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wwounu · 6 years ago

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mafia!jeonghan “YOON” #11

↻ masterlist — intro￤s.coups￤yoon￤hong￤wen￤hoshi￤jeon￤woozi￤dk￤kim￤xu￤boo￤chwe￤lee

traitor

member of Venor Unit

his role is more of a spy, however jeonghan likes the term ‘traitor’ more than anything

there are many rumours about him

only a handful have been picked to be debunked as true or false

for years he’s still been rumoured whether or not hes a member of seventeen

surprise surprise, he is

and the story of how he was recruited was one he’d never forget

because who would forget his missing nineteen-year old childhood friend climbing up to the top of his penthouse, at 1:27 in the morning, and suddenly break and walk into your bedroom like it’s no big deal?

in other words, he wasn’t pleased to see his dearest seungcheol

his friend was talking about all sorts of nonsense the moment he startled awake: japan, gangs, tattoos,, bad haircuts,,, poisoned ice cream??

this wasnt the seungcheol he remembered

so with mixed feelings, jeonghan told seungcheol to crash on his bed while jeonghan would take the couch and asking seungcheol to take a shower because he looked like he came back from a fight with a shark

when morning came seungcheol was trying to explain jeonghan about the wonderful complicated world of mafia business

but jeonghan had none of it — it sounded unreal

on top of that he was more fussed over seungcheol leaving for two years and not telling his own friend about it

with all this anger building inside him, mainly due to the stress of trying to get his head around this whole... thing, he told seungcheol to leave and go back home

seungcheol gave a look at him, a hard look, before he sighed and stormed out of the place

jeonghan didnt miss the small ‘no one ever stops to listen to someone like me’ under seungcheol’s breath

and never in their friendship they brought light upon their many differences, so it kinda tugged on jeonghan’s heartstrings

it saddened him knowing he didn’t give the welcome his friend wanted but at the time he thought he was in the right

then for the next two weeks, seungcheol was desperately trying to get jeonghan to join his ‘mafia’

(mafia in asteriks, because jeonghan wasn’t having any of his bullshit)

through messages, messy letters, he even received a collection post-it notes stuck around his penthouse without traces of who did this even though he fully knew well who it was

and that night jeonghan was paranoid that seungcheol would randomly break in again

then the desperation for help stopped for the next month

although jeonghan did enjoy the attention from his best friend and wanted to continue this ‘fun’ game, he began to grow concerned

his best friend disappeared without a trace. again.

the cope was harder to deal with this time, because the insignificant thought about seungcheol truly being a mafia boss was becoming the host of his nightmares

you best believed the utter shock on his face when he saw seungcheol sat beside his door around midnight

hood up, dirty head to toe and one nasty cut on his lip and cheek

jeonghan was supposed to go to a party, but that priority was ignored straight away

he takes seungcheol in, aiding the cuts before doing anything else

as jeonghan would expect from the man, seven year old seungcheol would be screaming ugly noises with snot running down along his tears

but this other seungcheol didn’t flinch at the pressure of the alcohol touching his skin, and looked in every direction to avoid jeonghan

that — thankfully — hadn’t changed

seungcheol always payed attention to his surroundings when he doesnt want to be in a situation. it happened a lot with his father

so jeonghan asks why he looks like shit

and all the anxieties rush to his brain as the thought of his lash of anger to seungcheol caused the latter to end up like this

questions like when did he last eat?, where did he stay?, did i do this?

but seungcheol started explaining himself

something about these high schoolers ganging up on a sixteen year old in their school because of his looks, seungcheol stood up for this said ‘sixteen year old’ and found the four-against-one fight fair play until they brought out knives and seungcheol was like youve got to be kidding me

and suddenly, one thing led to another and the sixteen year old lit a tree on fire???? and he lifted a stray branch, took out a lighter, then lit it before storming to the high schoolers with a maniac-like look on his face

and the kid was then gone as he chased the high schoolers away

seungcheol had never been more confused

but he had to get out as there was still the,,, burning tree there,,,,,,

and when he finished his story, he paused, falling silent again and sort of bitterly saying ‘sorry, half of the things i say sound unbelievable now’

and jeonghan is a bit offended but he wasn’t going to push seungcheol away yet again

so jeonghan tells him that he believes him and at first seungcheol kept arguing that he’s bluffing for his sake

surprised, jeonghan reassures him again and again to get it through seungcheol’s head that he’s going to join him because he’s going through a hard time, anyone can see that

remaining silent, seungcheol nods before he manages out a thanks

they apologise and forgive each other, and later that night seungcheol tells everything — and i mean everything — about his family and the mafia

it was a heavy night for seungcheol

which brings us to today

since jeonghan was born into a rich family, it made seungcheol’s job way more easier than it was as jeonghan had higher class connections with others while his friend kept lowkey

he can have news alerted to him quickly like updates on parties, social events, scandals, some juicy affairs here and there, all that corrupt high-society crap

and he gets the odd word about some mafias in korea, making it his duty to report all of it back to seungcheol

with seungcheol’s command, he does whatever he instructs him to do, which is to spy on any updates of the situation

hence why he’s always out at fancy social-events

its truly a bore though. he’d rather sleep in

you may think he’s just acting naive most of the time — but he’s listening to every word and every moment he can sink in all around him

the highlight of the night is when everyone gets drunk, which is the perfect time to hear their dark secrets and use his sweet-talk

effortlessly finds a way to manipulate his way to invite himself and seventeen, who’d he’d call associates, to any banquet whenever he senses dirty work will commence

his pretty-boy looks usually do the trick ‘seventeen’s pretty boy’, the group calls him

makes the time to take care of the member’s schedules and invitations to these places, even going to the extent to make replica invitations

creates a plan of how the members enter so that they wouldn’t be seen together and raise eyebrows

particularly during these events, other suspicious men try to keep a close eye on jeonghan due to the rumours of his relation to the seventeen mafia

yet they’re wasting their time because he’s never in one place and socialises with many people

often when he strays on his own, he explores the area and wanders from room after room to find anything else valuable

normally reports to wonwoo what he finds through an earpiece

‘i found a diary’

‘youre going to open it arent you’

‘risqué, she keeps a taser and a ton of money in her lingerie set’

‘dont take the money’

‘wasnt going to’

‘jeonghan drop the roll of money right now’

‘... fine’

‘okay’

‘i took the taser instead!’

did i mention that he needs to ‘borrow’ a belonging as his souvenir for the places he visits

and because of junhui, he has semi-mastered the skill to hide all evidence

also pretty much hates it when he’s rushed, needs to take his tiem with everything (excluding when they’re in grave danger then that’s different)

mouth runs a lot so when he really needs information to be spilt, he exposes other lowkey scandals to get the information he needs

this is where he gets his traitor title from

if he’s framed as a traitor, he turns the tables around and either puts the blame on someone else or on the person calling him a traitor

he’s grown up in this corrupt class and knows all the dirty ins and outs of it

when he feels like he’s being interrogated to spill information, he takes control of the conversation and does subtle things like asking for things usually pouting when doing so or complimenting on one thing before discussing something completely off topic

he can never expose seventeen and will never expose them even if he’s dying

another off-topic fact, he calls people babe a lot

mainly because it makes people feel a certain way, but its jeonghan’s self-acclaimed magic word

that word does things

is also a part of A Team, but due to the fact jeonghan is always busy, they dont work together as often as they used to

looking at soonyoung, wonwoo and jeonghan, you wouldn’t think of them to be that close but they’ve had history

out of all of seventeen, he’s the weakest in terms of weaponry since he’s basically just a informant to seventeen

therefore his choice of weapon are usually used by the closest thing to him

prefers glass as his choice of weapon if he had to choose, so because of this minghao frequently gives him smashed wine bottles for jeonghan’s use

a bit of a brat

but seventeen never mentions it

loves seeing people beg in front of him, especially when theyre desperate

this might be because he likes attention on him

teasing and poking fun at them gives him the greatest joy, it leaves him so satisfied but also wanting more

normally after difficult jobs done by the whole group, when Perficio Unit are clearing up the last of the evidence and killing the last of their suffering enemies, jeonghan skips in to take a wonder around too

Perficio Unit let him because its jeonghan

blood is soaked everywhere, many men are on the floor, some dead, possibly not, and their fancy suits all ruined while the four males finishing the job play jazz music on blast as they take care of the remains

just another job for seventeen

and jeonghan inspects each face, making sure the fear is their eyes while theyre slowly dying from blood loss. if they arent, then jeonghan pulls a gun out of his pocket and points it at them, getting the reaction he wants

(the gun was full of blanks anyway, what’s there to be scared about??)

decides to steal a wristwatch from one of the men and gets told off by the unit because they now have to get rid of jeonghan’s dirty fingerprints for stealing the accessory

loves it even more when Perficio Unit are in the middle of an interrogation (on most occasions they lead the questioning) back in their hideout and pops down to see how their ever-so suffering victim is hanging in there

generally summoned down if 1. wonwoo is busy or 2. they need the victim to speak a bit more

jeonghan doesn’t play once he comes down — but its inevitable that he’ll make sure that he gets the satisfaction that he wants from the person held captive

will stay until theyre sweating and crying in a mix of blood and tears and they are begging in front of his feet while tied up. he wont stop the torture unless the person confesses truthfully to what Perficio Unit ask and feel numb around their whole body that it hurts

uses the taser he stole in addition to let the pain sink in even more, also decorated the taser to have stickers of a halo and wings to look like an angel

when they get the answer they want, it’s a job well done for jeonghan

and when the victim thinks its all over, jeonghan sweetly grins one last time to them, turning foot because, really, he cannot do anything to the poor soul

he shrugs and walks, searching in his back pocket for a gun a filled one this time, twirling it around his fingers before handing it to one of the unit members

without skipping a beat, he smiles, whispering ‘enjoy’ and leaving them to do their job

needs the members as much as the members needs him

a perfect balance

“Somebody said it means imperfection and danger”

#hopefully this hasnt dragged on for too long #2.1k words?! yikes!#also im posting the aus by recruitment order #jeonghan #yoon jeonghan #jeonghan au #jeonghan imagines #jeonghan scenarios #seventeen jeonghan #seventeen #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #seventeen mafia au #kpop #kpop imagines #kpop scenarios #mafia!jeonghan #lucet iaspis au

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flarebossmalva · 6 years ago

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the catghost post, pt. 1 [intro saga]

i said i was gonna talk about catghost, and then it turned into attempting to explain catghost by summarizing it, and then it turned into multiple posts because there’s a lot of material to cover and i want to do a thorough job. watch the intro saga first because this is a good series and you should check it out for yourself before listening to me ramble about it!

CWs for part 1: murder, images of dead bodies / skeletal remains, other disturbing imagery (including a couple jumpscares), one image depicting animal death (it’s near the very end of the post)

Alright, I’m posting with decent grammar so you know it’s serious. If you’re just here looking for a brief overview of the series, here’s my crack at it: CatGhost is a multimedia ARG comprised primarily of YouTube videos and accompanying minigames. It’s ongoing, and I plan to update this post as the series itself updates. On the surface, the videos resemble other YouTube cartoons, following the tried-and-true formula of two characters comically tormenting a third; however, something else is clearly going on below the surface, and it quickly becomes clear that these three are tied together by very dark circumstances. Much of what’s really going on is still unclear, but enough has been revealed that I can talk about it without constantly resorting to pure guesswork.

This is part one, covering the Intro Saga (first three videos and their associated games). Like I said, I wanted to be thorough and if I didn’t split it up into separate posts this would get way too long. It’s already too long.

CatGhost 1, “Birthday,” opens with flames filling the screen, then a ripple effect playing over the title card, which I mention because that’s gonna make a whole lot more sense in a minute. We then see our main cast, Elon (cat), Naarah (ghost), and Gideon (hedgehog). Gideon is asleep and the girls are making fun of him. From their dynamic, it seems Naarah’s pretty young and Elon is sort of a big sister figure to her, which means they’re probably close in age. Gideon is 48; today is allegedly his birthday, though he seems unaware until the girls tell him so. Gideon seems generally confused about whatever’s going on and just wants to go back to sleep, but the girls want to take him out to someplace called “Party Country,” and eventually they end up threatening to curse him if he doesn’t comply. The threat seems pretty real as the girls’ voices turn demonic and their eyes glow. Gideon gives in, though it’s unclear if he even realized he was in any danger.

Next scene, Gideon is presented with his birthday cake, which is... pretty wonky-looking, to put it gently. Pecking order for the trio gets further established when Naarah intimidates Gideon into saying the cake she made looks fine and seconds later Elon comments that the cake isn’t very good. Naarah defends herself and says that it’s hard to bake a cake without hands, to which Elon sympathizes and says that her paws aren’t much good either. Naarah says “I miss having a body.” The girls were human once, and seem to remember it clearly. Gideon, on the other hand, interjects saying he has no idea what they’re talking about. Whatever circumstances have bound these three together, Gideon seems to be the only one with no awareness of what’s going on.

Party Country turns out to be an arcade cabinet. Gideon is encouraged to play, but he seems completely apathetic about the game (Gideon seems completely apathetic about most things) and dialogue implies he may not even know what a video game is. Naarah calls Gideon “Dad” at one point while she and Elon bully him into playing, a detail which could lead one to guess a major twist way in advance but which I actually never noticed until just now. Gideon gives in and starts playing, declaring that the game (which we can’t see yet) is actually pretty fun, but the girls continue to tell him to play as if they can’t see that he’s already complying. We then cut to the game, which I’ll talk about more below, but suffice it to say that unless your definition of “fun” is all about talking to fucked-up skeleton ladies in some haunted woods, this is not a fun game:

Afterwards, Gideon wakes and assumes he dreamed the whole thing until he sees the ugly birthday cake Naarah baked. He waves goodbye to the viewer, breaking the fourth wall; an odd thing for a character who shows so little awareness of his surroundings to do.

The game associated with this episode is the same game shown in the episode itself. It’s pretty simple; you play as Gideon and can move left or right through a gloomy-looking pixelated forest. There are two NPCs and a small number of objects to be interacted with, all of which can appear randomly. For now, we’ll focus on the two NPCs. Both are skeletons, and both wear simple dresses of the type peasant girls might wear; one is tinted red, the other tinted blue, with the blue skeleton being notably smaller. When interacted with, the red skeleton will say “It burns! I can’t feel my skin,” or “Trapped like a fly in a jar,” or “I have taken on my new form.” The blue skeleton will say “It’s cold here, I can’t breathe,” or “I have to save him, he waited for me,” or “She lured me into this place.” Is the fire/water motif from the episode’s opening starting to seem relevant? Oh, and there’s more. One game object is a sort of upright stone with a hole cut into it near the top; I’ll be calling this object “Key” as that’s how it identifies itself. Key can be interacted with by typing questions, to which it will give an appropriate answer based on words/phrases it recognizes (like Tool in Petscop, incidentally). If we ask Key certain questions about our main cast, we can learn a lot about the story.

