Text version and youtube description:

My OC was designed by MizuTakishima:http://mizutakishima.deviantart.com/

The thumbnail for this video was made by Jowybean:http://jowybean.deviantart.com/

BUY SOME APPLES!

I love Applebloom! When I first watched MLP, Applebloom was one of my favorite characters, and the one that I related to most. The core (lolpun) of Applebloom’s character is that she hasn’t figured out what she wants to do in life yet, which was how I felt about a year and a half ago. I kept throwing myself at a bunch of different activities, trying to find the one that suited me best, before realizing that my one obvious skill which I’d been performing the entire time was the one I should try and make a career out of. This isn’t the most important way in which I relate to Applebloom, which I’ll get into when I talk about The Show Stoppers, but it definitely helps me to appreciate her conflict.

That said, Applebloom’s conflict preeetty much defines her character. Yeah, you could say something about her relationship with Applejack and her friends and blah blah, but seriously, she ain’t the most deep or complex character on the show. And that’s fine! It just means that there’s not much to say about her that isn’t completely obvious. As a result, this video is going to deal less with analyzing Applebloom’s character or the storyline of the episode, and more to do with looking at a bunch of random things that I noticed while watching.

First of all, I know this scene is just meant to be a convenient way to set up the plot, but man, the Equestrian school system must suck all kinds of balls if these ponies are getting a lesson about Cutie Marks at this age. Not only do all of them know this stuff already, but most of the class already has their marks. The sad thing is that, having been taught the history of American settlement at least four times between elementary and middle school, I can’t even say this is hard to believe.

This scene also gives us 80s Cheerilee, which a lot of people have pointed out as a way of debunking my theory about the mane six’s ages, though I’m not sure why. The idea is that, Cheerilee was in Rarity’s class in elementary school, so they must be about the same age. Hoewever, Cheerilee’s picture shows her appearing to be a teenager, and because of the 80s iconography, it suggests that this picture was taken a long time ago.

It’s perfectly possible, though, that this picture was taken, say, four years ago, when Cheerilee was twelve, and the style was just going out of fashion. The kids would still be too young to really remember it, and Cheerilee would still look a bit younger than she does now. Yeah, it seems like a stretch in the context of the scene, but in the context of the greater canon, I’m willing to accept it, because I still am very attached to the theory that the mane six are all in their mid-teens.

Keeping on the subject of Cheerilee, the story of her cutie mark is actually a pretty great insight into the nature of cutie mark designs, and just how unclear their meanings can be. Cheerilee’s, for instance, is a group of smiling flowers, which could just have easily suggested that she was some kind of florist. Instead, the flowers represent the smiles of her students. The case has been made again and again by analysts that cutie marks don’t directly represent a pony’s talent, but are metaphorical, and Cheerilee spells this out in her dialog.

Fun fact about Cheerilee’s mark, by the way. In Japan, the word Hanamaru, which literally translates to flower-circle, is used to describe these little flowers with smiley faces that teachers award students with in kindergarten. If you’ve ever played Yoshi’s Island, or watched the anime series Hanamaru Kindergarten, then you may be familiar with this concept. I’m very interested in seeing how Cheerilee’s dialog will be translated when this episode airs in Japan.

One last thing worth noting about this scene, which you’ve probably noticed yourself at some point, is that of the nine ponies in Ms. Cheerilee’s class, none of them are Scootaloo or Sweetie Belle. By the time The Show Stoppers rolls around, they appear to be classmates, and are shown to have replaced former classmates in the season two episodes.

If this was just an inconsistency, it would be a particularly weird one, because it’s not like they were trying to retcon Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle into having been classmates with Applebloom from the beginning. She actually meets the duo at the end of this episode, so it stands to reason that they were supposed to go to another school. So… what gives? My best guess is that the two of them actually transferred into Applebloom’s class after becoming friends with her. Given the way young ponies have a tendency to move to entirely new places during adolescence, I imagine that the transfer process in Equestrian schools is fairly easy.

Moving along now, here’s something I’d really like to see some headcanons about (and yes, I realize I’ve just damned myself to watching at least five to ten more inevitable headcanon videos)—why do the members of the apple family get their cutie marks late? Applejack remarks that herself, Granny Smith, and Big Macintosh were all the last in their classes to get their mark, and that it might run in the family. I’ve actually got a theory about this which I’ll share in a future video, but until then, I’d like to hear what you think.

Here’s one for all you guys that’ve been losing your minds trying to figure out the Equestrian economy. Applebloom tells customers that, “we take cash or credit.” How exactly does credit work in this economy? I’m not gonna think about it too hard because Equestrian economics make my head explode. It’s bad enough Applejack pays BonBon in about two hundred apples just because her little sister’s being a brat. *sigh*

I DIDN’T PUT THOSE IN MY BAG!

It’s interesting that Rainbow Dash’s strategy for obtaining cutie marks, which is to do a bunch of random shit until a mark appears, is actually what the CMC continue to use as a strategy in all of their adventures. This just goes towards proving my theory that Rainbow Dash is a terrible role model corrupting the children.

The Cutesenara is a pretty interesting concoction. You’ve got Pinkie Pie hosting the party at Sugarcube Corner, which is hardly surprising, and it’s easy to imagine Pinkie doing this for everyone. The weird part is how there’s a bunch of adults at the party who don’t seem to be related to the kids, suggesting that this is a pretty open social gathering. But also, the kids don’t seem to have their parents there. Maybe Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon’s parents were busy, though DT’s dad in Family Appreciation Day doesn’t seem like the type who’d miss his daughter’s big celebration. Which suggests that maybe Cutesenaras aren’t that big a deal? Leave your comments about how I’m reading way too deep into a poorly thought-out scene in a kids show below.

Alright, that covers most of the analysis, so now let’s point out a bunch of random fun stuff!

Derpybloom!

This symbol in the karate dojo which has Celestia and Luna on it!

Pinbro and Berry Punch, reaffirmed as two of my favorite background ponies!

This scene is incredibly awkward!

Twilight’s “fuck you just say to me, bitch?” face.

This kid who thinks they may have gotten their mark “too soon,” which might suggest something interesting about pony’s relationships with cutie marks, but more likely is just a dumb kid getting hyped on the CMC’s speech.

Also I can’t play it for you, but the music in this scene seriously sounds like 90s gangsta rap.

I’m American.

And, that should about do it. Though I feel like I might have forgotten something… ehh, probably nothing. Now quit with the shakin’, let’s get bakin’!

Interestingly, the first time I actually posted about this site’s age was on its fourth birthday. Then, I mused that I’d been running the site for a fifth of my life. Now we’re running over a fourth. And, importantly, that’s most of the time that I actually have memory of. I can’t really remember life before blogging.

Last year, I copied Ghostlightning’s third-year anniversary post in two parts. Ghostlightning has stopped blogging and watching anime since then. I have too, just less officially. I don’t think I need to explain what I’ve been doing instead.

