Cloudchaser and Flitter Explain: Top 10 Friends Forever Cards
I wonder what their conversation is a thinly vieled allegory for… hrm…
Anyway, I had no intention on writing this until today. But after waking up today after yesterday’s finale (which I loved, by the way), I knew I absolutely had to write something to send the show off.
To say it’s been a major part of my life would be an enormous understatement. And I’m sure several of you reading this feel the same way. I had no idea I’d love MLP:FiM this much, but wow. Just… just wow.
MLP is directly or indirectly responsible for a lot of great things in my life. My job. Many of my friends, including one of my absolute best. And, of course, CaFE (not to mention everything else CCG related I do). MLP has touched my life a lot. More than I can adequately put into words. So the girls little sendoff is about the least I could do. And I hope you all like it.
As for Generation 5… I honestly doubt it’ll be as great, or as magical, as Gen 4. But I’m still hopeful. It’ll be different but… I’m absolutely looking forward to it. And I look forward to talking to you all about the premiere, once it happens.
In the mean time, though… CaFE’s still going to happen. Don’t worry. I’m definitely not done with these two adorable cardponies.
See you all next time. Hope you liked the finale as much as I did.
A “brief” talk about the future of CaFE
I’m sure several of you are probably wondering, or maybe have wondered, why did CaFE go on such a long, unannounced hiatus? they’ve existed before, much to my embarrassment, but never this long, and usually I’d at least say something after a few months. But this time, well, it’s been over three quarters of a year. That’s a long time. So what happened?
Well, a number of things. There was, of course, my little tiff with CiM. Which has been long since resolved and we’re all friends again, even if I don’t work directly for them any more, which is currently for the best (though maybe I’ll return someday, who can say? It’s not in the foreseeable future, however). Then, well, there was just a lot of little things that affected my mental health as I was recovering from that. Nothing to cause a monumental delay, mind you, but a lot of stuff that just made me not want to, or just incapable of writing about cute ponies talking about card games. I did manage to write half of the next CaFE early in the year, but I never did manage to finish it.
Then, well, the big thing happened. And, fair warning, it’s not good. How bad is it? Well, even Pinkie Pie knows there are some things that no amount of parties and balloons and cheer can help you with, and this is one of those. My father died in March this year. To make matters worse, it happened just about a week before my sister’s wedding (which was lovely, though very bittersweet considering the circumstances). And I did not take it well at all. Writing was close to impossible for a long time. And every time I thought about saying something about CaFE, I just couldn’t. I tried many times. I really did.
I was not myself for months. I still managed to go to BABS and Everfree and put on a good show and enjoy myself, though I had to work harder for it. I’m not 100% I managed to mask everything entirely, and I’m sorry if I affected anyone negatively. For what it’s worth, I really did try my best not to.
But let’s get back to the writing. It was hard. Very hard. I kept starting things I wanted to write about, then abandoning them. The best I could manage was the Surprise’s Cards that Beat the Odds series (which I think I did a decent job with, though it’s pretty close to over) and barely managing Silver Spanner (which I honestly think helped keep me sane as it was something I could do for everyone that involved very little effort on my part. Though there have definitely been more mistakes in the past few months than I’d have liked). The fact that I managed to finish two thirds of the Bichromatism mini series is, quite frankly, astounding to me as it has been about five times harder to write than something like this normally would be. But progress is progress, and I’m glad to have been able to make it.
Bronycon has also helped a lot. I spent a lot of time with my non-CCG friends at the con, one of whom used to be a fanfic writer who published a book with a collection of her short stories from Fimfic and sold it at the Bronycon Bookstore, along with many other writers. It was a thing someone helped organize and push through for them all, and I couldn’t be more proud. Though, admittedly a little jealous since she was having so much fun with her writing stuff and I was just unable to write at all recently. But mostly, I was definitely proud, and enjoying her success alongside her.
And, of course, I also did a lot of CCG stuff! I played a silly deck I made with Grand Pause (though we admit it needs a little tuning stil), hung out with people, chatted with people, and so on. I went to the “fire”side chat and asked questions about the next set, a few of which I think were actually pretty good! I even had the impromptu idea at about 90 minutes before Meticulous Talks started to join them in talking about those very same questions, completely surprising cursedchords and Hithroc and, honestly, myself. And overall, I managed to really connect with many CCG players again in a way I hadn’t really done since, well, since too long ago.
Being the last Bronycon, of course, there was a lot to see, and do. I looked at all the cute costumes. Hugged Vikingerik’s Scootaloo suit twice.Bought a lot of stuff at the vendor hall (well, 5 things is a lot for me, anyway). Went to a couple panels. Told some jokes. Talked with a random stranger or three. Played board games. And overall, just had an incredibly and unbelievably good time. I even joined an impromptu sing-a-long of Smile Smile Smile (my 100% favourite MLP song, though I’ll easily admit several others are better). Bronycon’s healing process was incredible, and I think it happened at just the right time for me. The MLP fandom, as a whole, is just deeply, truly incredible. It is a community of love, understanding, and tolerance. And it is one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever been a part of (despite not really being much of a brony myself, outside the CCG. I know, it’s surprising considering how much I do for the CCG, but true).
