Music / Aviators

The mirage phenomenon.

Vermont native Tyler Shaw, better known to his fans by his stage name Aviators, is an independent electronica musician whose goal is to completely blow your mind with his music through fusing genres like dubstep and metal or trance and orchestra. He's best known for his music pertaining to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, but he also has a wide variety of other music as well, including a concept album for a video game (and a soundtrack for an actual video game called Vulpine). He was also relatively unknown until fellow musician The Living Tombstone did a remix of one of his songs and until he released the song One Last Letter, which skyrocketed him to popularity. He can be found on YouTube, iTunes, Bandcamp, and SoundCloud, and also has accounts on twitter, tumblr, deviantART, and Twitch Livestream.

Not to be confused with The Aviator, which is a film about airplanes starring Leonardo DiCaprio, the identically-named brand of sunglasses, or Aviator Gaming's Let's Plays, which don't feature him at all (you're looking for Arrow Tree Productions).

Discography:

• Reflections of a Dream (2011)
• Equestrian Revolution quadrilogy (Jul 2012 - Jan 2016)
• The Adventure (Feb 2012)
• Aeterno (Apr 2013)
• From All Sides (Apr 2013)
• ReCharged (Jul 2013)
• Mirrors (Oct 2013)
• Ghosts in the Code (Jul 2014)
• NIKRA (Nov 2014)
• Building Better Worlds (Dec 2014)
• Flying Under The Radar: The Singles (Apr 2015)
• From Oceans to Skies (Sep 2015)
• Stargazers (Mar 2016)
• A Song That Never Ends (Dec 2016)
• Dystopian Fiction (Aug 2017)
• Let There Be Fire (May 2018)
• Godhunter (Jan 2019)
• The Cinematic Future (Mar 2020)
• Dreams of the Deep (Feb 2021)
• Modern Mythology (May 2022)

EPs:

• Never say Forever (2011)
• The Fear of Flight (Jun 2012)
• A Dream Revisited (Jun 2012, Updated Re-release of the Reflections of a Dream Album)
• Cake (Sep 2012)
• Canterlot Carols (Dec 2012)
• TARDIS (Mar 2013, officially in Development Hell)
• The Lost Songs (Oct 2013)
• Aviators' Acoustic (Feb 2014)
• Haunted House - And Other Stories (Oct 2014)
• Fever (Apr 2015)
• Aviators' Acoustic II (Jun 2017)
• Howling at the Moon (Oct 2017)
• Aeterno: REWIND (Aug 2019)
• Masks (Oct 2019)

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This musician provides examples of:

