Sergei Mantis variety hour ☆

I enjoyed a lot of TVW. The minigames were fun, when they worked. The comic contained lots of fun little easter eggs. The sitewide raid against Vocivus was a really cool idea; I’m sorry I missed it. It’s clear that a lot of effort and passion went into this project. But I found The Void Within to be less of a Neopets plot and more a series of activities and comic pages that are vaguely Neopets-plot-shaped, yet lack the cohesion and narrative purpose to pull off the scale of the story that the writers were aiming for, among other issues.

A Neopets plot serves an analogous purpose to a musical number in a musical. It is a time-sensitive, sitewide event that alters the status quo of the Neopets universe in some significant way that expands future gameplay (e.g. new maps/worlds, new adoptable pets, deepened in-universe lore, and so forth). A few things are required for a good plot. Because we’re changing the status quo of the universe, we need strong, active protagonists. For example: Jazan set out to break his kingdom’s curse on his own terms; Hannah gave up her life as a barmaid to hunt for pirate treasure; even Cylara, who initially got dragged into the space resistance group by mistake, still decided to go back and help the group of her own volition later on. Here is TVW’s first major miss. The new characters in TVW are, for the most part, passive. They lack agency and fail to develop along with the progression of the story. They do not create the plot; they are constantly having to travel to where the plot is happening, or they stumble upon it by accident, or they have what appear to be filler arcs that take place separately from the central conflict of the story.

Let me explain what I mean. A character cannot just be a series of traits and a backstory; that’s a character concept. A character is an argument about one specific approach to an idea, and a good character arc puts that argument through its paces. TVW deals with a lot of topics, but it seems to consistently return to the idea of accountability. The large, underlying problem - one that I think encapsulates the plot’s pacing issues, muddled message, bad dialogue, and awkward presentation - is that nothing that happens in the story is really the fault of any of the main characters, and given TVW’s theme of accountability, these characters might as well not exist. It wasn’t Nyx’s fault for abandoning Ozzy; she got trapped in a rift in spacetime and only ever wanted to return to him. It wasn’t Ozzy’s fault for turning Neopia grey; he was manipulated into doing so and had no real agency. It wasn’t Vira’s fault for manipulating Ozzy; she herself was being manipulated too. And because nobody is really at fault, nothing of consequence actually changes as a result of the story taking place, except for the situation with Fyora (and believe me we will GET to Fyora).

All fantasy, all storytelling really, is derivative in some way; the older Neopets plots are no exception (you can see where they were inspired by things like the Disney Renaissance, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Star Wars). TVW appears to have been inspired by…(guy who’s only seen Naruto voice) the Fourth Great Ninja War? Barbie Fairytopia? Arcane League of Legends? Or perhaps even…

Pausing for a second. I think there are two types of storytelling. One type provides an open-ended basis for the reader to come to their own conclusions and interpret the story how they see fit. The other type fills in gaps, defines missing or intentionally vague details, and provides closure for things not explicitly argued in the source text (this method is popular in derivative works). I personally find the former more compelling (“Is not the most erotic portion of a body where the garment gapes?” etc etc) but I 100% understand the appeal of, and enjoy playing with, both methods. I’d argue that TVW applies this second method to the already derivative Neopets canon, employing a large cast that’s about half established NPCs and half new characters. This is a problem, because the cast has to go through some kind of development, but Neopets NPCs are not really characters because they don’t grow, nor should they; they work best when used sparingly, and in small doses. We’re not meant to know what really happened between Illusen and Jhudora, or which puzzle drove Eliv Thade to insanity, or whether or not Prigpants and Sworthy ever explored each other’s bodies. We may THINK we want to know these things, but there’s no faster way to strip intrigue from your universe than by overexplaining something that doesn’t really warrant an explanation, especially if that explanation is not good. A more traditionally literary approach operates on the basis that not every idea can or should be fully articulated in the text itself, and that this unresolved tension is what truly hooks readers (or players, in this case). This is how “show don’t tell” works. Trust your readers to put the pieces together however they will! Storytelling is a two-way street.

TVW, sadly, does not trust its readers. It needs you to understand the characters’ trauma RIGHT NOW, and understand that they are NOT AT FAULT for anything bad happening in the story. The plot constantly pauses for the party to engage in reconciliatory group therapy sessions that often feel like they’re happening in a vacuum, divorced from the action of the scenes in which they occur. This is exacerbated by a large portion of the therapy happening in visual novel or text format, while the main plotline is told through comic pages. (I’m not sure if this was TNT’s original intent or if they added these extra formats later on after apparently reworking the story on the fly.) All this being said, though:

THE GOOD

Tavi’s backstory. Friend breakups, getting overly reckless in your hobbies, facing the consequences…this is all good stuff. I like that Tavi’s decision to take hiking at her own pace leads her to discovering Baelia in the first place. That’s really effective, strong characterization that provides new context and meaning to some Neopets lore that’s existed on the site for 20+ years, and it does so without retconning anything. Well done. I do think there was a missed opportunity for Tavi and Nyx to be stronger narrative foils. Nyx could be kind of like if Tavi was an ornery misanthrope who never learned to stop being reckless and take better care of herself, and Tavi could be a more mellow, well-adjusted, older version of Nyx. We could then introduce their backstories more organically, and in a way that builds the characters’ future development. (They kind of tried to do something with this during the Altador battle, but nothing really came of it because there was never any setup or payoff; it just randomly happened for some contrived reason and was never brought up again lol.)

