The Dark Side Essay

[elinox]

I was thinking this morning that I should submit something here and these thoughts came to me. Warning: some of this might be a little gory for some folks. 

 “From one monster to another.” – Dr. Whale, Once Upon A Time

Wolf is not a cuddly puppy. Despite the romanticized ideals society has attached to wolves, they are not the soft and gentle, noble creatures, often portrayed in popular media. Sometimes, I am not a noble wolf.

During the winter months, when wolf is more prevalent, I want to use my teeth to tear and bite at my meat. To sink my maw into hot, fresh blood and sate my hunger on my prey. I want to use my blunt claws to rip at the underbelly and get at the tender innards too.  I want to crack bones with my jaws to get at the delicious marrow inside. Then I want to lick my fur clear and sleep for days.

In the midst of hunger, I see weak humans around me and children as prey. Easy prey. Soft, tender flesh which is easy, too easy, to tear into. Wolf sees humans as lazy, slow and fat and there for the taking. If it limps, my attention is instantly snapped towards it. If it shows any sign of being weaker than the herd, it’s also singled out immediately. Wolf’s mouth has been known to water at all the food nearby.

But the hunter is also wary, knowing these pink monkeys are nothing if but intelligent and therefore dangerous. When I find myself slipping into the starving wolf’s mindset, I need to remind myself that humans are not food, despite being so easy to kill.

My fur is not clean, but rather is flea bitten, has burs, sometimes with patches here and there, and is mangy. Not cat-clean. Not rabbit-fur soft. Rough and wiry to the touch. And wolf does not like touch. Humans touch to show affection, but they do it wrong to wolf. Wolf touches noses, and smells companions, rubs heads and along bodies, wags tail, paws at the ground. Sometimes mouths pack mates. Wolf does not like to be petted, wolf likes to initiate contact.

Sometimes wolf will lick in fondness, to invite proceedings and nuzzle. But then wolf wants to bite during romantic interludes, to pull away and snap to draw blood. To snarl and growl and not in an enticing way. The reaction to pain, intense sensations, heightened emotions, is always to bite. Wolf courtship is rough and not romantic.

Wolf wants to hunt, eat, sleep, fuck. Wolf is definitely not the family dog.

Comments

[citrakayah]

Do predator therians make your instincts go 'other predator, avoid' during such times?

[phosphoros]

I find this interesting because from what I've observed, the society usually does not romanticize the wolf. At least the people of the western world have demonized the wolf for a long long time; the society has created an image of the wolf that fits your description quite well (mangy, ugly, violent, dangerous). Only in the recent times has the scientific look into wolves' lives debunked some of the negative myths (wolf is not really dangerous to humans but instead fears humans and avoids them, and it is quite far from the ravaging beast the culture has painted it to be for so long).

There sure are some otherkin and some other people that romanticize the wolf, but I wouldn't speak of "the society" there. (There are of course children's movies and books, but they are just that: fiction for the young. There is also plenty of demonizing the wolf there, too.)

But I don't know if you're from some other than a Western society (I don't really know what kind of role the wolf has in other cultures). If you are, this comment is quite off-topic.

[elinox]

"How much have you seen when you do not take into account the pockets of otherkin communities?"

As little bit more than the average American? I don't really know how to answer your question. Although I do agree that our own opinions are often controlled by how/where we socialize.

Despite all that, isn't it enough to simply experience animal; any animal? These were my personal thoughts/feelings after all.