FatPat

This would come up frequently with my friends in high school. The only ones I really hated were the later Final Fantasy Games and Kingdom Hearts. Terrible writing and so many flat, unimaginative characters. I honestly don't know how anyone can enjoy FF13 to be honest. My friends were those people who only played gen 1 of Pokemon and denounced the later games. I can't go back to anything before gen 4. Need that polished gameplay. Never enjoyed Elder scrolls games. I'm just not into open world. They all played WoW which I really don't understand. All that mindless grinding for...more mindless grinding.

Making a Let's Play is easy, but making a good Let's Play is hard work. First you have to be careful about what games you're playing. RPG's are a big no-no. Those only work in screen shot format. You also have to watch out for really popular games. Youtube is flooded with people LPing stuff like Zelda, Halo, Uncharted, Metal Gear, and what not. Second is your skill at the game. Obviously you need to be good at playing the game. The better you know it, the better it will be to watch. Then there's the commentary. Personally I enjoy when there are multiple people doing the Let's Play. It helps keep the commentary going. Not that doing it alone is impossible, but it's much harder to carry on by yourself. You need to be funny and interesting the entire time. Don't fall into traps like reading dialogue, pointing out the obvious, or singing the music. If you're good at improv then you can do the commentary while you play. Otherwise you might want to do post commentary. That's actually how MST3K did their show. They would watch the videos multiple times and think of humerous remarks to make, then put it together. Like I said, making a good one is hard work.

I do like the art style of anime, but I've never enjoyed the writing. I feel like a lot of these japanese writers are afraid to go outside the box. Too often I see the same character types and the same plots. There's really only two animes I ever fell in love with. The first season of Digimon, and Medabots.

1. American Dad. As of now it blows everything else out of the water. I feel this shows strongest point is that with Stan being part of the CIA and Roger having so many personas, the writers can do pretty much whatever they want. Thankfully they do and explore all kinds of scenarios. The clever writing and proper pacing makes it an absolute treat to watch. I only wish they would try harder with secondary characters. Most of them disappear after one episode. 2. Futurama. Great show, although since the revival it feels like it's lost some of it's magic. 3. Simpsons. Once the undisputed king, it's fallen from grace and hit the ground hard. It's such a shame. The show lost it's great early writers who kept the show character focused and down to earth. Then it got to a crazy point where the kind of madness reserved for the Halloween episodes became common place. It's calmed down recently but can't get anywhere near the quality it used to encompass. Being stuck in status quo for so long has not helped. 4. Family Guy. The first three season were pretty damn great. It was a new style at the time, using so much random humor. It runs a fine line between funny and stupid, and after season four it feel into stupid. Like the Simpsons it's been bouncing back lately, but still far away from what it once was.

Still's thoughts were interrupted when somepony sat next to him. It was the green pegasus. "Mint, that's what her name is," he thought. For the first time he noticed that her cutie mark was a dagger. That was certainly something. He wasn't completely sure what that meant. There were many ponies who made weapons in District 2. Typically when a pony got proficient in making a certain weapon, it would become their cutie mark. Now Still had to wonder if Mint only knew how to make daggers, or if she knew how to use them. Mint was now talking to another pegasus mare. A yellow one who looked to be about the same age. She looked small and scared. Already Still could tell that the other ponies were going to eat her alive. She'd be one of those tributes who had ridiculously low odds. They were talking now. Mint was proposing a team up. Had Still been a better state of mind he would have spent some time analysing this conversation. It was common for tributes to make alliances. Still would have reached the conclusion that his fellow District two pony was merely making a pawn out of the yellow pegasus. He wasn't one to be fooled by innocent appearances, and seeing that Mint had a dagger cutie mark had raised his suspecions. But Still did not follow this train of thought. Seeing the two talking and trying to comfort each other annoyed him. It was a hard life in the twelve districts, and Still had survived by keeping to himself. His magical skills relected this. He spent his time studying illusion spells to help him get around without being noticed. It had made life for him slightly easier, as he was able to sneak around and either steal food from his neighbors or search for some out in the woods. However, it made for a lonely existance. He hated to admit it, but Still was a lonely pony. Watching other ponies find warmth and comfort with each other stirred up feelings of jealousy and resentment. That was now being added to the stress and anxiety he had aquired from being chosen as a tribute. To put it simply, he was in not in a good mood. "You're both being stupid," he said, as the two mares turned their heads to him. "There's only one winner in this game. If you help each other you're just delaying the inevitable. At least one of you is going to have to die." The yellow pegasus sunk down. Her face had fallen and she looked to be on the verge of tears. Mint, however, glared daggers at him. A small chuckle came from the other side of the train. Another pegasus sat among them, a tough looking one with a lance. Still cursed himself, wishing he had just kept his mouth shut. All it took was three sentences and he had already upset one of his opponents and revealed his thought pattern to another. This was going to be a long train ride.

