#neovia

[mutantmorphingpotions]

Talking to a friend who doesn't play Neopets, about Neopets and how Neovia exists in a perpetual state of the early 1900s with gas lamps and stuff while there is a literal visible space station a few hundred miles out of the atmosphere with microwaves, laser guns and we've been to this world's Moon.

[some-call-it-pen]

Neovia and qasala should have their own altador cup teams.

[adobe-outdesign]

shoutout to Neopets for having no consistency with how they handle families re: species

like imagine you're Sophie's mom here and you're ready for your first kid to be a kangaroo thing like yourself or a dragon like your husband and instead it's a dog. And you're like "okay the next one will be a kangaroo thing or a dragon" but no it's a wolf. And THEN you're like "okay it's canines. we have this figured out it's always gonna be canines" and then you have another kid and it's a goat

[seahorseduh]

I DID IT. I GOT INTO THE VOID STATE AND MANIFESTED EVERYTHING I WANTED. IM CRYING

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

EDIT: some people were confused about the singaporean language, i just scripted it was real in my new reality its like arabic/hebrew but with a different alphabet

here is the singaporean alphabet:

(credit)

and the country i made called tianmo is actually called neovia in english, i made a google document about it you can find HERE :)

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

i manifested bringing my phone with me into my new reality, so this is how im communicating. im gonna be leaving tumblr now to live my dream life, ill probably reblog stuff and like things every now and then. i was using the distraction method and idk how to describe it i was just in the void, heres everything i manifested!!!

HERE IS THE DISTRACTION METHOD!!!! ───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

being able to shift, manifest or go into the void on command

can’t get bullied

desired family (im in the dunphy family from modern family)

moving to tianmo (a country i made before manifesting)

extremely rich

i’m 13 again

i speak mandarin, korean, singaporean, french, german, spanish, thai, welsh, japanese and russian on a native level. Im so good at these languages i can type 200 wpm in each and i know more than most native adults! I cannot forget languages and i will keep them for the rest of my life. Nobody at school knows i know other languages yet.

living my dream life

me and family always safe and healthy

im in a lot of movies

df and db

always healthy

love school and popular 

i’m everyone’s type and i get along with everyone, i have no enemies. 

cousins with celebs

i mog every model

my city has amazing public transit and a metro

i embody the blue junimocore aesthetic

i always smell like gingerbread in winter, tropical in summer

famous grandparents

i have an extremely high spice and pain tolerance 

i always have proof that im related to famous people and people believe me

there’s usually thunderstorms at night

Im the most attractive person in the school

No matter where we travel, me or my family is always protected and safe. Nothing bad can happen to us. We cant die until we are old. I cant die unless i want to and it will be peaceful, i will barely age. My family is and me are free from any disease including age related ones and cannot get severely injured. We will live happy long lives. We can never get in any danger no matter what time it is or where we are.

I can never get hate online or in real life

I can do anything on roblox and not get banned, exploits and anything

I have a huge close friend group where nobody is left out 

I always have amazing and perfect grades, ive had amazing grades my whole life.

On my notion, i have a script for everything and theres an ai that helps me find the one.

Im a master shifter and manifestor. I can spawn things. I always get into the void state and shift if i affirm 3 times

i have an amazing bff with a 679 day streak on snapchat

I dont wear glasses and have amazing vision 

popular at school

i find skincare relaxing and fun, i have all the best korean skincare products

i look amazing in every picture, im videogenic and photogenic

i take the tram to school 

my country has the best high speed rail in the world

Good grades

[ghostmath]

uhhh ok well since im still speedrunning my neopets rennaissance tour,

(feel free to ignore this if you do not neopet)

I’m writing another thing for the neopian times and I need to populate a masquerade ball. if any of y’all neopets players (or former neopets players) are in possession of a character who:

is an adventurous type, and might belong to, say, a guild of explorers (could be more of a scholar or magician type too)

might attend a masquerade ball in Neovia, organized by said guild

you would be ok letting me borrow for a quick cameo

then please let me know! they won’t have a huge part or necessarily any speaking lines (unless you want one), but you can tell me a little bit about who they are and what they would be wearing to a fancy masquerade and I’d be delighted to include them. :3

ideally i’d love to get at least 4-5 characters for this but we’ll see what happens. gonna ask the currently active ntwfers too, but im asking mutuals here first because, like, seriously y’all, even if you don’t play anymore, let me reference your deep cut character/neopet you haven’t fed in 15 years. cmon. cmon. itll be fun

