any other writer on Wattpad, nor that this story is better than any other werewolf story. Indeed, I do not believe that I am "improving," per se, upon the werewolf teen fiction genre; I am simply building upon the treasure trove of werewolf tropes that has been amassed by many others before me. But I do promise---and this I can say with absolute certainty---that it will be different. I will take many tropes---not just in the werewolf sub-genre but in the entire YA/teen fiction genre, as a whole (to appeal to a broader audience)---and turn them on their heads. Thus, though this work can be read and enjoyed as simply a standalone story in its own right, it is as much a parody and a satire as it is a deconstruction of the various tropes so omnipresent in YA/teen fiction as to be taken for granted by most of our generation.
I do not wish to preach about how my story is superior due to being supposedly "better" thought-out than others, but merely to remind you that, in the following chapters, take nothing for granted. Before I proceed, I must offer a word of caution---as well as a few illustrative examples---of what sets this story apart from other stories in the same genre. What do I mean, exactly, by "deconstruction"? Why is everyone teenaged and completely jacked? Why is the main character such a doormat, such a domineering asshole, or somehow both at the same time? How do these glorified gangs of jacked asshole teenagers function, both politically and socioeconomically? Who gives them the money, time, and resources to run around ripping up clothes when they shapeshift and/or make out and/or get into fights over seemingly nothing in particular, and why don't they ever go to school? These are just a few of the many questions I've had from years of binging on Wattpad werewolf fics. As you read this story, I hope you will find that my attempts to answer these questions have proven adequate.
☾
𝓓𝓡𝓐𝓜𝓐𝓣𝓘𝓢𝓟𝓔𝓡𝓢𝓞𝓝𝓐𝓔
𝓶𝓪𝓲𝓷𝓬𝓪𝓼𝓽
Ellie Bellamy | she/her, 15yo | Sanguine Pack "I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer. Then, child, make another." Madeline Miller, Circe
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Kiera Lin | she/her, 16yo | Sanguine Pack "I want to survive this world that keeps trying to destroy me." Leigh Bardugo, Ninth House
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Seth Reagan | he/him, 16 yo | Sanguine Pack "I felt my existence was tainted, in some subtle but essential way." Donna Tartt, The Secret History
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