Fyora and Altador’s relationship. Now THIS is how you write backstory! We understand that the characters have a history and we don’t need to know every little excruciating detail to see why they play off of each other the way they do in the present. I kinda ship them. (Guy who’s only played Metal Gear voice: actually is Fyora/Altador ocelhira with The Darkest Faerie playing the role of BB. Uh oh.)

Luxinia and Baelia’s relationship. It wasn’t showstoppingly amazing or anything (I personally could have done without the therapyspeak arc words), but I see what they were going for. Luxinia gets a little mini-arc about overcoming her claustrophobia and scotophobia; Baelia learns to trust in herself and her abilities. The characters’ actions make sense; the storytelling is effective and doesn’t overstay its welcome. And Luxinia’s arc in turn informs Baelia’s development and eventual evolution into Iridesia, so I’m glad TNT included it.

Laughed out loud at the “hey, some Neopians are fighting the creatures!” “girl those are the Protectors” exchange between Nyx and Tavi. But also I feel like this would have been a good moment to reestablish that Nyx has been missing for 20 years and let us feel the emotional weight of that, so this one only gets half credit from me.

Unironically goes hard, best page of the comic.

THE BAD will be in sections, because it turns out I have a lot to say.

NYX

As the de-facto frontrunner of TVW, Nyx perfectly embodies TNT’s fear that their audience will not immediately like the characters, to the extreme detriment of the story. As an audience, we don’t like characters just because they’re “nice”, or because they have a sad backstory. We like characters because we come to see how their narrative choices influence their evolution and development over time. For a character arc to feel complete, backstory can’t exist for its own sake; it must inform the character’s choices and evolution in the present. Nyx’s backstory doesn’t really inform her character, aside from her apology to Ozzy at the conclusion of the story (which comes off to me like a reemerging fawning instinct, rather than genuine character growth from having worked through things. This is especially odd because Ozzy himself accepts responsibility for his own actions and resolves to no longer rely on Nyx as an external source of emotional regulation, yet Nyx still holds herself responsible for Ozzy’s feelings? I don’t think this was the writers’ intention, because this means that Nyx’s character want/need would have to be “return to her brother” vs “stay separate from her brother”, and that’s not really the kind of arc that Neopets would ever go for).

The most glaring missed opportunity here is that the weight of Nyx’s twenty year absence is never fully articulated or felt by Nyx herself. There are several ways to rectify this issue, but TNT never commits to any of these ways, leaving Nyx’s character feeling stagnant and vague. You can see where some really good drama and worldbuilding could arise from any combination of the following:

Nyx knows how long she’s been gone VS Nyx doesn’t know how long she’s been gone

Nyx wants to return to Ozzy to make amends VS Nyx doesn’t want to return to Ozzy to make amends

Nyx returned to Neopia voluntarily VS Nyx returned involuntarily or for some reason unrelated to Ozzy

Nyx immediately realizes Ozzy is the Grey Painter VS Nyx does not immediately realize Ozzy is the Grey Painter

The two things I would absolutely change, though, would be to turn Nyx fully into an abrasive, unfriendly asshole (exemplified visually in this excellent redesign), and to not, under any circumstances, reveal that she’s looking for her brother right off the bat. Maybe she returns to Neopia as a last resort, searching for a cure for Juni. Then, after Landelbrot heals Juni, Nyx’s “Juni! You’re okay!” line with the hearts around the panel can be our very first indication that she IS indeed capable of great love and affection. (Nyx is already more short-tempered than the other characters in the comic, but no one ever really confronts her about her behavior, nor does she learn from it. The narrative just kind of takes it in stride, resulting in this bizarrely dissonant, sanitized character arc, not helped by her sprites looking perfectly cheerful even when she’s supposed to be angry or yelling.)

Nyx’s arc is paced very strangely, as well. Here’s how she starts out:

Nyx: Okay. I’m going to the Council and this Dr. Ladle-bot guy, and then I’m going back to Neopia Central to find my brother. Thanks for your help.