The train moved along at a modest pace. Great mountains stretched to the sky all around. Every now and then the train had to enter a tunnel. Even though there was plenty of lighting, Still always became aware when the darkness planted itself all around. Since he had no books to read, Still had been silently watching the other ponies. This wasn't just typical pony watching though, soon all of them would be focused on ending his life. The other tribute from District 2 was a pegasus, and oddly enough the one that had bugged him in the crowd. It was kind of funny. District 2 had a large Earth pony population, and yet the tributes this year were a unicorn and a pegasus. She didn't seem particularly threatening. Young mares rarely made headway in the game unless they were specially trained. Still was more concerned about the pegasus she was talking to. The brown one looked powerful. His cutie mark, a sword and shield, was certainly telling of what kind of fighter he was. Definitely not the kind Still wanted to have a run in with once they were in the arena. Dispite that, the brown pegasus seemed like a small worry compared to the zebra. Still was not the only one eyeing her up. It felt like an aura of danger was radiating from her. Still had seen many victories claimed by contestants like her. Not only were they the strongest fighters, but the other tributes were more than often simply too afraid to launch an assult. It allowed them to become prime hunters and have full access to the limited weapons, food and supplies scattered about. Still looked out the window. Seeing the trees race by helped to calm his nerves. He couldn't let that zebra intimidate him, otherwise he'd fall right into her hooves and get his neck snapped. He closed his weary eyes. There would be plenty of time to observe the others once they arrived at the capital.

Still shifted his eyes to the voice that was directed at him. A green pegasus apparently had a problem with his lack of interest in what was going on. Before he had a chance to respond, she had apologized and shrunk away into the crowd. That was perfectly fine with him, he wouldn't have wasted the time to say anything back. She looked young. The younger ones were always terrified on Reaping day. Most of the older ponies like Still had come to accept the event. District 2 was known for three things: mining, weapon making, and training peace keepers. The former two occupations lead grueling lives, and Still knew that once these ponies got older and realized what their lives consisted of, the Hunger Games didn't sound like such a big deal. It was more like a sweet release. Interestingly, no pony who was involved with the peace keepers had ever been picked. Quite the "coincidence." Somepony behind Still pushed him forward. Coming out of his inner thoughts, Still continued to be nudged forward. He looked up to see the mayor waving him to come up on stage. Still's heart began pounding once he reached the steps. While the mayor was giving some stupid speech, Still darted his eyes around. He looked at the sky, at the buildings, at the podium. Anywhere to get away from the thousands of eyes. He hated being in front of crowds. His mind got busy processing what had just happened. He had just been picked to be a part of a death game where twenty four ponies entered an arena and only one left. Images of the past Hunger Games began to run through his mind. Still had watched a number of them during his life. His body became very tense. "Relax," he said to himself. "You've watched a bunch of these. You've read numerous stories about ponies fighting for survival. You can do this." Still was so lost in his personal pep talk that he didn't hear the second tribute being called.

Still woke up feeling groggy. Waking up early was already painful enough, but on days like this it was especially painful. It was time for the reaping to get underway. Still hated "useless" days like this. He'd much rather be doing something productive like studying or reading. Instead he had to spend the day surrounded by other ponies. Personally Still enjoyed watching the Hunger Games every year. Seeing ponies actually fighting for their lives was exciting and almost as fun as getting lost in an epic story. What he hated was all the time spent picking out the victims and having the capital try to make characters out of them. Typical fake reality show garbage. Still's stomach growled as he stood in the crowd. He wasn't the only one. All of the ponies around him looked like they were ready to fall over. Living in District 2 was no picnic. It was hard work doing so much manual labor to create weapons, yet the workers were barely given enough food to survive. Being a unicorn, Still was required to use his magic for production which wasn't nearly as painful. Normally by this time he would have snuck out into the forest and scrounged up something to eat. He tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for the annoying mayor to hurry up and pick out two names.