News From the Dark Side of the Moon #4

3:40 A.M.

*KICKS THE DOOR IN*

I'M BACK.

Okay, seriously, though... How do I even start after all this time? I can hardly believe it's been four and a half years since I last posted something here. Although I've been hovering around the place, as well as Facebook and Twitter (though less) like a ghost, posting something or other from time to time, don't think I've forgotten about the blog. I am currently both mentally and physically exhausted from trying to give the website an overhaul, but I just wanted to give you all a quick update about what's what. It's 3:50 a.m. over here, so if I can still count, I spent about eight and half hours grappling with Blogger and its themes in order to give Werewolf Theory a bit of an updated look, at the same time keeping all the features I want and making them do and look the way I want. Which has not been easy, even less so now that I've forgotten most of what I knew of HTML from back in the day. There's still a lot of work that needs to be done, so I foresee another day of work ahead of me tomorrow before I can say I'm content with the changes. I would also like to say a few words about the time when I was away, but I'm afraid I have to leave that until tomorrow - I'm just too tired right now and I can feel my fingers are trying to tell me to give it a rest for today.

Before I crash, I would like to thank all of you who have been visiting both Werewolf Theory and its Facebook page, giving likes and leaving comments. I realise that sometimes it might seem like you're throwing your feedback into a black hole, but know that I read everything. Thank you for all your support. I probably don't deserve it after all this time, but... Thank you.

Okay, I will update this post later on to say what I want to say, but, for now, I need a rest 😆

3:15 P.M.

Yes, I slept that long.

So, first things first. I'll keep this short, because I don't feel like wallowing in self-pity and it won't make for a good read either. A lot has happened in the last 4-5 years, a lot has changed in my life. Most of that time I spent coping with depression and anxiety. The former I was able to overcome thanks to my loved ones' support as well as professional help; the latter doesn't seem like will be leaving me entirely any time soon, but I'd like to think I've got it under control. So that's that. Another thing was that I slowly became burned out on writing articles for Werewolf Theory. Research, preparation and the actual writing were always a long process and at some point I simply couldn't get myself to spend a few hours at a time to publish something. A lot of my creative work, not only writing-related, fell by the wayside over time in favour of other activities. As I thought of the blog every time I would hear something werewolf-related, I felt sad, knowing that I just wasn't in the right mindset to do anything with it. I basically lost my drive. This was exacerbated by the fact that I really wanted to try making the Werewolf Movie Reviews into a video format as well as my indecision as to whether I should go forward with that idea or stick to the written format. I was also terrified of the additional workload that would put on top of what such reviews/analyses already require. And at that point I began wondering if I should start making just video content altogether or divide it between the blog and the YouTube channel. If I decided to divide, then what should go on the YouTube channel and what should stay here? And so my inability to decide and my doubts whether or not I would be able to pull the video reviews off discouraged me from doing anything even more. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, months into years - and so here we are. So that's pretty much a general overview of what's been going on with me. I'm still kind of undecided about the reviews. What do you think?

The overhaul

Like I posted on Facebook, I decided to finally do some spring cleaning on the blog. I liked the way it looked for the last few years, but I thought it would be a good thing to change some things up a little, you know, give it a bit of a different look for a different time. Honestly, I knew it would be a bit of work, but I didn't expect it to be this much. But it was needed. I still haven't finished, but I'm definitely closer to being done than not. Going through all the elements of the page allowed me to fix some bugs that have appeared over the years due to links changing and so on. Just for clarity's sake (since you probably can see the most obvious changes already), here's what's different:

• Sections into which the posts were divided have been moved to separate pages that can now be accessed on the cross-bar below the header. It was something I had been wanting to implement for a long time, but never really knew how without building the page from scratch. Fortunately, Blogger's Pages feature turned out to be great for this purpose.
• Moving the link lists to the mentioned tabs above allowed me to cut down to only one sidebar, which, I think, is a visual improvement
• I think that at this point I've removed all Amazon affiliate ads from the sidebar. The adds after posts I left for now, because I don't think they're as annoying. I will keep an eye on them and if I don't like them, I'll do away with them as well.
• There is now a dedicated tab called "Support Me", where you can find out how you can, well, support me. I think it's far more organised and less jarring than having stuff all over the place. So check it out, if you'd like to quite literally put food on my table.
• Last but not least, I refreshed the header at the top. It's a bit different than it used to be, but still uses most of the old art.