Ask “Who is Elon,” and Key tells you, “Temptress.” Asking the same question about Naarah returns “Proselyte,” while Gideon is “Judge.” If you ask what happened to any of the main cast, you’re told “Vanished.” However, asking for death dates yields results; Elon and Naarah both died in 1650, while Gideon died in 1672. Ask where each of the main three are, and you learn Elon is “In a jar,” Naarah is “Immersed,” and Gideon is “In a dark place.” Given all that, I think we can put the basic setting together:

Elon, Naarah, and Gideon were all human once. They lived during the seventeenth century in what is now the northeastern United States. Naarah must have been a preteen or young teen at the time of her death; Elon was likely a young adult in her late teens when she died, and the pair met their respective fates at or around the same time. Gideon lived into his late forties before dying, which speaks to a life of relative comfort for the time and place, befitting a judge. The animosity between the girls and Gideon seems pretty clear: Gideon sentenced both of them to death for witchcraft. Elon, represented in-game by the red skeleton, was burned at the stake, and her ashes were subsequently stored in a jar. Naarah was drowned by being tied to a chair and immersed in a large body of water (this was a common execution method for suspected witches, and the presence of a chair hanging from a rope in the game supports this); her remains are still underwater. Gideon was most likely given a traditional burial after he passed away of, most likely, natural causes. The wrinkle is that Gideon seems to have been right — Elon and Naarah are witches. Elon (the Temptress) taught Naarah (the Proselyte) the craft. Now all three appear to be stuck in the world of the show, which I guess is some sort of weird limbo, and only Elon and Naarah know what’s going on or who they used to be, probably because they are witches.

We can also take some more guesses at what might be going on based off the interactions the main cast have with each other. For instance, Elon’s the leader of the group and generally takes charge, but it’s clear that at least some of that confidence is an act and she doesn’t really seem to be pulling the strings here. The two have plenty of reasons to hate Gideon and could easily use their magic to put him through hell, but instead they don’t go beyond pushing him around and making fun of him — Naarah even bakes him a cake, which she complains about the difficulty of doing. This could imply the three have been trapped in the afterlife with each other ever since dying and the girls have finally gotten tired of exacting less petty revenge. It could also mean that deep down they’re fond of Gideon and don’t really want him to come to harm, which is a strange relationship to have with the man who ordered your torture and execution. Later videos will shed further light on the dynamics between the three, but for now we’ll leave it at that.

One more thing before I move on — asking Key any question containing the word “murder” will trigger a jumpscare. Initially, this was of what appears to be Naarah’s corpse, but it’s since been changed (we’ll talk about that change later). Here’s the original jumpscare showing Naarah:

CatGhost 2, “Knock,” is more straightforward and thus will take me less time to summarize, thank god. Elon and Naarah are telling knock knock jokes. Gideon completely fails to understand the joke, and possibly completely fails to understand the concept of jokes, and the girls get so pissed they put some sort of curse on him and he winds up locked in a dungeon-like room. The door bears a large ornamental mail slot that looks like some sort of gargoyle’s face, with the slot as its mouth. Gideon is instructed to write a knock knock joke that’s actually funny and slide it through the door if he wants to be released. His first attempt is rejected (it doesn’t even have a punchline) and so Gideon tries to think of another. Cut to the words “2 years later” and Gideon’s still trying to write a funny knock knock joke — this series isn’t above the typical cartoon tropes and I love it. He finally comes up with one (Knock knock / Who’s there / Anita / Anita who / Anita get through this door!) and triumphantly slides it into the mail slot, which then grows larger until it takes up nearly the entire door, the “mouth” gaping wide. Gideon stares at it and is seemingly hypnotized. Disturbing images tinted blue and red flash across the screen, before the camera pulls back and Gideon is shown still in a trancelike state as the girls look at him, confused. Naarah says he’s been staring at that door a while, and she and Elon seem mildly concerned, but decide poking him with a stick would be more fun than helping him. Credits roll.

For this episode, much of the worldbuilding is in the form of freeze-frame bonuses and background details, meaning you have to pay close attention to catch everything. When Gideon is teleported to the cell, images flash onscreen showing an inverted cross and the word “EXCRUCIATE,” all tinted red (the color generally associated with Elon), as well as what appear to be human bones and a girl’s face, tinted blue (the color associated with Naarah). In the cell with Gideon is a skeleton, though he seems not to take notice. One wall reads “Wild Partes of the World,” which is a complex reference I won’t attempt to explain in full (the phrase has been quoted and quoted again across multiple books) but in context within the rest of the story refers to early seventeenth-century Virginia, which must be where our main trio lived as humans. Text is shown written in the Theban alphabet, a substitution cipher based on the Latin alphabet and generally associated with witches and occultists. When Gideon is hypnotized by the door, he sees a judge’s podium, a jar (presumably the one containing Elon’s ashes), and a hanging chair (as was used to execute Naarah). Images of graves are shown, inverted and flipped upside down, along with a similarly distorted picture of a row of houses. During the end credits, the background appears to be lava with yellow flashes moving across it; putting all these yellow flashes together results in this image:

Audio during the intro, when reversed, is of a voice saying “I don’t know. I don’t know where it’s at. I think they’ve been looking for it for a long time, but… sometimes it seems like we’re just never going to find it.”

The accompanying minigame features the door from Gideon’s cell, complete with its ornamental mail slot (browsing the wiki, because of course there’s a wiki and of course that’s how I’m getting images for this post as well as checking for stuff I missed, it seems fans call this the “Horrible Beast door”). The door can be interacted with by knocking on it using tap code; if the right words are input, the game will display a corresponding image.

“Megalith” produces an image of Key, the stone you can question in the previous minigame:

“Libation” shows Gideon’s unfortunate-looking birthday cake:

“Trinity” shows the shadows of three people, what appears to be a man and two girls, most likely our main trio:

“Excruciate” shows what is presumably the stake used during Elon’s execution:

“Proselyte” shows what must be Naarah’s skeleton, along with the chair she was bound to, laying at the bottom of a body of water:

CatGhost 3, “Window,” opens by showing that same body of water, although there is no sign of the chair or of Naarah’s remains. We then cut to an outhouse in the show’s typical animated style. Elon is inside, preening, when a noise outside startles her. She checks and discovers a small hand mirror, with Theban writing on it reading “For Elon,” though the text is mirrored and upside down. Elon seems confused and flips the mirror open, whereupon she sees a black-and-white image of a mysterious woman, her face completely in shadow save for her glowing white eyes. When the woman raises her head and makes eye contact with Elon, the cat gets so spooked she drops the mirror and flees. Elon runs back inside, entering via the Horrible Beast door, and is greeted by Naarah, who’s acting suspiciously and asks if Elon saw anything interesting outside. When she’s asked point blank if she’s the one who left the mirror there, Naarah denies it and blames Gideon, and even though it seems obvious that she’s lying, Elon doesn’t question her further. She confronts Gideon, who is chopping wood and seems enthusiastic for once, and tells him — I’m only paraphrasing slightly here — not to use witchcraft to fuck with a witch, or else [colorful threat omitted for brevity’s sake]. At the end of this rant, she briefly shapeshifts into some sort of demonic chimera, with a snakelike body, horns, and quite a lot of teeth. Gideon, who as usual has no idea what she’s on about, is suitably terrified.

Elon, back to her regular form, goes back inside and picks up what appears to be a crayon drawing of a blue girl hugging a taller red girl, accompanied by Theban that reads “From: Naarah, To: bestest best friend.” We can presume Naarah is the blue girl and Elon is the red girl, of course, but of interest is the small form next to the house in the background. It looks like it could be a dog, and, given later events, it almost certainly is a dog.

The drawing had been resting on a large object covered with a cloth, and Elon, curious, pulls the cloth free. Underneath are three mirrors, angled so they all face towards her, and the strange woman from earlier (some fans call her “the Watcher,” which I’ll go with for now) is reflected in each one. Elon is frozen in place as the three Watchers advance towards her, and she begins to cry. The Watcher points a finger (from here on there seems to be only one of her, not three) and Elon begins levitating as the background glitches out. She’s tugged towards the Watcher, and when the outstretched finger touches her forehead, the screen goes white.

Then we’re back to the pixel graphics from the first minigame, in the same dark woods as before, but Elon and Naarah aren’t skeletons — they’re living girls. Elon is pale, with long red hair and blue eyes; Naarah is quite a bit smaller, with brown skin and dark blue-tinged hair in pigtails. Interestingly, Elon wears a blue dress and Naarah’s dress is red, despite their typical color associations. Elon stands over a crying Naarah, her expression sullen. After a few seconds, the credits roll.

This time, the “minigame” just shows a static image of a mirror. Well, almost static — the clock resting on the dresser below the mirror moves in real time, matching the time set on the player’s computer. At exactly three AM system time, the Watcher appears in the mirror, which is then overtaken by static, and the scene changes to Elon and Naarah as we saw them during the end of the last video. Initially, it seems to be the same as before, with Elon standing over Naarah as she cries, but this time there’s dialogue. Here, have a transcript I stole from the wiki because it was easier than typing it up again myself:

After this, the mirror becomes static once more; if you wait three minutes, this image displays for a single frame before the game closes:

So, yeah, I think it’s safe to say that’s a dog in Naarah’s drawing. This also seems to explain why she’s crying in the scene we just saw. Why the dog was killed (sacrificed on an alter, looks like) is a mystery I’ll tackle when we cover the later sagas.

Also, in the interest of equality, this time it’s Elon who jumpscares you if you type “murder.” Typing doesn’t do anything else in this game, though.

That concludes the Intro Saga! This post is already really long and I’m not going to bother giving closing thoughts at this point especially considering the series is still ongoing. Stay tuned for the next installment, coming whenever I get around to it!

#holo casting #catghost tag

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exidtotheleft · 7 years ago

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The Devil’s Trill | 04

Pairing: Yoongi x Reader Genre: Musician AU/Fluff Summary: Min Yoongi is a harsh music critic and judge known for his brutally honest input. When it comes your time to face his judgement, things go down different than you expected. The judge may end up becoming more than just a person to be feared to you. Chapter Playlist: Trille du diable (The Devil’s Trill) Chapters: Intro 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Epilogue

You groaned in bed as you turned over. You were starting to awaken, and you heard your phone chime with a text notification which was what woke you the rest of the way. You picked up your phone, squinting at the screen. Your eyes adjusting to the light. When they had adjusted just enough, you made out the contact name that had sent the message. It was Yoongi. Suddenly, after seeing that, you were fully awake. You shot up from your bed and sat up straight. You opened the message and blinked before reading it. It was the address to his house, followed by the question: "What time where you planning on coming?" You looked at the time on the top corner of your phone. It was 8:03 A.M. right now. You wanted to go as soon as you could. You could honestly bolt out the door right now if you wanted to, you were so excited. But you knew you should give him some time to get ready. You replied back with the closest time that seemed reasonable.

'How about 10, or is that too early?"

You pressed send and took a fast exhale. Turning your screen off immediately and dropping your phone as soon as your finger pressed the send button. You didn't want to even look at your phone as you waited for his reply. This was so nerve wracking to you. You heard your phone chime before you could even get out of your bed though. He was a quick responder.

Yoongi: '10 is fine. The earlier the better.'

You read. You pushed your lips together firmly after reading that, not knowing if you should respond or not. But you just replied with the first thing that came to mind.

'Okay, see you then'

Once the message was sent, you threw the covers off of you and started changing. You took out a couple clothing options out, not knowing what exactly to wear. When you considered it, you didn't what to look too fancy and dressed up, but you had no idea what Yoongi was like. You didn't know what his living spaces were like and if he was a classy man or not. You assumed he was, seeing what he does for a living, and what your professor had said yesterday about him being a rich man. You decided you should put a bit of effort into what you wore. So you threw on a black blouse and nicely fitting jeans. You went into the bathroom and brushed out your hair, making sure it was tangle free before doing your normal makeup routine. Just enough to make it look like you put effort into your look.

Once you were done with that, you went go check your phone. Yoongi hadn't replied, but he saw your message. You checked the time, 8:20. You still had an hour, and then some, to kill. You sighed, not knowing what to do for that amount of time.

You lay down flat on your stomach on your bed and mindlessly scrolled through various social media posts and updates. You heard Lucy turn in the bed that was behind you. It sounded like she was waking up. "What time is it?" She mumbled through a groggy voice. "8:20" you replied simply, even though it was a bit later than that. "Damn." She replied, trying to completely wake herself up.

"You're dressed kinda nice for a weekend. Where are you going?" "You know where I'm going." She went quiet for a moment to think. "Oh!" "Yeah." "Ooo you look nice for him and everything." "I only look nice because he probably dresses nice on a daily and I don't want to underdress." "Sure." She teased. "Really, that is why." "Okay okay." She really was pushing that you and Yoongi thing. You heard her completely climb out of her bed, she came around and sat on the other side of you, where you could look up and see her. "What are you doing?" "Nothing important. I'm just scrolling through twitter and what not." "Ah." Silence thickened the air. You huffed and dropped your phone onto the bed when you came to the conclusion that nothing interesting was happening. "Do you wanna get breakfast or some thing?" You looked up at her and asked. "I would but I honestly don't want to get dressed. We just bought stuff, we can make something. Isn't there pancake mix?" "Yeah I remember buying that." "Let's just do that then." You slowly stood up from your bed, both of you walked into the kitchen. Lucy got down a pan while you grabbed a bowl and the pancake mix. You opened the box of mix and held it up to pour some in the bowl, but Lucy stopped you. "Hey don't be doing that! Put it down." You furrowed your eyebrows and put the box down slowly. "You're gonna get pancake mix on your blouse." "Oh my gosh Lucy I'm not your daughter." "Well you are today and you're going on your first date!" "Shut up!" You yelled back through laughter. "No, you're gonna flip the pancakes and I'll mix them." "Alright, what ever helps you sleep at night." You agreed while walking around the counter and to the stove. You put the small pan she had taken down on the electric stove, turning it on, waiting for her to finish adding the water to the bowl and mixing it. "Here." She said while sliding the bowl over to you. You carefully picked up the bowl and poured a good amount of the mix into the pan and watched the bubbles form on top. Flipping it when you thought it was ready. It was a bit burnt, but could you ever really get these things cooked perfectly?

