Author: Slanted Fish

Hello! I'm Slanted Fish, the editor-in-chief and creator of the Poptropica Help Blog (PHB). I'm a writer, Hong Kong native, and Christ follower. My Poptropica username is slantedfish 🐠 Don't forget to be awesome!
Guest Posts, Popspiracy Theories

Popspiracy: The Baron’s Backstory, Part II

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by HeartofEnder. Enjoy!

Heart here! Now when I wrote my Popspiracy on the Baron’s backstory, I wasn’t planning on doing a part two to the theory. However, Red October and the reveal of the Red Queen brought new lore with even more questions, so here we are. Reminder: This is all guesswork gathered from what we know — it’s not canon to Poptropica (yet?).

The Seven Systems, the Resistance, and Astro Knights?

Let’s start with the seven systems. The dark knights guarding the airship mention that the great Red Queen conquered the seven systems, but what even are they? From the Queen’s own words, they seem to be planets in outer space.

But why is there a resistance in the first place? Maybe the seven planets didn’t want to be conquered by the Queen. While conquest can introduce new languages, tools, and culture, it can also destroy the old cultures of the area being conquered. Overall, not a great thing.

Now we move onto the fun stuff — the mention of everyone’s favorite lost island, Astro-Knights. The Red Queen believes that whoever freed Rumpelstiltskin is affiliated with the Astro Knights, suggesting that she has some problems with them. Maybe the Astro Knights are defending the seven systems from being conquered. However, there’s one key piece of info worth remembering.

In Astro-Knights Island, after we gather the three “Astro Knights” (which back then were simply known as the Knights of Arturus) at the Crystal Gate, it’s revealed that the player is the fourth knight.

We also happened to be the ones who freed Rumpel in Fairytale Island. Perhaps sealing away Rumpel was the key to the Queen’s conquest of the seven systems, but since we, the player and potentially the last of the Astro Knights, freed Rumpel, that may mess with the Queen’s plans. This leads to the next question…

Why did the Queen trap Rumpel in the first place?

In my previous Popspiracy, I guessed that the Queen trapped Rumpel because he was causing trouble, but could there be another reason? 

Perhaps Rumpel has some hidden power the Queen wants to use. The royal family doesn’t seem to have any sort of magic, so the Red Queen could have trapped Rumpel on Fairytale Island not for the safety of Poptropica, but for personal gain. 

So why was Rumpel stealing happy endings, kidnapping a king, and possessing a sky pirate? For the first two, it could purely be for revenge. Rumpel is angry the Queen sealed him away, so he gives her family a taste of what happens when you take magical beings for personal gain.

However, kidnapping the Baron could be something different. The Red Queen clearly doesn’t care about the Baron, in fact seeing her as an obstacle. The Baron could be resisting the Queen’s ways. Maybe Rumpel went through a lot of trouble to kidnap the Baron with the hopes of gaining information and possibly working together to stop the Queen. 

Last time I theorized that the Baron simply didn’t like being royalty. But if the Baron resisted the Queen’s ways, that could be a reason for why she’s not royalty anymore. Maybe the Queen disowned the Baron, simply for resisting conquest. Maybe the King and the Prince of Fairytale started fearing the Queen because of such events.

What does the future hold for Fairytale Island?

With all this new info, it seems possible Fairytale Island is connected to Astro-Knights in one way or another. I theorize that as the last of the Astro Knights, the player heads to the seven systems to assist the planets in fighting back against the Queen, with potential assistance from the Baron and Rumpel. We might even get more references to this classic island… anyway, if there’s another fight in space, I’m all up for it. 

When I first started playing Poptropica, the Baron was only an antagonistic character that appeared once on Monkey Wrench and was never seen again. It makes me happy to see characters like her get more of a spotlight. For now, we can only sit back, relax, and prepare for whatever the Pop Creators are up to next…

I hope that you enjoyed this follow-up to my theory on the Baron! 

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by HeartofEnder. If you did, you might also enjoy her fanfiction series, The Witch’s Heart.

The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. Interested in writing for the PHB? We’d love to hear from you!

