Frequently hear howling in your neighborhood, even though you live in an area with no wolves for miles? Occasionally get news of rabid bear attacks? Ever been stared down by a pair of glowing eyes in the middle of the night only for them to disappear as quickly as they came? You may have werewolves in your area! Don't worry, though - we're far more than the simple murderous beasts the media depicts us as, and I, your lovely local lycanthrope Vera will explain exactly how. Today, we'll be talking a bit about pack structure!

Let's start with lone wolves for a second. Tragically, these are very common - though not as common as you may think. The classic example is what happens when someone successfully defends themselves from becoming lunch for a -particularly- hungry individual, but they get bitten in the process. That's not the only way these happen, though! Even under more willing circumstances, mistakes and misunderstandings happen and the one spreading the blessing may run off thinking they accidentally killed the person whose life they tried to turn around (like yours truly!), or a level of deception may have been involved from the newly turned to get the bite without being fit for the pack. Then of course, you have the folks who simply recently left their old pack and haven't found anyone to start a new one with yet. Outside that latter case, they often end up starting out either totally alone or with only humans around them - given that they have no one to guide them as they get a grip of their new self if they ever do, these are by far the ones that cause the most incidents early on.

Next up, traditional packs. These are really no different from wolf packs in the wild, or human families for that matter - you've got an "alpha" couple that's typically the parents (sometimes the eldest sibling{s} if they're both gone), then any number of kids and -maybe- a few adopted members, typically still kids themselves unless they're only taken in temporarily. In any case, the parents usually hold most of the power, though if they know what's good for them they'll also gradually let go of any adult children they have until they're ready to leave the pack. Sometimes multiple families of werewolves may band together into a larger clan and still call themselves a "pack" confusingly enough, though this isn't standard per se and is in part subject to local cultural values.

Then, there's found packs. These come in a -lot- of different shapes and sizes, and can range from pretty informal affairs to bonds far stronger than any blood family could ever give. What they do have in common is that they're -usually- assemblages of adult werewolves who for whatever reason have found themselves relying closely upon one another. Sometimes, it's a formerly lone wolf who figured things out by themselves and turned a few of their human friends upon their request, sometimes it's multiple lone wolves banding together on their own terms, sometimes it's a more experienced werewolf that ended up on their own taking pity on a stranger and taking them in to guide them. Whatever the case, power is usually distributed pretty equally and informally.

Of course, these are only broad categories - as you could tell, I could split hairs between these three for days. Lone wolves by where they came from, traditional packs by how they were formed and who's part of it (sometimes you end up with only one parent, and that's fine!), and found ones along so many more lines still.

So basically, be kind to the werewolves around you. We've got people we care about and that care about us too, not to mention nobody's an island. And even for the very few of us that do end up all alone after the bite, do they really deserve being shunned even more? Be careful, but give 'em your love nevertheless. Y'might just end up seeing things from a whoooooole new perspective.* 💙

* no, I'm not responsible for any weird dog bites, wrecked living rooms or sudden urges to sniff at things, growl at people or howl at the moon