You continued doing this till you made 3 pancakes for both of you. You plated them and put them on your TV tray of a kitchen table and grabbed the syrup out of the small pantry. "Here." You and Lucy sat down on opposite sides of the table. You checked your phone before eating anything. It was still only 8:40, everything was going by so slow. This was killing you. You finally turned so your legs were fully under the table, and poured syrup on your breakfast. Taking a bite of what you had made. It was bland and clearly store bought, but it was still satisfying. "What time where you going to Yoongi's?" "Ten." You answered simply before taking another bite. "Dude, this is going by so slowly. I just want to go already." You vented. It was truly painful. "I mean after this we can have like a two person party to kill time. I'll bust out my blue tooth speaker we can rock out to Shosty," You chuckled at that joke. Shosty was short for Shostakovich, who was a Russian composer. "Or that pop whatever you like. We can listen to what you want and totally annoy our neighbors." "That sounds like a good idea."

_____

You took a deep breath as you pulled up the drive way of Yoongi's house, not surprised at what you saw but, very intimidated. His house was huge and all modernized. Your professor must to have been right about him being rich. Either that or he was swimming in debt. You said a quick prayer as you turned off your car and grabbed your violin from the passenger seat, sliding out of your car. You shut the door behind you and walked up the cement path way leading to his front door. There were bushes of flowers, all different colors along the way. It was really aesthetically pleasing.

Your heart was racing as you walked up to his front door. You checked the time on your phone. It was 10:05. You rang the door bell and held your breath for a moment in anticipation. This was the moment you had been waiting for. You watched the door crack open, expecting to see your new mentor looking just as nice as he did the other day when you saw him for the first time. But you were wrong about him dressing like that on a daily occurrence. He was in a black V-neck shirt and a purple flannel with casual jeans. You had worried about under dressing. Suddenly your makeup and nice flat shoes made you feel over dressed. "This isn't what I had expected to see." You joked, still standing on his porch. "I'm not as classy as you think I am. You didn't have to dress so nice." "Whatever, I always try to look nice." You covered casually, you didn't want it to look like you dressed up for him. "Sure. Come in." He invited stepping aside for you. You stepped onto the dark hardwood floor of his house. Even the floor seemed to be nicer than anything you owned. Besides your violin, that was.

"Jeez. You got quite the bachelor pad going on here." "Yeah. I get that a lot." You looked around his front room. His house wasn't that big. It was just incredibly spacious. The front room was the living room. The entire back wall of the house was glass, so you could see into his up kept backyard. It made the house feel huge. To the right of the room, there was a pearl couch on top of a maroon rug, facing a marble fire place with a flat screen TV mounted over it. Next to the fireplace was an archway that seemed to lead to the kitchen. But, behind the couch a few feet was a white grand piano. Yoongi shut the front door as you took in the amazing design of his house and walked past you, straight to the piano you had been looking at.

"Well let's not waste time." "Right." You agreed, taking your violin and putting it the coffee table that was in front of his couch. Taking out your violin and making sure it was in tune. "Alright. What you got for me?" You asked while standing and walking to the music stand he had set up for you. "Are you familiar with Tartini?" "Yeah, the Baroque composer." "So I assume you know his most famous violin piece." You thought about it for a moment. You hadn't studied Tartini, you just knew him. So you weren't sure what piece we was referring to. "I feel like I should. Isn't it in G minor?" Yoongi didn't say another word. He just took a book of music off his piano and looked at you, holding it up before taking a step toward you and putting the violin score on your stand. The second you saw the title your heart dropped. Suddenly, you remembered the piece he was most known for. The music book placed on your stand read: Trille du Diable across the top. Or what was better known as The Devil's Trill Sonata. It was an incredibly demanding piece, possibly one of the hardest violin sonata's written. Playing it had never even crossed your mind.

"Are you serious? You want me to play this?" You asked skeptically. Who did he think you were? "I haven't heard this piece done the way I think it should be done. You could play it." "You've heard me play once!" "Yeah but it wasn't an easy piece that I heard." "Yoongi I had been working on that since high school. I'm a senior in college and that was the first time I ever performed it. It took me that long to learn it." "You didn't have help when you learned it." "Yeah but, still! You don't even play violin! I know you're a pianist." Yoongi went silent, staring at you blankly before sighing and standing up. "Do you ever shut up." He mumbled while walking to you, stopping in front of you with his left hand out like he wanted something.

"Violin." He demanded monotonous. You handed him the instrument slowly, you had a feeling he was about to prove you wrong. "If I can play the first page of this sonata, you don't get to question me until we finish this. Deal?" "I know I can't decline." You said quietly. You knew all too well that he was going to play it just fine and he was going to embarrass you for speaking out against him. You needed to learn to keep your mouth shut. "Well then you're a smart girl."

You sat down on his pearl white couch and watched him as he opened the music and looked at the first page. You could see him trying out some of the notes with just his left hand and no bow as his eyes scanned the page. You could tell he was probably trying out the double stops and harmonies. He tilted his head back and to the side for a moment before took a breath in through his nose while putting the instruments under his chin. You watched him intently as he played the first note. You knew from the moment he started playing he would play this just fine. It was perfectly in tune. His vibrato wasn't specular, but violin wasn't his principle instrument so it was too be expected. As you watched him play, you got chills. You tried to fight them off but they still came anyway. It wasn't so much his playing or the way it sounded, but more that he was playing it. Something about him made it sounds so emotional and passionate. He really did know just how he wanted it to sound.

You rested your arm on the back of the couch and placed your chin on your arm. Admiring him as he played the double stops of the piece. You thought about the things Lucy said about him. You probably shouldn't be thinking of him like this, you were drinking in what you found to be attractive about him, but he just looked so good with your violin in his hand, you didn't care that he was showing you up, he looked good doing it.

Yoongi let the last note fade off your violin and pulled it out from under his chin. Not wasting a second before handing your instrument back to you, as you stood and walked toward him. "Welp, you know what this means. What I say, goes." "Yes yes, no more questions I know." You took your violin and he went over to the piano, lifting the hood that covered the keys and looked at you. "Whenever you're ready." "How fast do you want it?" "I said no questions." You looked at Yoongi in disbelief. How were you not supposed to ask that? He looked at you blankly before looking away with a smile. "I'm kidding. However fast you think it Should go. We're both sight reading so I don't think either of us would care much if we took it slow." "Alright." You looked nervously at the music on your stand. The beginning was easy but the second page was when things heated up.

You put your bow on the string and looked at your new mentor, taking a breath in that was in time with the tempo you were planning on taking, which wasn't very fast. It was the same tempo he had just played it in. No way you would let him play this faster than you. Your pride wouldn't let you. The beginning was melodic and you really loved it. It acted as the calm before the storm. Some thing to really draw the listener in for the kill. You knew the second your eyes shifted to the next page that you were in for it. There was a reason this was the Devil's trill and not any one else's. You had a feeling your left hand and bowing arm Would be burning like hell when you were done with this.

You braced your self as the first high grace note of the of the second page hit. You played it confidently, but as soon as the fast 16th notes came in, that confidence vanished. You didn't even attempt to do the trills. You just tried your best to get the notes right. You were doing pretty well, but when the notes seemed to get denser and harder to read because of the amount of them, you started having to skip some notes. You made it out of the first section of demanding 16th notes by a thread. Yoongi stopped you when you got to the repeat. "Let's take it a big slower." "Please." "How about..." Yoongi thought for a moment before tapping his fingers on the side of its piano, giving you the tempo. "That slow enough?" "Yeah." "Alright." Yoongi counted to four at the tempo you were going to play at and you started playing again once he got to one. Continuing the piece. You still got lost a few times but not as many.

Eventually, when you got to the parts with the crazy trills, you just tried your best and hoped it was good enough. You were really trying but you laughed as you did knowing it was way wrong. You could see Yoongi smiling too. He seemed amused. To you it felt like you were trying to do the impossible. When you got to the cadenza at the end of the piece, that was all solo violin and no piano, that feeling of trying the impossible only became stronger. Since it was a cadenza though, you had freedom with it, you could do what you wanted with it. Or, you could what you wanted with it to Yoongi's approval. Luckily because you were sight reading it, you could stop a lot to figure out what was happening in the music, and you didn't have to make sure you could catch up with Yoongi because he didn't play again till the second to last measure. So you played away, well, you tried away. This was unlike any cadenza you had ever played, or even seen before. It was insane. The whole page was practically black, like ants had been smashed on top of blank sheet music and it was your job to determine if these were even notes or not.

You slogged your way through to the last few measures, then Yoongi came in on the piano again. You started laughing again while you played, laughing at your pathetic attempt to get through this piece. Yoongi started laughing too when you tried to play the last note but ultimately gave up, not really caring anymore. "Good enough for you yet?" You joked. "It was good for a sight read." It had taken you about 20 minutes to get through the whole piece. Which was 5 minutes longer than when it was up to speed. "You really think I can do this?" You asked after a silence filled the air. You weren't sure of yourself. You knew he probably already had a recital he wanted you to play this for, you didn't know how soon it was but you were afraid that maybe you wouldn't be able to prepare it that quickly. A piece like this could take years, depending on the musician.

"I know you can. You just have to assure yourself of that." "Why are we working on this? I know you're not having me play a piece like this just for fun." Yoongi nodded. "You're right. Truth is that, there's a recital on December 17th. Its not a competition, just a recital. A lot of people I know will be there and I wanted them to hear you." You didn't know what to say to that. Part of you was bummed it wasn't a competition, but the fact he felt like others needed to see you was touching. "What's wrong? You don't seem pleased with that." "Nothing is wrong, it's just that, I kinda wanted to do a competition with you." "Just a one rounder?" He asked, seeming disappointed with that decision. "Yeah." "You want to do a one round competition with this." He asked, though it was more of a statement. "I know its not ideal, but, I just want to do one."

"No." That word stung you. He was so quick to answer. "I'm not going to mentor a sandbagger. You're not gonna play a piece like this even if it is an advanced competition. It's a waste of a piece, no one could even touch you if we did. There would be no honor in it." "Yoongi come on. Shouldn't I have a say in this?" "Don't question me!" You fell silent, sighing as you put your bow on the stand in front of you.

"Fine." You agreed. Thinking up a proposition that could change everything. "Take me to nationals, then. You said if yourself that third place isn't first. Get me to first." "Nationals aren't until February next year, its only September." "So? Just more time to prepare. Yoongi, please. Let me have this." You pleaded, you really wanted to show him that you could do this. Then he would really have something to brag about to his colleagues.

You two met eyes, holding the eye contact, you hoped that how much you wanted was evident in your gaze. You could practically feel that tension you had felt from him the other night at your evaluation building again. Like you had some kind of affect on him. He swallowed and looked away, closing his eyes and shaking his head in defeat. "Okay...okay. We can go to nationals." "Really?!" You yelled, you thought for sure he would deny you this. "Yes." "Okay! Okay, if that's the case, then let's play!" You exclaimed in excitement, putting your violin back under your chin and picking up your bow. A smile was spread across your face, eager to play what he asked you to.

He laughed at how you had reacted before looking up and at his score. "Let's Start the second page. No trills and about half as slow as normal, just get the notes in tune and we'll put everything back in later." He instructed before taking his music off the piano's stand and setting it in his lap. "Go ahead, I'll follow along." Without another word, you put your bow to the string with a new found desire. A want to go above and beyond with this piece, even if a few minutes ago you were doubting yourself. You wanted this now, and as you played the piece slower, you could hear that desire in every note. Yoongi noticed it just as much as you did.

#yoongi #min yoongi #suga #suga x reader #yoongi x reader #kpop #kpop au #bts #bts fanfiction #kpop fanfiction #jimin #jungkook #taehyung #jin #namjoon #hoseok #fluff #no smut

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magicalsalamander · 7 years ago

Text

Aurelius [Prologue]

Pairing: BTS Namjoon ⇆ Reader

Genre: Werewolf | Fluff | Angst | Smut [later] |

Summary: When the daughter of the secretary for the Minister for Wolf and Canine relations is the last living member of her clan, she must find a way to avenge her family. She must find a way to put an end to the hunters whose sole purpose is to cleanse the world of werewolves. The golden one hasn’t forgotten. Will she be able to get the revenge she needs?

Words: 8.7 K

Warnings: Rated Mature; Explicit themes, action/ violence, blood shed, torture, death of characters (minor), and graphic depiction. This is not true though series, only this part for context.

A/N: Orig post: 01|15| 2018; Updated intro 12|12|19. Part of the KLF Universe. Thank you @ratedtae for the moodboard.

| Masterlist | Next ⇾

Only the ghost of the red-violet torch light painting the depressingly dull cobblestone walls gave me indication I didn’t give into the darkness. My first associations with that light were brief when the Neanderthal like men dragged my father, my grandfather and I into this cell. The oxidized iron liquid that I used to call mine painted the wall behind me and my very own dress. It was like my once champagne peach dress was now dipped in a marbled brown and burgundy dye solution and rung out sloppily. The spaghetti straps no longer supported the once proud collar of my dress but hung lifelessly at my sides. The only thing left at my side now. The cold, almost wet, cement floor and the cobble stone walls were the only thing supporting me up now. Gashes, slashes, and broken ribs left me immobile with only my eyes making the major movement. I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe, but I still had the fight in me. Almost cruelly, I still had fight in me.

I couldn’t hear well out of my right ear anymore just a high pitched constant ringing. Though clearly in my left ear I could hear a set of two heavy boots trail down the hall towards my cell. My grandfather remained unconscious in the opposite corner of the cell with his back facing me. If my senses proved me right, he’s left us a few hours ago to a better place. I only stared at the men dressed in black clothing with leather ascents who stood across the uneven, iron bars of the cell. What was the most sickening about them was the pelt that still carried the head of the wolf on the shoulders of their cloak. The faces of my people.

I growled lowly in my throat challenging these men to come close to me. They laughed and shoved the uneven bars of the cell door with their mudded boots open and stepped into the cell creating a half moon around me. I remained still as possible monitoring their movements cautiously with my eyes. The only reliable sense I had left. The center one with a grey wolf around his black cloak crouched down to my level. He took my chin between his calloused thick hands and brought my face up to look at him. His yellowed teeth showed behind his grime smile. His unkept long, brown hair fanned over his face only making his appearance more menacing. You’ve heard the verbal stories passed down through generations from your grandparents about these men. The horrific things these men did. The hunters.

