Hey! So a brief notice about some things I’ve changed in the archive. Due to Adobe ending support for Flash in the new year, I’ve replaced any animations and interactives in the blog so you can still read them. Animations have been converted to videos and uploaded to YouTube and embedded - no issue there.
The games, however - there are six of them across three of my blogs - are harder to substitute. I’ve provided download links with SWF and standalone players until such time as Ruffle or HTML conversion tools mature, and I get the time to provide transcriptions (which will always be the inferior experience) for mobile readers.
It’s not ideal that Adobe has decided to murder a format with this much history with no regard to the culture they’re laying waste to in the process, but these are the circumstances we have to deal with and this is what I’ve provided for the time being. In the future I may be able to get the games working on a playable non-flash format.
Hey kids! How would you like some paper with some art plastered all over it, most of which seems to involve sleeping for some reason? Well now you can! The upcoming Patron mailout for the last postcard is coming up, so while I’m at it I’m giving everyone else the opportunity to buy in! The listed price includes shipping.
If you’re interested go to this form and let me know which cards you’re interested in and how to get in touch! For a better look at the pictures check out the desktops:
I forgot to upload the August postcard! For the Patreon thing! It's November, I know! Based on my comic, Chasing Shadows. Get various wallpaper crops here!
A thing I forgot to do: The wallpapers of the August postcard! Here they are.
This collage got extremely messy and also there is a lot to cover in this, the third act recap of Chasing Shadows. Let’s get to it, shall we?
The Shadowbolts gather in the mountains near Mountjenny Castle Prison, near Canterlot. After knocking out the communication lines, they breach the walls using one of North Star’s magical weapons. The guards are unprepared for an attack this sudden and vicious, and resistance is quickly crushed. Comet Tail makes her way to the control room to knock out the suppression crystal, which will allow them to use the magical devices in the prison. As she does this, a guard hits the master alarm, which sends the prison into lockdown and activates an auxiliary suppressor somewhere else. Enraged, Comet Tail kills the guard. With the suppressor on, they can’t breach Bellatrix’s cell with North Star’s device, so they turn to an alternate plan, which is cutting open the cell with conventional means - a slow and loud process.
Meanwhile, Spitfire and Soarin find the map that Thunderlane neglected to clean up, and but not him, or Rainbow Dash or Lightning Dust. Growing suspicious, Spitfire “calls in a few favours”. While this is happening, Twilight gets the call that Mountjenny has gone radio silent, and fearing the worst, orders a full scramble of all of HEART’s resources.
Rainbow Dash, Thunderlane and Lightning Dust arrive at the castle and start exploring. Rainbow Dash finds the Shadowbolts trying to break into the cell, and after Rainbow Dash mocks Comet Tail’s use of an eyepatch to cover her black eye, a fight breaks out. Comet Tail flees, and Rainbow Dash chases her, leaving North Star and Supernova to deal with Thunderlane and Lightning Dust. Meanwhile, Spitfire and Soarin approach the site of the castle breach in tactical gear, but after eavesdropping on Bulwark and Frostfall’s conversation while they guard the door, feel pity for them, and decide to approach peacefully rather than forcefully.
Supernova takes North Star’s saw to try and use as a weapon, which North Star is not happy about. Spotting this infighting, Thunderlane takes the saw and Lightning Dust steals Supernova’s goggles to get them to chase them in different directions. They lead them in a loop, and while Lightning Dust and Thunderlane can pass each other back to back in a similar manoeuvre to the one they performed in training earlier, North Star and Supernova are not so skilled, and collide head on.
Spitfire and Soarin get to talking with Bulwark and Frostfall, who aren’t all that happy to be Shadowbolts, but through being down on their luck, it seemed like the only way out for them. They also profile the other members of the team, who are less desperate and more intentional in their choice of a life of crime.
Comet Tail taunts Rainbow Dash for being too late to stop her plans, but Rainbow Dash takes advantage of Comet Tail’s blind spot from the eyepatch to get the drop on her, wrestle her to the ground and get the gun off her. She tries to get her to explain herself, but Comet Tail is defiant, and refuses to believe that Rainbow Dash will follow through on her threat. Eventually, Rainbow Dash loses patience, stuns her with the flash from the gun, and uses that opportunity to knock her out.
Twilight arrives on the scene just as the action has all wrapped up, and the forces she brought with her end up being used to make arrests, call for medical assistance, and generally clean up the situation. Spitfire and Soarin have given Bulwark and Frostfall their tactical gear and pass them off as their security staff to give them a chance at a fresh start. Twilight and Rainbow Dash find a moment to talk about the consequences of the day’s events, the nature of death, and the future of HEART. In the end, after a long and stressful day, they go for donuts.
Chasing Shadows has been a pretty wild ride. Initially I was planning to hammer it out in 3-4 months, but between my real life circumstances getting all weird, a distracting side project in the middle of it and a roadmap that was maybe a little too ambitious, here we are wrapping it up 8 months later.
I did learn a lot from making Chasing Shadows, and it’s safe to say that I probably won’t be attempting anything like it again soon. As for Agents of HEART, anyone following my mod blog might remember me having a panic about it a few weeks ago. I’ve had some time to think about it since then, and I do want to continue this blog, but the structure of the storytelling is going to change. For now though, I’ll be letting it sit and stew for a while, while I get back to projects that have been at the back of my mind for weeks to months.
For anyone reading this far, thanks for sticking around for this! I’ll be doing more stuff like Act recaps and fixing the navigation buttons on the sidebar soon. I’m going to try and stream tonight, and we’ll see how we go from there.
I'm sorry, but is it at all possible to make the colors in these messages more obvious somehow? I have two monitors, one I use for art even, and I can barely see who is saying what on either of them :c ...
I can’t do much to help by changing the colours, but I can point out that the speakers are arranged left to right like in the picture - Spitfire, Soarin, Bulwark, Frostfall. Soarin and Frostfall are both blue but Soarin is always on the left and Frostfall is always on the right. I’m making some changes to the colours now but like I said, don’t know how much it’ll help.
EDIT: changed them actually it does help quite a bit my bad
Agents of HEART @agentsofheart - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