And then, a few scenes later:

Nyx: I’m here to find my brother. Whatever it takes. […] We had a small hovel in Neopia Central, across the way from Uni’s clothing. His name is Ozzy. He’s small, shy, and always scared. Adorable actually… I have to get back to him as soon as possible. He hasn’t heard from me in weeks… He must be worried sick.

This isn’t really characterization; it’s backstory that LEADS to characterization. We shouldn’t be getting this right out the gate; this is the kind of information that TNT ought to trust the reader to figure out for themselves as the story goes on. I also do not like that as soon as Nyx expresses this need to go to Neopia Central and find her brother, she does both of these things (only for Ozzy to inexplicably not recognize her at first, which, given his own backstory, feels…EXTREMELY out of character); Nyx and Ozzy then immediately start to talk things out. All of this happens way too quickly. This conflict should be the culmination of Nyx and Ozzy’s character arcs; this can’t happen in Act 1. Nyx either shouldn’t recognize Ozzy at first, or doesn’t want to find him, or is actively trying to avoid him. That way, we ultimately come to recognize that the reason Nyx is snippy or short with people is because she finds it easier to self-isolate than to be vulnerable and make connections with others. She’s afraid to see her brother because she knows he’s likely upset with her, which becomes a cruelly ironic self-fulfilling prophecy the longer she avoids him. So she ought to WANT to stay away, but she NEEDS to reconcile with Ozzy and end their estrangement so they can both heal and move on (especially because it’s been !twenty years!).

I do really like the exchange “I was just a kid” / “So was I!” with Nyx crying. That’s good. Like that is ALL you needed to convey the dynamic between these characters. I do think that Nyx crying should have carried a bit more emotional weight, like we should really get the impression that this is the absolute most vulnerability she’s ever allowed herself, and something that she’s been hiding away for twenty years beneath her mask of aloof abrasiveness. (The way it was presented within the context of the story was kind of funny though, with this bizarre mixture of combat and navel-gazing. It was kind of giving Megamind: “This is the first time we’ve hung out socially, and it’s when I’m about to destroy the city!”)

Also, I REALLY feel like they should have included Nyx encountering the Gourmandizer IN THE PLOT ITSELF and not as a teaser in the Faerie Festival/Advent Calendar (I forget where they originally had it). This could be a good moment to showcase some of Nyx’s fighting ability, rather than her having some kind of magic intuition coming from Orion, or having Void powers that she doesn’t really understand or know how to explain. They did have the Void completely take over Nyx in the final boss battle, which appears to be an interesting if undeveloped metaphor for something (Ozzy=Grey, Nyx=Void; this could serve as a good visual representation of their respective trauma responses or something), yet this strangely doesn’t serve as an inflection point for her character at all, or reveal anything new about her. But we’ll circle back to this problem later.

OZZY

Like Nyx, there is a really good character somewhere in the mess that is Ozzy. Ozzy gets more development than Nyx, but a lot of that development happens offscreen; he has a really REALLY long and drawn-out backstory that takes place in fanfiction-esque prose segments that (like Nyx’s Void power takeover) provides no new insight on his character; there are really no surprises to the conclusion of his arc either. I think TNT could have improved Ozzy’s arc by either having him explicitly redeem himself through nonviolent inaction (e.g. refusal to play someone else’s game), or by turning on his former patron and going out with a bang. Ozzy…kind of does the former,* but he shares the climax of the story with Iridesia, and it’s Iridesia’s arc that plays more actively into the overarching themes of the story. Ozzy’s resolution is a little more subtle, a little more understated. He doesn’t really ever confront his patron the way Iridesia does; rather, he redeems himself through introspection. And he’s endearingly eager to make amends for the crime of turning Neopia grey, so offscreen he does some community service hours (seriously). He’s kind of the watered-down Obito of TVW (I’m sorry for all the shorthand Naruto references but TVW is almost offensively shonen-coded) in that he’s a pseudo-mastermind who is very quickly revealed to be a pawn (of a pawn of a pawn of a pawn, ad infinitum).

Emboldened, Ozzy stepped forward. He almost couldn’t hear Vira cackling over the rush of breath and blood in his ears, almost couldn’t feel the breeze dying in the air through the prickle of the fur on his cheeks. He swung the Acrimonious Paint Brush again, and again, each swipe of it stronger and faster than the last, more enthusiastic; he was a conductor leading an orchestra, filling the world with a symphony of his patron’s design. The spread of the grey quickened, and with it so did his heartbeat; colour and vibrance couldn’t jump from the land fast enough, nor could they dampen Ozzy’s spirits in the least. And with every little bit of vibrance gone, the brush grew warmer, and Ozzy’s body lighter…

It’s metatextually interesting to me how the Acrimonious Paint Brush has a will of its own and appears to be kind of the embodiment of severe nihilistic depression, robbing Ozzy of his narrative agency as he in turn robs various denizens of Neopia of theirs. But intrigue-wise, there are just too many layers of separation between Ozzy and the true orchestrators of this plot. Having this kind of intergalactic predestination baked into the story and the Neopets universe as a whole makes us less invested in these characters, especially because Orion seems to hint that the Void isn’t Neopets’ final boss either.