He licked his chapped, thin lips before speaking, “It’s such a shame a pretty doll like this is such a filthy little bitch. If she wasn’t such scum I would’ve taken her to my bed. Sadly, for you my dear, my Lord calls for you.” He dropped my chin roughly and shoved a blacken, muslin bag over your head and tightened it with a string. I couldn’t see where they were dragging me, but I tried to mesmerize the turns we were taking but it was hard when your feet were scrapping cement. My feet weren’t used to such rough terrain, instead accustomed to running through grass, soft dirt, and the fuzzy carpet of my home. I missed home.

In fact, I was just there a few hours ago! A day ago? I’m not really sure how much time has passed honestly since I’ve been in this cell.

It was Sunday and my family held a monthly dinner to take a moment to celebrate life and being a family. I was sleeping in late that day when my mom came in the room and shoved open my curtains that block out the harsh noon sun. I enjoy the sun, just not when I’m trying to sleep. I grumble knowing that this is the end, the end of my precious slumber. Without warning she jumps on top of me and tickles me leaving me no choice to get up to stop her. I swear my mother never grew up, she’s more like a big sister than a parental figure. “Y/N, its Sunday. You know what that means?” I grumble under the covers while my mother leans her head into the covers to get a better listen. “Your grandparents are coming in from the North. They took a train here this morning and will be arriving around 5pm. You know how hard it is for them to travel so get up and help me. Get dressed first, wear something nice nothing casual Aure! We don’t have a lot of time!” I sneak a hand out of the blanket and wave it to her and give her an okay sign. She pats my butt in understanding the shaky promise and leaves the room.

Aure obviously wasn’t your name. I liked the name though, but my mom thought my legal name fit better. It just had this flow to it that was so…me, or so she insists. Before I was born, my dad went to Spain for a study abroad program for college and stayed with a Spanish family. He was taken into the family like one of their own during his stay. The wife/mother of the family taught him things his family lacked and found a new family in them. He grew very close to her and years later back at home when he found out he was going to have a daughter he wanted to name her after that woman. Her name was Aureliana (but your family found it simpler to call me by Aure). He asked her before he left if her name held a meaning and she said it meant golden and an emperor from Rome bared that name; more realistically her mother wanted her life to be golden like the word itself. My mother had decided on her children’s name as long as she could remember, so it left your father little room to argue. He found a loophole and called me Aure as a nickname, because I am as precious as gold to him.

I went to shower first before I swung open the French doors to my closet. I didn’t have many party dresses, but the ones I did I took care of. It was Spring, so I went with my champagne-peach spaghetti strap short dress that set just above my knees. It was pastel enough to match the new turn of the season, but comfy enough to maneuver in. Comfort comes first after all with clothing. I sat at my white vanity that used to be my grandmothers and set my face with light makeup. I was only staying indoors today anyways. I French braided my hair from crown to tip and pulled at the strands to loosen it up. A few pieces were taken out around my temple and cascaded on the side of my face. My mother came back in the room already dressed up as well in her blue, long sleeve knee length dress. She had her hair tied up in a tight bun that complimented her sharp features. The gold jewelry complimented her gold eyes. It was a unique thing that belonged to your people, even more unique to female alphas; only female alpha’s have gold eyes. She grabbed the two ends of the chains I already raised to latch the rose gold necklace, but took over halfway wordlessly. It was one piece of the set my father to me for my last birthday when I turned seventeen. My mother reached into the aged, heirloom jewelry box and pulled out the six rose gold rose pins for my hair. She weaved them through the braid into a small garden. I looped in the small hoop earring into my ears as the last touch and after latching the last hoop I took in everything. My metallic, rose gold eyes matched my jewelry perfectly.

I was born with gold eyes like my mother but as I got older red bleed into the gold mixing it into a rose gold. In a childish fit I was ashamed of them, I didn’t want to be different. I wanted to be like the rest of my pack, like the other female alpha’s generations before me. I sat at on the top of the porch chairs ashamed of my eyes but my father sat down behind me incasing me in between his legs. He set his bearded chin on my head, “The purple blends with the edges of the sky at night and for centuries people have painted that same sky. Each sunset is unique, no day will the clouds be the same. There will be no night where the sunset doesn’t marble into different colors.” I stopped sobbing hearing my dad’s words. He always talked some sense into me and told stories instead of lectures to get his message across. He wound his arms around me in a comforting hug, “Aure, Aureliana, my love, do you know that your name is as unique as the sky?” I shook my head acknowledging I’ve never bothered to ask, it’s just always been a self-truth I didn’t question. He sighed rocking me side to side gently and began, “Aureliana was the name of a special woman, who was like a mother to me, when I went to Spain. She told me the great legend of her name. Aureliana meant golden and that it was the name of an emperor of the Romans. The Romans were strong, smart, and diverse people who wore their red and gold robes proudly. They were greatest people of their time! Of course, your mother wanted to name you Y/N, but I still think you’re my little golden token. I’m grateful to have you Aure and I wouldn’t ever change that. You are strong and smart. Don’t be ashamed of the same colors the Roman’s wore proudly. My precious, little wolf, be the strong and valiant one I know you are.”

Being the daughter of an Alpha was a big responsibility, you were expected to lead the pack later when it was time to pass it down to the next reigning leader as the new Luna. The words my father told me that evening never left my every day motivational speech. I’ve held my head proudly since then and I want to lead my pack with pride when the time came. My pack was only a smaller division of a larger collective tribe. The region that I belong to was made of five different family packs, but my family was the second in ranking. The Kim family was the main alpha’s that ruled the area and their alpha worked for the Council as the Minister of Wolves and Canine relations. Your father was the secretary for the Minister earning the spot as a wise alpha and a smart man.

I walked down the stairs trailing after my mother into the kitchen. It was only my mother and myself in the house for the meantime to finish dinner and decorate the house before my father returned with my grandparents, his parents. My mother’s family disappeared five years ago, never to be found. I mixed some of the dishes and went to set the table with a large bouquet centerpiece. A few streamers were hung to create a festive atmosphere and bring all the décor together. It was tradition in wolf culture to be close to your family and mine lived by that diligently. I was working on some decorations in the living room when I hear the familiar car horn coming from the drive way. I slipped on my outside slippers and made my way out and down the porch steps and jogged up to the white Jeep Grand Cherokee. I waited for my dad to come out the car and he opened his arms wide and said, “Aure!” With an open invitation I jumped into his arms and squeezed him with all I had. He laughed at my eagerness and set me down. I turned to my grandparents struggling to get out. My grandpa was a tall, lean man with salt and pepper hair. He said his wrinkles were caused by grandma, “the woman never knows how to stop nagging me Y/N,” at least I quote from him. Grandma was a short, small woman but she had enough spunk in her to rival me. I hugged them equally as tight just not jumping this time around. I politely took their carry-ons walking with them into the house as they told me about their adventure on the train. Your father followed closely behind with their suitcase and closed the front door.

It was around seven pm when everything was on the table and served onto everyone’s plate. My father raised his glass clinking it with a nearby utensil. “I’m so glad my parents could make it to this dinner. It’s always great having you in our home. It isn’t home without everyone here tonight, Howls to the kin!” You all howled in cheer and clinked your glasses, but in my gauntlet it was only apple juice. I couldn’t drink any alcohol yet since it was illegal. The meal was delicious, my mother was an amazing cook. All adults at the table were tipsy with the merlot wine that my father has been saving for the occasion. I was facing the bay window sitting next to my mother, across from your grandparents with my father at the head of the table. All the adults were so in tuned with some old story that I’ve heard every Sunday dinner. They were clearly giggling at the same boring parts and retelling the same old jokes. I stared out the window not being able to leave the table until I cleaned my plate. I twirled my fork in the few last bites of pasta, but I didn’t raise it to take a bite. I stared out at the tree line of the property. The moonlight shined brightly on the mid-size back yard reflecting on the freshly dewed grass. We were far out from the city and from the closet pack house, it was safer for us and allowed us to run the forest in our natural states. There were no fences around the property since we wanted to run freely and return at will.

The tree line seemed to move and sway, I rubbed my eyes clearing it of any haze. I was positive I didn’t drink anything so why was the tree line changing? The black shadows took to a uniform line of dark shadows approaching the house out of the trees. They wore long, black cloaks, so you couldn’t make out any faces. I panicked my heart was racing, I yelled breaking the warm, nostalgic atmosphere, “Dad, Dad, there are people approaching the house! Look out the window, Look!” As if he sobered up instantly, his eyes burned a bright red and he peered at the tree line finally seeing the approaching shadows. A growl ripped through everyone in the room and I turned to the window again now seeing them more clearly. Each carried a pelt, some multiple, of their hunt with large knifes tucked into a sheath on their belt. They were armed in leather armor under their cloaks as I caught glimpses within strides. The man in the middle with multiple pelts on his cloak raised his hand and his minions stopped. He raised his head and to the side allowing my family to see the smirk of his teeth. He unsheathed his large sword gripping the leather handle that had a wolf’s tail hanging as an ornament. The blade was held in the air and it was dripping in purple, viscous solution. My eyes widened, I knew that syrup very well and whispered audibly, “wolfsbane.” The man kept arching his arm all the way back and then threw his knife towards us. Screams wrecked the room as the knife cracked the glass shattering the window and the knife was left oscillating stuck in the wooden table. My mother grabbed my hand calling along my grandmother, “Honey, we’re going to run. Don’t stop running okay? When we reach the front lawn, I want you to shift into your wolf. Go!” I looked towards my father and grandpa, who was already shifting and charging towards the men. I whimpered. There were too many men, I already knew this wasn’t going to end well. My mother dragged me to the front door and I made it into the lawn bare feet, “Shift! Don’t bother removing clothes just run!” The sound of clothes ripping and bones cracking filled the air, but close along the boots and laughs of the men followed. I didn’t look back, I kept running with my family at my side.

I was able to make it a half mile out climbing over and under shrubbery, trees, and anything in the way. It wasn’t long before you heard a yelp and against better judgment I took a gander back only to be horrified when you saw that your grandmother was being pulled by the tail towards the men. They raised their purple knifes letting the purple syrup drip tauntingly and then straight into her. I was horrified but my mother nudged my shoulder midstride to keep running; it wasn’t time to stop. My vision was getting blurry with tears. We made it past a river bank and saw an upcoming edge of a cliff. If we jumped, we could get away. We made it a bit further, I was trailing in front of my mother when I heard a pained howl. I stopped a few steps ahead and saw she was stuck in a bear trap. I was circling her whining, there wasn’t anything I could do in this state. I approached her and tried to bite the claws open finding any lever to release the pressure. I was panicking because I could smell the putrid smell of the hunters. The distinct smell of wolfsbane was getting closer and closer. I scratched and bite at the trap for a release, my claws were filing against the rusted metal of the old forgotten trap. My mother was barking at me to leave, leave and go far away but I wasn’t going to leave her behind. Before I knew it a large calloused hand encircled my neck and held me above the ground hind legs dangling. I couldn’t breathe but I was kicking and biting at the hands holding me. They laughed at my struggle, “Well look at what we have here. Two females? Well if it isn’t our lucky day.” One of the five men was stroking my mothers fur, but retracting his hand back when she snapped at him. He clicked his tongue at her, “stubborn, bitch.” He then placed his foot on the trap and eventually applied enough pressure to hear a snap of bone where the two sides of the bear trap met again. I roared, and my mother was screaming at the loss of her limb. The amount of blood flowing was overwhelming. They looked towards me and noticed my eyes, “wow, look at this one’s eyes. It would sell for so much if we dug them out and sold them don’t ya think?” I was shaking more violently doing everything I could to get out of their grasp. My mother looked into my eyes one last time before the gold left hers to turn a black as the man brought his up knife in both hands and through her chest. It hurt so much, and I was feeling sick. My vision was blacking in and out and before you knew it you passed out from the lack of air.

The muslin over my head didn’t lessen all of my senses. I could smell the different owners of blood, but I recognized notes of my fathers and grandpa’s as I was hurled to the floor of the room. I could only hear four heartbeats in the room. Before the muslin was removed, my arms were twisted behind my back locked in cuffs that were attached to decayed chains latched to the celling in my kneeling position. A scratchy rope was tied around my thighs and calves into a permanent kneeling position. This position really put strain on my broken rib, but I made no notion of it. I wasn’t going to let them get under my skin. My father always warned me if I was ever in this position to show no fear, don’t directly challenge but handle things logically. With him being in politics, this isn’t the first threat our family has faced. The bag was removed off my head and I had to squint to adjust to the bright surgical lighting of the room. The room had tiles lining the wall and on the opposite wall my father was suspended from the ceiling in chains like mine. His face was so bloated and the injury from somewhere in his hairline was dripping down his face. I wanted to cry, but I knew I had to remain composed with my head held up high. I was still trying to forget what happened to my mother and grandparents. The same man who threw the knife through the window was standing over a machine with different knobs and switches. From the machine ground lead wires were snaked on the ground but lead to attachments on my father at random locations on his chest.

My nostrils flared at the sight taking deeper breathes and from the burning smell of flesh. I couldn’t turn my head up very much since I was forced into a bowing position. I was able to bring my head to glimpse over my lashes at my father who tried to speak to me, but he was only able to gurgle out blood. I lowered my head before I lost all self-control. The traumatic image was becoming too much. The man once standing in front of the generator began pacing the room, “Well, are you going to tell us now? Your poor, poor daughter wouldn’t need to face the same pain, right? It would be a shame to waste a pretty face. You’re going to tell us where the Kim’s home is, right?” My dad was struggling against the chains, “don’t touch her!” The man responded like chastising a child, “that’s not the answer I wanted, now is it.” He didn’t get any response though my father refused to let them know anything.

The man stepped in front of me taking me in and brought his hunting knife out of his tool belt. He circled around me and crouched behind me waving the knife around between his index and thumb. My father was growling viciously with his fangs elongated grazing his already cut lip. I whimpered when he dragged the blade over my skin much like a cat scratching a post. I was trembling causing the chains to rattle, “Oh, little puppy are you scared?” I didn’t respond but attempted to stop the trembling. He sighed and with his cold tone, “Daughter like father.” He stood up and brought the knife to the top of my dress and brought it down tearing the back open and then brought the knife to my bra and ripped that as well. He cleared my spine of any fabric raking his calloused, dry hands up and down my spine and exposing it to the frigid air of the room. I didn’t bother holding back my panting now, I was terrified. The man twirled the knife in his hand again lazily eyeing my father, “This is what we’re going to do. We’re going to go in intervals of cutting her and shocking you until you answer me.” My father was growling but it was cut off with a pained yelled when electricity ran through his system. I was pressing my lips tightly together silently screaming as the purple knife cut into my upper arm. The pause was short in between repetitions when the man yelled again at my father for answers. Dad was sobbing and yelling for them to stop, to leave me alone. You remained silent, not wanting to spend any energy on speaking.

