Web Animation / Song in the Sky

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Song in the Sky is an indie animation on YouTube about Angela, a fighter pilot who fights off Eldritch Abominations in the sky in an apparent post-apocalypse.

The original 2018 pilot can be watched here. The 2025 sequel can be watched here. The slightly refined version can be watched here.

Song in the Sky contains the following tropes:

• After the End: A post-apocalyptic fantasy world where the ground has been "lost to legend", leaving only a city of floating islands sustained by a special crystal. On top of this, the old world's "gods" have gone mad, and periodically rise from the abyss to wreak havoc. The second episode focuses on the hopelessness of the situation, as the islands are literally crumbling apart due to the crystal rapidly decaying; the latest collapse dooms the island responsible for growing the city's food, and Angela notes that the last trees on earth are about to be lost forever.
• Art Evolution: The design of Angela and other human characters becomes much more realistically proportioned and matured in the 2025 short film, compared to her stylized, rounded design in the 2018 pilot short. Angela's fightercraft is also redesigned to be more boxy and angular.
• Avenging the Villain: In the 2025 short film, Umella's destruction leads to a follow-up attack on the city by her vengeful "honor guard", an entire fleet of Eldritch Abominations similar to herself.
• Big "NO!": Angela lets out one when she sees Umella destroy the carrier.
• Chekhov's Gun: In the pilot episode, the sprites are seemingly just unimportant wildlife that comes with the fantasy worldbuilding, which turn out to be the key for the demise of Umella. In the second, one particular sprite becomes important to Angela, occasionally guiding her to the right spots to look at.
• Crusading Widow: Hinted at. Angela carries a picture of someone named Helen, which also contains a note. Later, we see Angela fire a missile with the words "For Helen" written on it. The official site has confirmed that Helen was Angela's lover. The second film explores their relationship through flashbacks.
• Eldritch Abomination: The creatures that are attacking are very strange beasts of unknown origin, spanning hundreds, if not, thousands of meters across. The 2025 short film explains that they are The Old Gods, who supposedly went mad in the dark after the world crumbled into the abyss.
• Eldritch Location: The world under the clouds has been swallowed by an endless black abyss, and nothing that goes down there ever returns. The sheer, incomprehensible emptiness of the abyss is said to have driven the gods to murderous madness. The second short shows that plane instruments don't function correctly in the abyss, so going beneath the clouds is a death sentence. However, there is a bottom; a strange desert of grey sand dunes.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Angela gets the idea to target the sprites, and thus suffocate Umella, when she sees them cleaning Umella's pores, and realises that Umella breathes through her skin.
• Immediate Sequel: The 2025 short film begins with the pilot animation's battle against Umella as an Action Prologue, while the story proper concerns the aftermath.
• Left the Background Music On: Played for Drama. Throughout the first episode, we hear bits and pieces of the show's theme song. Andy's last line of the episode implies that Angela has been hearing the song too.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: According to Andy, the Old God Sutek had a lot of arms.
• Noodle Incident: Angela mentions Andy's encounter with an Old God named Sutek, but doesn't go into detail.
• Power Crystal: The city in the sky is kept aloft by one of these. Angela mentions that the returning (unsuccessful) expedition to find another took six months, but the one currently in use is decaying and is said to have a month left until they "lose the blue".
• Robot Buddy: Andy, Angela's robot wingman, found from the abyss below.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: There are heavy implications that Angela is one, including her tendency to have flashbacks and her notable episodes that are expected of her.
• Taking You with Me: Umella's last act before her death is to destroy the crystal carrier.
• World in the Sky: What is seemingly the only place left not in the abyss, remains the last human habitat in the form of floating islands.