[zafaraagent]

Any other Neovia fans out there

[cloudybori]

I think neovia should have their own yooyuball team

[voltdragoon]

Drawing my neopets characters again,,, anyways here’s klaro syndrac, front neopian of neovias most mid goth band

[ksslr]

another pet of mine, Komissariat! he's a grey yurble from neovia, local tortured poet, and once was an archeologist.

[neopianbiologyproject]

Trudy's Surprise

Now that we've verified all the base petpets, we can discuss Trudy's Surprise, its candidate specimens, and how their origins affect our determinations.

What is Trudy's Surprise?

To summarize this Jellyneo article, Trudy's Surprise is a daily activity. Essentially, it's a slot machine without the slot.

If played on consecutive days, prize values increase each day, up to 25 days in a row. That is, the player still rolls to match icons, but each icon is worth more depending on how many days in a row the player has spun Trudy's Surprise.

Excerpt of JN's chart on this:

If the player's streak is broken, or the player reaches day 26, the counter resets to Day 1. It's one of those daily log-in bonuses MMOs all have these days (tho, to be fair, you can fully ignore Trudy's Surprise and turn off notifications about it if you so choose, without missing out on much).

There are minor exceptions which you can read in the linked article, but these don't really matter for our purposes.

What's important to us is the items Trudy's Surprise gives out. For a streak of 7 days (so, Days 7, 14, and 21 in the 25-day cycle, if playing consecutively), the machine will also give out an item. Many of these are exclusive to Trudy's Surprise.

What Trudy's Surprise items are notable to us?

You can see the full list on Jellyneo, but here are some items I want to highlight. These are either species candidates, informative about a candidate, or informative about Trudy's Surprise itself.

Key: 🎰 Exclusive/unpaintable Petpet 🖌️ Non-exclusive/paintable Petpet

Pool 1 - Trudy's Surprise theme: Gold Frogarott🎰

Pool 2 - Terror Mountain theme: Cloud Snowbunny🎰, Rainbow Abominable Snowball🎰, How to Build a Snowman: A Petpets Guide

Pool 3 - Beach/summer theme: Elderly Darpinch🎰, Woodland Yoakie🖌️

Pool 4 - Neovia theme: Bloody Finger Hotdog, Floating Figures, Ghost Tyrowbee🎰, Glowing Melton🎰

Pool 5 - Kiko Lake theme: Corals in Kiko Lake, Water Smiley🎰

Pool 6 - Tyrannia theme: Tyrannian Blibble*, Tyrannian Gulper🎰

Pool 7 - Maraqua/Krawk Island theme: Barnacle Burrito, Island Yullie🎰, Pirate Altachuck🎰

Pool 8 - Cottagecore theme: Cloud Weewoo🎰, Strawberry Eizzil**

Pool 9 - Stargazing theme: Eventide Felly🎰, Starry Baby Space Fungus🎰, Book of UFO Mysteries and More, Space Rock Collection

Pool 10 - Disco theme: Disco Tasu🎰, Jelly Barlow🎰

Pool 11 - Skater theme: Checkered Cadro🎰, Fire Sharky🎰

Pool 12 - Arts & crafts theme: Clay Bika🎰, Sketch Tasu🎰

Pool 13 - Camping theme: Fire Dofrey🎰, Woodland Snicklebeast🎰

Pool 14 - Food theme: Chocolate Albat🎰, Strawberry Plumpy🎰

Pool 15 - Pizza theme: Fire Cofferling🖌️, Picnic Geb🎰

Pool 16 - Grey theme: Grey Mini Trudys Slot Machine

Pool 17 - The Void Within theme: Grey Bowla🎰, Grey Doglefox🎰, Nyx Action Figure, Tavi's Hair & Tail Shampoo

* The Tyrannian Blibble is unpaintable, but available to buy on Krawk Island. ** The Strawberry Eizzil cannot be created through painting (no other Eizzil can be painted Strawberry), but the Strawberry Eizzil can be painted to another color.