After more rounds they threw water on your father when he was nearing passing out. I couldn’t keep track anymore of the gashes my arms and legs, they burned like fire because of the wolfsbane. The one that burned the most was the “H” he engraved on my thigh. The pain from the others was dull but it was chronic enough to make me hold your breath occasionally to displace the tension. The man accepted a large bucket form another hunter and brought it to loam over me this time and presented it to my father. Another male held up my father’s chin to acknowledge the lead torturer. He held up a five-gallon (nineteen liter) container with steaming, hot water higher in gesture, “we specially boiled this for her. Now for the last time, where is it?” My father was sobbing at the man holding his chin, but when he got no response the man said, “you leave me with no choice.” He truly couldn’t respond; his facial muscles weren’t responding anymore.

I was trembling so intensely that the chains attached to my cuffs were swinging in the little room they had. The drips of water from the bucket sprinkled on my back and stung upon contract. I held my head low and closed my eyes. I started mumbling comforting words to myself, anything to take my mind off the reality of the situation. I repeated lyrics from the song my mother sang to me that only our people knew. The world felt like it slowed when I felt the first hit of the wave of water. I screamed as hard as I could and the pain in the wake of it was so intense my ears began to ring. My throat felt raw when he pouring stopped but the sobbing didn’t stop. He kept pouring a second time, then a third time after a short break knowing it would intensified the pain. I was still trembling now not from fear but pain. I slumped forward and to the side off my knees onto my left thigh. The man who poured the lava on me commented, “such a shame,” but there was no empathy in his voice. He walked back over to my father and turned the electricity up and kept it on until he passed out. Not long after the muslin bag was thrown over my head again and they undid the cuffs. I just slumped to the floor face first unable to move. They dragged my father and I back to the cell where we were held earlier and laid me on the cold cell floor. They removed the bag around my head and I noticed my grandfather no longer laid in the corner. I don’t remember much after because the world was getting darker and I eventually gave into the slumber when the pain and the blood loss became too much.

I woke up in my dad’s embrace sometime later, he was petting my head whispering sweet nothings into my hair. He was crying and repeating apologies. I opened my eyes and muttered “Dad” somewhere in between a lingual language and slurring. He didn’t stop his ministrations but now changed his words, “Your name is Aure. You’re no longer Y/N. If anyone ask you say that is who you are. The others, they didn’t make it, but you, you will! I’m going to help you escape. I need you to live on Aure. Once we reach the front door I need you to run and get as far away as possible. My little wolf you will run!” I was unsure of what he meant, what did he mean only I was going to escape? Why weren’t we going together? “Dad, it’s both of us or nothing.” He shook his head and stroked my cheek and told me that when the guards leave be prepared to leave.

I wasn’t prepared when my dad was able to bend the uneven metal bars, or when I snuck down the cell hallway up the stairs. The torch lights flickered when we passed by them. I wasn’t prepared when he held his hand over my mouth walking up the irregularly spaced cement stairs into the cabin on ground floor. I wasn’t prepared when he shoved me out the front door when the hunters ambushed him seeing us trying to escape. I wasn’t prepared when he fought them off with everything he had and he yelled to me with his last breath “Run!”. I had to leave him. I ran, unprepared, but I ran away.

I shifted into my wolf form because I was able to run faster on four legs than two. The pain from the burns along my spine and the gashes all over my body made the shift harder and regaining traction back nauseating. I stumbled my way into the forest and broke into a full run with all I had. Pain was secondary now. I kept running even when I couldn’t hear any more voices. I couldn’t trust silence. I kept running even when I was stumbling over my front paws, I must keep going. I came across a river at the end of a blue-green waterfall. Behind the waterfall’s cascade was a cave but before I made any moves into it I smelled the surroundings for anyone or anything. The coast was clear, so I stumbled into the entrance slipping on some rocks and into a shallow pool of cold water. The cold soothed my burns and the dirt in my fur contaminant the once clear water. The normally light-brown, white coat was a dark brown and burgundy. I stayed in the pool, I didn’t have energy to get back up. I was done running off adrenaline. I began sobbing knowing I now had lost my whole family. I had no one anymore. I cried myself into exhaustion and passed out in the water.

Daylight poured into the cave diffused in scattered light through the curtains of water. I laid in the same position for a while longer because the adrenaline was finally wearing off. I was so sore, but I was able to prop myself flat onto my stomach, whimpering when I put too much pressure on my ribs, and licked at my wounds enough to seal them. Werewolf’s have a special enzyme in their saliva that provide a Neosporin topical protection. Normally werewolves heal fast, but under extreme stress it can take just as long as a human’s regrowth rate. I had to get up and keep going, I didn’t know how far away the hunters were or if they were already waiting for me nearby. I limped my way out of the cave and drank some water from a clean pool before I carried on. The pain wasn’t as bad as last night, but my back felt tight with the now seared flesh solidifying into scars. Along my way I tried to hunt but no small creatures were around and if there was they were too fast. I kept going until it was pitch black out. A cabin amongst the trees broke the darkness with its porch light. I crouched behind bushes and observed it for any life. There was an old, green pickup truck off to the side of the cabin. I knew someone had to be living there, there must be food, all I had to do was sneak in to take some. I watched the home for any obvious signs hunters were a part of the place, but there wasn’t any pelts or animal skins.

After waiting for an hour, I crept to the side of the house in my human form naked to a side window that was left ajar. I creaked the wooden window pane open but stopped when it got too noisy. I waited for any sound, but nothing came. I gripped the wood and worked my way into the house landing on a knitted rug. I used my night vision to my advantage and observed the room locating the Kitchen. I crept through the dark house into the kitchen. The wooden floor boards would occasionally creak, but I tried to space it out enough to seem like natural, old home settling creaks. The steel double door of the fridge was calling to me, so I braced for the sound of the hiss from opening the door and held my breath as it opened. The decompression of the fridge activated the humming of the radiator. There was too much noise going on, so I grabbed any Tupperware and a crispy, cold apple and ran back to the window.

The light turned on and I froze in the middle of a living room with the evidence in plain sight. My bare back was turned to whomever the two owners of fast paced heart beats were, and I turned around with the apple in my mouth and my eyes wide. I covered my chest with my scared arms and the Tupperware protecting myself as much as I could. The older couple were still in the midst of tying their robes over their pajamas. I began stepping back but tripped over the same knitted rug I landed on spilling the contents on the Tupperware on the floor and myself. I was lowly growling in a way to have them back away enough for me to sneak back out the window. They held their hands up in defense and the older man spoke first, “we aren’t going to hurt you. Please, just calm down.” I was still eyeing the window but my direction of attention changed when they said, “You’re hurt, let us patch you up and feed you. You’re hungry right?” I stopped growling but yapped back in a broken voice, “No, you’re just going to take me back to them! I won’t go back!” They exchanged confused looks not knowing who I was referring too. “Honey, we don’t know who you’re talking about. Please, let us help you.” The room was silent for a few minutes and I looked around taking in the room to see if they had any weapons or pelts. The living room was humble with an old sofa, wooden tables and family pictures. I untensed when nothing indicated hunters and hunched over, but immediately cried out when the movement put stress on my wounds. The older woman inched her way towards me and was able to pick up the apple that fell out of my mouth and handed it to me. With a reluctant hand I extended then brought it back, but fully went to grab it rapidly. The older woman took my other hand and lead me to the bathroom. She asked me to stand in the shower so she could wash off the dirt and clean my wounds. She was truly gentle with me and didn’t ask any questions. I want to run, but the comforting hand of hers reminded me of my own grandmother. I started crying, an ugly cry, hunching over to collapsing to my own feet. The older woman was alarmed, she thought she hurt me further and asked what’s wrong. I shook my head and she brought me into her chest in an embrace not caring that she was getting wet. She rocked me back in forth until my sobs stopped. She dressed my wounds but said, “I’m not a nurse so this is the best I can do. I can’t cover your back up with any bandage. The burn is too extensive, I’m going to just apply aloe and we’ll let it heal on its own.” I nodded slowly in confirmation and she took a step out to her room to grab me some clothing. I finally took a step towards the wide mirror. The woman that looked back at me was an unfamiliar creature. My skin was pale littered in black and blue marks and gauze looped over the countless cuts. I slowly turned around to take a look at my back, if I could call it that anymore. It could’ve been mistaken for a world map from the apex of my neck all the way down to the small of the back. It was roaring red with purple lining the jagged edges of the map, the tiny cluster of blisters were inflamed full to the brim with serum. I was numb at this point, I had no tears left in me, no energy left to mourn anymore.

The family fed me and gave me a room to stay in, they didn’t ask any questions just let me sleep. They respected my sensitive nature for the night. The next evening I woke up after sixteen hours of sleep and was greeted by the older man sipping coffee on the couch, while his wife was across from him knitting a blanket. They looked up at me and smiled widely, “Evening dear, there’s food set on a plate on the dinner table for you.” I nodded and sat down in one of the four chairs with the plate of food. They both joined me at the table sitting across from me. I stopped eating when the atmosphere became uncomfortable. The old man spoke first with a stern voice, “If you’re going to stay here until your better we need to know who you are and where you came from.” I set the utensil down and stared at my plate, but the man spoke again,” I see your eyes are a different color than any natural color, are you one of them?” The older man spoke last words with venom and I knew it wasn’t safe to tell him the truth. I settled for a half-truth half lie on the spot, “my-my name is Aure. I ran away from..”gulp,” the a group of men that took me away from my family. They were sick men and performed experiments on me and my eyes. The last time was too much and I just ran away. I couldn’t take it anymore.” I struggled a bit with a solid story, but it came off as if what I was saying was too painful to relate. I was sure I probably sounded slightly cynical but that just helped me out. I was hoping they would take sympathy on me and consider me a rightful victim. The older woman grabbed my hand in her and patted it, “I’m so sorry that you went through all that. Those men must’ve experimented with wolf blood. Should we call the police? You can stay here as long as you want dear. We’ll be more than happy to take you in.” I looked up afraid, “please, no I don’t want to involve the authorities. I-I just want to stay hidden, it’s safer that way.” The older man just nodded not caring to sit much longer at the table. “He can be rough around the edges, but he means well.” I smiled at her words, but knew I would be walking on glass in this house.

Two years passed, and I’ve never left the cabin. I was happy here, although the first few months were awkward and a struggle the couple never made me feel obliged to anything. I was able to hide who I truly was well with no mishaps. They asked me to call them something else besides mister and misses and I settled on Nana and Papa. Papa taught me how to work the gardens in the back and I even started my own lane of vegetation. Nana taught me how to knit and brew the best cups of tea. It was humble and quiet, but I was glad I had a place to stay. The family had two sons, but they rarely came to visits since they lived in the city. Their old room was now my room and I would read the old comic books they had. The one that caught my attention was Marvel’s Black Widow. I read it back and forth, over and over again. I even found some books on how to fight with diagrams! It was really a boy’s room. They told me they’ve always wanted a daughter, so I was a blessing in disguise.

At night when no one was awake I crept outside to the back and shifted enjoying my wolf form and resting the itch of the beast. I wasn’t the same tawny wolf I used to be with my beautiful light-brown, white coat. My back had a large patch of missing where the scars wouldn’t grow hair back. There was a unique scar on my hind leg of the letter H from when they cut me up letting anyone know who they were. The hunters were forever attached to me. That wasn’t the only scar, my arms were also covered in scars not as large as the H but still notable. I would take the book with me and practice the diagrams. I wanted to be able to defend myself if anything like that were to happen again. I wouldn’t let it happen again. I would always return “home” before they got up and carried on with life.

Nana came up to me with her carrying her canvas grocery bags and list of groceries; papa was slowly in tow adjusting his paperboy hat on his head with the keys in his hand. “Aure, we will be gone until five, but we’ll be back before sundown. We need to make a trip to the store and visit a fellow neighbor. Will you be fine by yourself?” I shook your head, “yes, Nana. I have chores to finish anyways so I will be busy!” She rubbed my arm and they both trailed their way out the door into the pick-up truck. I stood at the door and waved them off watching the truck become a dot in the distance. I went back inside and rolled up my sleeves, it was time to get to work. I cleaned the living room, bathroom and all the bedrooms in no time. I made myself an early lunch and was officially done with all the chores around two p.m. and it would still be another three hours before they came back. I decided I would take advantage of this time alone and shift into my wolf form that way I could sleep all night. I went out back and stripped of my clothing and hid it behind a tree. I shifted with a crack and popping of my bones, but ended up in my natural state. The breeze dusted through my tawny fur and it was the most refreshing sensation. I happily ran a typically path I created chasing any small wild life in tease, rubbing my whole body on the fresh dirt and basked in the sun. It was paradise. I took a nap in the sun on a boulder that acted like a heating pad, but before I knew it the rock grew cold. I snapped awake to a starry sky and bid goodbye to the long-gone sun. I knew I had to make it home fast and change without anyone seeing me.

I ran. I ran as fast as my feet would take me back to the familiar cabin. Within a distant from the cabin I approached the typical tree where I hid my clothing besides, but I wasn’t alone. Papa held up my dress clearly panicked and looked around for you calling out my name. In the clearing of the tree he caught me in my wolf form standing a few trees away. I shifted back into my human form covering my naked body and called to him, “Papa, please. I can explain. I can ex-.” He threw the dress to the ground causing dust to fly up in a cloud. He didn’t let me finish my statement, he never would. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to the front of the cabin where Nana was waiting. She was wide eye when she saw me naked and being dragged back. She ran up to me but Papa yelled at her, “Stay back, she’s one of them! The tramp!” I winced at his strong words. Nana was looking at me with pleading eyes, she was wishing what she heard wasn’t true. He threw me down to the floor like my dress earlier. My knees scrapped against the dry dirt and he left walking into the house. Nana came up to me and grabbed my shoulders, “please, Aure, tell me it’s not true. You’re our Aure, you can’t be one of them!” Tears streamed down my face silently and down to the dirt, I didn’t want them to find out this way. “Nana—,” I spoke to her softly grabbing her hand, but it was yanked away from me by Papa. “Get back from her! She doesn’t deserve our kindness. She’s no better than the dirt she sits on. She’s even worse than that. Her kind should all die!” I couldn’t hold my sobs back in anymore, his words stung.