I’ve always said there’s no reason this site should ever close, and that I’d probably run it until wordpress eventually becomes useless or shuts down, and there’s no reason to doubt that this remains true. Yeah, my youtube and even my tumblr are more active and relevant at this point, but this site still has plenty of uses and as much versatility as ever.

And more importantly, I love it <3

Text version and youtube description:

0:00 – Introduction
0:11 – Cindy Morrow’s influence
0:48 – How it handles the issue of bullying/the CMC
2:07 – The message
2:54 – The mediocre conveyance of Babs’ insecurity
3:53 – Loose pacing
4:13 – I love Applejack
4:23 – Visual cues
4:44 – DT and SS
4:56 – Parasprites
5:22 – Voice acting
5:30 – Babs’ insult
5:46 – Commentary

POP A CAP IN YO SADDIDY ASS!

More stuff by me: http://modalhsoul.wordpress.com/

I forgot to mention that I took out the line about the camera kid. I had a lot of comments on the old video explaining who the camera kid was. I already knew who he was, I was just wondering if him taking pics was gonna be a plot point. It never was though, so it’s irrelevant now.

My OC is designed by MizuTakishima: http://mizutakishima.deviantart.com/

Go here to watch me talk about my room: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ58VFJftc8

Q&A: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw6UBKuaMyFBtdt0MPRAhEQ_PpVAXC4vM

Poney Cartoons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJwONlOzBdI

One Bad Apple seems to be a somewhat controversial episode, and one which I was unsure about at first. I’ve watched it three times and come to my own conclusions, and I hope that I can help you to reach your own through this video.

This episode was written by Cindy Morrow, who seems to have a thing writing about bullying and social situations. She previously wrote Griffon the Brush-Off, which I also have a video on. It’s another episode about bullying, which tackles it from more of a teenager/adult level, whereas One Bad Apple faces the issue on a child level. Additionally, Cindy Morrow wrote The Show Stoppers, Sisterhooves Social, and Family Appreciation Day, so she’s been behind a lot of the development of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and explored their social situations multiple times. She wrote Hurricane Fluttershy and Read It and Weep as well, which were both episodes about overcoming social pressure in one way or another, so this really seems to be something she focuses on.

The controversy over this episode comes from how it handles the issue of bullying, which some people strongly disliked. Personally, I found it to be very clean about the whole affair, but when I noticed so much public outcry over it, I decided it had to be addressed.

The problem seems to be that Babs Seed gets away scott-free in the end, in spite of all the terrible things that she put the Cutie Mark Crusaders through. A lot of people have said that Babs deserved to be punished for her actions, but I completely disagree. The way I see it, as long as Babs has learned her lesson and changed her ways, there’s no reason to punish her any further. It won’t make her better as a person. And besides, the Cutie Mark Crusaders already forgave her, so there’s really no winner in punishing her any further.

Some would argue that the CMC being so quick to forgive Babs is a case of bad writing—but let’s think about the CMC as characters. Up until the point where Babs steels their clubhouse, the CMC desperately wanted her to be their friend. Even during the Babs Seed song, they ask, can’t we be friends? because they hate that things are turning out this way. When they finally snap and seek revenge on Babs, it doesn’t take much to remind them that they aren’t vengeful ponies, and they had always wanted to be friends with Babs anyways.

As much trouble as Babs gives them, they never really reach the point of being depressed. They have strength in one-another, after all, and are guided more by frustration than anything else. All three of them are so mortified by what they tried to do that I think they just wanted to put all of the negative stuff behind them, and I think that’s excellent.

Another problem that people have with the episode is that its ultimate message seems to be, if you’re having trouble with a bully, you should tell an adult. This message is a little more complicated and does have its own problems, since it’s not always a good solution in real life. That said, I don’t think it’s a bad message—I don’t think you should tell kids *not* to tell an adult, anyways. But more importantly, I don’t think this was the real point of the episode. The point was that the best way to resolve a conflict is to understand one-another better.

Does the episode resolve this understanding too easily? Sure. Is anything ever this easy in real life? Of course not. This is ultimately a kid’s show trying to teach a message, and for my money, it handled that message as well as it possibly could have in this capacity. Had it been handled realistically, there would’ve been a lot more ambiguity and a lot less resolution, but this is MLP, not Freaks and Geeks, and I don’t expect it to be completely true to life.

The only problem I have with the episode’s plot is the mediocre conveyance of Babs’ insecurity throughout the middle part of the episode. At the beginning, they did a good job of making Babs seem shy and overwhelmed, and at the very end they did a good job of making her seem like she regretted what had happened. However, throughout the middle section, she was just being a complete ass, and at no point showed any remorse or doubts about what she was doing. The only time her insecurity peeks through is when she hides her cutie mark while doing the sugar lump rump with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. It’s not enough. They did too good of a job making Babs look like a bad apple, and not enough of a job making her look like a bullied, scared filly. And the sad thing is, all it would’ve taken was a couple of brief shots of her looking nervous or regretful about what she was doing.

There was plenty of time to fit this stuff in, because the episode has a loose pace that doesn’t come together very well in my opinion. It seems to fill in for the smallness of its narrative concepts by including weak and needless sections (such as Applebloom’s horrible “is that her?!” joke towards the beginning), and superfluous dialog that repeats the same points about what’s happened again and again. The entire Babs Seed song, for instance, is mostly unnecessary, though it’s a catchy, fun little experiment in putting a music video in the middle of an episode, and is better than a quick montage of Babs’ bullying would’ve been. I just can’t help feel that the time could’ve been better used strengthening the core narrative of Babs’ insecurity.

Anyways, now that I’ve explored the main narrative, let’s look at some of the smaller details that make this episode fun.

First things first, god I love Applejack. Her scene at the beginning is probably my favorite part of the episode, especially the line, “you know your cousin is supposed to sleep in here!” Yeah, I just love Applejack.

The establishing scenes of this episode use some interesting visual cues to convey the sadness that the CMC feel over Babs’ betrayal. The entire time that the CMC are touring Babs around, all three of them are constantly clustered together, taking up huge portions of the screen. However, just after Babs betrays them, they are shows spaced apart, with a huge amount of background, which easily conveys the sudden desolation that they all feel.

By the way, just as a note, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were godawful in this episode. I can’t decide if it irks me because DT was so much cooler in Ponyville Confidential, or if I’m okay with it because hearing them say “lamekin” makes me lose my shit.

I noticed that during the big parade, the background music is the same song which Pinkie Pie used to lead the parasprites out of town in Swarm of the Century. As you may know, in the Brony community, Parasprites is a term used to address haters and bullies. During this scene, the CMC are trying to get a bully to leave town through their antics. I wonder if this is a coincidence.

Is it just me, or did Pinkie Pie seem really stoned in this episode?

Babs is having fun in that apple.

All three of the CMC voice actresses turned in superb performances in this episode. My favorite part is Sweetie Belle reading Scootaloo’s indoctrination script, even though they seem to have accidentally reversed the dictionary joke.

