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genarti has been telling me for a while now to read How to Be a Werewolf, a long-running webcomic of the old school that started in ... 2015 it seems?

Anyway, by happenstance, I finally got around to it right as it landed its first romantic denouement in nearly nine years and then went on its first hiatus in ditto, so a good time for it if any of you want to do likewise!

The comic's A-plot involves our werewolf heroine Malaya [bitten as a child, stressed by the experience] gaining self-confidence and overcoming werewolf-related social anxiety and agoraphobia after Elias, another werewolf comes into town and offers to mentor her in Werewolf Skills, Culture, And Bureaucracy. B-plots include a highly dramatic rogue witch situation, various werewolf territory disputes [hence the bureaucracy], Malaya's favorite coworker's witch gap year experience, and Eli's big crush on Malaya's chill non-werewolf brother Vincent, who is busy with normal college things and largely uninvolved in the witch and werewolf drama except when someone kidnaps him about it.

(Over the years I have gathered that Vincent is most people's favorite and I am not immune; he has filled me with appreciation once again for the particular type of fictional guy who is Not part of the core protag group and is broadly leading his own life, except when he gets yanked into the narrative solely by virtue of being Somebody's Sibling. I say 'guy' because most of the examples I can think of for this right now are brothers -- little sisters by contrast tend to enthusiastically worm their way into the adventure despite the fact that nobody wants them there, which is also a delight but a very different energy -- but I would love to be proven wrong on this! Or indeed just hear about any examples generally.)

Anyway. Werewolves! I had a lot of fun with this and thought it was quite charming; I was worried it might slide a bit into that coffeeshop-fanfic-where-everyone's-quippy-and-nice energy, but it does a good job I think of keeping enough high-drama supernatural Situations on the hopper to keep the plot chugging along while also keeping the focus primarily on the characters' personal journeys. Malaya Goes To The Mall, Gets Own Clothes For First Time Ever! gets more page space than any of the werewolf fights, and that feels correct and satisfying because Malaya gaining enough confidence to go to the mall is the A-plot and everything else is secondary.