Guest Posts

Pop Puzzles: What’s Missing? Round 4 Answers 🔑

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Dizzy Feather. Enjoy!

Tree Topped: You won’t be-leaf where this tree is growing.

Hello everyone, Dizzy Feather here with the answers to round four of “What’s Missing?”, a Pop puzzle where I obscured items from in-game scenes for you to guess “what’s missing.” If you missed it, play the game on the original post before scrolling down for spoilers!

Shout-out to Smart Icicle, Young Rider, and LilysInMay for getting the majority correct! Anyway, here are the answers:

1. Backpack
2. French fries
3. Cupcake
4. Glue bottle
5. Coffee cup
6. Store hours
7. Computer
8. Coffee maker
9. Axe
10. Stars

Hope you enjoyed this PoptropiCon, Ep. 1 edition of the game! Stay tuned for the next one — it’ll be based on episode 2!

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Dizzy Feather. If you did, you might also enjoy previous rounds of “What’s Missing?”: Round 1, Round 2, and Round 3.

The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. Interested in writing for the PHB? We’d love to hear from you!

Contests

The PHB’s 14th Halloween Costume Contest: The Devil Wears Poptropica 💎😈💙

Slanted Fish

The contest is now closed. See the winners here!

Hello, Poptropicans! Spooky season is upon us, which means it’s time for our annual Halloween costume contest… but with a twist.

This year, “The Devil Wears Poptropica” — our theme inspired by a clever Poptropica meme tweet thread, which is itself inspired by an iconic scene from the cult classic film The Devil Wears Prada — not only calls for your freaky costumes. We’re adding one special request in honor of the game we love: they must include something blue. 💎

☑️ Rules ☑️

  1. 💙 Create your costumes on Poptropica! You may create as many as you like for the competition. To qualify, it needs to contain the color blue — as much or as little as you like.
  2. 📸 Take a screenshot. For backdrop, we recommend either the character customization screen or the Customizer window on PoptropiCon. Here’s how you can take a screenshot. Please crop it to focus on your costume.
  3. ⬆️ Upload your pic to the internet. You’ll need a web link for your pic to share it with us, which you can get by posting it to sites like Imgur, Discord, or Instagram. Then, comment on this post with the link.
“Mid-Knight Maniac” by LJ
“Blue Devil” by Spotted Dragon

🗺 Tips for Creating Your Costume 🗺

“Premium Trash”
by Slanted Fish
“Royal Blue Raspberry” by Gentle Dolphin
“Funny Gummy” by Smart Icicle

🌟 Prizes 🌟

  • 🗓 Deadline: The contest closes on Saturday, October 29.
  • 🎃 On Halloween (October 31), we’ll post our favorite costumes on the front page of the PHB for all to enjoy.
  • 🥇 First place will win a 6-month Poptropica membership.
  • 🥈 Second place will win a 3-month Poptropica membership.
  • 🥉 Third place will win a 1-month Poptropica membership.
  • 💎 Winning costumes will be immortalized in our Look Book, but we’ll also have honorable mentions for just the post, not page.
“Icy Enchantress”
by Purple Paw
“Lagoon Lurker” by Sporty Boa

Best of luck! We can’t wait to see what you come up with.

And then I think it was Apple, wasn’t it, who rolled out the cerulean iMessage? I think we need a refresh here. And then the blue hues quickly showed up in the logos of eight different internet brands.

And then it filtered down through the internet, and then trickled on down into some tragic brand generator. Where you, no doubt, fished it out of some premade color palette. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs.

Poptropica on Twitter
The movie scene that inspired the meme

~the PHB 💙😈💎

Fan Art Features, Monthly Costume Contests

Homemade Halloween Peeks 🎃🧵

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, looks like the Baron’s airship will be staying awhile!

Like last year’s Red October, the Cabin of Curiosities will be refreshed with six player-designed Halloween costumes — the winners of September’s contest, arriving this Thursday! We’ve already got peeks of the first two, with the rest to be revealed in the coming days. Enjoy~

“Homemade Bag Man” by Red Flame
“Pumpkin Magician” by Cheerful Feather (pinklightningmc)

Unlike before, however, this would be the first time the airship doesn’t depart before arriving with new stock. But this means that September’s haul will soon be replaced, so grab them while you can!