He pulled Nana behind him and then brought up his rifle to my forehead. The cold metal barrel sat in between my eyes waiting. I stopped moving, everything seemed to go in slow motion. No, no, he wasn’t going to really shoot me, he was just trying to scare me. I scooted back on my legs away from his gun. Nana was shouting at him to stop and lower the rifle, but he just yelled over her with a ferocious roar to shut up. It was as if all life in the forest stopped, the trees weren’t swaying, no small animals moved, the wind was silent. I stared back at the stoutly man who raised the machinery to me. I slowly stood up, “Papa—!” He spat at my feet, “don’t call me any endearing terms mongrel.” I knew it was no use arguing with him anymore, but I had to get away. I had to live I made a promise to my father. I backed away slowly one baby step at a time and noticing his finger switch over to the trigger as he mounted the butt of the gun on his shoulder. The darkness all seemed to blend in as I turned around not facing my once temporary family anymore and took strides away from them. The first long step was successful, your hair was blown behind you from your fast pace. I felt my toes curl around the loose dirt with each step and releasing it along with every propulsion. The air was cold stung and dried out my throat as I huffed forward. I felt it before I heard the echo of the bang of gunfire. I held my breath upon impact as my knees skidded across the stale forest floor. Tears were rolling down my cheek, the bullet was logged in my thigh. I let out a scream that echoed enough to disturb the dead. I propped my hands in front of me and allowed the change to come over me. I had to keep going! I wasn’t dying here tonight, not tonight!

I shifted the best you could and kept thrusted off the ground running full speed. In the distant other rounds of gunshots rang out in my direction, but they became a faint echo the longer I kept going. I kept running, running for my life. The low hanging branches would graze against my side, but I didn’t want to stop. I climbed up a hill, crossed a river bank, and kept going until vision started blurring. The tall pine trees stood over me as I fell against one propping myself up. The pain was unbearable, I couldn’t even support my leg up anymore. I began limping with the leg raised but stopping at every other tree to rest.

Eleven, large grey wolves glided through the night. The sound of unison marching and panting broke the quiet night. Namjoon remained in the back while his father remained in front leading the pack. The males were out tonight monitoring the perimeter and answering the call to their wolf with the freedom to run. Namjoon remained in the back to keep track of the younger ones, not letting them deviate from the path. His father was the main alpha of the tribe, he was the Minister of Wolves. He eventually would have to take on that role also being an alpha. The hierarchy of wolfs were maintained in the blood lines and passed down through generations. Namjoon was a large, dark grey wolf that is larger than the others in his pack and the average werewolf. He was almost the spitting image of his father. The wolves ran and ran coming across nothing out of line, until they smelled me. Namjoon halted the group with a howl. He lifted his muzzle to the air and took in the scent of iron and an unfamiliar wolf. He looked towards his father and only two other betas followed him in his search. They crept and moved closer to the scent. About a quarter of a mile away, Namjoon saw the owner of the scent. I was leaning against the tree panting, sure these would be my last breathes. I finally registered that three other beings were in my area. I lifted my head to gaze at three large wolfs, the middle one was the largest. They were lowly growling in my direction. I wasn’t about to back down, even in the face of death. I shakily stood on my legs and facing their direction and changed my stance into a defensive one. I was challenging them, my rose gold eyes gleamed with anger. The largest one with bright red eyes stepped forward attempting to circle me, but I snapped and growled at him. His body language was telling me to back down and submit, but I wasn’t going to submit to anyone. When I felt he was getting too close I ran off. I didn’t get too far when I stumbled over my front paws when my hind leg gave out. I skidd across the floor in a loud yelp. The pain was too great, I had no other choice. I tried crawling away on my paws dragging my hind legs but I couldn’t gain any traction. The wolves came up behind me and the same red eyed one circled around to face my front and sat down in front of me. The others tried approaching but he just growled at them. He knew it when he first smelled it, he knew it when he got closer, and he knew it when he saw you. You were his mate.

In your tired state you still growled at him, but he wasn’t having it. He transformed into his human form and asked the others to warn his father of your presence. They left and I was left with a handsome, naked man. He came to crouch down next to me and spoke softly, “I need you to switch back. I can’t help you in this way. I won’t hurt you. I don’t know how much longer you’re going to live if you stay out here.” I didn’t want him touching me, but for some reason when he spoke to me it felt comforting. A type of safe I haven’t known in a very long time. I conceded and shifted back into my human form laying on my side. My vision was going in and out and eventually I couldn’t hear him anymore. Namjoon quick to react and picked you up bridal style avoiding your wound. He ran back to the pack covering up your chest by bringing you closer to him away from the prying eyes. His father nodded, and the pack continued forward. Namjoon ran back to the packhouse about a mile away. In between, he would take looks at you, his beautiful mate. He couldn’t make out much since it was so dark, but what he could his heart already was yours.

He made his way up to the oak tree where the whole pack hid their clothing in a container disguised as a rock. He slipped his pants on and his shirt over you. He ran through the back door of the packhouse and called for his grandmother, “Help! Please, help!”

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NHL 20 Review - Big Hit

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NHL 20 Review - Big Hit

With its new commentary team and updated presentation package, NHL 20 represents the franchise’s biggest shakeup in years–and they’re mostly positive changes. Combined with excellent controls, fluid gameplay, numerous fun and engaging different modes to play, a fine attention to detail and appreciation for hockey culture, NHL 20 is a step forward that is generally excellent.

The biggest change for NHL 20 is its broadcast package. It is almost completely different this year, and the changes–which span commentary, UI, and graphics–are mostly positive but not always for the better. Commentators Mike “Doc” Emerick and Eddie Olczyk are out, while nearly the entirety of the NBC Sports Network license package, including live-action sequences, are gone, too. It’s a jarring change, as Emerick and Olczyk have been the voice of EA’s NHL games since NHL 15.

The new commentators are Canadian sports radio personality James Cybulski and former player and current rinkside analyst Ray Ferarro. They do a mostly adept job at calling plays with style, flair, and personality, and their back-and-forth banter succeeds at capturing the essence of hockey culture with hockey IQ and knack. Some commentary lines are repeated too often, however, and Cybulski in particular sounds at times like he is hamming it up and acting like every game is Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

Outside of the new commentary team, NHL 20’s updated broadcast presentation includes more colorful and dynamic graphics that display important information in more eye-catching ways. In addition to brighter colors and sharper fonts, NHL 20 introduces more dramatic, slow-motion highlights of goal scores, as well as Overwatch-style “Play of the Period” and “Play of the Game” highlights. These moments do a good job at breaking down key plays, and, with their unique angles and close-ups, provide nice moments to sit back and revel in your achievements.

Part of this updated broadcast package is a new location for the score clock, which is the only major misstep. It’s now at the bottom of the screen compared to the top-left in last year’s game–and it cannot be moved in the Settings. The new score clock location opens up more space on the screen for action, but I found it positively difficult to quickly and easily see the important information like time left in the game, penalty minutes, and other datapoints while simultaneously keeping my eyes on the action. It’s a baffling choice, especially considering many of NHL 20’s various other modes keep the score clock where it was. This inconsistency worsens the experience, as you have to train your eyes in multiple ways depending on which mode you’re playing.

Authentic Hockey

NHL 20 succeeds the most with excellent, tight controls that give you the freedom to execute basically any hockey move you can think of. There are also changes to animations and skating mechanics that make the game appear more lifelike. Building off what was already the franchise’s best foot forward with NHL 19, this year’s entry feels faster and more fluid with better animations that more realistically depict important transitional moments like catching a pass and getting intro stride at a quicker pace. Overall, the on-ice gameplay feels faster and more true to the real NHL experience.

There are new shot animations as well, which are contextual in nature and better represent what a shot might look like from a particular part of the ice and depending on angles, power, speed, specific player attributes, and more. In NHL 19, your player would oftentimes still complete the shot animation even if the puck never got to them, which looked very strange, but that rarely happens this year. NHL 20 also introduces “Signature Shots” for a number of the league’s best players; one of these is P.K. Subban’s booming slapshot and Alex Ovechkin’s electric one-timer. It’s a treat to see player-specific animations in NHL 20, and it’s yet another part of the way NHL 20 faithfully represents the real NHL experience. Additionally, goalie AI appears to be smarter this year, with netminders giving up fewer soft rebounds and making generally smarter decisions during important scenarios.

NHL 20’s in-game attention to detail and careful consideration of the sport is astounding. Players look and react as you’d expect them to on a TV broadcast, down to the way players subtly peek back toward their teammates during a face-off to the sharp crackle of skates gliding over outdoor pond ice. On the outdoor rinks, the crimson red glow of sunset over the pond is something to behold. On the ice, the physics system is so realistically presented that I found myself wincing after big open-ice hits.

Unfortunately, NHL 20 doesn’t do much in the area of improving player models. In fact, the character models for players, referees, and the crowd appear largely unchanged from last year. When the replay camera zooms in on fans on the glass, you might be wondering what kind of time vacuum the NHL series exists in for people to never age or look at all different from year to year.

Dirty Dangles

The NHL series is known for its tight, precise controls, and this level of excellence continues with NHL 20. No matter what control setup you’re using, the controls allow for a complete command of your player with astounding simplicity and a lot of depth at the same time. Puck possession and clever play-making are paramount in NHL 20, and the controls never fail to provide you with many different options to keep the puck, get around defenders, make the extra pass, and light the lamp. You have the freedom to play with as much creativity as you want. The game also features a slick and smart on-ice trainer that reacts to how you’re playing and provides dynamic feedback that, for the most part, helps you improve your game.

There is such a level of fine precision with the controls that you can determine the specific angle of a poke-check or toe-drag the puck at just the right time to open space up to make a shot on goal. In essence, the controller’s analog sticks feel like an extension of your on-ice stick. The excellent baseline controls stand out even more once you move on to trying out more more advanced techniques. It takes time and practice to learn the dirtiest dangles the game has to offer, but it’s deeply rewarding to perform spins and dekes that together combine to give you ample opportunities to play with style and pizzazz.

In addition to the standard hockey simulation, NHL 20 has an abundance of arcade-style modes. The pond hockey mode, Ones–which sees three players on a small, outdoor rink competing against each other–introduces four new locations, including a rink set on a secluded farm and another inspired by the Rideau Canal in Canada. These new locations, in addition to weather effects like snow coming down during games, make Ones an even more authentic and holistically representative depiction of the outdoor hockey experience.

Ones is lots of fun with its stripped-down, back-to-basics recreation of outdoor hockey with fast-paced play and lots of goals. Outside of the new locations, the biggest change for Ones is the introduction of offline play for couch co-op, and this is a very welcome addition after last year’s game left it out in a head-scratching move.

The Threes mode, meanwhile, remains NHL’s flashiest and wackiest mode with completely unhinged commentary, mascots lacing it up, lots of goals, and big hits. It’s the mode I found myself coming back to the most due in part to its quick games relative to the standard simulation mode and constant progression rewards in every game played.

The social hub, World of Chel, returns with NHL 20 with some noteworthy updates. The biggest introduction is the “Eliminator” mode, which is NHL’s spin on battle royale. You can go it alone in Ones or team up with two others in Threes to try to survive four consecutive rounds in a bracket to win the tournament. It’s a thrilling, incredibly challenging, high-stakes challenge that, like the battle royale games it’s inspired by, encourage you to keep coming back and improve your skills.

There is a robust character-creator and you earn XP for everything you do across all of World of Chel’s modes. It’s rewarding to invest in your character and know that, whatever mode in World of Chel you’re playing, you’re working towards growing your character with meaningful advancements like new player traits, in addition to nice extras like cosmetic gear. New for World of Chel with NHL 20 are weekly challenges that track your performance and reward you with cosmetics around a particular theme. For example, the launch-week theme is NHL 94, so you can earn all kinds of themed cosmetics like jerseys and other gear. I anticipate coming back regularly.

Elsewhere in NHL 20, the career-minded Be A Pro remains a satisfying and rewarding ride to take as you start your character from the ground floor and build them into a superstar, though there are no noteworthy updates to speak of this year. Franchise, meanwhile, features a new system that gives you multiple team coaches who have influence on the direction of your team today and in the future. The system, which also includes a light conversation mechanic where you can gauge the morale and interest of your coaches, adds a further level of strategy to the already robust Franchise mode that helps you feel like you’re really the GM of a pro team. Franchise also introduces a trade-finder system that makes it less laborious to find and make trades.

Ultimate Team returns as well, and its noteworthy addition is the introduction of Squad Battles. These function the same way they do in Madden and FIFA where you go up against HUT squads created by other players or, after launch, sports stars and celebrities. Hockey Ultimate Team is all about grinding to collect new cards, and it remains a fun experience to build a fantasy team comprised of legends and current stars alike, and compete against others.

NHL 20 successfully captures the ice hockey experience from the ponds to big games under the bright lights, with a fine attention to detail and simple yet deep controls that are best-in-class. Once you get over the shock of Eddie and Doc being out of the game, the new commentary team do an adept job of providing informative and playful banter, while the game’s multitude of varied modes each have their own distinct feel and appeal that go a long way to make NHL 20 an excellent representation of hockey culture across the board.

Source : Gamesport

#Game Reviews

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natjoofficial · 7 years ago

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#ctec503signal - Final Entry - Nate O’Neill - Carriages

Conceptual statement:

(Small note: my personal artefact was exploration, but I know some of my team went in using another artefact. Challenge was one as it is challenging to achieve helping someone without hurting them and the other I forgot. I’m sure someone will bring it up)

Carriages was originally meant to explore one’s regrets, to make one think of what they regret. Of course, that slowly changed to exploring how to help someone with regrets, but I believe the original intention still exists in the fact that one must explore themselves to figure out how to help each individual as they all are different.

The idea of purgatory came into the game early, the idea of a place to realise all you did wrong and to move on from. It was unanimously agreed that whatever we created would be set there. Then the second idea came into being, and now looking back at it, was over the top and stupid to attempt. We wanted to set the game in a subway station where the player had to defuse a bomb and blah blah blah it was a programmer’s nightmare. While I liked and backed up the idea though preferred a less nightmarish version of it, both of our programmers began to dread it. I wanted to ditch the idea early but our leader at the time carried on pushing for it. Luckily one of the teachers gave us (mostly the leader) a thorough explanation on why it was stupid. Funnily enough, the “leader” began showing up less and less. I wouldn’t say it was good though because our co-leader was a perfectionist and pushed for everything to be amazing. I don’t quite know what our co-leader did in terms of making the project.

