CUT TO: DR. HARE being led to D. and MOREAU’S office.
DR. HARE
All right, I got the gist of it. You want me to do the dirty work for you so you can achieve some sort of thing?
MOREAU and DIRECTOR D. stare at each other. They’ve been uncovered. Their plan is ruined, if Hare can figure this out, then how long will it be until the others–
DIRECTOR D.
We didn’t–
DR. HARE
Hey, I was joking. Of course you’re helping me! Why else would you offer to work with someone as great as myself?
MOREAU hides her amusement and relief behind the clipboard she’s holding.
MOREAU
I must ask…how did this whole “rabbit” theme start?
DR. HARE
First off, it’s hare, not rabbit. And oh, it’s a long and glorious story! Some say it was tragic, but I say it was destiny, if such a thing exists!
(His backstory is shown in childlike crayon scribbles, while his speech becomes increasingly impassioned.)
We open on DR. JUPITER in his office, which is buried in papers that have been ignored for weeks at least. On his desk are two diagrams he’s editing. To the left is one of a machine, quite similar to what RAVEN saw before. To the right, heavily shadowed, appear to be some sort of magical instructions.
A knock on the door. JUPITER quickly shuffles the paper away among the others. A GUARD enters.
GUARD
Dr. Jupiter, we just had to intercept another major fight in the lunchroom.
JUPITER
Any injuries? I hope the high-risk ones weren’t involved.
GUARD
A little bump here and there, but that’s it. And no, the “Big Four” are still eating separately.
JUPITER
Ah, good. I want them kept well for what’s going on this week.
The GUARD looks uncertain, especially towards JUPITER’S clear prioritizing of certain inmates. She pauses.
GUARD
With all due respect, Dr., I feel that if we started more programs for the less dangerous inmates, they might have a higher chance of rehabilitation.
DR. JUPITER stands, sighing.
JUPITER
“With all due respect”, we are a HIGH-RISK prison. None of those here have any hope. All we can do is see what use they have while they remain here.
GUARD
But some of them are quite peaceful–that, raven man, for example. I don’t think it’s right to focus on what they can just do for us–
DR. JUPITER glares at her. The GUARD falls silent. A dark aura seems to appear around him.
DR. JUPITER
I will not have any of this. Good day, miss.
The GUARD freezes, opens her mouth, then closes it. She turns and leaves the office. Once the door is closed, DR. JUPITER rolls his eyes and reaches for the phone.
DR. JUPITER
Yes…I’m interested if we can hire new guards.
CUT TO Dr. Hare, sitting by himself in the lunch room, nibbling on a carrot and completely ignoring the rest of his food.
A green-haired man rushes to the window, tapping on it rapidly.
DR. HARE
Ugh, what’s going on Spike?
SPIKE
Heyhey Dr. Hare! You should have seen it!
DR. HARE
Seen what?
Several guards come and try to pry SPIKE from the window, but he keeps talking.
SPIKE
The fight! It was epic! Even that Dr. D…dude…was impressed! Very!
DR. HARE
What is with him watching everyone eat lunch?
The GUARDS finally pull SPIKE away from the window and take him away. HARE shrugs and turns back to his carrot.
Howdy, Poptropicans! Today’s topic is all about Balloon Boy, and how he became a floating Pop icon. Let’s get right into it!
Back in Poptropica’s earlier days, there was a teenage player. His screen name was Green Flyer. He happened to be a glitcher, and decided to see what happened if he took the balloon from Bobo’s Clown Store up and over to the aircraft graveyard of Early Poptropica Island to see what the purple giant’s face looked like, since all anyone knew was his feet.
So Green Flyer took a balloon — a nice green one — and got it from Counterfeit Island to Early Poptropica. He jumped as high as he could, going much higher than the game intended players to go. Now, this glitch had never been tried before, so as anyone can imagine, there were going to be problems. The creators had programmed it to only show the giant’s feet, and this was defying their programming. The glitcher was trying to do something that couldn’t be glitched.