Babs’ last line to Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara is kind of weak, but I think it’s probably the best they could get away with in a kids’ show. In my fanon interpretation of this scene, Babs actually says, “I’MMA POP A CAP IN YO SADDIDY ASS, DIRTY OLD BITCH”

Anyways that’s all I got.

The “listenability” score means what it says, and has a lot to do with how the actual order of this list was found. There can be an album with just five songs that are all fantastic, but if it’s hard to actually listen to, vs. an album with more variance that I listen to every damn day, the latter will likely win out. Just felt that might need explanation. Here’s the list:

50. The White EP – Agalloch
7 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: Birch White, Sowilo Rune, Summerisle Reprise
LEAST FAOVRITE TRACK: Pantheist

49. Undertow – Tool
10 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: Intolerance, Prison Sex, Sober, Bottom, Swamp Song, Flood, Disgustipated
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: 4 Degrees

48. Tight – Mindless Self Indulgence
13 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: Bring the Pain, Tight, Diabolical, Molly, Tornado, Bite Your Rhythmes
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Dickface

47. The Satanic Satanist – Portugal. The Man
11 tracks.
Listenability: High
FAVORITE TRACKS: People Say, Work All Day, Guns & Dogs, Do You, Everyone Is Golden
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Let You Down

46. Ghost Reveries – Opeth
9 tracks.
Listenability: Low
FAVORITE TRACKS: Ghost of Perdition, Harlequin Forest, Hours of Wealth
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: The Grand Conjuration

45. The Age of Adz – Sufjan Stevens
Listenability: Medium
11 tracks.
FAVORITE TRACKS: Age of Adz, Now That I’m Older, Get Real Get Right, Want To Be Well, Impossible Soul
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Bad Communication

44. Marrow of the Spirit – Agalloch
6 tracks.
Listenability: Low
FAVORITE TRACKS: They Escaped the Weight of Darkness, Into the Painted Grey, Ghosts of the Midwinter Fires
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: To Drown

43. Drunken Lullabies – Flogging Molly
12 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: Drunken Lullabies, What’s Left of the Flag, Swagger, Another Bag of Bricks, The Rare Ould Times
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: If I Ever Leave This World Alive

42. Watershed – Opeth
10 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: The Lotus Eater, Burden, Porcelein Heart, Bridge of Sighs, Den Standiga Reisan
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Hex Omega

41. The Mantle – Agalloch
9 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: In the Shadow of Our Pale Companion, You Were But A Ghost In My Arms, …And the Great Cold Death of the Earth, A Desolation Song
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: The Lodge

40. Pony Songs – Cats Millionaire
12 tracks.
Listenability: High
FAVORITE TRACKS: Popular (Refrain), Art of the Dress (feat. Renard), Luna Lucid Mode (feat. Circuitfry), U Got 2 Share (feat. Rainbow Crash88)
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Equestria: Act V (End of Days)

39. The Indian Tower – Pearls and Brass
11 tracks.
Listenability: Low
FAVORITE TRACKS: Black Rock Man, The Mirror, Wake In the Morning, Beneath the Earth, Away the Mirrors
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: The Face of God

38. Leviathan – Mastodon
10 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: Blood And Thunder, Island, Megalodon, Aqua Dementia, Joseph Merrick
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Seabeast

37. Good Apollo I’m Burning Star IV, Vol. 2: No World For Tomorrow – Coheed and Cambria
13 tracks.
Listenability: Low
FAVORITE TRACKS: No World For Tomorrow, The Hound (Of Blood and Rank), Gravemakers & Gunslingers, The End Complete IV: The Road and the Damned
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Justice In Murder

36. Leitmotif – Dredg
10 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: Symbol Song, Lechium, Traversing Through the Arctic Cold We Searched For the Spirit of Yuta
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Movement IV: RR

35. Minna Shine – Shinsei Kamattechan
Listenability: Medium
13 tracks.
FAVORITE TRACKS: Beibi Reini Deiri, Arutimetto Reiza!!, Story of the Worst Girl, SUPEEDO, God is an awful bastard, My Blues, Kuchu zu sameruyooni
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Be Yourself

34. Can’t Buy A Thrill – Steely Dan
10 tracks.
Listenability: High
FAVORITE TRACKS: Do It Again, Dirty Work, Midnight Cruiser, Reelin’ in the Years
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Fire In the Hole

33. Nothing’s Shocking – Jane’s Addiction
11 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: Ocean Size, Ted, Just Admit It…, Idiots Rule, Jane Says
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Mountain Song

32. Act II: The Father of Death – Protomen
12 tracks.
Listenability: Low
FAVORITE TRACKS: The Father of Death, The Hounds, Breaking Out, Keep Quiet, Light Up the Night
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Here Comes The Arm

31. S2 – So Great and Powerful
6 tracks.
Listenability: High
FAVORITE TRACKS: E30 (Love and Admiration), E26 (Sofas and Quills), E38
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: E40

30. Blood Mountain – Mastodon
12 tracks.
Listenability: Low
FAVORITE TRACKS: The Wolf Is Loose, Crystal Skull, Sleeping Giant, Capillarian Crest, Circle of the Cysquatch, Bladecatcher, Pendulous Skin
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Hunters of the Sky

29. BlackBlack – BlackBlack
13 tracks.
Listenability: High
FAVORITE TRACKS: The Energy Song, Skulls, Algorythx and Gurantaxtaq, Sophia
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Firefly

28. Frankenstein Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy – Mindless Self Indulgence
30 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: Backmask, Boomin’, Clarissa, Dicks Are For My Friends, Faggot, I Hate Jimmy Page, Kill the Rock, Last Time I Tried To Rock Your World, London Bridge
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Masturbates

27. To August 32nd – Shinsei Kamattechan
9 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: Geroi Hana, Yukure Memoraiza, Boku wa Ganbaru yo
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Summer of Being 22

26. Flood – Boris
1 track.
Listenability: High
FAVORITE TRACKS: Flood
LEAST FAVORITE TRAKCS: None

25. Imaginary Sonicscape – Sigh
12 tracks.
Listenability: Low
FAVORITE TRACKS: Corpsecry/Angelfall, Nietzschean Conspiracy, Slaughtergarden Suite, Bring Back the Dead
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Requiem/Nostalgia

24. De-Loused in the Comatorium – The Mars Volta
10 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: Inertiatic E.S.P., Drunkship of Lanters, Cicatrix E.S.P., This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed, Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Eria Tarka

23. In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 – Coheed and Cambria
12 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth, Cuts Marked In the March of Men, Three Evils (Embodied In Love and Shadow), Blood Red Summer, A Favor House Atlantic, The Light & The Glass
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: The Velourium Camper II: Backend of Forever

22. Frances The Mute – The Mars Volta
5 tracks.
Listenability: Low
FAVORITE TRACKS: The Widow, L’via L’viaquez, Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore, Cassandra Gemini
LEAST FAORITE TRACK: Cygnus… Vismund Cygnus