What do we know about how these items are generated?

The way that Trudy's Surprise "gets" these items to award them to Neopians is unknown, but we can tell the box is seemingly aware of current Neopian events (the above themes relate to on-site plots, holidays and announcements). For the items that are non-exclusive, it may stock itself with existing items, maybe by having Trudy gather items and stock the machine herself. But for items that are exclusive, and particularly the living ones, it's not possible for Trudy to be creating these specimens herself; the machine must be generating them or drawing them in from elsewhere, automatically and magically so.

Let's look into the history of Trudy's Surprise itself.

It's hard to find articles from when Trudy's Surprise first landed on the site; the Neopets fansites don't document its discovery, rather focusing on what it does for Neopians and how to interact with it.

Clicking the [?] button on Trudy's Surprise itself brings up the following story:

A strange feeling nagged Trudy, a curious Ixi, for days. A forewarning of doom perhaps, she thought. Soon after, on one of her long, solitary walks that spanned the length and breadth of Neopia, something strange happened. She heard an unusual rustle in the bushes. Curious, she took a peek. Hidden among the bushes was a slot machine! ‘Ka-ching, ka-ching,’ it seemed to whisper. Trudy hesitated only for a moment before she succumbed to its call. She pressed the button on the machine, unsure of what she may unleash. To her amazement, she was awarded Neopoints. Trudy fell to the ground and cried with joy. She could finally afford a fancy frock for the ball. From then on, Trudy took more walks, hoping luck would smile upon her again. And it did. She discovered she could play the machine once every day to win prizes. With each consecutive day, the number of Neopoints awarded increased. Occasionally, the machine was extra generous and gave her a Gift Box. On the 25th day of playing, she won a phenomenal number of Neopoints! After 25 days, things changed, leaving Trudy puzzled. This FAQ, helped her make sense of everything, though.

From this we gather... Trudy doesn't know what the Slot Machine is, either. Also the FAQ for Trudy's Surprise wasn't crafted by Trudy, but another artifact (artiFAQt) that she seems to have found somehow? The link is broken, now, and according to this reddit post it always has been.

No one knows where the Slot Machine came from, or where Trudy was when she found it -- just that it generates coins and items and dispenses them in a predictable pattern over the course of cycles of 25 days.

So, in summary:

Trudy's Surprise is a slot machine

The Slot Machine dispenses neopoints and sometimes items

No one knows where the Slot Machine came from; just that it was found by Trudy

The items dispensed by the Slot Machine can be living creatures

Each item dispensed by the Slot Machine corresponds to a set of items belonging to a single theme

The set themes sometimes correspond to site events

What we need to determine, specifically, is whether the Slot Machine is generating these items, or bringing them in from elsewhere through something like teleportation of items, or being stocked by ghosts.

If all of the Trudy's Surprise petpets were exclusive to Trudy's Surprise, I would say the Slot Machine is creating them, somehow, and all items from the Slot Machine should be considered Constructa with a local habitat of wherever the Slot Machine is located. However, we know some species, like the unpaintable Tyrannian Blibble and the paintable Fire Cofferling, are available elsewhere in Neopia, so the Slot Machine isn't making up items, just relocating or fabricating copies of them to be dispensed. The Slot Machine also seems to do this with a particular interest in items that are so rare they exist but are extremely difficult to find elsewhere. In the case of living specimens, these species are so rare in the wild, they had yet to be discovered, but did already exist. We know the machine is "interested" in generating wealth and valuable items, so is it possible that it's selecting these petpets because of their rarity in particular?

We don't know where Trudy found the Slot Machine, but as long as we aren't considering the Machine to be the sole origin of these items, that fact strikes me as irrelevant to this question. The items can be associated with any region and the ones available elsewhere don't have any correlation in location.

Another theory is that the Slot Machine is of alien make, and somehow crash-landed in Neopia, later to be found by Trudy. In this case, the petpets it dispenses could be rare because they don't exist in Neopia. But I find this conflicts with the petpets being named for existing petpets, even if they constitute different species by way of being unpaintable. I suppose that hinges on whether we trust the naming force to be accurate in its assessment of similarity.

