Character Theme Songs

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White Mocha
Is a Sane Pony
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Character Theme Songs

Postby White Mocha » Sun Dec 07, 2014 11:26 am

Since it's a common thing to do and I'd just picked a theme for Longshot, I thought I'd ask for the reasons you all picked the themes you did for your characters and explain my own choice.

Mine (The Humbling River by Pucifer) was selected in no small part because of the haunting melody. While none of you know Longshot yet, I'm certain you will find he's rather firey and opinionated, which made Linkin' Park's "A Light That Never Comes" an early front runner in my considerations. But that side will be readily appearant once you start interacting with him. So I went with a tune that better reflects his mental processes.

The lyrics are no small part of it however. I can go line by line and explain how each part applies to Longshot personally, but that's a lot of effort just to get lots of tl:dr responses. (I'm risking that as it is.) So let me draw your attention to lines two four in this particular stanza:

Angel, angel what have I done?
I've faced the quakes, the wind, the fire
I've conquered country, crown and throne
Yet I'm helpless by the river


Line two is about three of the four classical elements (earth, air, and fire) with the fourth (water) being represented in the last line. To the ancients however, these represented more then just the world around them; they were what made up a human being. Earth was one's physical body, air was their intellect, fire their will, and water their emotions and subconscious. The first three are conquered by the singer while the last remains an insurmountable obstacle.

This is Longshot in a snap shot. His body is a weakness of his, in truth. Complications at birth and a run-in with a heavy dose of 'radiation' (actually residual necromantic energy in his world) left him particularly weak and frail. He learned to bend it to his will where he could and compensate with his magic where he couldn't. His intellect and will are both sharp, and further honed and focused by training, disipline, and experience.

Water though, his emotions and subconscious, remain the one thing he cannot get past. And it's because when in combat he can simply shut them down, much like how he shuts out pain, and so they don't unduly affect him in the one pursuit he's honed himself for. Outside of combat though, he doesn't have a good grip on them. He likes to think he is ruled by his principles and reason, but his emotions often take the reigns when he's pushed outside of life threatening situations.

(The stanza that preceeds this one is in a similar vein but uses the eastern elements (substituting stone for metal) which I'm less familiar with, so I went with this one. :P)

I hope you enjoyed this little peak into Longshot's (and my) mind. Tell me what you think and tell me about yours!
We are what we repeatedly do.

Longshot's Theme

captain_borgue
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Re: Character Theme Songs

Postby captain_borgue » Mon Jun 22, 2015 5:33 pm

Steel's theme is a variation of the Magitek Factory from FF6, one of my favorite games. It is also very VERY mechanical sounding. When I was learning how to walk again, this particular tune, with it's set pattern of clanks, helped me re-acclimate to pacing and suchlike. Since Steel as a character is based upon my experience surviving a major injury, coming within a hair's breadth of losing my leg, and having to re-learn even the most basic tasks, I found it fitting.

Valence's theme is Ellie Goulding's starry-eyed, which I felt fit with her generally optimistic nature. Part of the process of getting her powers approved was establishing that she was not the sort to use her powers for evil, since she is usually upbeat, cheerful, and even if she doesn't always 'get' social graces, she tries to compensate by being generally nice all around. The song has a sense of wonder and optimism to it, which I think fits her both as a scientist and as the kind of pony she is.

Iron's theme, Dragon Rider by Two Steps from Hell, fits both his sense of duty and courage (I think), and it gave me a good reason to link Two Steps from Hell. Which has an impressive 12-album discography, almost ALL of which is big instrumentals like this one. Honestly, it was tough to choose between Dragon Rider, and Preliator by Globus- another obscure group I am fond of. Dragon Rider's musical movements, however, remind me of a pitched battle, and ultimately of nerve and courage overcoming great odds. I added his theme right around the battle of Palomino, which is one of my proudest RP moments to date.

The Mako's theme reminds me of a beacon of hope- precisely what the Mako itself is supposed to be. It feels to me like a respite after a long and difficult ordeal, like a prayer answered and hope and salvation delivered in the midst of chaos.

Mauti's theme feels like an evil circus- cheerful, upbeat music with a distinctly sinister and corrupted vibe to it. The evil laughter, the heavy synth, the staccato-stuttering notes about a third of the way through, all give me a sense of encroaching madness, as though sanity itself was being broken up bit by bit- and yet the cheeriness of it implies that insanity is more enjoyable. Since Mauti is a psychopath who genuinely enjoys being batfuck crazy, I found it fitting. I knew from the outset I wanted to use Smithy's circus-like final theme, but it tooks a few days of scouring the webernets for a mix that I felt did her justice, as it were.


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