Fan Art Features, Social Media, YouTubers

Real questions raised in Red October reel & September birthday feels 🎥🎉

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans! We’ve got fan art galore in this post with costume creations, memes, and more featured by the Pop Creators. Let’s go!

First up, Poptropica has posted the monthly compilation video of entries for the costume design contest. With the theme of Red October, you just might find your bones tingling from the early Halloween vibes.

UPDATE: A day after this PHB post, the Pop Creators quietly replaced the video with a new version (shown above), taking into account the concerns we addressed (shown below). While the old video is now unavailable, the new one credits IG artists and removes an offending username. They thought they could be sneaky in not announcing the change, but we noticed! Still, props for doing the right thing.

The PHB’s comments before the change: While the costumes are undoubtedly spooktacular, we did make a couple of chilling observations in the vid: 1) the questionable attribution of “via IG” for various entries from Instagram that do not properly credit their artists, and 2) the inclusion of a watermark from a username with profanity that the Pop Creators previously featured on their IG story.

From these observations, perhaps the Pop Creators only want to credit people by their Poptropican name (although they don’t mind keeping in any watermarks that appear on images, even the aforementioned iffy name). Still, not every IG user put a watermark on their pic, which means that some in the video have gone uncredited. (Tips for Pop: take the extra step to give credit where it’s due, even if it’s not a Pop name, and maybe not at all if it’s vulgar. It matters!)

Beyond these oddities, they also haven’t yet announced the six winners promised whose costumes will be created for the game. While we wait, I figured I’d share some of my own personal picks:

  • Dryad Fan by Red Panda
  • Pumpkin Punk by Gentle Dolphin
  • Will-O’-Wisp by Sleepy Biker
  • Zombie Nerd by Cheerful Boot
  • Gem Enthusiast by Red Toes
  • The Lurking Witch by Brave Cheetah
  • Lil Ghost by Red Panda
  • Autumn Leaves by Little Lizard

Besides the costumes, fan artists have been busy making drawings and even videos for the fan-run Poptropica Month. The Pop Creators’ Blog recently featured several pieces starring Amelia, the Baron, and MVB:

  • Amelia with Pop’s 14th birthday cake by Sleepy Biker
  • Amelia & Baron as Mario & Luigi by Sleepy Biker
  • Red Baron discovers Amelia’s love of unicorns by Friendly Feather
  • Meme by Red Toes

In addition to these pics, they also featured a few videos, all of which were posted this month for the fan-hosted Poptropica Month 2021 playlist! Here’s one from iHateFridays (aka Magic Snowball) doodling while describing their personal experiences with Pop:

And here’s one from TheOrangeHelium taking various online quizzes to test her Poptropica knowledge. (Hey, look at Pop crediting fan creators by their non-Pop usernames on social media. It’s not that hard!)

Finally, the Pop Creators also highlighted a sneak peek of a storyline told in comics from Invisible Ring. For the record, you can read (and watch) all about her dream island, Megatropolis, here on the PHB!

That concludes this post! Stay tuned to find out which costumes the Baron will be bringing in her next visit, and enjoy the plentiful productions from both players and Pop Creators throughout the game’s birthday month. Keep on popping on, Poptropicans! ✌️

~🐠

PHB Specials

PHB Special: Pop the Difference, Round 4 – Answers Revealed

LJ

Howdy Poptropicans! About an eternity ago I posted 5 pairs of Poptropica images to see who could find all of the differences in them — where the quickest person would receive a drawing of their Poptropican by me.