I think our best bet is to call these petpets Neopian rather than alien, as we have evidence that at least some of them do exist naturally. On top of that, the creatures' habitat of origin should be considered based on the pool of reward items the creatures were added with. E.g., the Water Smiley would be from Kiko Lake, as it was added with the Kiko Lake-themed items.

So, without addressing exceptions yet, we can determine the following habitats:

Set 1 - Wealth: Unknown, could be anywhere in Neopia.

Set 2 - Terror Mountain

Set 3 - Beach: The plants Bludberry and Krakuberry (ingredients in the Bludberry Urgoni Cupcake and the Krakuberry Shake) are from Mystery Island. The petpets Darpinch and Yoakie would come from Maraqua if they weren't painted. I think we call this one Mystery Island, which already has a strong beach association.

Set 4 - Neovia: Haunted Woods

Set 5 : Kiko Lake

Set 6: Tyrannia

Set 7 - Beach 2: The items Sinking Pirate Ship Background and The Endless Tales of Pirate Adventures have a Krawk Island association. The Maraquan Frisbee, Summerfun Flotsam Beach Ball and Jetsam Mini Fan are associated with Maraqua. The Barnacle Burrito is from Kiko Lake. I think the pirate associations here are so specific, and the rest of the items have a beach/island/stranded theme, we place this set in Krawk Island overall.

Set 8 - Cottagecore: None of these items have a particular location association, but the vibes are very Meridell/Brightvale or Neopia Central. Without a strong "medieval" or even farming lean in the theming, I think we'll call this Neopia Central.

Set 9 - Stargazing: Space. These items are either from space, about space, or made to look at space.

Set 10 - Disco: Unknown. Possibly Neopia Central. Slim chance it's Tyrannia, which has a large disco scene.

Set 11 - Skating: Neopia Central. Only in that it's absolutely nowhere else.

Set 12 - Arts & crafts: Unknown. Possibly Neopia Central. Crossbow gives medieval vibes, though.

Set 13 - Camping: Unknown, likely Terror Mountain.

Set 14 - Cooking/food: Neopia Central, based on the "Egg-onomics: Best Ways to Cook an Egg" and "Inside Neopian Fresh Foods Shop Background" items.

Set 15 - Pizza: Neopia Central, based on the Pizzaroo Playset and Inside Pizzaroo Background items.

Set 16 - The Void Within: Space, probably. Need the Void Within plot to conclude to be sure of its origins. Because we decided the Slot Machine isn't generating any new items, Grey items are converted from their existing variants, and don't count as new species.

There are some exceptions, but this post is WELL long enough and I'll address them in their individual posts. For the rest of the items, I'll classify them as indicated here and with respect to their original variants.

Please let me know if you have any thoughts on my logic here! I'm curious about possible alternatives or anything I might've missed about Trudy's Surprise. Thank you!

[artsyarcane]

Good god, ok… I started getting tired around year 10 and I just finished this a few minutes ago (it’s past 3 am). There are a lot of plots at the beginning that don’t differentiate between meta lore plots and world lore plots but they become distinctly separate at year 6. The crossed out dates are because I’d like to come up with month names that don’t sound as infantile as the canonical ones.

Neopets Timeline:

Faeries arrive in Neopia. (Year unknown)

Queen Fyora ascends to the throne and unites the elements. (Year unknown)

Calabrus gifts the faeries a magic bowl and Faerieland is created with the aid of said artifact. (Year still unknown)

Altador gathers his companions. (Year unknown)

City of Altador founded. (Year unknown)

Darkest Faerie betrays Altador and is turned to stone and banished by Queen Fyora and the sorceress Jerdana. (993 SE/BN)

Qasala seemingly abandoned and buried in supernatural sandstorm-Razul’s curse takes hold of the city. (193 SE)

Neovia cursed its residents returning as ghosts once every Halloween. (Year 2 SE)

Faerieland discovered. (approx. Year 1 KE)

Dr. Sloth attempts to take over Neopia by turning neopets into VirtuPets. (Year 2 KE)

Tyrannia and the Chomby are discovered. War breaks out in Tyrannia soon after. (March 20th-May 10th Year 3 KE)