21. Oceanic – Isis
9 tracks.
Listenability: High
FAVORITE TRACKS: The Beginning and the End, Weight, From Sinking, Hym
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: The Other

20. Buiikikaesu!! – Maximum the Hormone
14 tracks.
Listenability: Low
FAVORITE TRACKS: Zetsubou Billy, Black Yen Power G Men Spy, Akagi, Bikini. Sports. Ponchin., What’s up, People!!, ChuChu Lovely Muni Muni Mura Mura Purin Puring Boron Nururerorero, Koi no Mega Lover
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Shimi

19. Spiderland – Slint
6 tracks.
Listenability: High
FAVORITE TRACKS: Breadcrumb Trail, Nosferatu Man, Good Morning Captain
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: For Dinner…

18. Act III: Life and Death – The Dear Hunter
14 tracks.
Listenability: Low
FAVORITE TRACKS: Writing On A Wall, In Cauda Venenum, What It Means To Be Alone, The Tank, Mustard Gas, He Said He Had A Story, Go Get Your Gun
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Life and Death

17. Ashes Against the Grain – Agalloch
8 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: Limbs, Falling Snow, Not Unlike The Waves
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Our Fortress Is Burning… III: The Grain

16. Act II: the Meaning of, and All Things Regarding Ms. Leading – The Dear Hunter
15 tracks.
Listenability: Low
FAVORITE TRACKS: The Lake and the River, The Oracles on the Delphi Express, The Church and the Dime, Red Hands
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Blood of the Rose

15. Amputechture – The Mars Volta
8 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: Tetragrammaton, Meccamputechture, Day of the Baphomets
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: El Ciervo Vulnerado

14. Carnavas – Silversun Pickups
13 tracks.
Listenability: High
FAVORITE TRACKS: Melatonin, Well Thought-Out Twinkles, Little Lover’s So Polite, Lazy Eye, Dream at Tempo 119, Common Reactor
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Mercury

13. Mean Everything To Nothing – Manchester Orchestra
11 tracks.
Listenability: High
FAVORITE TRACKS: The Only One, Pride, 100 Dollars, I Can Feel A Hot One, My Friend Marcus, Everything To Nothing, The River
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: I’ve Got Friends

12. The Ocean and the Sun – The Sound of Animals Fighting
12 tracks.
Listenability: High
FAVORITE TRACKS: The Ocean and the Sun, I The Swan, The Heraldic Beak of the Manufacturer’s Medallion, Uzbekistan, On the Occasion of Wet Snow
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Cellophane

11. These Four Walls – We Were Promised Jetpacks
11 tracks.
Listenability: High
FAVORITE TRACKS: It’s Thunder And It’s Lightning, Ships with Holes will Sink, Roll Up Your Sleeves, Quiet Little Voices, Moving Clocks Run Slow, Short Bursts
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: An Almighty Thud

10. Introducing – Foxy Shazam
10 tracks.
Listenability: Low
FAVORITE TRACKS: The Rocketeer, A Dangerous Man, A Black Man’s Breakfast, Red Cape Diver, Yes Yes Yes, Ghost Animals
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: None worth mentioning

9. Hate – The Delgados
10 tracks.
Listenability: High
FAVORITE TRACKS: Coming In From the Cold, Child Killers, All Rise, All You Need Is Hate, Woke From Dreaming, The Drowning Years, If This Is A Plan
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Never Look At The Sun

8. The Standard Model – So Great And Powerful
8 tracks.
Listenability: High
FAVORITE TRACKS: A Beautiful Heart, In History Maybe, On My Own
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: The Standard Model

7. To Kill A Friend – Shinsei Kamattechan
8 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: Rock and Roll wa Nariyamanai, Penteruni, Season I Want To Die, Summer of Being 23, I Don’t Want To Do My Homework
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Chiritori

6. Simple Math – Manchester Orchestra
10 tracks.
Listenability: High
FAVORITE TRACKS: Deer, Mighty, Pensacola, April Fool, Virgin, Simple Math, Leaky Breaks
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Leave It Alone

5. As the Roots Undo – Circle Takes the Square
8 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: Same Shade As Concrete, Crowquill, In the Nervous Light of Sunday
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: None worth mentioning

4. The Second Stage Turbine Blade – Coheed and Cambria
11 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: Time Consumer, Everything Evil, Delirium Trigger, Neverender, Elf Tower New Mexico
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: 33

3. In the Mountain In the Cloud – Portugal. The Man
11 tracks.
Listenability: High
FAVORITE TRACKS: So American, Floating (Time Isn’t Working My Side), Got It All (This Can’t Be Living Now), Everything You See (Kids Count Hallelujahs), All Your Light (Times Like These), Sleep Forever
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Senseless

2. Penelope EP – Shabutie
5 tracks.
Listenability: High
FAVORITE TRACKS: Shameless, Camoflage, Kinderwhore, Godfather’s Lollipop, Cassiopeia
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: None

1. Tsumanne – Shinsei Kamattechan
12 tracks.
Listenability: Medium
FAVORITE TRACKS: Smothering the ground’s angel, and to those who will be, TSUUGAKU LOW, IKARETA NEET
LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: None worth noting

Text version and youtube description:

0:00 – Introduction
0:16 – M.A. Larson and a unified narrative
0:46 – Magic Duel as making up for Boast Busters
1:19 – Continuity and training
1:52 – Who is Trixie?
3:30 – Opening scene
3:35 – CALLBACK #1: Snowball
3:44 – CALLBACK #2: Rock Farm
4:07 – CALLBACK #3: Parasprite
4:15 – CALLBACK #4: Mustache
4:26 – Side characters
4:39 – Twilight’s bragging voice
4:53 – Reliance on the viewer
5:08 – CALLBACK #5: Instruments
5:15 – Conclusion
5:32 – Commentary

Redux! I’m sure some of you will agree that having the videos taken down is almost a good thing, since we get an enhanced version as a result! It’s sad to lose all the comments though T_T

I wasn’t prepared for how spot-on my Snips voice was going to be when I heard it back. It’s the result of having to hear that line so often when I was editing the original video.

My OC is designed by MizuTakishima: http://mizutakishima.deviantart.com/

Go here to watch Inanimate Insanity S2 Ep 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tbpQ3jccbk

Go here to watch me talk about my room: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ58VFJftc8

ROFL IT LET ME MONETIZE THIS! I AIN’T EVEN MAD ANYMORE!

Magic Duel is the most meta-tacular episode of My Little Pony, and was mind-blowing for me, after all the analysis of the series I’ve been doing. My appreciation of Magic Duel was influenced by my reaction to Boast Busters, which I’ve also done a video on.