It’s been about four months since that post went up and in all honesty, I completely forgot about it. I’m super sorry for keeping anybody waiting! Anyway – without further ado, let’s pop right into the answer reveals. Frankly, there’s no more time to waste. 😅

1) Shark Tooth Seek

  • Missing coconut
  • Pink skirt/blue skirt
  • Blimp silhouette
  • Monkey’s gaze
  • Shark Boy Guy

2) Fairytale Fish-Around

  • No troll/troll
  • Missing words on sign
  • Extra shimmer
  • Additional window
  • Colors of dragon tail

3) Bazaar Bewilderment

  • Tarp color
  • Missing thief
  • Extra window
  • Running thief
  • Genie

4) Comb the Crowd

  • Purple lipstick/pink lipstick
  • Girl’s stare
  • Third light on helmet
  • Hue of lenses
  • Missing skull & crossbones

5) Scour the Staff

  • Different colors on Slanted Fish’s hoodie
  • Gentle Dolphin’s missing glasses
  • Sporty Boa’s half-closed eye
  • Missing lightning bolt in between Sporty Boa and Fierce Flyer
  • Lightning bolt/star

In the time the game was open, I got a ton of entries for about two weeks straight – so I wanna thank you for the participation! There were a few who were able to spot all of them, but there was one person who was faster than the rest…

Congratulations Dangerous Shadow for winning my game! I hope you like your portrait. Once again, I’m sorry for the wait. Also, I need help with hands 🤨

Dangerous Shadow

So what other kind of games would you like to see? Let me know in the comments or by messaging me on Discord.

Anyway, I’m glad I finally got this out. Thanks for your patience with me and thank you for reading. Talk to you guys in the next one. Pop on!

– LJ 🍀

Fanfiction, PHB Specials, The Villain Saga

The Villain Saga – Talk Like a Pirate Day Special 🏴‍☠️🦞

Agent Bubbles

HELLO THERE EVERYONE. CAPTAIN CRAWFISH HERE. MY RABBIT… ACQUAINTANCE? I CAN’T QUITE CALL HIM A FRIEND. HE SAID THAT TODAY IS INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY, WHICH I FIND ABSOLUTELY ABSURD. YOU REALLY NEED DAYS FOR EVERYTHING?

ANYWAY. I WANTED TO CLEAR UP SOME THINGS, BECAUSE SOME OF YOU ARE TRULY BECOMING AN EMBARRASSMENT TO US VILLAINS.

FIRST. I BEG–NO, I NEVER BEG! I DEMAND THAT YOU STOP WITH THIS WHOLE “ARRR ME HEARTIES” STUFF! EVEN IF WE HAVE OUR WAY OF SPEAKIN’, WE DON’T HAVE MAGGOTS FOR BRAINS! MOST PIRATES COME FROM AROUND THE WORLD, MANY OF US FROM EUROPE OR ASIA. ME PERSONALLY, I’M FROM BRITAIN.

I CAN’T REMEMBER EVER SAYING “ARRRR” EITHER. THAT SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING SOMEONE MADE UP IN FICTION TO MAKE US SEEM AS STRANGE AS THOSE ALIENS MORDRED TALKS ABOUT.

EITHER WAY, I JUST WANTED TO CLEAR THAT UP SO YOU KIDS COULD STOP MAKIN’ FOOLS OF US.

YO HO HO AND A BOTTLE OF ROOT BEER BECAUSE THERE’S NO GOOD STUFF HERE

– CAPTAIN CRAWFISH 🦞

The Big Sleep: A pirate just can’t get any rest around here.

Aye, so it appears Crawfish somehow bent the rules o’ time ‘n space t’ access me account. He also appears t’ nah understand wha’ the CAPS LOCK be. Me deepest apologies fer any confusion, but ahoy, nah me fault!

Honor t’ the beaver

Maryann/Smart Bubbles

Guest Posts, My Place in Poptropica

My Place in Poptropica: Silver Shell

Slanted Fish

This is a guest post from Silver Shell sharing her My Place in Poptropica story, which is all about one’s Poptropica journey. Enjoy!

Hi! I’m Silver Shell, and this is my first post on the PHB. I’m going to show you my MPIP, My Place in Poptropica.

The Great Discovery

The year was… actually, I don’t know when the year was. I must’ve forgotten. Huh. Sorry if any of you wanted the year.