• After the End:
  • Of a sort in "One Last Letter". The song revolves around Twilight writing her last letter to Princess Celestia following her failure to defeat Discord in The Return of Harmony.
  • This is also the setting for Aeterno.
  • The album Stargazers takes place after the end of the world.
• A God Am I: Implied in Godhunter. The last city on earth is ruled by the immortal Elder, who knows his reign will end at the hands of the Godhunter.
• Alternate Universe: "One Last Letter" is set in a universe where Twilight and her friends failed to stop Discord in The Return of Harmony.
• And I Must Scream: Princess Luna's fate in "Ashes". Even though she's Doomed by Canon you can't help but feel bad for her, as the song takes place through Princess Celestia's point of view.
• Angel/Devil Shipping: Literal example in the song "Angels and Demons".
  You're the angel that loves me somehow
  You're the demon I can't live without
• A Wild Rapper Appears!: "Never Back Down" features a cameo by Brony rapper Yelling at Cats. "Bring Me Back to Life" would count but Yelling at Cats makes multiple appearances.
• Audience Participation: Back in the middle of 2017, while working on "Dystopian Fiction", Tyler asked the inhabitants of his Discord server to record themselves singing the chorus of a song with the same title so he could have a real choir. He did it again in May 2018 when working on "Let There Be Fire". And again in January 2019 for "Godhunter".
• Badass Boast:
  • "Spirit of Chaos" features one from none other than the master of chaos himself:
    I'm the Spirit of Chaos, the Image of Evil, don't deny!
  • "Never Back Down", his tribute to Daring Do, features a much more heroic example:
    Trust me when I say nothing is impossible!
  • One for the Hunter in "Godhunter":
    When you see the hunter coming, then you hide or keep on running
    ‘Cause she's slain the gods before
  • In "We Rise", the Tarnished declare that they have come to heed Marika's call, and anyone who stand in their way shall fall, be they god or kings.
    When kings rise against have it writ on their grave
    The Old Gods were felled by a mortal unnamed
• Badass Creed:
  • "Voices of the Crowd" features a musical version of this Trope:
    We are the fire that won't burn out, we are the force that won't go down, threaten us, but we'll stand our ground: We are the Voices of the Crowd.
  • "Incandescent" is another version of this, this time actually featuring the voices of the crowd!
    We are the heroes, never defeated; march to the ending, history repeated; together as equals, at heart we're the same; live in the present, and signal your name!
• Break the Cutie: A lot of Aviators' songs revolve around this. Notable examples include "One Last Letter" and "Ashes".
• Broken Pedestal:
  • "Angels Fall The Farthest", a proto-"The Villain Sucks" Song about the singer addressing a person they once admired, but has come to despise after seeing their true nature.
  • "Signed on for a Sequel" from Godhunter is a big case of this from the Hunter towards humanity writ large for not learning from events in the Dystopian Fiction trilogy.
• Came Back Wrong: "Neon Sonata" is from the perspective of a witch trying to resurrect her dead lover, and it is heavily implied that she failed in her efforts.
• Concept Album: Outside of his fan-centric works, Aviators created a trilogy of albums that revolve around a group of people living in a Cyberpunk future version of Miami, Florida, and their struggle with the tyrannical regime that lords over them like ravens.
  • Dystopian Fiction explores the Crapsack World that Miami - known here as "Bleeding Sun" - has become, setting up the story of La Résistance and the woman who facilitated their uprising, a Cyborg created by the regime known as the Hunter. It also contains the trilogy's Distant Finale, "No More Heroes", which shows what the Hunter has been up to after the last of the trilogy's events.
  • Building Better Worlds is about the civil war that began in Dystopian Fiction, and how the resistance ultimately causes the regime's downfall.
  • Stargazers is the Grand Finale of the trilogy^note Not including "No More Heroes", and features the former resistance reminiscing on how the regime dragged Earth to hell and how their replacements now struggle to reintroduce justice and freedom to a world that has just been released from the shackles of tyranny and oppression.
  • Godhunter is a distant sequel to the trilogy, seeing the Hunter, now almost a myth unto herself known as the Godhunter, as she continues to fight anything that could be a repeat of the Regime. Even if it might not be the best idea...
• Creepy Crows: "Here Come the Ravens" uses quite a bit of corvid symbolism in describing the both the scholars of Cainhurst picking at Kos' corpse, and the Hunter coming to find out what happened.
• Dare to Be Badass: From "Never Back Down":
  Life can seem like it's a little bit rough, but the top Ponies never ever give up!

• Downer Ending: Even though the Hunter succeeds in her quest to kill the Elder, we know she'll eventually be left wandering the earth without purpose.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: His more familiar title card didn't make its appearance until "After Everything", but even then it wouldn't be until the song "In Wonder" that the card would be come his de facto signature.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: "Constellations" is a song about... Constellations. The trope is actually subverted as it's really about Princess Luna during her time stuck on the moon.
• Face–Heel Turn: Discord, Prince Sombra, and Princess Luna all pull this off in "Ashes".
• Fallen Angel: One falls in love with a Ascended Demon in "Angels and Dæmons"
  Did you break your wings when you fell
  From Grace when you came
  From Heaven to this darker place?
• Female Angel, Male Demon: "Angels and Demons" is sung by Aviators and the female Feather. No points for guessing who voices whom.