For what I created:

Scraped from game:

· A 3D bomb model

· A subway station (two in fact, one facing towards the tube, one with the tube in front)

· A concept for a pixel main character

· Multiple models of the carriage of different lengths, textures, insides and exteriors.

Used in game:

· One of the many model carriages I made

· A logo for our group

· The backgrounds

· A poster as well as the model used in it.

· A outside train station

· A fair amount of the dialogue, though some was later edited by Max

Contextual statement:

The game fits in with the artefact of exploration thanks to its dialogue and characters our group talked about for 2 weeks (Thanks Jordon). We were helped by a volunteer from the NZ depression Help line (who didn’t represent them at the time) designing said characters and figuring out how to help them to make it more realistic.

I realise that we are meant to add statistics and quotes here, but even though I was the first to suggest regret I didn’t have any reason than personal reasons behind, with the death of my grandfather I began feeling regrets that I didn’t speak to him more often.

It is common to find someone with regrets. We all have them. From minimal regrets like stealing your friends’ pencil to major things such as killing someone (big jump, I know) we all feel regrets. It is hard for someone to forget what they regret, so they go to people to help. This game is basically “get person to come to terms with their regrets without sending them into a spiralling depression – the game”. In some sense this game is a great guide to dealing with this sort of stuff. Hell, I’ve had to talk some friends out of depression before though I wouldn’t say I’m a professional at it. We all screw up and it proves that all people should be treated differently.

How to solve each character:

Woman: you must convince her to what she did wrong at first then support her.

Teen: you must treat him as he wants to be treated then listen to him exactly while supporting.

Homeless: You must be friendly and keep the conversation between you two and talk about nothing else other than you two.

Surprisingly, most play testers failed the homeless man due to one of the options being that of asking where they are, which pressures the homeless man to be incredibly hostile to the player since he is not the right person to ask. It’s my personal belief that this is due to players being curious to discover where exactly they are, distracting them from the true objective.

Blog list (Ordered in earliest-latest chronological order):

https://aheterosexualmale.tumblr.com/post/178271679703/alright-new-project-new-team-which-actually

An intro to our game, planning stages, made logo, getting group together.

https://aheterosexualmale.tumblr.com/post/178408778343/blog-3d-modeling-games

Early 3D modelling of subway station, pixel art concept, me using references for once in my life, the story becomes complex and dumb

https://aheterosexualmale.tumblr.com/post/178453970693/blog-its-hard-coming-up-with-titles-for-each-of

A small update blog where I show off an update to the subway model and explain the problem with Sketchup in a very unprofessional way.

https://aheterosexualmale.tumblr.com/post/178473141823/blog-a-brand-new-game-thing-now

We start work on a new version of the game, I reluctantly scrap the subway model and begin work on a new carriage model

https://aheterosexualmale.tumblr.com/post/178532915833/blog-subway-model-which-is-pretty-much-finished

I’m told that we may need the subway model again for the intro or outro (we don’t use it though) so that gets finished with the longest update blog yet, this time with lighting.

https://aheterosexualmale.tumblr.com/post/178560230223/blog-weekend-work

I continue working on the new carriage model and complain about Sketchup again. Showcase animation shows dynamic movement for carriage doors which, of course, don’t get used in the final game.

https://aheterosexualmale.tumblr.com/post/178688890013/blog-degrading

The first day I didn’t show up, so I made a blog about what I thought my team did. The deleted video was a in-joke between the team but got removed of YouTube so now it’s lost to time.

https://aheterosexualmale.tumblr.com/post/178880680928/blog-late-update

Joint blog for Studio and integrative design (first half is relevant to studio. Second half was me goofing off). The carriages gets to a point of detail it’s impossible to render it as an animation.

https://aheterosexualmale.tumblr.com/post/179038627553/blog-erm-what-to-put-here

Another joint blog. Second half is the relevant part this time. Began work on outside station.

https://aheterosexualmale.tumblr.com/post/179367374723/blog-the-super-late-update

An update saying, I did nothing that day.

https://aheterosexualmale.tumblr.com/post/179409745308/blog-purposely-short-blog

A late blog (because I forgot Tumblr existed) but shows the progress I’ve made on dialogue system, also complaining about Jordon at being the perfectionist he is. I think it was the day after I ended up snapping at him about the problem he had caused, slowing us down. I think he reluctantly accept I was right. I’m not sure.

https://aheterosexualmale.tumblr.com/post/179439867268/blog-nodes-2

Final blog and update to dialogue system and talking briefly about how the characters will need to be treated differently.

#ctect503 #ctec503 #ctec503signal #ctec503signal - Final Entry - Nate O’Neill - Carriages

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rhinctus4 · 8 years ago

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02//48HOURS

Yeah, so much for weekly updates! Based off previous attempts to do weekly content on youtube and tumblr, it’s not at all easy to keep up with. Also, i haven’t touched on gamedev much at all, everything to do with school changed within probably two weeks after posting that so nothing to say in that regard. Something which did happen recently (on August 25th) was the 48HOURS Furious Filmmaking Challenge, which is probably one of the biggest events of the year. It’s always a huge buildup to the event and it turned out to be heaps of fun this year, so I want to put my experience on here.

So every year around May we check on 48hours.co.nz to check if any new updates are posted. As of last year that hasn’t so much been the case as the dates got moved towards the end of the year due to sponsorship issues. After checking multiple times the registration finally opened near the arse end of term two, sometime after I posted the first post just below this one. For a while we had been desperately trying to figure out what on earth the team name should be, as we didn’t like the old one and no one was coming up with a good one to replace it. After holding a proper set of polls we nailed down the new team name. Mach One. Which we thought could possibly be mispronounced as mack one, but we decided it didn’t matter. We were making films at the speed of sound.

Our first meeting was with a small group of people, the writers and directors, which helped us boil down what we wanted to do over the weekend. The big white table was set out at the bottom bock of Max’s house, an area which became known as “The Pit”. As lunch approached we continued the discussions over lunch at the international food court

Ruby, Max in the distance, Felix, and Donald with some hearty meals. We can all agree that Wave is still the best chocolate milk in nz.

The man in the distance

That pretty much concluded our meeting for the day, not too much else happened other than writing up a timeline for the weekend. The next meeting was scheduled for the Friday before 48HOURS, on the 18th.

This year was our first year inviting Eamonn onto the team, which rounded off the team member number from 9 to 10. It was a huge meeting, held again in The Pit, we discussed ideas, roles, and went through the entire timeline which had been written previously. People were falling asleep towards the end of the night, which was a bit of a worry in light of the upcoming weekend! Despite this, the meeting was a success and put us in good step for the weekend.

Welcome to the pit! In this shot, going clockwise from the bottom left, is Oscar P, Ruby (face obscured by fatt hed), Joe, James, Eamonn, Max, Sharn, Donald, and Felix

Max holding the talking stick

Sunglasses for everyone!

Here we see Doggie tapping away at organisational documents

Things get silly with the now broken talking stick

Making a point

Oscar appears

Impromptu drum jam sessions are in order, and are tradition for us with 48HOURS at this point.

Sleepy boi Sharn

Grandpa Max reading out his genius 15 minute ideas

Sleepy Oscar towards the end of the meeting

Oh no

Max evaluating his choices

Quick escape!

James and Donald are not impressed

So that wraps up our meeting. Everyone headed home on their own merry way. The next event was on the Thursday before 48HOURS, the 24th of August.

I actually didn’t hear this was happening while I was at the meeting, just a bit of oversight on my part. The gear test was a small thing held with only a handful of people, even less than the initial meeting. We set up computers, talked gear and equipment, and were out of there in no time at all. We were so close to starting!

Macbook for writing, Duck computer for doing any audio, editing, or VFX

The table is moved out of the pit

Co-director doggie at his last supper. Wait...who is that on the poster above him?

And with that, I left. I left my duck laptop there and had to wait just one more day.

The big night arrives. There’s always the usual excitement of getting all the gear out of various cars and into the house. There was also something about Ned’s Declassified?

youtube

Ned! NED!

In the background there you can see all the gear which Donald brought in, and off camera is Oscar’s electronic drum kit which he brought in as well, which turned into the drum kit of choice for the weekend. It was a total blast to use.

There’s heaps!

After everyone piled in, we sat down at the big table, sending Joe and Sharn off to pick up the genre from Hollywood cinema in Avondale. We all waited in anticipation, with the livestream of the event up on the big TV. While we waited Max and I finished off the team intro clip which goes at the beginning of a 48HOURS submission, we had actually been working on it for some time and only on the night had we actually gotten the time to finish it off. We had that done and exported pretty quickly and we got back to the big table. Ant Timpson, big boss of 48, had been teasing about changes to the required elements of the film. They were pretty different from last year. No required line, no required prop. This year there was a selection of 20 different narrative themes which you had to pick one of. Our details for the weekend were:

GENRE: Action

THEME: Transformation (which we eventually came to pick)

CHARACTER: A female

PHYSICAL ELEMENT: A collision

TECHNICAL ELEMENT: A smash cut

SOUND EFFECT: The Wilhelm scream

The required sound effect was new too, and we all groaned when we found out it was the fucken Wilhelm scream. Once we had all the required elements we set off for 10 minutes to think of as many ideas as possible. When we came back we all sat around the big table and in a circle went around everyone’s ideas. After hearing many ideas we came down to two main ideas. The 18 Dollar Man and Reaction Woman. The 18 dollar man is about a powerful android being created my a master engineer, only to have the powerful android best the engineer. With only 18 dollars left in pocket, the engineer creates the 18 dollar man, who must train his arse off to beat the powerful android. Reaction Woman was about a world where everyone is fighting, except for this one person. We eventually went on with the latter. We had meter long pizzas for dinner, then while Max, Felix, and I went into Max’s room to write the film in separation from the noise, Ruby, Donald and Sharn figured out cinematography, and everyone else figured out choreography for fight scenes in the film, as it was going to have a bunch of hand to hand combat. They figured out an awesome looking fight, choreographed entirely in The Pit, and the camera people figured out some brilliant shots despite only having random snippets of the script and story to go off of. Us three writers actually managed to produce a full script by our deadline of 3am on Saturday. It looked pretty solid, and had everything we were required to have. Shortly after we all found places to sleep and got ready to wake up by 6am.

Figuring out story beats

These shots are only from 11pm on Friday, we had a long night ahead of us.

6AM came fast, and we got up feeling peppy and ready for shooting. Donald and Sharn had completed the shot list, and the choreography was nailed down. After a classic breakfast of eggs, bacon, hash browns, and bread pretty much everyone got ready to go out and shoot. This included the two directors, Sharn the camera man, Max as the on set editor advisor dude, Zarina as our main character, Joe the supporting role, and the parent which took them, which I remember to be either James G. or Ruth. That was the longest shoot of the day, and the whole time Felix, James, Oscar, Harry, and I were back at the house. Hereafter Felix and I are the “Resident Editors”, and to prepare for the first batch of footage to come in we made our master premiere project with the team intro we had completed on Friday evening, our team’s title card, a blank video with a length of 5 minutes to show the maximum time allowed, and then 5 seconds of black. It was up to the competition’s standards in no time at all, so the rest of the time was just milling around for us.

James on the other hand had been tasked with making music composition ideas despite not having any idea of what he was meant to be scoring for at that point. It more so provided the opportunity for his gear to come out, my bagful of gear to come out, and also to dig out some of Max’s instruments which he had hiding in his closet so that people wouldn’t get audibly abused by everyone during the weekend. We didn’t clearing off any of the writing guff from the previous night, we just set laptops, keyboards, synths, audio interfaces, and a bunch of cables onto the big table alongside pens and refill pads. It was chaotic but it worked! We also moved Oscar’s drum kit over from beside a couch in The Pit to beside the big table. It was a musical banquet! It also proved to be an opportunity to test out the gear which I hadn’t gotten around to using. Us playing music continued until around 12:50PM when everyone got back from filming the office scene.

A text from the Big Cheese, with a bunch of strange hieroglyphics littered between mangled text

Harry at the Casio, Oscar in the back at the drums. James on the Microkorg, which was plugged into the Scarlett, which was plugged into the macbook through logic 9, out to a tinny burger speaker which turned out to be useful for making loud noises.

The full music table, taken shortly after everyone left to film the next scene.

When the office crew got back, everyone started rushing around getting ready to go shoot the big opening scene up the road. James, Oscar, and Harry gapped it too so it was just the resident editors at home. While we imported footage I took a bit of time to rearrange the desk, then Felix and I got going. There were three scenes shot at the office, a short fight scene between Sharn and Max, which was part of a montage, a dialogue scene between Joe and Zarina, and a short scene of Zarina and Sharn. We reviewed the footage, and were super happy with the amount of footage and coverage which had been taken. It didn’t take us long to cut together a rough edit for the three scenes. After a bit more milling around, people began to make their way back to the house. Felix and I started importing the footage once it arrived, and we got to work. This scene was fun, and because it was only roughly 6 shots it didn’t need that much editing out. The coverage was fantastic, and only a small reshoot for a shot of a phone was needed. It was more a case of what we wanted to put where.

