Julia Furman Capstone

For my Capstone project, I decided to use my own personal hobby and attempt to present it through YouTube. I picked out and continued to work on two stories that I had created, and was planning on sharing them in YouTube videos. The videos were going to have the audio of me reading each “episode” of the story, and the visual component would have been art relating to it that I drew. However, this plan did not work out, because it takes a lot of time to create what I consider quality work and I also had schoolwork to do, so I was unable to make the videos in time. However, I was able to fully learn why content creators on YouTube often take so long to make videos. And I still have the stories to present as artifacts. As for the video plan, I still plan on making the videos, just not anytime soon.

Story 1: Immortal Night: The Series

Episode 1: The First Night

It is the stroke of midnight. A young boy emerges from the depths of the forest into a clear spot up in the mountains. His light skin is marked by scratches, his brown hair is unkempt, and his green shirt and light brown pants are tattered. He paused to catch his breath.

Once his breathing reached a calmer state, he looked back in the woods. His amber eyes searched for even the slightest movement amongst the trees.

I have lived up here for as long as I can remember. Ever since I ran away. I don’t remember where I came from, or why I was running. What I do remember is feeling a strong sense of fear. However, with the help of a new friend, my fear disappeared.

Suddenly, a rustling came from within the forest. Sensing danger, the boy shapeshifted into a brown-furred wolf-like creature and growled.

“Oh, a lycan!” a voice called out from the trees. A boy with pale skin, black hair, red eyes, and wearing a black suit with a white dress shirt and a red tie emerged from the forest.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” the boy said, revealing two glowing, white, sharp fangs. The wolf boy stopped growling, but did not change back.

I could tell that he wasn’t going to hurt me, but I didn’t want to lower my guard just yet. I have to admit, I was a bit intimidated by his fangs.

“I think he went this way!” a new voice yelled out from the forest.

“Uh oh, they’re here. Let’s hide!” the boy exclaimed, grabbing the wolf by the scruff of his neck and dragging him behind a large rock. The two watched from behind the rock as two armored humans wielding swords ran out of the forest.

“Are you sure about this?” one soldier, with light colored skin and blue eyes, asked. “He’s only a little kid…”

“He’s still a vampire!” the other guard, who had light colored skin and brown eyes, responded.

“I am so captured,” the boy quietly said. The wolf narrowed his amber eyes.

“Arooooo!” the little lycan howled into the night.

“Wolves,” the blue-eyed guard said. “Let’s go!”

“Don’t be such a wimp, Caleb!” the brown-eyed guard responded. “There’s only one!”

The lycan howled again. Multiple howls echoed out from everywhere, from the forest behind them to the mountains ahead. It was as though there was an entire pack, but in reality, there were no wolves at all.

“You were saying?” Caleb asked.

“Run!” the brown-eyed guard exclaimed. The two guards ran back into the forest.

“Thanks for saving me,” the vampire boy said. “How did you know you can do that?”

“Umm...lucky guess?”

“My name’s Jonathan.”

“Moonstrike.”

“Good to meet you, Moonstrike. Listen, I have to go. I promised my parents I would be back before sunrise. But, I’ll come check on you tomorrow night. See you then!”

With that, Jonathan shapeshifted into a bat and flew off, towards a huge, imposing castle on top of the mountain. Moonstrike watched Jonathan as he flew off.

I can’t remember what drove me here, but I decided to make this clearing my territory. Something about it made me feel safe. That’s possibly because it’s the place where I met my best friend.

Moonstrike turned away from the castle when his new friend was long out of sight, and howled once more.

Story 2: Minecraft: New Dawn

Season 1, Episode 1 - The First Day

A young girl, about 16 or 17, lay unconscious on the beach as the sun rose. Her brown hair was unkempt and her light skin was covered with scratches. She was clutching a plush creeper and a silver, star-shaped jewel.

Her blue eyes opened, and the sun was the first thing she saw. Her memory was a little foggy; she couldn’t remember what happened.

She stood up on her feet and looked around. A forest was right behind the beach, and she could see mountains in the distance. The ocean was just that - a great expanse of water. There was a boat floating just off the shore.

“I must have rode that boat to get here,” she said, “but why am I here? Where was I going in the first place? I won’t find out by standing around here. Gathering resources should be the best place to start.”

She walked over to a nearby tree and gathered its wood. She converted the five logs into 20 wooden planks, and decided to try to combine four of the planks together. This resulted in her creating a workbench.

With a bit of thinking, she decided that her next move should be building a shelter. She gathered more wood and turned them into planks, and used them to build a small square shelter. While she was working, she noticed that a few saplings and apples had fallen from the leaves of the first tree she had taken down. She gathered the items, and planted a sapling where the tree had been.

Suddenly, when she was building the walls of her shelter, she remembered something.

My name is Julia.