And I think that's about it for the changes, at least for now. Tell me what you think!

The road ahead

When it comes what's next for Werewolf Theory, we will see how it goes. Coming back and looking through all the content I noticed I've got a lot of posts saved as drafts. The degree to which they are finished varies, some are pretty much outlines, others need just a little more work. I will try to pace myself this time so as not to get burned out again and if I manage that, we should be good. Because I have a veritable mountain of things I want to write about. I will take it one step at a time and see where the road ahead takes me.

Thank you for reading and I hope to see you all again soon. Welcome to what I hope will be a great new era for Werewolf Theory 🐺

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News from the dark side of the moon #2

Click on the image to visit the store

Good news everyone!

Hello and welcome again! I've been silent for a while, but that's because I've been busy with many, many things, not only those related to werewolves. Once again, I must apologise for not posting the promised review in time for this month's full moon, but I have some other great news. 

Namely, the first official Werewolf Theory design is now available for purchase on various products in my recently-opened store in association with Spreadshirt. Titled "The Change", this design depicts the stages of werewolf transformation from human to wolf. Products available include: t-shirts, tank tops, hoodies, panoramic mugs, thermal mugs, buttons, shoulder bags, tote bags, a backpack, a mousepad, baseball caps, as well as mobile phone, tablet, and Kindle cases. The prices in the shop are in euros, since I am based in Europe, but from what I know Spreadshirt ships globally. Speaking of shipping, from April 25th till May 2nd worldwide shipping will be free for orders of two products or more (Code: TWOWOO). And for those of you in Poland, do not fret - the design will also be available in the Polish version of my shop as soon as I get down to translating the title and descriptions of the products. The aforementioned promotion will of course take place during the same period of time, with the same code, also in the Polish shop.

So that is all I wanted to write for now. I hope to post something new to the blog soonish. Until then, I wish you all the best and would like to thank you all very much for visiting Werewolf Theory - we've broken 166 thousand views! This makes me very happy and gives me encouragement to continue doing what I'm doing.

Until next time, then!

Update

The Werewolf Theory design is now also available as various products in the newly-opened US shop here: http://mang1314-us.spreadshirt.com . Enjoy!

News From the Dark Side of the Moon

Hello, hello and welcome! It's been quite some time since the last time I posted anything here - far longer than I'd ever expect, but life takes its twists and turns and forces us to focus on some matters and leave others behind. The good news is, however, that summer is starting and so I should have a little more time on my hands to fill up the blog with some more posts, mainly translations of my old posts from the original website, since I am nowhere near done transferring them here. Of course, I know how it is, so I'm not promising a whole slew of posts, but I do hope I manage to write a few new posts over the next three months. So that's one thing.

Next up, I've been following what's been happening over in the comments section under the post concerning ways of acquiring werewolfism reported in lore of various kinds, and I gotta say I'm a little disappointed and sad that my efforts to try and catalogue, sort of, all the various ways people have reported one can become a werewolf over the centuries have become a pretext for a lot of people to offend each other and throw metaphorical feces at each other instead of conducting a civilised discussion. Not all the comments were like that, but some were kind of pointless in their contents to the extent that sometimes I wondered if I should start deleting them altogether. But in the end I concluded that this is the Internet after all and the same kind of things that happen somewhere else (I'm looking at you, YouTube comments ;) ) are inevitably going to happen here as well and since there is freedom of speech and so on and so on, so I decided to just leave it all be. Obviously, I'm still reading everything that is posted. So once again, I send out a plea to all of you werewolf-lovers out there - be civilised, respect one another, and provide constructive feedback, don't toss obscenities at one another, because it's not really pleasant for me as the blog's owner nor people such things are aimed at nor new readers who visit the website for the first time and might become deterred by them. Apart from that, I guess I'm pretty flattered how popular the post's has become, so thank you all for your interest!