Magic Duel was written by M. A. Larson, who is arguably one of the biggest driving forces towards a unified narrative in the show. He previously wrote Sonic Rainboom and the Cutie Mark Chronicles, which were one of the big continuity threads in the first season. He also wrote Luna Eclipsed, which was a huge piece of continuity in that it finally reintroduced Luna to the series as a mainstay character. Larson seems to enjoy taking minor characters and expanding on them, which he did for Diamond Tiara in Ponyville Confidential, and does again here with The Great and Powerful Trixie (who had also been name-dropped in Ponyville Confidential).

My theory as to why this episode exists is that Larson wanted to make up for Boast Busters, which is one of the worst episodes of the entire show. The only good things that came out of Boast Busters were some light exploration of how Twilight’s magic works, and the introduction of the most lovably obnoxious side character, Trixie. Besides those things, Boast Busters portrays the characters horribly, is paced like a hard shit, and has one of the most lazy and poorly handled lessons in the show. It’s bad, which is something that can’t be said about many MLP episodes. Magic Duel takes all that failure and uplifts it.

Larson’s love of continuity is a constant presence throughout the episode. For starters, it deals with Twilight’s progress in magic, which is the general theme of this whole season. When Twilight was practicing magic at the start of Too Many Pinkie Pies, I wasn’t sure if it was directly connected to the fact that she’s supposed to be training post-Crystal Empire, but now that there’s another episode of her training, and this time throughout the whole episode, it really feels like a major point of the season. There was no better time for Trixie to make a return, since her presence has always been for Twilight to learn more about her magic. In this case, she actually learns when to not use it.

So. Why am I so sure that M. A. Larson was trying to fix Boast Busters? After all, Trixie hasn’t changed much since her last appearance. Larson certainly hasn’t transformed her and given her new life the way he did with Luna in Luna Eclipsed. He does, however, throw in some key phrases that help to define what kind of character she always was.

The important lines are: “she’s less high-and-mighty, and more mean and nasty!”

and: “I liked it better when she was just a fraud”

One of the reasons I hated Boast Busters is that the ponies had been so quick to vilify Trixie, who was just trying to put on a show. They drove her out of town because they found her obnoxious, which isn’t in character for them, and certainly isn’t in character for Twilight, who just sort of lets everything happen and doesn’t chastise her friends for the way they acted.

In the new episode, Trixie is a bully; however, this isn’t a natural part of her character, and Twilight recognizes this. She’s surprised to see Trixie acting this way, because she remembers Trixie as a pain in the ass, but not a villain. Anyone who remembers Boast Busters well would know this, and Larson shows that he cares about her character and who she really was by representing her evil nature as the influence of the Alicorn pendant. It would’ve been too easy to show Trixie as a vengeful bitch and ignore that she was never really threatening in the first place.

The big moment is at the end, when Trixie finally gets the chance to apologize with Twilight and help her to put on a show for the delegates from Saddle Arabia. She finally reconciles with Twilight, and shows that even though she’s still obnoxiously narcissistic, she was never a bad pony. She just made a bad decision.

Okay, let’s talk about cool stuff now.

The opening scene sets the mood beautifully, showing a dark town that we’ve never seen before.

CALLBACK NUMBER ONE: Spike mentions how Twilight once rolled him and Applejack up in a giant snowball, which happened in Winter Wrap Up.

Fluttershy chews off a bunch of her marshmallow hooves. I don’t even–

CALLBACK NUMBER TWO: Trixie mentions working on a rock farm, which is clearly run by Pinkie Pie’s dad. This is corroborated by Pinkie being the one to comment about it. Remember that Larson was the one who wrote Pinkie’s backstory, and this is the first time we’ve been given evidence that Pinkie wasn’t lying about it before. Trixie responds by taking apart Pinkie’s Flash symbol—a fitting piece of fourth-wall-breaking magic for the pony who defies physics.

CALLBACK NUMBER THREE: Twilight summons a parasprite to eat Trixie’s pies, and it even spawns a copy before Twilight gets rid of them.

CALLBACK NUMBER FOUR: Twilight gives Trixie a mustache, which is the spell that Twilight had just learned in Boast Busters. Notice that Trixie snips it off with scissors, and these seem to remind her of Snips and Snails, whom she then calls over.

All sorts of minor characters make appearances. Zecora gets to play a big role again, which has been a good while, and the baby Cakes are there, too. And Lyra drinks the fuck out of some soda.

Twilight with wet hair is ultra adorable.

I noticed that Twilight’s voice was a little funny (and adorable) at the part where she challenges and battles Trixie for the second time. Then I realized it was because Twilight was trying to brag and lie, and I wondered if she was supposed to be imitating the way Trixie sounds. Tara Strong, y u so brilliant??

Twilight’s gambit makes great use of the supporting cast, and I think that’s a good time to mention just how much this episode relies on the viewer to have seen a lot of it to understand what’s going on. There’s no way you could watch this as your first episode of MLP and know what’s happening.

CALLBACK NUMBER FIVE: Pinkie Pie plays ten instruments like in Swarm of the Century, which is actually being utilized in Twilight’s gambit. M. A. Larson also wrote that episode, by the way.

Finally, at the very end, not only does Pinkie use her famous fourth wall-breaking powers, but Twilight joins her for the last scene. I love that Twilight actually opens a door into the fourth wall zone to meet Pinkie there.

That’s all I’ve got to say about this one. (Watch video for unscripted commentary!)

Honestly, this journal is incomplete because I mostly listened to a shitload of music thanks to The Needle Drop, but most of it I haven’t had enough time with to really talk about. These Media Journals get more complicated to do every month I swear.

+++ Media

Tomb Raider

I still haven’t finished this yet, but god damn have I been enjoying it. I’ve come to realize that two of the things I value most in video games are the feeling of movement, and exploration, and Tomb Raider totally fits my needs in those departments. There’s way more to discover than meets the eye, and the mechanics are a blast to play with. Yeah, I absolutely hate the scripted sequences and shit, but I’m willing to look past those things because the rest of the game is so exciting. I also skipped all the cutscenes because like, whatever. I don’t care.

Little Witch Academia

This got me more excited about anime than I’d been in a long time, and I was hugely disappointed when I found out it was just a one-off thing (I hadn’t known before watching). It’s drop-dead gorgeous, with some characters who really deserved more show to be in, and has a truckload of heart. It reminded me a lot of Stray Little Devil, which I suspect it would’ve been a lot like if they made a whole show.

MrBtongue’s videos

Someone introduced me to this guy recently, and I very quickly binge-watched all his videos. This guy is without question up there in the top tier of games analysts with Errant Signal and Extra Credits, and I look forward to anything he might want to talk about in the future. Also, I’m up for using the word “shandification” from now on.

Shane Koyczan – The Crickets Have Arthritis

I can’t remember if I shared anything by this dude last month, but I just found this video this month, so that’s enough of an excuse. I don’t know what it is about his stuff that gets to me, but god damn I love it. He’s given me a much larger interest in spoken word poetry to be sure.

++ Media

Brandon Tolentino’s Top 100 Songs

Much like the top 100 bands list back in February, I listened to Tolentino’s Top 100 songs this month, and found I liked a lot more of it than I expected. He’s still kinda struggling to get through my list, but at least he’s making an effort. I’m thinking of trying to help him broaden his musical horizons by getting him into metal music.

