#i also didn’t think brightvale was ever not there but that was before my time so. citation needed

[welcometobrightvale]

ok so i HAVE been going through the plot comic to edit it lol and. well i guess i can’t say for sure because we don’t know where it’s going. but either there are some plot holes or nyx is being incredibly suspicious

[tigris-types]

Story of Tilleri

Copy and pasted from her pet page, posting here in case Neopets is discontinued. It’s written like an interview under the cut.

Thank you for taking the time to let me interview you. Let's start off with an easy question, who do you support for the Altador Cup and why?

I support my home team of Tyrannia of course!

What do you do for a career?

Uh, I wouldn't exactly call it a career yet. I just study architecture and stone masonry in Meridell. I know everyone thinks Brightvale is the place of learning, but they tend to hide their stone work and have uppity attitudes. If you actually want to learn something practical, Meridell is where you should go.

Although student loans are still a pain in both places, or where ever you go I suppose. I help pay my loans with scholarships, but I also take on modeling jobs on the side. I know it doesn't seem like my sort of thing, but shampoo companies will well for a long mane they use in commercials. Plus, I do not mind rolling around in the dirt for those "before" shot either! It can be a lot of fun actually!

Were you always a tyrannian peophin?

Basically yeah. It was where I grew up and where I always lived until now. But I guess when I was a kid I looked more like those blue peophins that you see in Neopia Central or Maraqua. You see, when you're a kid your scales and fur are brightly colored so your easy for parents to spot, but when you grow you start to match your environment to hide from predators. As I grew, the ocean blue turned to a river bank brown, and mane went front a bright orange to a dark red.

How did you meet your petpet?

Zarru is more than just my petpet! They're my right hand assistant! And my left hand assistant as well actually as I don't have hands. I can manage pretty well without them, but sometimes door knobs just don't work with hooves and I need a little help. And even though I complain about door knobs, I actually got them in Maraqua where door knobs aren't really a thing.

I actually got Zarru in Maraqua as a translator as petpets can understand intent more than what we're actually saying. Those in Maraqua didn't know Tyrannian, and I didn't know Maraquan or underwater Neopets Common. Another peophin got pretty frustrated as I was trying to ask for directions. So a nearby flotsam brought a suzzard over to help with translation, and Zarru has been with me ever since!

You mentioned earlier you came to Meridell for education as it had more focus on your interests than Brightvale. Were there other reasons you came to Meridell?

Kind of. My travels started out of curiosity. I grew up in Tyrannian and had a passing understanding of Neopets Common. Occasionally I would hear how my homeland was "lost to time", and that didn't make sense to me. Time as I understand is a concept and clearly our land wasn't lost if we have a steady stream of tourists. I mean, out-of-towners love the giant omelet, Tyrannia pretty well known for it, how can we be lost?

I came to interpret this to mean people didn't really appreciate our way of life, and so I wanted to travel to see what made other locations so great. I packed a bag full of supplies and started swimming. I had heard of an equally ancient underwater kingdom and thought that would be a good place to start. I had some trouble with language barriers as I previously mentioned, but I didn't see anything too impressive. It was just building of shells and ruins.

I left Maraqua and followed the current to Mystery Island. It was a nice tropical place but besides the different flora it was pretty similar to home. So I kept swimming and found Krawk Island. It was a more lively place to be sure, much more action! It was fun, but not somewhere I wanted to stay.

I followed the current to Lost Desert, which is a name that also doesn't make sense to me, as clearly it's not lost to the ones who live there, or to me. Also it was way too dry. While I could still slide around on the soft sand, it was not a place Zarru or I could stay or long. We both need to be around water after all, or at the very least mud.

After rehydrating from the "Lost" Desert, I found some more ruins. Apparently this was Faerieland, or still is? I didn't really get it. Everyone looked far too busy to stop to chat, always running around trying to complete various quests. So I decided to move on too, and that's when I found Brightvale.

Brightvale looked like an interesting place. That had stones lining the paths, a castle with towers at impossible angles, little sentient forms of the elements, and edible food everywhere. I wanted to learn more about it, but no one seemed to take myself or Zarru's translations seriously. It was kind of upsetting. And when I did manage to locate the school, it was all book learning! In a language I couldn't read!

So I left and that's when I found Meridell. It was similar to Brightvale, but the people were friendlier and they had more stonework! I saw that they had buildings of different sizes and shapes that were made of the same sized stones, which intrigued me. In Tyrannia, the size of the rock you have is all you get. I wanted to learn more about stone masonry and how the buildings here were built.

Interesting! How did you meet user/your sponsor?

It seems most people need a sponsor for travel or for resources, but I didn't need a sponsor for any of that. I knew how to look out for myself. I didn't meet my sponsor until Sharkhorn introduced us. She actually knew Tyrannian and was a huge help getting me enrolled at Meridell Masonry as an apprentice. Over time, with both Sharkhorn's and maf40's help I was able to read, write, and speak Neopets Common.