Last but not least, before I get down to writing something new, I decided to copy over the three movie reviews I did a while back, which were originally posted on my offshoot blog, TheLycanthropologist. Initially, it was supposed to be a blog devoted entirely to me reviewing werewolf-themed movies, but recently I've come to a conclusion that it would be better if I simply gathered everything in one place, namely here at Werewolf Theory, since a lot more people visit this website than the other one and also because time has shown that the movie review project blog isn't really going anywhere. I still need to grab a few files from the old netbook I wrote those reviews on, but I should be able to paste the reviews here next week, and of course finally create a new category on the right side of the page, listing movies and TV series (so I'll probably merge the Batman werewolf episode into that one category to avoid a mess).

I think that's about it as far as things I wanted to post for now are concerned. I'm still lurking in the shadows, observing the surroundings (currently following the development of a game I already mentioned in the past, Order 1886), trying to get into the mindset of writing some werewolf-themed stuff and filling this blog with some more content before I disappear again, like I tend to. In the meantime, enjoy what's already here and have a nice beginning of summer. I also added a poll to the right side of the blog, so if you feel like it, don't hesitate to vote.

Until next time!

Starting anew - the revival of Werewolf Theory

Welcome to Werewolf Theory - a second incarnation of a blog devoted completely to the study and presentation of werewolf legends, lore, the influence of lycanthropic beliefs on modern culture and society, and much, much more that comes with all of the above. This blog is meant to present each and every of its readers with whatever pieces of information I can find concerning werewolves - an undertaking I began no less than 9 years ago by creating a similar website on the Polish reaches of the Internet under the name of remus-lupin.blog.pl. 

At first, it began as a humble blog of a 14-year-old I was at the time and consisted of mostly chaotic and uninteresting babble about werewolves - a hobby that had always been with me, which now comprises a great portion of my life and who I am. After some time, the goals of the old blog started becoming clear - it was no longer a blog consisting of posts about random things, but became a website devoted to propagating werewolf lore in the Polish cyberspace. Having taken on J.K. Rowling's character as a kind of patron and a way of showing tribute to its influence on me and my decision to pursue my secret hobby further, the website assumed the title of Werewolf Theory, with me becoming a self-proclaimed Lycanthropologist, taking the word for my moniker. 

For a person like myself, the website proved to be a big success. It allowed me to condense my knowledge of the subject in a single place and at the same time enabled me to share my passion with the world. It was also sometimes an heir and means of preservation for data featured on other websites that eventually ceased to exist. Their legacy, however, remained within Werewolf Theory. The website grew in popularity and won itself many fans who eagerly awaited new entries. Some visited it to discuss their views about werewolves, others dropped by out of sheer curiosity and sometimes left with a smile on their face, saying, "I never knew that! Thanks for writing about it!" It's such moments that made me feel that what I was doing brought enjoyment not only to me, but also to other people. 

The decline of the blog began somewhere around my entering high school. With a lot of things going on in myife and a multitude of other activities I engaged in, regular and frequent updates to the blog became a difficult task to accomplish. New entries started becoming scarcer until they virtually stopped altogether when I entered university. It was a regrettable, but unavoidable thing to happen to a website so popular. At some point later on, when I realised that in order to reach a wider audience, convey some things better and not be confined at a regional level my website would have to be translated into English. This proved a too big of an undertaking back then as it required an extensive amount of work and time. Having numerous other committments at the time, I simply threw in the towel. 

But no more. Throughout the years, werewolves remained one of my hobbies and Werewolf Theory has never left my thoughts. It was only when I discovered the potential that lay in creating a blog on blogspot.com, the flexibility and creativity it provided, that the idea of reviving Werewolf Theory began haunting my thoughts. The ultimate spark to light the fire was my totally accidental visit to one lady's blog on which she wrote articles about her own hobby. The thought that I could do the same thing with Werewolf Theory struck me. And so finally, after a long road I've tread, here I am to get this show on the road. 

So keep your fingers crossed for me as I pour the contents of my old blog into this new one, hopefully both for my and your pleasure. So stay in touch and see you soon!

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