Suisei no Gargantia (4 eps)

Easily the most exciting anime to come out this season, Gargantia is gorgeous, has tremendous attention to detail, and is exciting to look at. I’ve got a list of issues with it that are ensuring it’s lack of favoritism at this point, but I’m nonetheless enjoying it and hoping to see it go in interesting directions.

m b v – My Bloody Valentine

So, I’d never actually listened to My Bloody Valentine until this new album of theirs, and I’m in love with it. I listened to it on repeat while playing Tomb Raider and enjoyed it a lot, though the last two songs don’t grab me as much as the rest. I haven’t been able to get as much into their other albums yet, but I’ll certainly try.

Smooth McGroove

DUDE, JUST LOOK AT IT.

The Needle Drop

I was introduced to The Internet’s Busiest Music Nerd this month and started using him as a recommendation radio of sorts. I spent a significant amount of time listening to his whole loved list for the year and other stuff that he reviews, and as a result I’m WAY more up to date on music than I’ve ever been in my life.

Shingeki no Kyojin (4 eps)

All I knew about this manga is that everyone likes it, it’s dark, and all the women are insanely beautiful. The anime doesn’t quite capture the gorgeous character designs, but it nonetheless looks fantastic and… really Madhouse? I’ve got suspicions that this is where the people who left Madhouse have gone, since it really feels like them in every way. So far the story is pretty standard shounen affair, albeit on the dark side, but it has fun stuff. Sasha is the best so far. Oh, and that great OP by Linked Horizon!

Louis CK – Oh My God

I’m a huge fan of Louis CK, and his latest HBO special doesn’t disappoint. I’ll probably watch it a few more times before too long.

+ Media

Meir – Kvelertak

A very cool riff-frenzy of an album, which constantly walks the line between hard rock and extreme metal, with interesting results. My friend Brando got really into this album, but for me it’s not quite my thing. Still worth a shot, though.

I’m Drowning In Footwear

This dude has all kinds of weird stuff on his channel, from game reviews in the style of someone like the Angry Video Game Nerd, to My Little Pony gangster rap songs, and even spoken word poetry like the excellent piece above.

Beer and Board Games

A fun show in which some dudes get royally drunk and play board games, ranging from mundane to utterly obscure. Just generally fun stuff.

Van Canto

Acapela metal music. Need I say more? Well, yes. As impressive as this gimmick is, the band unfortunately has chosen to do pretty much generic metal riffs and structures, so I haven’t really gotten into it beyond this song. Still fun to know about, though.

~ Media

Bioshock Infinite

I’m still getting weird looks for not liking this game, though it shouldn’t be too surprising. I think it appeals more to people who follow games regularly and are more accustomed to shooters and AAA games in general. Having declared in this post already that sense of movement and exploration are my favorite things in games, you might see why this game didn’t appeal to me much in its core mechanics, and I also found the story totally bland. I’ve got a review here, though really Errant Signal does a better job.

Darksiders

I’ve written about this one as well. It’s pretty funny that I spent the bigger portion of this month on games that I ultimately didn’t like, having spent at least a day or two on the three games in my ~ list. Darksiders was just a means to get through my top 50 albums list, and  I still couldn’t bring myself to ride it through to the end.

Final Fantasy

Yep, I’ve started on a project to play all the Final Fantasy games. I played FFI up through getting the first crystal before deciding there was nothing left to see here (fwiw I’ve played through almost this whole game 8 years ago). I can totally see the appeal of this game in its historical context, but everything that it does has since been expanded on SO much that it’s really difficult to come back to.

Others I Tried:

These are mostly things which I played/watched anywhere from ten minutes to several hours of and couldn’t get into them. I probably won’t pick any of them back up.

Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge (1 ep): Utterly incomprehensible, and for some reason looks like it was made in 2007 on a low budget.

Kakumeiki Valvrave (1 ep): Gave me cancer. I’ve rarely seen such inept directing in a show with this kind of budget, and I had no idea what the fuck was happening.

Ginga Kikoutai Majestic Prince (1 ep): Boring and slow and really bizarrely bad sound direction, which is a rare problem.

RDG: Red Data Girl (1 ep): Almost fell asleep this shit was so god damn boring.

Karneval (1 ep): Bland BL show by Manglobe. At this point, I don’t think following the studio is really worthwhile anymore. This show doesn’t seem bad, but not my thing.

Not Yet Qualified: These are all the media that I’ve consumed to some degree and am not yet done with. They might fall into any of the lists above on my next journal post. Any media from last month’s post which aren’t in any above category still apply to this list.

Aku no Hana (1 ep)
Hataraku Maou-sama! (1 ep)
Makthaverskan – II
Iceage – You’re Nothing
Foxygen – We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic
The Progressive Era – PEEP: The AProcalypse
Milo – Things That Happen At Day/Things That Happen At Night
Circle Takes The Square: Decompositions Volume Number One
The Dear Hunter – Migrant
Ghostface Killah – Twelve Reasons To Die
Envy (band)

So what’s the show missing? Well, more of what it does best! Everything that’s shown in the series manages to suggest a lot; the problem is that in three and a half episodes of Ledo being on Earth, not enough has been shown! Ledo spends the better part of episodes three and four literally sitting on the mast of one ship in this huge Gargantia fleet, and while we’ve seen a bunch of short clips of Amy running through the town, and plenty of sweeping shots of the fleet, it feels like we’ve hardly even seen an ounce of this would-be fascinating location.

In episode four, Ledo finally gets off the starting boat and into town, but things are happening too quickly (not pacing-wise, mind), and he isn’t seeing enough. The episode is too quick to jump into a series of dialog dumps from its principal characters, instead of allowing Ledo to learn about them and their home organically.

While Ledo’s conversation with Bevel helped him start to comprehend these people, having this conversation is a wasted opportunity regarding what makes Ledo interesting. He’s a super-observant, quick-learning character, so if he’d been given enough time aboard the ship interacting with people, these emotions could have been brought out of him by way of his own observations, rather than hamfistedly being told to him by a slew of characters who probably won’t matter at all outside of teaching him things.

This hamfistedness is altogether the biggest trouble with Gargantia. It’s created a serious, involving world, with believably rational characters, but is too quick to tell them exactly what to do, like it’s working its way down a character development checklist. In episode three, the whole idea about Ledo not killing people is handled in a ridiculous manner. They still fight the pirates, and both sides assumably take casualties, so… huh? Was there no way to teach Ledo the importance of human life other than to take unnecessary casualties on their own team? Wasn’t the damage caused by Ledo killing in episode two already done, so at this point it didn’t matter anymore?

The Earthlings are not as logical of thinkers as Ledo, but having the military leaders apparently instruct Ledo not to kill seems a bit backwards. I expected them to let him off the reigns, at least towards the end when lives were in serious danger, but no one says anything, and Ledo persists in sparing lives (successfully, fwiw), because he’s not really on anyone’s side. I don’t question Ledo’s actions so much as those of the fleet.