She noticed the chest next to where she woke up shortly after this realization. She finished applying the layer of wood planks she was working on, jumped down to the ground, and walked over to investigate.

Julia looked inside the chest. Inside was a wooden sword, a stone axe, a few wooden planks, some apples, some raw fish, a roll of bandages, and a note. The note read: For you, my daughter.

Though it could have been for anyone, Julia couldn’t help but feel it was made for her. It was at this point she remembered something else: her father had disappeared. Could this chest be from him?

Julia took the items and note and walked back to her unfinished house. She took out two blocks to make an entrance and walked in, as the sun was about to set. She placed the crafting table on the floor and began working with her materials. She managed to create a few sticks, and a wooden pickaxe. She used the remaining planks, aside from the two planks from the entrance, to give her house a roof.

Suddenly, Julia heard a frightened clucking coming from the outside. She ran outside to see what was going on.

A chicken was at the edge of the forest. The chicken was cornered by four other chickens with glowing red eyes. The chicken clucked fearfully as his attackers closed in.

Thinking fast, Julia drew her sword and lept into action. With a few slashes, she took down the red-eyed chickens. They dropped 8 raw chickens and 12 feathers in total. Julia grabbed the items and the chicken and ran into her house, blocking off the exit with the two remaining planks.

“I should probably put a door there,” Julia said to herself. She heard the calls of monsters from outside. She really didn’t want to fight an army of creatures of the night, and she wasn’t in the shape to do it, either. “Well, since we’re going to be here a while, we might as well get to know each other,” she said as she set the chicken down on the ground and sat down in front of him. “My name’s Julia. What’s yours.”

The chicken looked at his savior. He could tell that she wasn’t one of them, and she seemed trustworthy so far.

“Okay, I can’t speak chicken, so I’ll just call you Chester because look like a Chester. I’m having trouble remembering my past, so all I know is that my dad went missing, and he’s apparently here.”

Chester looked at her curiosity, as if to say, “Is that it?” Julia looked at the sword in her hand.

“Well, I was pretty good with the sword back there. So, maybe I was some kind of fighter, or even a soldier. That would have been cool.”

Julia put away her sword, thinking that since she didn’t really have anything else to do, she might as well treat her wounds, eat something, and sleep. Using the roll of bandages, Julia cleaned up the scratches on her face, and bandaged her arms after taking off her hoodie. As she put her sweater back on, Julia noticed that Chester’s leg was injured, and used the remaining bandages to treat it.

Julia munched on one of her apples and laid down on the grassy ground, and Chester settled down next to her, careful to be gentle with his injured leg.

As the girl and the chicken settled down and closed their eyes for the night, two watched the house. One was happy she got his message, and was longing to contact her.

The other thought she was certainly an interesting newcomer. She was able to slaughter Luther’s minions with relative ease, so she was a capable fighter. And she was cute, no question there. Those bright blue eyes could light up even his darkest night. Anyway, she should be careful, as he knew what happened to her father. As long as the girl in the dragon hoodie doesn’t get too curious, she should be fine. Otherwise, she and her pet chicken will have more than creepers to worry about…

Annotated Bibliography

Blixemi. "The Missing Light Playlist." YouTube Playlist. August 05, 2015. Accessed January 22, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFo3ju6XJ_GF2l_F2gJRwtsZxTHIgo634.

This is a playlist for The Missing Light, an animated web series by YouTuber Blixemi. This web series is actually what partially inspired Immortal Night: The Series, one of the two stories I’m writing for my capstone. The Missing Light and IN:TS share several similar story elements, such as the main character being a wolf (or in the case of Immortal Night, a lycan) and having a special light-based power. Of course, there are a few differences, such as the fact that it is set in a kingdom of vampires and lycans rather than wolves, humans play a role in Immortal Night as opposed to being absent in The Missing Light, and the fact that the main villain isn’t very prevalent early on in the series. The point is, this hidden gem of YouTube may not be finished, but it heavily inspired my own work.

"Browse 125,000 Audio Books." Audiobooks.com. Accessed January 22, 2019. https://www.audiobooks.com/browse.

The videos I plan to make for my capstone are very similar to audiobooks such as the ones found here, in the sense that it’s a recording of my voice reading each episode. The visual component of the videos would be drawings that I made in relation to the story. I was thinking of animating the stories at first, but I thought that would take too long, so I decided to go for the recorded reading with artwork approach.

"Fossils and Archeology Mod Revival Wiki." Fossils and Archeology Mod Revival Wiki.

Accessed January 22, 2019. http://fossils-archeology.wikia.com/wiki/F/A_Mod_Revival_Wiki.

This is one of the websites I use to research for Minecraft: New Dawn. As the name implies, New Dawn is heavily inspired by Minecraft, and a few of my personal favorite modifications (or “mods”) for the block-based sandbox building game. This website informs of the Fossils and Archeology Revival Mod, which focuses on adding dinosaurs, fossils, and other archeological elements to the game. I am fascinated by archeology and anything related to the ancient past, and along with allowing the player to live out their own version of Jurassic Park, it adds a number of other extinct animals to the game, which I can appreciate. Dinosaurs don’t appear much until the later reasons, but this mod still plays a key factor in the series.

