how is werewolf formed?

[lunabee34]

I got the most amazing package from executrix. Thank you so much. *hugs* Every single book in this box is something I want to read. :)

I finished Trigger Warnings. I didn't like it as well as Gaiman's other short story collections. The Sherlock Holmes piece was exceptional, and a couple other stories were very good but I was pretty take it or leave it on the collection as a whole. He included a fair amount of poetry in the collection, most of which I didn't care for, but one poem about a witch was wonderfully done. Glad to have read it, but nothing to re-read.

I've blown through Uprooted in the past couple days and will be able to post a review of that soon.

I want to read some very, very sad fic. Anybody have recs for tearjerkers? Any fandom or pairing, but I would be especially grateful for newish HP recs.

I keep thinking I am going to make some awesome meta-tastic post about Penny Dreadful or Game of Thrones and then not doing it, so here's the truncated version:

Game of Thrones: damn you, show, for making me root for Cersei. Show!Sparrow seems scheming and cruel in a way the book version didn't, and I couldn't help wanting her to get her revenge against him and those awful nuns. Please, please, don't be dead Jon Snow. I think probably that he's dead and Melisandre will resurrect him. Tyrion, Missandei and Greyworm ruling Mereen is kinda made of awesome. Jaime is going to raze Dorne to the ground. *hugs him hard* And Bronn still lives! Yay!

Penny Dreadful: what an uneven season. Some of my favorite moments of the whole show are from this season and yet it doesn't form the same cohesive whole as the first season. Dorian's story arc with Angelique was incomprehensible to me and completely divorced from the rest of the show. I love Brona's reveal that she's known about her origins the whole time and that she's going to be the big bad in the next season. Dorian was finally interesting in these last two episodes with her. I love that John Clare has decided that he doesn't want to kill Victor or set London on fire with Brona and I adore that he asked Vanessa to go with him. I equally adore that she would have gone with him if she didn't genuinely believe she's bad for him. When Vanessa told the devil, "Beloved, meet your master" and fucking destroyed that sucker, I may have squealed at the television in unholy glee. That moment was the money shot, my friends. I am less enthused that Sembene is dead; that was unnecessary and horrible, and I am convinced that on route to Africa, he is going to turn into a werewolf and not be dead at all. I loved poor, brave Ethan going to his death and instead being tricked into returning home. I just can't imagine the mechanism that will reunite them all in the next season. Looking forward to it, though.

Speaking of Victorian horror, I know that werewolf (and other skin-changer) stories already existed in folk tales and fairy tales, but is there a nineteenth-century novel that popularized the werewolf the way Dracula did for vampires? I suppose that The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a kind of werewolf story, but not really what I'm talking about. Did werewolves really only enter the literary public consciousness in the 20th century? Is there a seminal werewolf novel (trying to think of one and failing), or does our pop culture sense of werewolves stem entirely from film?

Comments

[heliopausa]

Not sure how popular it was, but there's The Werewolf, 1896, by Clemence Housman (sister of the poet of The Shropshire Lad, which also has its incidental uncanny moments).

[kore]

At least Trigger Warnings didn't have the NARNIA BESTIALITY PORN in it. //grim

[executrix]

Hey, wait, I have one! In the Duchess of Malfi, her brother's shrink doctor says that Ferdinand has "lycanthropia" like he expects everybody to know what he means. And then says that some wolves have their fur on the inside. Probably it's just that he went off the deep end and THINKS he's a werewolf (although it's not a good sign that he's wandering around town schlepping a human leg) but again, it must have been culturally available to have a delusion about it.

[justhuman]

Teary Fic rec

Freedom's Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose
by synecdochic
SGA
Rodney/John *whimper" sort of *whimper* yes, it is

[cloudsinvenice]

Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf by George W. M. Reynolds is the only thing I can think of - or at least, I *think* it's the one I've heard namechecked alongside Clemence Housman's book; it's the only title that rings a bell on Wikipedia's page on werewolf fiction. It's on Gutenberg if you fancy reading it! And I can highly recommend a book called The Beast Within by Adam Douglas (it's had various subtitles in different editions, apparently), which traces the werewolf through folklore and fiction down the centuries. I particularly remember that there was an ancient Roman belief that a werewolf would transform by removing his clothes (I forget whether it had to be at the full moon) and peeing in a circle around them. They would turn to stone, presumably to protect them from being taken while he was off being a wolf...

I'm with you on GoT, particularly the idea of those three trying to sort out Mereen - I got frustrated with the lengthy build-up to (what will presumably be) the meeting of Dany and Tyrion in the books, so it was a relief when they fast-forwarded that bit for the show.