Anyways, I’m still enjoying this show a lot despite these issues, and looking forward to what might come, especially after finding out this is an Urobuchi Gen show. In the coming episodes, I’d like to see the show pull back on the dialog a bit and let Ledo actually explore the Gargantia, preferably alone, without side characters constantly pointing out the significance of what he’s seeing. Flesh out this grand setting and make us feel a part of it, and let Ledo learn on his own, now that he’s past the first knowledge barrier.

Text version and youtube description:

Youtube description:

TheoryBrony drew a pic just for this video, so go show him some love: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheoryBrony/videos?view=0&flow=grid

Ending theme is The Standard Model by SoGreatAndPowerful: http://youtu.be/fdhWa5NSoD8

That Nicole Oliver drawing was by Frist44: http://frist44.deviantart.com/

My OC is drawn by MizuTakishima: http://mizutakishima.deviantart.com/

Text version:

In this video I’ll be talking about four different aspects of what makes characters engaging, starting with “depth” and “development,” and then moving into the more interesting “aesthetic persona,” and “chemistry.”

When people talk about what makes a great character in fiction, the words that get thrown around a lot are “depth” and “development.”

A deep character means one with complex emotions and motivations. Deep characters appear to exist as actual persons, whereas shallow characters exist more as concepts. King Sombra, for instance, is a shallow character, because we don’t really know anything about him other than that he’s a bad guy. His motivation seems to be nothing more than, “be evil.”

On the other hand, Rarity is an exceptionally deep character. Her motivations stem from a childhood desire to dazzle people with her work, and a deep interest in fashion that developed out of embarrassment over her unfashionable parents. Her passion is to have others appreciate her work, and this sometimes gets in the way of her desire to please her friends, whom she loves because of their densely established connections over the course of the series. Her emotions and motivations are complex.

But more importantly than that, we also have context to appreciate those complexities. This is where I bring in a term that you’ve probably heard me use on other videos: “well-realized.” A well-realized character is one that the audience understands and resonates with because of the context given to their complexity.

For instance, a character that is deep, but not really realized, is Princess Luna. The story of Nightmare Moon and the story of Nightmare Night, both suggest complex emotions and deep motivations, but we don’t really get to SEE these things. Luna feels like a kind of weird character because we don’t completely get how she is the way she is. We can rationalize with her, that yeah, being stuck on the moon for a thousand years makes you socially awkward, but it feels weird because we don’t really get to see what Luna was like before she was on the moon, or how much the world has changed, or what she’s been doing since she’s been back, and things like that. She’s a deep and interesting character, but not terribly well-realized.

Meanwhile, let’s look at Rarity again. We totally get her and what she’s all about. In most episodes, her actions seem congruent with her established character, and we just sort of get it. In Sweet and Elite, we never have to sit around and wonder how Rarity is having this conundrum. We know that she is, on the one hand, the element of generosity and an excellent friend, but on the other hand, we know what Canterlot and popularity mean to her. Because she’s a well-realized character, the conflict resonates with us, whether we come out of it loving Rarity or hating her as a result.

Now, let’s talk about “character development.” This is the process by which a character evolves over the course of a series. If depth represents the complexity of a character’s emotions and motivations, development follows how those things change over the course of a work.

Rainbow Dash exhibits strong character development over the course of the series. A lot of her episodes mark definitive changes in her life, which are felt continually over the course of future episodes. After May the Best Pet Win and Read It and Weep, she learns to accept things which she’d previously considered lame, and becomes a more honest individual because of it. In Wonderbolts Academy, she shows a perfect crossection of depth and development when she resigns from Wonderbolts training due to personal moral obligation which may have extended from lessons that she learned in previous episodes.

For a character who never really shows any development, let’s look at Princess Celestia. Over the course of the series, what little we see of Celestia suggests her to be a dignified, magnanimous, seemingly all-knowing, and extremely manipulative leader. Her character is well-realized and certainly has some depth to it, but doesn’t really undergo any development.

Depth and development are both excellent literary tools, but I feel that both of them are extremely overrated when it comes to exploring what makes a character or a series great. After all, many people would argue that Celestia, Luna, and even King Sombra are great characters, in spite of their lack of development, realization, and depth, respectively. “Well, those people are just biased.” Of course they’re biased! Everyone is biased! But why are they biased? Why do they like those characters, if it has nothing to do with depth or development?

This is where we come to the topic of “Aesthetic Persona,” which is a phrase that I made up because I don’t know of an existing phrase to describe it. If you know one, or at least a similar one, let me know in the comments.

A character’s aesthetic persona is the raw appeal of being who they are. It’s a combination of how they look, how they sound, and what they do.

Let’s look at Celestia’s aesthetic persona. Starting on the technical level, she’s designed by Lauren Faust and exhibits the characteristics of Faust’s design sense, and the general design sense of Friendship Is Magic as a whole. Compared to other ponies, she’s very tall and regal looking. She has a white coat and a flowing, multicolored, pastel mane, which definitely sets her apart from most characters. This is her visual aesthetic, which could be enough to attract fans all on its own.

Her voice is that of Nicole Oliver, who plays her with a very smooth, calming, and motherly tone. Her clarity of speech gives it an air of officiality. Her dialog is usually restrained and dignified, yet approachable, so much so that we often feel the other ponies are overreacting when they’re bashful around her, yet we also have no doubts about the fact that she is the princess and that she is deserving of respect. This sense of understanding her character, just through her look, her speech, and the way her character is written, comprises her aesthetic persona.

Depth and development can play a role in a character’s aesthetic persona, but they don’t have to exist for the viewer to connect with a character. Plenty of people adore Celestia just for what she is, regardless of how few appearances she actually has and how little she actually does in the story.

While I’m on the subject of characterization, there’s one last thing I’d like to talk about, which isn’t so much about how a character works as an individual, but how they work in the context of the story—and that thing is “chemistry.” Chemistry between characters can best be described with an analogy to chemistry itself. Mind you this example will be extremely simple and my chemistry knowledge is on a middle-school level at best, but for the sake of example, think of carbon and oxygen. When you combine them, you get Carbon Monoxide. You no longer have just carbon and just oxygen, but something entirely new which has come out of combining them. When characters have chemistry together, it means that something new has been created which you couldn’t have with just one character or the other.

For instance, Rainbow Dash on her own is a pretty fun character, but she really becomes interesting when paired up with one of the other ponies. When paired up with Pinkie Pie, we get to see how frustrated Rainbow gets when trying to deal with Pinkie’s eccentricities, as well as how she acts with a good friend doing some of her favorite activities. When paired with AJ, the two of them have a strong sense of understanding and camaraderie that comes from sharing a very physical lifestyle, as well as a strong competitiveness. When paired with Fluttershy, we see just how much of a bulldozer Rainbow can be when paired with an introverted character, and Fluttershy gets dragged into social situations which she wouldn’t be interested in ordinarily.