Unsurprisingly, the “clever” glitch failed. Green Flyer’s screen froze and wouldn’t come back on. He informed the creators about it, but there wasn’t much that could be done. The glitch, thought to be helpful, turned out to be a huge bug.
All the creators could do to make sure that Green Flyer would be able to play Poptropica again would be to delete his account. Not having much of a choice, he agreed and had to start from scratch.
Later on, the creators began to think, “Hey, that was a pretty interesting situation there. What a great chance to make a new Pop icon!!” So the creators built Green Flyer’s character into Counterfeit (which at the time was not yet out to everyone) along with a mother character. In the quest, they had the player help him by giving him a green balloon, which he’d take and fly away with. This character also never came down (yet!), just like how in real life, the bug couldn’t be fixed and the teenager couldn’t get his avatar back online.
The Pop community found this NPC cool as well, and used him often when trying to represent Pop. As hoped, he became an important and popular symbol of the game, competing with Dr Hare. However, after a while, people forgot about the name Green Flyer and started referring to him as Balloon Boy.
And that, my Pop friends, is one story of how our beloved Balloon Boy came to be. Thanks for reading as always!
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!
Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Shy Scorpion. Enjoy!
Hi Poptropicans! It’s Shy Scorpion here with the next part of my fanfic. If you missed part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, or part 5, be sure to check them out. Now let’s get to it!
“The Princess and the Raven”
Scene continued from previous: Rumpelstiltskin has just walked into Red’s Pizza Basket. The girls look at him angrily.
CINDER:
Man, how does he do that?!
RUMPELSTILTSKIN:
Do what?
CINDER:
Enter a room at the perfect time.
RUMPELSTILTSKIN:
(shrugs) Just lucky, I guess.
AMELIA:
What are you doing here, Rumpelstiltskin?
RUMPELSTILTSKIN:
Here to see you realize my perfect plan is laid into action.
CINDER:
Dude, first you took away our happy endings, then you crashed our ball a couple months ago, after that you sent that adventurer kid all over Poptropica looking for the king, and now you’re crashing our girls’ hangout. Have you NO shame?
RUMPELSTILTSKIN:
Nope.
AMELIA:
How about telling us your perfect plan then?
RUMPELSTILTSKIN:
I will let that remain a mystery. But let’s just say I would be VERY afraid of what’s coming.
AMELIA:
Well if you aren’t going to tell us your plan, then as an official adventurer and as the owner of Home Island, I now arrest you in the name of Poptropica.
RUMPELSTILTSKIN:
Really? How are you planning on doing that? Throwing pizza at me, tying me up with a rope?
AMELIA:
Nah, I can see the dwarves are coming back from their walk with Snow’s wolf Pepperoni. I remember you guys had a GREAT run-in last time.
RUMPELSTILTSKIN:
(visibly frightened) Did you say P-Pepperoni?
AMELIA:
Look, here they come now!
Dwarves enter the diner with Pepperoni. Upon seeing Rumpelstiltskin, the wolf lets out an excited bark and tackles him to the ground. Rumpelstiltskin flails under Pepperoni’s licks before throwing the wolf off of his body and getting up.
RUMPELSTILTSKIN:
(snarls) This isn’t over.
Rumpelstiltskin disappears in a poof of purple smoke. Everyone high-fives and pets a very proud Pepperoni.
LATER… after everyone is full of pizza, the Poptropicans go their separate ways. But Amelia pauses to talk to Snow White.
AMELIA:
Don’t worry about Rumpelstiltskin. Bad guys always come and go.
SNOW WHITE:
Yeah, I am just worried about what’s coming… while the queen might be our greatest hero, she could also be the worst villain Poptropica has ever seen.
Hope you enjoyed Part 6 of The Princess and the Raven. Tell me your ideas on it and your theories for who you think this “Queen” might REALLY be in the comments below. Bye! 👋
Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Shy Scorpion. If you did, you might also enjoy The Villain Saga, which inspired this fanfic!
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! 📰✨
🏝 Poptropica Help Blog 🗺 