Lost Desert discovered. (June 12th-July 10th Year 3 KE)

Investigation of the murder of King Coltzan III by Princess Sankara. (July 9th-16th Year 3 KE)

Retrieval of Coltzan’s crown. (July 17th-19th Year 3 KE)

Destruction of Maraqua and discovery of Krawk Island. (August 17th-23rd Year 3 KE)

Lord Darigan tries and fails to conquer Meridell. (Year 4 KE)

Mystery island nearly destroyed. (Year 5 KE)

Lord Kass tries and fails to conquer Meridell. Lord Darigan reinstated as the ruler of the Citadel (February 2nd-May 13th Year 6 KE)

Bori discovered and the Bringer of Night defeated. (October 21st-December 22nd Year 6 KE)

Maraqua rediscovered. (March 15th-June 10th Year 7 KE)

Qasala rediscovered and Razul’s curse lifted. (August 30th-November 29th Year 7 KE)

The Darkest Faerie freed and imprisoned again. Altador rejoins Neopia. (November 15th Year 7 KE)

The Wand of Wishing is retrieved and hidden away again. (March 14th Year 8 KE)

Shenkuu discovered. (August 3rd-September 8th Year 8 KE)

Neovia discovered and its curse lifted. (October 3rd-November 21st Year 8 KE)

Roxton A. Colchester III and Co. discover and subsequently lose an island inhabited by giant mutant petpetpets. An event all involved would rather forget. (Year 9 KE)

Dr. Sloth tries and once more fails to conquer Neopia by mutating neopets but differently this time. (Year 10 KE)

Moltara discovered and global warming averted. (Year 11 KE)

Faerieland falls at the hands of the sorceress Xandra. (Year 12 KE)

Krawk island disappears and is reformed in an effort led by Gavril McGill. (Year 13 KE)

First time in over a decade where nothing (officially canonical) of note has happened. (Year 14 KE)

Discovery of Tyrannian obelisk. Obelisk war begins. (Year 15 KE)

Diplomatic crisis at Lost Desert trade summit averted. (Year 16 KE)

Nothing (officially canonical) of note occurs. (Years 17-18 KE)

Darkest Faerie is freed and begins an attempt to take revenge on all Neopia. (February Year 19 KE)

Darkest Faerie is defeated and flees, weakened, into the Haunted Woods. (May Year 20 KE)

Diplomatic tension in the Lost Desert and subsequent rising and quelling of Sakhmet rebellion. (November 19th Year 20-March 2nd Year 21 KE)

Legends and Letters. (Year 21 KE)

Nothing (officially canonical) of note occurs. (Years 22-24 KE)

The faerie Luxinia is discovered on a small piece of Faerieland that survived the fall and freed from a crystal. New Faerieland is founded with Luxinia as mayor. (Year 25 KE)

[ship-that-neoship]

Ship: Orion x Dr Landelbrot

Propaganda (From Anonymous): "they're two well-meaning, eccentric scientists that live apart from their respective societies (moltara and neovia) in pursuit of their interests. i think orion would appreciate having someone around who understands and shares his passion for science and using it to make the world a better place, especially since his family disowned him over it."

[castleofthade]

wanna read my unfinished Eliv Thade fanfiction? here you go. ifhte readmore breaks i'm sorry im fixing it as fast as i can

Castle Thade is.. old, it is older than Eliv and his parents, but it was always of their family.

Neovia and The Haunted Woods were once known under a single name, which has become lost to time.

The establishment of the Grand Neovian Coal Mine caused an economic boom in Neovia; most of the population moved to the fledgling town to find work there, leaving little funding for any significant infrastructure upkeep in what is present day Haunted Woods.

With most businesses focused in the successful sister town, the main remaining economic draw of the old village was tourism. Along with the re-establishment of the fairground, the townsfolk who remained embraced the novelties of living in an environment full of ghosts and eerie magic, and over time the abandoned village’s identity became synonymous with The Haunted Woods.

Eliv Thade was born on the cusp of this economic shift. As a child, Castle Thade was the center of the community, and the family often lent space and resources to their numerous neighbors. His mother, Evolly Thade, was a genius scholar who frequently welcomed visitors from near and far come to the estate to pick her mind on new theories and matters of philosophy. Dafét Thade, his father and heir of the family’s company, was similarly popular- though with a more business-minded crowd who sought advice with inventions and investments.  