By this point the crew had gone off to another shoot, this time down by Wynyard quarter. Problem being that it was starting to get dark. By now James had some pretty solid ideas about what to do music wise, so we locked the edit on the opening scene and made a low quality video export of the scene. James got to work making music along to the beats of the opening, while I dug into sound effects. In the opening scene alone there were a fucken tonne of sound effects. Most of them I found on the spot from freesound.org, which is a fantastic website. The crew got back with the Wynyard Quarter footage and Felix mostly dug into that after importing it, I kept going with SFX, and James kept going with music. By this time it was around 7PM. Things started mellowing down, some people had gone to sleep. James had pretty much done the composition for the first scene, we bounced that in 3 separate parts to use in the opening and eventually in the outro. At what was probably 10pm a small collection of non-sleepers had gathered in Max’s room, and I was looking to record some actual sound with a microphone. Felix had gone up the road to his house to get his mic and audio interface, the latter of which turned out not to work with the duck computer. So, we grabbed the M-audio from the back room and for the first time I got to press the phantom power button, which was just super exciting. It glows orange! I was fucking stoked, and a blue light turned on upon Felix’s mic too. We got multiple hilarious recordings of people making grunting noises, a bunch of which got used in the final piece. We then started finding objects to use for foley, one of which was a nerf sword. Oscar tried swinging it but we weren’t quite getting the noise we wanted. A bunch of people tried, inching it carefully closer and closer to the mic. Then, Donald volunteered, and with one fell swoop he topped the microphone off onto the floor. He was thenceforth banned from swinging near anything significant. I don’t have any photos of this, but Oscar did have the brilliant foresight to take a fast one of us in the room:

In this photo of Oscar’s is myself, Max behind James, James, Felix, and Sharn. This was when we were bouncing James’ tracks, before we got into audio recording

As the night went on past 12AM on Sunday, more people began to fall asleep, and eventually Max went to sleep and requested I vacate his room, so I quietly took all of my shit into the back room to find the big table had been filled with extra cables and game controllers from people playing smash to pass the time. It felt like some kind of stealth mission trying to move loose game cube controllers off the table. One of them fell of at one point, that caused me to freeze up. At this point it is probably around 2:00AM on Sunday, i’m the one person awake as I was determined to make it until 3:00AM without sleeping. We were out of V at this point as well, as we had somehow managed to drink it all by Saturday at sunset.

In previous years we always had a surplus of V, but not this year. As a matter of fact, there came a point I think on Saturday where we were running out of drinks. We had slammed down all of the Lift, both cans and bottles, most of the cola bottles were gone, especially the vanilla stuff. There was also the odd drink out, like a single bottle of iced tea or bottles of juice, but even they got drunk at some point. Donald, Ruby, and possibly Max had to go on a quick drink run at the local countdown to refresh the supplies. Everyone was doing something at all times, and it really showed in the quota of drinks consumed over the weekend.

So I actually made it past 3AM doing the audio, but by that point the smallest delay in doing literally anything caused me to lower my head and close my eyes, and I was lucky the ridiculous grunting recordings got so loud at parts, because I would quickly scuttle though the 50 or so different sounds we had to find a certain one, often to be awakened by one of Donald’s fucking loud noises. Hootin’ and Hollerin’. The opening was mostly done, and the need to sleep was gnawing at me without the caffeine, so I mindlessly climbed onto the nearest unoccupied couch, which was a single leather sofa was Donald has taken up post on the double, and fell asleep for 4 hours.

By the time I woke up Eamonn had come back from being at home, and had just snuck inside at 6am when everyone was failing to wake up on time. He mentioned just how uncomfortable my sleeping position looked, which was completely true. Nonetheless, we all got going pretty quickly. William arrived not long after we had woken up, and we couldn’t afford to wait around for long at all to people just scoffed down some bread pull aparts and were off to Wynyard Quarter to shoot the next major scene. I got back into audio work in Max’s room after transferring most of the equipment back there from the big table. Joe and I to record radio announcements, and not long after that the crew got back from Wynyard Quarter dripping with rain.

Joe recording his radio announcement, also this is the best view of the VO and recording setup. I didn’t get a good look at the phantom power light which is a bummer. Duck computer really pulled through during this 48HOURS

Felix once again imported the footage, I was somewhat distant from editing at this point as I was completely immersed in sound editing. After Felix got that scene together, we had a segment without any good sound to use, so he sent over the edited scene and a copy of the room tone. That was a pretty quick job and I got back to fine tuning the first scene’s audio. By now the crew had gone off to record the final piece of the montage over at Browns Reserve.

Photo credit to Donald, a shot of smooth operator Sharn holding both camera and boom whilst donning the HD-201′s and slick shades. Meanwhile, Zarina is psyching herself up for the next shot of hooligans launching kicks at thin air.

We got Joe to figure out some music for the montage earlier, and now that James was back he was able to refine it. We kept on making small edits to what we had and added in music and sound where we could. The crew got back from Browns and we imported the footage again. This meant we had all the footage for the montage and we were able to refine that further. The only footage left to do was the ending and the pickup shot of the phone. We completed the montage fairly quickly while the crew left to do those last shots.

Turns out that Donald had been putting in our name for the text-in sweepstakes which had been going for the entire weekend, and we finally managed to score a prize of a chicken lunch from Bird on a Wire, thing being that they didn’t get back to us about it until after Donald had already made an arse of himself in the cafe. Then we ended up having lunch from the house which consisted of chicken. Then an HP rep got back to us saying that we could go and pick up our lunch from the place under his name, so that was just ridiculous. We had it for dinner in the end.

It was around now that this beautiful image arose, credit to Oscar for the photo

After we had the last scene completely filmed it was approaching crunch time. Things were tending to become a little bit more tense, stakes were rising. We quickly got the final scene cut together so I could do some fast audio done on it. Then we all went through it to make some changes to the sound, and adjust things we needed to do. We placed all of our sub sequences into the master sequence, made more changes, then people began to be kicked out of the room. I was one of the last to go before Max and Felix got down to the knitty gritty and did the final checks on the cut. Max was the last person to come out and say that it was all done. So, we quickly got onto exporting it which didn’t take too long. Despite things going so smoothly, it was still slightly stressful if literally anything messed up. People stopped playing smash out the back when we were done, and we quickly transferred the film to two different USBs. One which we bought and the one HP gave to us in our goodie bag. With the films on the USBs, we jetted off from the house over to Hollywood cinema for the hand in. We left shortly after 6PM.

A view of the pit just before we left to Hollywood Cinema. Looks like a battle happened in here

The chip packets had returned to the music table once more

My last photo from the weekend, standing outside the house as we’re about to leave

We raced off the Avondale, and despite our car leaving second we actually made it to Hollywood Cinema first. Got there at around 6:30, only a small crowd had gathered there at that point. Got the usual applause as we walked up and handed in our film. Hooray! Always such a rewarding feeling being able to walk up to the tables and have your name ticked off. Mach One had done it. Once the others got there we set up shop on the second floor and amongst giving people signature seal pup congratulations, we were screaming, shouting, clapping, and overall just having a great time. When the countdown to 7:00PM was done, we headed off back to the house to watch the film and have dinner. We ate our bird on a wire lunch, watched the film a couple of times, then the frantic rush to pack up and charge out the door began. We all said our farewells to each other, many sweaty bro hugs were in order. I was one of the last to leave as I had brought so much shit in my bag. And just like that, it was done! I had lost my voice from screaming, and I could see that I had a long sleep ahead of me. However, this year’s 48HOURS had been absolutely heaps of fun.

So that’s it. We came third in our heat and didn’t win any significant prizes. We were proud of the film though, as it had been our most solid 48HOURS production to date. In retrospect we thought that the world we had to set up in less than 5 minutes may have been a bit far fetched, but the story was clear and everything else about it was fabulous. The acting from Zarina and Joe was super solid, all the supporting roles were funny and really added to the film. Sharn’s camera work, with the help of both Donald and Ruby, was absolutely fantastic. All the work done in post was heaps of fun to do. As always I loved the musical efforts from James, and even though Oscar didn’t have as much involvement in the actual compositions this year, I really valued his input too, as with Joe’s help on drums for the montage. I think the one thing I regretted the most from the weekend was not taking enough photos and videos. I absolutely love looking at them, and there are large parts of this write up which are lacking photos entirely as I didn’t get around to thinking about them. If Ruby uploads her photos from her 35mm I wouldn’t mind crediting her on those in this post.

Finally, looking back upon the weekend, I never realised how much fun 18 dollar man would be to make. I wouldn’t say I regret not going with it, as both of the ideas were fantastic. Eamonn was the genius behind 18 dollar man, so sometime these summer holidays him and I are going to write it, and from writing this post I realised that I would really like to nab Sharn to do cinematography again. The idea has absolutely HUGE potential and i’m slowly going to get things in order for that to happen during the summer summer holidays. I have to hold myself back from getting too excited about it!

Oh and just a last thing, there is now a site for any compositions I’ve made:

rhinctustunes.tumblr.com

I’ll be posting there again soon.

#words

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callousedwings · 8 years ago

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Let's ask d Experts: engineer @GreatWolfLodge

First and foremost we want to send our utmost gratitude to Tam, one of the hospitality pack and our interviewee Evan, the engineering maintenance management of Great Wolf Lodge, Garden Grove for volunteering his morning and giving us the tour on the waterworks

Tips and location of the waterpark could be found in our previous tips and hacks post. And don’t forget to subscribe to our channel to watch other videos of our rides in Great Wolf Lodge. Camera check? Cue card check? Costume check? And Action!

Content :

Q n A

Backstage tour

Let’s ask the expert.

It was a silent morning. Exhaustion could still be traced inside their smaller frames and the prospect of doing an interview induced a small nervousness as their eyes fluttered open. But the promised of being the firsts to be inside the water park fueled them to get up and dragged themselves to find their cue cards. By the time the elevator’s door opened and delivered them to the lobby, they were already giddy to start it all.

They saw a glimpse of him while doing an intro for the session. As they approached, a welcoming smile and a friendly voice greeted them. Evan, the good-natured maintenance manager/engineer was more of a morning person than they expected to be. Not a full charged caffeinated style. His laid back personality made everyone at ease. How he could stay carefree while working on one of the busiest seasons in one of the most popular waterparks in SoCal might have to do with him working in a place where he could combine his knowledge with his love of the wave riding and water sport.

Q: Hi. Nice to meet you, we are the Masked Explorer and Cousin. And you are? A: My name is Evan and I'm the Maintenance Manager over at Great Wolf Lodge. It's nice to meet you too. You guys are having fun? Q: Yeah! A: Alright. Q: Can we ask you several questions? A: Yes ma'am. Q: What is the hardest thing about your job? A: The hardest thing about my job would have to be walking the slides in the morning. Every morning, me and my guys, we have to walk the slides physically to make sure that there's no cracks or bumps or anything so that when you guys go down the slides, it doesn't hurt and it's safe. Q: What do you like the most about your job? A: The most I like about my job is seeing you guys happy. If I'm doing my job that means you guys feel safe and could have some fun. Q: What is your favourite ride and why? A: My favourite ride would have to be the Flowrider. That's the fake wave out there. Anything that has to do with the boards, surfing, skateboarding, wakeboarding, anything like that I love and that incorporates all into one thing so it's a really fun ride. Q: How does this all work? A: How do they work? Well we have about 9 different pools and each one has their own filter system, so they clean the water itself. And what happens is they go through the filter and gets cleaned and we put chemicals in the water so that the chemical can clean out the water even better, so it's safe for you guys. And then the pump pushes the water through the pipes all the way to the top of the water slides and down. And that's how you guys can go down. Q: What's the most complicated machine here? A: It's hard to say, I honestly would say almost every machine is probably the hardest machine to take care of, but the hardest one I have to say is the actual wave machine. What it has is it has an air compressor which then pushes a lot of air into the pneumatic arms, like pistons in a car, they move up and down and it shoots air into it allowing to go up and down, thus creating the wave inside the water. So have you ever been in a pool and you have like a mat and you push it down and you have like a wave going? Pretty much the exact same thing with it but supersized. Q: Our last question is, what is the most hilarious thing when you work? A: That one is a hard one to answer. I'd have to say the funniest thing was when I was working outside and I went to change the filter and I forgot to turn it off and the water started spraying all over the place. Practically knocked me out so it was pretty bad. Q: Was it in winter? A: Well, I mean here in winter time is not too cold so fortunately, I wouldn't be freezing but it was during summer time. Q: Alright. Thank you! A: No problem! You guys ready to see the water park? Q: Yeah! A: Let’s go.

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Check out our channel Callousthenics Wings for more behind the scene like below and first POV of all the rides!

Where the grit and grime of the magic.

The Backstage Tour

Looking up and away from our finished session, there was only a handful of crowd around the lobby. Still, more than we had earlier, but that didn’t faze Evan at all. He led us down to the ground floor as we made small talks on the rides.

Being able to pass the red flag sign for all visitors, Employee Only always invited small smirks on our faces. It was like being anointed to be a part of a secret club. Perhaps one day we could be part of an intriguing one. Dear Club 33, hints were dropped already.

Behind the scene was a grey hallway with no carpet and colorful lights. Just another industrial side of the magic, but still exciting nonetheless. This was where the magical cauldron operated.

We entered the waterpark with a feeling of private ownership. It was just us, and our private guide. Then we noticed it. No smell of chlorine in the air. At least not for us. We didn’t notice it yesterday, so that morning it was a revelation, especially with no running and scurrying around us.

It was one of those systems the Great Wolf Lodge implemented from the beginning. Chlorine could induce nausea and headache, so to keep the visitors happy, they counted that into the equation. Must have been a chore for them to figure it out at first, but it was all worth the trouble.

Special room for the wave machine.

Evan showed us around without the feeling of being lectured. It was him inviting us to his home, or maybe second home. He explained the support system of the waterpark as if it was his thesis, he owned it and he delivered. There was no trace of boredom on the three masked explorers. They even threw additional question or two.

One very mysterious machine was the wave machine. It was not just a machine, but an amalgamation of different limbs that worked into one cooperative engine. It would have thrown the explorers into confusion frenzy but Evan explained it well in the earlier session. Car pistons, pedals, and mat in the pool. Hey, we can also make our own wave machine!

Uh oh, better get out before we got drowned by the deafening noise when this giant came alive. No wonder they made a special cave for it to dwell because not long after, we heard the morning grunt of the big player in the house. Waking up and ready to go.

Showing the filtration system.

But of course, none of these would play nice without the glue that connects it all. The filtration system. This smaller giant was a slim looking one, but one of the most vital as Evan referred to. This one very lanky machine kept the water, which was the most vital part of the operation, clean and safe. They even equipped it with its very own sunlight ray, UV light. Gotta make sure those pesky bacteria and foreign material didn’t leak away to the whole system. One very particular common one could be dubbed as natural ammonia? Hah, no, Evan didn’t mention that, be we all know when we had our own leaky accident in the pool. Good thing they don’t have that blue color detection. Talking about an embarrassment.

On a side note, is that a myth, or a real thing? We never encounter it in our lifetime. Any reader care to share?

Update : Our Behind The Scene tour with Evan is up here!

There were more corners of the backstage that we don’t cover here but you can certainly watch and hear about in our vlog. So head over to our YouTube channel above and you too can know more about our adventures with Evan as the guide.

Thank you from MaskedExplorer and Coz for tuning in and subscribe for our future Let’s ask the experts!

Want to be featured as an expert in our blog and vlog? Contact us [email protected] or in our Facebook Page Callousthenics Wings and receive thank you ATC from us.