• Heavy Mithril: Most of the songs are about video games, animations and television shows with fantasy elements.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Discord goes through this in "Shadows".
• Heel–Face Turn: A Dæmon does this due to his love for a Fallen Angel in "Angels and Dæmons".
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Starswirl the Bearded pulled this off to save the others in "Ashes".
  • "Requiem for the King" depicts the story of the Burnt Ivory King, who sacrificed himself to madness to defeat the Chaos. The song is his last, tragic goodbye to his beloved queen.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • This trope and My God, What Have I Done? make up Trixie's epiphany in "Second Chances".
  • "Ashes" also deals with Princess Celestia going through this.
• History Repeats:
  • The major theme in Godhunter.
  • Stated explicitly in "Signed on for a Sequel"
    There's a cycle of our symmetry
    As a sign that history will repeat
• I Am the Band: Despite having a pluralized name, he's a solo artist.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: "Endgame", a tribute to Avengers: Infinity War, contains the line "With our vision gone / And our heroes losing numbers", referring to Wanda being forced to kill Vision by ripping the Mind Stone out of his head so Thanos won't get it.
• Kill the God: The Elder in Godhunter may not be an actual god, but he's certainly reigned for a very long time. And now the Godhunter is coming for him. The lyrics also claim that the Godhunter has done this before.
  When you see the Hunter coming
  Then you hide or keep on running
  Cause she's slain the gods before''
• Literally Shattered Lives: Ultimately this is Prince/King Sombra's demise, alongside being the only character in the show proper to have actually been Killed Off for Real.
• Love Across Battlelines: The central theme of Eye of the Storm
  In the darkest skies
  It's you and I
  And you're the shelter to keep me warm
  In the eye of the storm.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Seriously. His album Mirrors transitions from the sweet and bubbly "Angels and Dæmons" (Track 5) to the absolutely heartbreaking "Ashes" (Track 6).
  • And for a far more awesome example, his album From All Sides features a transition from the depressing, disillusioning, and downright horrifying "Shadows" (Track 2) to the uplifting, chain-cutting, and downright badass title track, "From All Sides" (Track 3).
  • Happens twice in the album A Song That Never Ends— first, it goes from the slow, hopeful Moonlight to the tense, sadistic Psychoactive, and then it happens again with the song immediately after that: the unnerving, hopeless Waiting Games.
• My God, What Have I Done?: This trope and the Heroic Blue Screen of Death make up Trixie's epiphany in "Second Chances".
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: In the Dystopian Fiction universe, the world (or at least future Miami) is ruled by "cybernetic demigods". The Godhunter, and possibly her two companions, are also this.
• Numbered Sequels: After the first Equestrian Revolution, its follow-ups are numbered 2.0, III, and 4.
• Only Sane Man: Princess Celestia in "Ashes" following Discord, Sombra, and Luna's Face-Heel Turns, Starswirl's Heroic Sacrifice, and The Doctor becoming lost forever. It only helps to hammer in the sadness.
• Precision F-Strike: "The Surface" features one courtesy of guest artist GatoPaint:
  You're my victim now, I'm a fucking supervillain and you can't take me down...
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: "The Red Hood" features the journey of the undead Gael, who went from a a mere man surviving in a hostile world, to a determined man trying to help his adopted niece finish her painting, to a horrifically mutated monster who needs to be put down
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: "Friendship" is a Grief Song lamenting the loss of a friendship that once seemed unbreakable, but ends with an affirmation that the singer will try to fix things.
  Don't say goodbye
  I promise everything will be alright
  Don't leave me, I'm sorry
  I'll fix this if it costs me my life
  I'm going to make this right
• Sanity Slippage Song:
  • "When Our Bodies Wash Ashore" is about a fisherman coming across an eldritch goddess in the ocean, and slowly losing his mind to her.
  • "Losing Control" is about a man losing his mind in his paranoia.
    Are you a traitor, or have I lost my head?
    This creeping notion's got me torn into shreds
  • "Remains" is a Fallout song about a survivor (quite murderously) losing their mind after the apocalypse.
    When order disappeared
    And madness took control
    The conscience in me drowned
• Symbolic Blood: The title and theme of "Red Water Dreams".
• Start of Darkness:
  • "Ashes" summarizes the falls of Luna, Discord, and Sombra.
  • "Red Water Dreams" is a Downplayed version of this for the Hunter, who earns her name after witnessing atrocities ("I saw fire consume the trusting/With the victims still naive") and resolving to hunt down those responsible.
    When I gain the chance to rise
    I'll find the light in their cold eyes
    Or lose myself and carry out revenge
    The righteous hunt has just begun
    The dimming of their bleeding sun
    Will let these waters run clear once again
• Take a Third Option: "The Red Hood" mentions the eternal conflict between Gwyn's age of fire and the inevitable age of dark, but focuses on Slave Knight Gael who instead fights for the Painted World and his lady.
• Taken for Granite: As "Ashes" revolves around Doomed by Canon, Discord's ultimate fate following his Face–Heel Turn is this.
• Title Track: "A Song That Never Ends", "Godhunter", "The Cinematic Future", "Let There Be Fire", "Dystopian Fiction", "Building Better Worlds", "Aeterno", and "Mirrors"
• Who Wants to Live Forever?
  • Princess Celestia sure doesn't, if "Ashes" is any indication.
    If I never have to die...am I alive at all?
  • The Hunter only accomplished her goal of slaying the Elders thanks to her immortality (Godhunter implies that at least a century has passed since Bleeding Sun, "She's been watching for a century with hatred and with scorn"), but said immortality also means she has to watch future generations commit all the exact same mistakes she worked so hard to undo in her time.
• You Are Worth Hell: "Angels and Dæmons" featuring Feather provides a musical inversion of the trope, while an Angel and a Dæmon ARE in love with each other, they don't go back to one or the others' home (Heaven for the Angel, who is a Fallen Angel, or Hell for an Ascended Demon), opting to live on Earth instead.
  "You're the Angel that loved me somehow..."
  "...and you're the Dæmon I can't live without!"

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CHAOS IS RISING

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