The chemical bonds between each of the mane six, as well as the chemical that you get when you put them all together, plays a huge role in what makes their group dynamic work so well, and why it’s so easy to feel connected to the whole mane six. The characters don’t exist as islands, but at part of a greater and more interesting whole.

To see a great example of how much aesthetic persona and chemistry can do, just take a look at Octavia and Vinyl Scratch. In the context of the show, aesthetic persona is literally all these ponies have. In both cases, the character design, facial expression, and action being performed by these characters is the whole of their existence. Yet, based on these aesthetic personas alone, the fandom determined that these characters would have great chemistry together, and as a result they’ve become one of, if not THE most popular fan pairing in the entire series. While each character is appealing on their own, their chemistry together is what makes them so fun to write about.

I’m very interested in hearing your thoughts on these aspects of characterization. Do you like deep and developed characters the most, or does aesthetic persona resonate strongly with you regardless of whether a character is well-realized? Are there any characters that you wouldn’t have cared about if they didn’t have such great chemistry with other characters? Remember there’s a link in the description to a text version of this video, where you can leave comments with no character limits, if you want to go in-depth.

The troubling thing is that it’s hard to listen to all of the one-hundred albums which are nominated for my list while getting anything else done—or in fact doing anything else at all. A lot of my spare time revolves around watching youtube videos, which is hard to do when you’re listening to music, so a different idle activity was needed. Something which could be done without much concentration, so that I could really take in the music as well. My initial solution was, of course, Minesweeper.

click for sauce

I like Minesweeper a lot, but it’s not very engaging. Every game is essentially the exact same, never lasting more than five minutes, and it’s almost impossible to beat because it always comes down to a guess at some point. I can play maybe twenty minutes of Minesweeper tops before I’m sick of it, so after some of that, I went onto my friend’s Steam in search of something else to play. That’s when I noticed he got Darksiders in some kind of Humble Bundle, and I decided to give it a whirl.

At worst, Darksiders is mostly inoffensive, with a handful of truly awful parts in-between a lot of really bland parts. At best, it’s a slightly more effective mindless action game than Minesweeper. I played with the sound effects on, but not the voices or music—and I skipped the cutscenes because I don’t give a fuck.

Yahtzee’s review is a good place to get the gist of this game, though it’s strange that he claims the game isn’t as big a ripoff of God of War as it had been considered. What he really means is that the game does such a poor job ripping of God of War that it can’t be compared to it. Now, I haven’t played a GoW game in like six years, so I have no input with regards to that game’s quality, but when I started feeling nostalgic in the early levels of Darksiders, I knew something was up.

It definitely rips off GoW hardcore until around halfway through, when it suddenly starts ripping off Twilight Princess instead, as Yahtzee also mentions. It’s not obviously happening at first, but somewhere between the horseback segments and hookshot segments, it starts to get a little egregious.

I would also say that Darksiders rips off the general style of its puzzles from Zelda, and probably tries to rip off the dungeon design as well, though it’s not really successful. While I can probably say that Zelda’s puzzles are better on the whole, I wouldn’t say it’s an exponential difference—which means that there must be other reasons that Darksiders fails where Zelda succeeds. (I’ll get to that.)

The few ideas that Darksiders doesn’t directly rip off from other sources are also its worst ideas. Namely, everything involving the game’s targeting system, such as a few lengthy segments in which the player gets a huge gun and walks around annihilating enemies with it. These segments are weird in that they can be frustrating and also completely easy at the same time.

Actually, that describes the whole of this game. I wouldn’t be exaggerating much to call Darksiders one of the easiest action games that I’ve ever played. It’s a game about mashing the X button until everything’s dead. There were some fights that killed me a few times, and it was always either due to an enemy somehow stunlocking me against a wall and beating me helplessly to death, or due to me not figuring out how to fight the boss on the first go.

Darksiders has definitely read the Zelda guidebook on gimmicky boss fights, which isn’t a compliment. I’ve never liked Zelda bosses for the most part, though I’ll say that they’re a lot better than the bosses in this game simply by virtue of being in Zelda. By which I mean, that Zelda is already a well-made and structured game, with excellent mechanics and design sensibility, so if the same boss fight appears in both games, it will naturally function better in the Zelda game than it would in Darksiders.

And that’s really the core issue here. Because personally, I’ve got no problem with games ripping off ideas if they do it well. The problem is that Darksiders has ripped off all of these ideas without actually recognizing what made them engaging to begin with.

Yeah, God of War has big flashy kills and hordes of grotesque enemies, but the reason it was fun to fight them is that the combat flowed nicely and allowed for some variety. I remember in God of War having a few very unique weapons to use in combat. In Darksiders, there are two weapons that can be used by pressing Y instead of X, but these weapons have the same attack speed and damage dealing properties as the sword, so why even bother?

There are shitloads of attacks to buy, but most of them don’t do anything special, and can be weird to use. For instance, one attack is a dash stab, which requires holding forward and pressing X+RB. But then X+RB without holding forward does a really slow attack, and the game often confuses which one I’m trying to use. Moreover, it can never decide which attacks stun, or stop an enemy attack, so trying to actually use attacks strategically is impossible; not to mention pointless since mashing X is a quick road to victory.

The game has an exploration aspect that really is more in the vein of Metroid than it is in the vein of Zelda (just because Zelda is more open-ended). However, while Metroid is all about learning the layout of the world and experimenting with the mechanics to find things, Darksiders exploration is always obvious. If the player takes the time to simply look around each room, they will find everything. There are things that the player can only obtain by going back through previous areas with new items, but the game eventually makes the player go back through those places on a late-game fetch quest, so obtaining everything is a simple matter of being even remotely observant on the course of one playthrough.

Maybe the most telling thing about the game’s weak exploration is that trying to explore was the cause of 90% of my deaths. I jumped and/or fell off of countless ledges, either because the ledge I was going for wasn’t a real ledge, or because of War’s stupidly huge self obscuring my view of the edge of a platform.

But even beyond having a shallow combat system, shallow exploration, and shallow mechanics that are dragged in for each level (I won’t break them all down here, but there are a ton of “puzzles” which are really “mechanic of the room”), the game has a shallow atmosphere. It really feels like the kind of game that my cousin and I would have wanted to make at 14. It plays and looks like the result of a three-hour brainstorming session by two kids who just watched Spawn, in which a bunch of ideas were included just to include them, with no rhyme or reason to how everything works together.

In the end, I couldn’t finish Darksiders. I got about three-fourths of the way through the surprisingly lengthy game and just lost all motivation to continue. That said, I managed to play it for a lot longer than I can usually play Minesweeper, and I got a lot of albums listened to. The game’s demonic themes went well with some of the metal albums on my list, which aren’t as easy to listen to without playing action games, so that was particularly nice. All in all, I’d say the game served it’s purpose, regardless of being awful.