With all these spooky suit-ups on the way, it’s not too soon to start thinking about your Poptropica Halloween costume… 🎃

Speaking of costumes, check out these inventive looks from the latest fan art featured on Poptropica’s Instagram stories:

Poptropica English dude by @pinklightningmc
Female Raven, Dr. Hare, and Rumpel by @mysticsunni
Pop OC by @bubble.wasp

October is a great time for Pop fan art, as we’ve just launched Poptober 2022, a series of daily drawing prompts to inspire your creative juices. Find out more here and do share your art with us on the PHC! 🌟

“Poptober Day 3: Evil — Director D” by Purple Paw

~🐠

Guest Posts, Popspiracy Theories

Popspiracy: The Baron’s Backstory

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by HeartofEnder. Enjoy!

Heart here, with a slightly impulsive guest post written shortly after Baronstiltskin’s takeover. With all the new lore, I decided to write up this Popspiracy (Poptropica conspiracy) about the Baron’s potential backstory. Remember: None of this is canon to Poptropica (yet?), so take this with the tiniest grain of salt.

Early Life

The Baron was born on Fairytale Island as a member of the royal family. This was confirmed in the latest Baron visit but has been theorized for a long time. At some point either before or after Baron was born, Rumpel was causing trouble for Poptropica, playing with the world around him. This annoyed the Red Queen, so she locked Rumpel away. 

The Baron didn’t like the whole being part of the royal family thing, so at some point she ran away or announced her departure. Either way, the Royal family seemed fine with that, since we never see them trying to get their daughter back. They likely still have some sort of connection, considering that Thanksgiving picture we saw.

Relationship with Amelia

So the Baron left the royal family, now what? They turned their attention to the thing they loved the most: legends! Were they real or not? Only one way to find out, and that’s to go on an adventure!

The Baron started adventuring, eventually stopping at an island in danger. There she met Amelia and together they saved the island, becoming friends. 

Now what caused their friendship to become sour? Those who played Monkey Wrench Island would know the serious measures she took to come first place in the race. Perhaps before, Amelia and Baron had a friendly race. Amelia won, which angered the Baron so much that she ended their friendship —throwing a literal wrench in Amelia’s plane as revenge for the event that ended their friendship.

Post-Monkey Wrench

After the events of Monkey Wrench, the Baron likely crash landed on the same island we did, or landed in the sea and washed up on the island’s shores — we won’t question things too much here. 

Here, the Baron met Ack and decided to adopt the monkey as her sidekick. While stranded on Monkey Wrench, she did some thinking. Taking revenge on Amelia was not a good idea, so what now? Sure, adventuring brought her money, but were there other options?

And then it hit her. The Baron could make easy money by looting faraway islands of their stuff, and selling them to dedicated adventurers: the players! But first she needed to get off the island.

The monkeys on Monkey Wrench Island were smart enough to plan and build the Poptropica blimp, so together with Ack, they worked to build the Baron an airship.

And so, the Baron began her monthly pop-up shop on Home Island to sell her findings to the players. Soon she was offering to let players assist her on her treasure hunts with The Baron’s Crusade. 

With various developments surrouding the Baron and Rumpelstiltskin of Fairytale Island since then — including Rumpel’s Challenge ending on a cliffhanger, the side-quest becoming available for all, the shenanigans with the Baron’s Rumpel obsession, going missing, and now returning as Baronstiltskin — it sure seems like Poptropica might finally tie up the loose ends of Fairytale Island. 

I hope you enjoy this little theory of putting pieces together! I couldn’t stop thinking about the new lore we got, so here we are. Love how lore adds so much depth to a virtual world — it’s my favorite thing in games.

Last thing: Chapter 6 of Storm’s Calamity, my Poptropica fanfic series, is now available on Tumblr and Quotev.

Heart out!

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by HeartofEnder. If you did, you might also enjoy her fanfiction series, The Witch’s Heart.

The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. Interested in writing for the PHB? We’d love to hear from you!