Eliv was a shy child, coddled by his eccentric parents and never sent to a proper school or encouraged to socialize. He spent a great deal of time doing private studies, or getting lost in the castle's labyrinthine hallways and secret chambers. Exploring his home was a puzzle itself with all of its trick locks and hidden mechanisms, which contributed to and encouraged his love of logic games and clever tricks.

In another life, he could’ve been some sort of sleight of hand magician, but there's a world of difference between "obscuring the answer" and "presenting a problem to be solved." 

The first tragedy of Eliv Thade was when he was three years old and, despite his parents' cautions about this exact scenario, was excitedly sprinting across the halls with a pair of scissors from his mother’s study. The resulting injury and infection from this caused his right eye to stop developing, leaving it tiny and nearsighted. His left eye remained large and beautiful, though would be mistaken for the injured eye post-mortem.  

The second Tragedy of Eliv Thade occurred when he was ten years old; His father died suddenly and violently. Foul play was considered, but a killer was never found. He was too young to fully understand the situation; No matter how much of a prodigy, a ten year old is still a child. Eliv surely felt his absence, but Dafét was rarely home to begin with.

His mother coped with the traumatic loss by forgoing the ambiguous, floweriness of philosophy she once enjoyed, and focusing her interests on things that could be answered in a solid way; If she couldn’t make sense of her husband's death, she would make sense of a riddle or a math problem.

Evolly began to test her son with logic puzzles rather than showing him art and poetry and… affection. Eliv would comfort in these sorts of things,  as they were the few interactions he had with his mother while she grieved, aside from seeing her at dinner. It was around this time that he started creating his own puzzles, both as a game and as a way to spend time with his only parent.  His studies shifted towards anything that could improve his craft.

Aside from this change in dynamic, his childhood continued in relative comfort. Evolly Thade took over her late husband's business and became less involved with the community and more involved in the comfort of numbers and engineering. The castle would empty, little by little, as neighbors and friends felt estranged by the absence of a warm welcome, and more enticed by the rush of money to the neighborhood of the coal mines.

By the time he was 15,  the village of the woods had only a quarter of the population he’d known as a child. The woods itself had begun to overgrow and take over the abandoned properties, and it was starting to feel like there had never been a sizable village at all. 

His mother was a ghost of the woman she once was, the grief took a toll on her body and she could no longer focus on the business. Eliv showed no interest in taking up the mantle, buried as he was in his own studies and creative endeavors. It was passed on to his uncle, a stern kau named Faltheu who loathed his late brother and had only visited once before (as a formality when Eliv was born.) 

 Faltheu cut all financial ties with the widow and her son and never looked back. Both of them were too distracted with their own miserable fixations to protest, and it wasn’t until much later that the family’s well of fortune would threaten to dry.

Evolly Thade vanished before they began to feel the financial strain. She announced, one day, that she was going into the darker woods to find an answer, she would do it alone, and that she would return in 3 days. Her son assumed it was some sort of riddle and didn’t stop this; He figured three days was his time limit to figure out what the game was and complete it. He did eventually realize that his mother was actually, finally speaking to him again, and that some tragedy had occurred in the dangerous forest that grew larger each day.

The reason this answerless tragedy didn’t destroy him was simple- It wasn’t a puzzle, not in the sense that he believed in. A puzzle contained all of the pieces needed to solve it. His mothers disappearance was missing too many pieces, it had random and meaningless elements- it was EMOTIONAL-  It wasn’t a riddle, it was a mystery, and Eliv Thade did not view himself as a detective. 

It did affect him, though. In small and quiet ways, his mothers (presumed) death hardened whatever wonder and joy he felt towards the world around him. The years ground by, each lonelier than the last. There were no more guests, and the small castle staff mostly kept to themselves.

Now an adult at 24,  Eliv Thade’s home was only a landmark in the ghost town of the haunted woods. Only the most stubborn or most suited for the area remained now; Namely the witches, the beasts, and the undead. 