"Ice and Fire Mod Wiki." Ice and Fire Mod Wiki | FANDOM Powered by Wikia. Accessed

January 22, 2019. http://ice-and-fire-mod.wikia.com/wiki/Ice_and_Fire_Mod_Wiki.

This is one of the websites I use to research for Minecraft: New Dawn. As the name implies, New Dawn is heavily inspired by Minecraft, and a few of my personal favorite modifications (or “mods”) for the block-based sandbox building game. The Ice and Fire Mod adds dragons and other mythical beasts, making Minecraft just a little more legendary. Along with archeology, I also have a fascination with mythology, especially anything that has to do with dragons. And the mod, and also the F&A mod, adds lore into the game, and lore is a game element I always love. The influence the Ice and Fire Mod has on the series is clear early on, as the main character encounters two creatures from the mod within the first ten episodes.

"Immortal Night Tutorial." Immortal Night Tutorial. Accessed January 22, 2019. https://www.immortalnight.com/tutorial_ext.php.

As the name would imply, Immortal Night is the online roleplaying game that Immortal Night: The Series is loosely based on. I say “loosely based on” because the series is really based on the image for the game I had in my head after reading the tutorial page. Namely, I had assumed that the game was an MMORPG in a similar vein as the game, RuneScape. Elements of the game mentioned on the tutorial page, such as the market and the warring Houses, are seen in the series, but that is where the similarities stop. I have done a little more research on the game itself, but the series is purely me reading the tutorial page and seeing where my imagination and my pencil took me.

Jess. "Aphmau." YouTube. August 20, 2012. Accessed January 22, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/user/ChallengeAcceptedInc/videos.

And this is Jess, or Aphmau,’s YouTube channel. I discovered her just last summer, and she has been my favorite YouTuber ever since. She mainly does gameplay videos, but the thing I really like is her roleplay series. They feature an overarching story that develops its characters as its progresses, which is exactly the kind of story I love. The reason I put her channel as a source is because I use the stories she creates as inspiration for my own, particularly the lore on the werewolves seen in New Dawn, and it would only be fair to give proper credit to the source of my inspiration. That, and Jess’s husband, Jason, gets angry if he thinks someone’s copying his and his wife’s work, and I’d prefer to avoid incurring the wrath of Jason.

Minecraft Wiki. "The Official Minecraft Wiki." Minecraft Wiki. January 16, 2019. Accessed January 22, 2019. https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Minecraft_Wiki.

This is one of the websites I use to research for Minecraft: New Dawn. As the name implies, New Dawn is heavily inspired by Minecraft, and a few of my personal favorite modifications (or “mods”) for the block-based sandbox building game. I use this website to refer to information about the game itself. While I do consider myself an expert on Minecraft, the website is always helpful to refer to when I have to double check something or I want to see if anything changed with a new update.

Mo' Creatures Wiki. "Mo' Creatures Wiki." Mo' Creatures Wiki. November 25, 2018. Accessed

January 22, 2019. https://mocreatures.gamepedia.com/Mo'_Creatures_Wiki.

This is one of the websites I use to research for Minecraft: New Dawn. As the name implies, New Dawn is heavily inspired by Minecraft, and a few of my personal favorite modifications (or “mods”) for the block-based sandbox building game. Now, this particular mod holds a special place in my heart because it is what first inspired my fascination with mods. The Mo’ Creatures mod does exactly what it says on the package: it adds more creatures into the game. In my opinion, this simple addition adds so much more life into the game. This was especially true a few years ago, when there wasn’t really a lot in the game’s oceans. Mods like this one add a new spin on an already fun game, giving the player so much more to do. That is the reason I use mods like these as parts of my story.

Stimac, Blake. "YouTube for Beginners: How to Start a Channel for Your Business." Free Website

Builder. December 19, 2018. Accessed January 22, 2019.

As I mentioned before, at this point, I don’t know the first thing about how to create content for YouTube. I do know how to film videos, but I don’t know how to edit them or how to create and operate a YouTube channel. I will be getting help on trying to figure out this stuff from Ms. Walker-Roberts, but I thought looking at this guide on how to create a channel will be helpful.

"Writing Tips to Make You a Better Writer." Goins, Writer. April 12, 2016. Accessed January 22,

2019. https://goinswriter.com/writing-tips/.

Of course, since writing is a huge part of this capstone, I have to make sure my writing is good. This website lists a handful of tips that I try to keep in mind every time I write, such as to say focused, to just write without worrying about being good, and to read. Even as an experienced writer, I need to keep following these guidelines, so I’m not just staring at a blank page for hours on end.