Which brings us back to CaFE. I’ve been thinking a lot more about CaFE lately, even before Bronycon. A couple weeks ago, I even thought to myself “it’s time to say something. It may not be time to write CafE again, but you should at least say something!” I didn’t, of course, but just thinking that was a good sign that I was on the right track again, even if still a bit away from the station.
CaFE is incredibly and exceptionally special to me. It is legitimately the thing I am proudest of making or doing ever. No joke. I don’t know how well I can express this considering how emotional I’m getting typing these words (I’m tearing up on the plane home from Bronycon), but I think it needs to be put in to words. It’s the longest running project I’ve ever had, aside from my first job. I’ve had many people come up to me and praise how much they like it, even to this day. Folks have made fan art for me, including fan animations and comics! I’ve been asked to sign cards featuring one or both of the girls for people, which has always made my day (though it doesn’t happen much anymore). I’ve been told by more than one person it was their favourite pony blog period, despite being 90% just text! I’ve had players new and old tell me they’ve learned about the game reading my blog, and that they love the format of two cute pegasi talking to each other. Cloudchaser and Flitter have become practically synonymous with “competitive player” and “casual player” in this game, and almost everyone who’s read CaFE and seen how well they get along (despite their occasional fight) knows that they too can get along with the kind of player they’re not (granted, that could just be because we;re all MLP fans in general, heh). The girls’ expressions are used both on the official MLPCCG reddit and the official MLPCCG discord, and even in CiM’s Slack! Bots have been named after them by multiple people across multiple platforms. They were the first outside of Enterplay to give spoilers, and they’ve done so every set. And, most importantly, a girl at Nightmare Nights 2014 gave me a spontaneous hug when she learned I wrote that blog, she loved it so much.
In short, CaFE hasn’t just touched my life, it’s touched all of yours. And many who don’t read it any more or even play the game any more. Heck, some people who stopped playing the game still read the blog (when it was updating, anyway)! Somehow, CaFE was even influential enough that I was invited to a panel at Bronycon 2016 to talk about them and how they managed to impact you all (along with several other panelists), and it truly is a time I’ll never forget (thanks Teej!).So there was no way I could let it end here.
Cloudchaser. Flitter. You may be minor characters in the show, but to the MLPCCG community, you are beacons shining across us all. Bronycon may be over, and Season 9 may be ending soon, but the card game’s still going strong, even if not as strong as it was in years past. You’ve both got work to do. And, well, so have I.
So, for those who missed the announcement at Bronycon and/or Meticulous Talks, I’ll say it here, and I’ll say it proudly. CaFE is coming back! In September or even late August. And I couldn’t be more excited. And I hope you all are too.
See you all soon!
You’ll have to excuse how excited Cloudchaser is, but I’m just so excited to have spoiled these cards because they include my create-a-card from NA Continentals 2017! Feel like guessing which of those cards was my create-a-card From NA Continentals 2017? You might be surprised…
Well, rather then tell you outright, how about a spoiler? So at the end of NA Continentals 2017, I asked Adam if I could make a Mane for Seaquestria and he said “sure, but only if you get it to me this week.” And boy was that exciting! But unfortunately I got very sick and didn’t have the brain power to design a Mane so I didn’t get anything to him on time.
Anyway, I’d missed the opportunity to get a Mane into SB, so I started thinking about non-Mane stuff to try and make for the next set. I tossed a bunch of cards around, but eventually decided that since I made a card that purely appealed to my competitive side last time, I wanted to make one that may or may not be competitive but had flavour I very much wanted. So I decided to make a Blue/Yellow Cloudchaser and Flitter Card. I thought about Blue/Pink for awhile, since FLitter is more Pink to me than Yellow, but Blue/Yellow just seemed the place to go.
Jump to several months later and I was hit by sudden inspiration for the perfect Flitter Mane! I was so excited, I decided to pitch it to Adam and see if he was on board with replacing my first card with this one, despite knowing pitching a Mane would be hard. And he said something like “well, we actually do have room for an Ultra Rare Pink Silverstream Mane. So it couldn’t be Flitter, but these abilities seem solid.” Wow! I actually managed to design a Mane as my create-a-card! That was just amazing!
Later, I got contact from Adam asking about my Cloudchaser and Flitter card to see if he could change it in a specific way and I was like “Wait, that’s still in the set? What about the Mane?” Turns out both cards were kept in the whole time, much to my surprise.
So it goes without saying but… That’s SUPER awesome! Thanks so much, Enterplay! I didn’t expect to get 2 cards in the set, and you definitely didn’t have to keep in the CLoudchaser and Flitter Friend once I submitted the Mane, but you did anyway! Thanks so much for being so awesome!