Are there any outfits or fun pictures you want to show off?

I'm not really one for fancy outfits. Although this photo was taken when Sharkhorn insisted I attended a ball as my sort of "introduction" to "high society".

Here is one last fun question to finish off the interview. If you had a title like the Heroes of Altador, what would it be?

Tilleri the Architect

That's all the questions that I have for you at the moment. Thank you for answering them Tilleri!

[ixiraider]

Joking aside, I think TDF is a hugely impressive feat for Neopets that deserves a lot more credit. It would have been so easy for TNT to put out something along the lines of like, just a mini game compilation or something very half assed, and The Darkest Faerie really doesn't feel half assed. If anything I think it's greatest flaw is that at some points it feels like they bit off more than they could chew and certain parts feel like they were pressed for time/resources and aren't seen to their fullest conclusion, but I'd much rather have that than something forgettable and cheap. I think the game starts out a little slow, probably especially if you're replaying it as an adult, but it picks up around halfway through once Tor has finished his squire duties and is on actual missions. What impressed me the most, though, is Act III. That's when it really picks up to something hugely impressive IMO. TDF really creates a very cohesive world with a huge map of places to explore, tons of side quests including multi-part quests that tell entire side stories, tons of bosses and villains and lore, tons of random little places to explore that exist for no reason except as a little extra challenge... It's really impressive and really fun. The game really gets fun and exciting and just feels super vast and full of things to do. It's so cool to me that a little thing like Neopets was able to pull something like that together. The return to Cogham and assuming you're just going to have to redo the same mission as before but instead finding yourself in a giant winding lava-filled mining cave maze, the entire eerie creepiness of Werelupe Woods, the climb up the side of the crumbling cathedral tower to face the Black Knight, the endless puzzles you have to solve in the dungeons under Meridell Castle after joining forces with the thieves guild... It's really really cool. There are so many neat concepts. Side quests where you have to find a meteor crash site to forge a sword made of space metal! It's super great. I'm so glad Neopets really went for it and made a world like that.

I think my biggest criticism is honestly the vast majority of Act IV/the final act being honestly a big disappointment comparatively. It feels rushed, has some really fucky mechanics that get REALLY annoying and unavoidable glitches (including ones that can be game breaking), and is comprised *entirely* of minigames, which is a huge shame, because Altador itself has a great design and is super cool to see brought to life, especially so unexpectedly up until then. The Darkest Faerie herself is genuinely maybe the worst boss in any game I've ever played, ESPECIALLY as the final boss AND the titular character. She literally has no life bar and can be defeated in about 30 seconds without a struggle. It's ridiculous. I'm not sure what the history of development was there that made things end up that way, but it's a really disappointing conclusion that leads me to wish that the game just ended at Act III since that part is so unbelievably strong, even though I don't actually want Altador itself to be cut... :( I also think they did Roberta dirty, Act II is kind of a joke compared to the length and depth of Act I and Roberta has about three moments in the entire game where she’s actually useful, and it’s mostly just because the game actively forces you to play as her rather than Tor. Admittedly as a kid I didn’t even realize the disproportion, I really just wanted to be Tormund all the time LMAO. Also, final major criticism is that they should have had end-of-game quests! It sucks that after all that time developing such a big world the game is permanently over the second you finish the final main-story quest. I wish there was more you could do in the now-free worlds of Meridell and Brightvale and Faerieland and Altador!

I think it really would be amazing to have an HD Remaster or even a complete remake with expanded content, although I know the chances of it ever happening are slim. I think if I get the time it would be fun to write a full novelization that slightly adds to/improves upon aspects I wish had been given more. I’m thinking about writing up some kinda walkthrough of the whole game, since I’m not necessarily a fan of the one or two I’ve found online and they were actually missing information about certain quests (like claiming one of them was “broken” and not doable but it’s entirely completable, they just did it wrong LMAO). It gives me a chance to write about it in more depth in a way that’s maybe helpful ?? Maybe I could write it in a way that people who haven’t played it could also read through it and get a sense of the game or something......... I dunno. But yeah.. I love the Darkest Faerie it is good.

I finished The Darkest Faerie fully for the first time in my life!! :D :D :D As a kid I made it to... the sewer shrine at the very end of the game and then never managed to figure out how to get past it and never actually beat the game fully LOL. And back then there were shitloads of side quests earlier on that I couldn't complete as well. So unless there's some obscure ass side quest I COMPLETELY missed somehow, or if I managed to miss some random treasure chest in some dead end of one of the random big puzzle/maze maps or something, I have 100% completed the game!

It was so fun to see it all firsthand again... This game was a weird gay awakening for me, and I already knew that considering how much I have always loved the Ixi Chieftain, but I completely forgot until I saw him again that I also thought the Werelupe King was insanely sexy as a kid too (and still now LMAO). I wanted to be Tormund so badly. Or an Ixi raider. I would LARP as both of them in my backyard all the time. I also thought the Gelert Assassin was sexy but who didn't??