Eliv tried to keep himself busy as he always did- writing and inventing puzzles- But he struggled with the futile nature of creating without an audience. He grew up surrounded by people eager to have their wits tested and to test his own mind, and he did lament that he had been only a child. Moreover he regretted hiding himself away as a child, not establishing himself with the friends and guests of his family, not KEEPING those friends. No one knew who Eliv Thade was. Not in the way people had known previous heirs of Castle Thade.

It didn’t help that the family business, in his uncle Faltheu’s hands, had been driven into the ground with bad financial decisions before he’d turned 18. Everything connected to the Thade family (save for the castle itself) had been destroyed and was fading,  and Eliv fell into a deep existential depression. He lamented aloud how the greater world would never know of his genius!! Neopia was deprived of the greatest mind of their time!! The castle’s staff thought it was very melodramatic, but Mr.Thade and his remaining old wealth kept a roof over their heads, so they kept quiet.

He spent his 20’s and a good part of his 30’s trying to publish books, making numerous miserable trips to Neovia and failing to network. He very much had what it took, he just didn’t know how to sell himself. 

He was offered a job as a puzzle writer for one of the Neovian weekly newspapers, which he humored briefly but eventually found too insulting to keep up with since his boss didn’t appreciate how difficult all his submissions were. Neovians were very easily insulted and didn’t enjoy puzzles that made them feel stupid.

It wasn’t until he met one Mr.Krawley that the course of his life changed. The salesman appeared out of nowhere (as he does) and proposed a business partnership. Krawley, a worldly traveler, would sell the idea of a genius puzzlemaster you could come and challenge to the wider public… In exchange, he would be allowed to sell his own wares and do other shadowy deals with these same guests. Eliv Thade, with not much to lose and while in the fugue of a midlife crisis, agreed without much thought.

At first there was a slow trickle of curious guests, mostly from Neovia, which quickly became a daily stream of strangers from as far as Tyrannia; All of them eager to test their wits and pick the mind of this mysterious man in his mysterious castle. It reminded him exactly of how his home was as a child, and for a time, all was good.

It was around this time that the old fairgrounds, long abandoned from “The Incident” had been re-established by a crew of carnies that popped up from nowhere. There’s a lot of “nowhere” in the haunted woods, so don’t worry about that! Eliv did not care for the carnies and found them anti-intellectual and annoying, and he was insulted to learn that his home and his GREAT MIND was considered an extension of the fair; Just another tourist trap.

As all things go with Mr.Krawley, so did his deal with Eliv Thade. The effects were slower, quieter than the fate that awaited Neovia down the line. You could argue that Krawley didn’t even do anything, and that it was all Thade’s own hubris.  His frustrations with his skills being sold as a novelty, as well as the ever decreasing amount of actually good challenges.. It wore on him. He became apathetic, consumed with ennui, and the bad attitude it nurtured was causing this poisoned well to finally dry. What was that thing his late Father always said? “Life is a game,” wasn’t it? But this game had bored him enough. 

Eliv Thade began to grow dangerous, to himself and to others.

[adobe-outdesign]

As as huge Haunted Woods fan I've always found Team HW's Altador Cup players kind of lacking, just being a bunch of Neopets painted assorted spooky colors (and one guy painted fire for some reason). I think we need players representing the Deserted Fairground and Neovia respectively. I want like one incredibly sleezy carny that keeps pick-pocketing the players during matches and one Victorian player who refuses to remove her corset under any circumstances and constantly mourns her husband who died under "mysterious circumstances". do you understand my vision

[thecutiecollective]

Polina V

IG: Dont.Watch

Represented by Fashion Models Agency

📷 Neovia Photo

[spushii]

neopets post: i've decided that once bank bribery ends i'm gonna go ahead and spend half my neopoints on stamps to make it easier to get the soup faerie avi (which i'll have to do by temp storing my remaining neopoints in trading post offers 2m neopoints at a time which is going to be obnoxious if I have to make fifty individual tp offers)

i'm only 2 stamps away from finishing snowy valley for the avi (christmas scene and cliffhanger) and 2 stamps away from being caught up on neovia (crumpetmonger shop and grave danger) so that about covers my 50m budget. It'd be great to go for scary tree stamp too but it's still 20m so I just don't have the NP.