It was the middle of summer. I had nothing else to do, so I was on my computer, playing a bunch of uncool math games on Cool Math Games. I was scrolling, and I saw a picture of some lady with aviator’s goggles, a hat, and a jacket. She looked kind of like Amelia Earhart, actually — just missing some key ingredients like, I don’t know, a nose and ears. Since I was fascinated by aviation back then, I thought the game looked cool.

The Flying Ace Race — scene from Monkey Wrench Island

Then there was the name. Poptropica. How do you pronounce it? I had no idea. For a few days, I walked around calling it “pop-TROPE-ee-kay”.

Anyway, I Googled the game to see if search engines thought it was any good. Fun? Okay. Communicating safely? Why not? Educational…Oh. No. That ain’t gonna work. See, I was kind of sick of games where they’re all like “What’s 5 times 5? Good job! You’ve unlocked a pet!” and stuff like that. Regardless of that, I was curious, so I clicked.

And behold, the beginning of an era.

Playing the Game

I was welcomed by some pink rabbit with goggles standing on a floating island (little did I know I would see stranger things than that!) with a bunch of stuff flying around in the background. After spending maybe twenty minutes just staring at the screen to see what would fly around in the background, I finally clicked “new player.”

After creating my avatar to look as much like me as possible, and talking to the girl in the goggles and jacket (who was actually named Amelia, after the aviator!), I went on my first quest, to a creepy-looking, kind of run-down island called 24 Carrot.

I’ll admit, back then I didn’t quite understand how the islands worked. I thought if I refused the quest, there would have to be something else to do. I thought I was really on a time limit. 

I thought hiding behind flowers would conceal me from Dr. Hare.

After winning, I received something I would never forget. It was such an important symbol of my achievement and duty as a Poptropican…

My first medallion. *cue the hallelujah chorus*

The Old New Poptropica

I played Poptropica almost every day for a long time, but after a while, I realized that things weren’t changing. I wished for something new every day. I was coming to a scary suspicion that the creators were giving up on their own game. I checked the Pop Creators’ Blog nonstop, but nothing. I stopped playing for a while. I had to focus on school, anyway.

That all changed one day in 2020, when I decided to check the Creators’ Blog again for the first time in months, and I saw something amazing, something mysterious, something I had never seen before, and it was titled: Classic Islands are Baaaaaacccckkkk!

I immediately bought a membership, sailed through islands I had never before seen, met characters, defeated villains, saved innocents, and my medallions were piling up. I never felt happier!

Then I read the post again. They were here until the end of Flash. What? The end of Flash? Poptropica’s life force is shutting down?!

I Googled it to see if it was true. Sure enough, Flash was going away, but Poptropica’s here to stay! I played the old islands for as long as I could, as many times as I could, and tried to make the best of it while I had it. I was sad when the old islands left, but I was proud of myself for bringing peace to so many islands.

I kicked their bots.

The Beginning of the End

At first, I thought it wasn’t too bad. Flash had just been taken away, and Poptropica wasn’t too different. In fact, some improvements even came out! I liked how NPCs walked across Home Island. The removal of the movie theater wasn’t a big deal. I thought it would be fine!

Later, a mini-quest of one of my favorite islands came out: the Zomberry Hero Special Event! For a while, there was peace in Poptropica.

And that became a problem. Sure, there was the occasional mini-quest, but without new islands, there wasn’t much left to do. Little did I know I would be wishing for things to stay the same in the future.

Home Island before (top pic) it was remodeled in 2021 (bottom pic)

It all kind of collapsed for me when Home Island was remade for Haxe. I loved it the way it was, but now too much is changing. Every single part of Poptropica I loved was either taken away or changed. The changes were always glitchy and annoying in my opinion. The characters became bouncy and peppy and unnatural. No matter how much I petitioned, the creators wouldn’t bring back what I had come to love: Old Poptropica. I couldn’t rely on anything.

Bunk: Perhaps you, too, will love the 90s.

Or so I thought.

Meeting the Community

I was searching “Poptropica Help” one day just because I was bored and I wanted to see what came up. A Poptropica Help Blog?! This was just what I needed to keep myself distracted!

Life Jackets On: The lucky few who made it to the lifeboats.

I found a huge blog with thousands of readers who love Poptropica as much as I do, a place that keeps me informed about new stuff, one where people all around the world can share their ideas.

That led me to even more fansites: the Poptropica Wiki, We-Love-Poptropica on DeviantArt, and so much more. I finally found a part of Poptropica I could rely on: the community! This was what I could trust!

Media Bias: Don’t trust what the robots say.

(You can guess how heartbroken I was when the PHB changed their entire blog as a prank on April Fool’s Day!)

Now, I’m a part of the community, and guest-writing here on this blog, too. So there you go! My Place in Poptropica!

I think all of you deserve a medallion for reading this entire thing. It’s pretty long. Thanks for reading!

Don’t stop popping, 
Silver Shell

Hope you enjoyed this “My Place in Poptropica” story! If you did, you’ll probably enjoy our other MPIP stories here on the PHB.

If you haven’t already shared your story, we invite you to send in your own. Interested in writing for the PHB under a different Pop-topic? Take a look at our Write for the PHB page for ideas, guidelines, and more! 📰✨

Advertisements, Fairy Tale Island, Fan Art Features, Sneak Peeks, Social Media

My Little Art Features: A New Challenge Rumbles 🦄✨

Gentle Dolphin

Hear ye, hear ye! We will soon be returning to the fantastical world of Fairytale Island in the upcoming side quest: Rumpel’s Challenge!

The Creators’ announcement goes on to explain that the quest will continue the island’s story and answer some of our burning questions. The promise of tying loose ends reminds us of the Fairytale Fanfic Contest, in which fans wrote their own endings to Fairytale Island. How closely will the official tale match fanfiction? We’ll have to wait and see.

However, this story has a dark twist: only members can take on Rumpel’s challenge. This news may remind some players of Poptropica’s members-only bonus quests, which were extra quests added to the endings of islands during the early 2010s. It’s disappointing that not everyone will be able to end Fairytale Island on a satisfying note. We can only wish that the Creators will eventually give every player the chance to finish the tale…

To tide us over until the release, the Creators graced us with some concept sketches for a new character! The image name is Queen Ideas_2, so it looks like we’ll be meeting the queen of Fairytale Island! Judging by the art shown below, she appears to be regal ruler who loves cats and knows how to use a sword. She also has a curly updo similar to Cinderella, so could they be related? Where was she during the main story? Theorize away, Poptropicans!

But wait! We have more news for you, though prepare to feel some déjà vu.

Some of you may have already played the ad game for My Little Pony: A New Generation. In a surprising development, there is now a second My Little Pony ad on Poptropica! It’s not often that Poptropica hosts two separate ads for the same product at the same time. There is no game in this particular ad, though. All you need to do is watch the trailer to win two new pony prizes: the Zipp Outfit and the Hitch Outfit.

Here’s a neat tidbit about these prizes: if you press the spacebar while equipping one of the prizes, that respective pony’s cutie mark will pop up on screen for a second. Stop by both ad spots and win all five prizes, one for each of Gen 5’s Mane 5. Gotta befriend em’ all! 💫🧶🛡️🎤⚡️

The official Poptropica Instagram account shared eight pieces of fan art in yesterday’s stories. Among them were spooky and silly entries for the now closed costume contest, and they all look like they could be great additions to the game. There is also art of original characters and airships, as well as some Rumpelstiltskin fan art just in time for the announcement of Rumpel’s challenge.

That’s all for now! Are you looking forward to the follow-up to Fairytale Island? How do you think the tale will end? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

—Gentle Dolphin 🐬