Quick question while I’m here:

Drakara: He really is the perfect little bitter battery. Which is why I’ll hold onto him a bit longer. I’m certain I can convince him to be my Grey Painter once more… after I remove all of his distractions.

I’ve likely missed something (I’ve read the plot a few times but there are several sections where I seriously can’t take it anymore and have to start skimming) but I don’t understand why Drakara can’t just do this herself. Isn’t she also bitter? Probably orders of magnitude more bitter than Ozzy? Whatever.

Here’s where Nyx finally mentions to Ozzy that she didn’t mean to vanish for twenty years, by the way. It’s after the climax is over, when Ozzy is trying to make amends, by the way.

Tavi: He has a point, Nyx. Ozzy did… um, cause some of this. Nyx: Maybe. But it’s not all his fault. A lot of it was my fault, too. If I never left, then none of this would have happened at all. But that’s beside the point. I didn’t just mean Altador or Neopia when I said we have to rebuild. I meant us. […] I messed up in leaving you alone for so long, Ozzy. I mean, I didn’t know I would get sucked into a void rift and end up missing out on twenty years of your life… […] Ozzy: I… I’m sorry! For… for everything I’ve done. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen, and I know you know that, but I still chose to grey out all those lands, and I still chose to hurt people. What I did was terrible. Apologising isn’t enough; there has to be something I can do to make up for all the destruction I caused! [Here Nyx tries to interrupt and say “but it wasn’t your fault!”] Ozzy: But it was my fault. I was sad and lonely and I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I tried to hurt the world to make myself feel better. I need to atone for what I’ve done. Nyx: I understand. We’ve all made mistakes, and we all have to work toward fixing them. Just know that I’ll support you every step of the way, okay?

We can see that Ozzy has become much more self aware and has learned that he needs to love himself for who he is, manage his emotions even when his sister isn’t there for him, and understand that his sister is not responsible for his happiness. I fear that Nyx missed the memo, though. Ironically she appears to try to steal Ozzy’s arc conclusion from him, denying him of any accountability due to her own profound guilt over abandoning him. Fyora does something similar; she takes personal responsibility for Ozzy becoming the Grey Painter and offers him a free dip in the Rainbow Fountain to make amends. This isn’t really about Ozzy at all; I think this is Fyora’s way of trying to reconcile what she did to Drakara in the past, but it is an odd narrative choice to have multiple characters try to negate or soften the weight of Ozzy’s first real steps, taken of his own accord, towards accountability. Kudos to Ozzy for at least refusing Fyora’s offer, though. Shame about Nyx.

*He also somewhat does the latter when he extends a genuine offer of friendship to Vira at the eleventh hour of the story, which I really enjoyed. Vira manipulated Ozzy for years and I think we’re meant to understand that Ozzy realized this was happening, and allowed it to happen because he craved any kind of connection and knew Vira felt the same; so he appealed to her sense of…can it be called humanity if they’re not human? to get her to stand down, which did work, but it also effectively aborted Vira’s arc, which as of the epilogue, still remains unresolved.

Oh, and while we’re here…

THE STATE OF BEING GREY

Baelia: Even before I lost my wings and my name, I was useless. […] Back when I was a light faerie, it always felt like something was wrong. I looked like everyone else, and they were kind to me, but whenever I saw myself, it felt like someone else looking back. Then I lost my wings and became a grey faerie. For a while, I thought maybe it was good. Maybe now I would feel more like my useless, misfit self…but I still felt wrong. I still didn’t look like me. I didn’t feel like me. I didn’t feel like anyone…I couldn’t do anything right back then, when I had powers as a light faerie…so why did I think I could do anything to help now? --- The sun is high in the sky over Neopia Central, without a single cloud in sight. It’s one of those days that seems a little too bright to Ozzy, and he can’t help but feel self-conscious about how dour and grey he looks—like he must be sucking the colour out of the day just by stepping outside. --- Ozzy: You know what it’s like trying to trudge through the grey each day, struggling to get out of bed while everyone else always gets to shine so bright! It’s effortless for them! While we have to claw our way forward. Weary, hopeless, alone….well no more! --- Vira: Do it, Ozzy. […] You can make Neopia a better place for Neopets like us. You can get your revenge on everyone who left you. You can make them see what you see every day. What we see. --- Fyora: Who am I to argue with that? If [being grey] is what will make you happy, then I will gladly see that it is done.

Genuine question. What the hell does it mean to be “grey” in the Neopets universe? The text seems to vacillate between “looking like this suits me personally” to “have you ever seen me without this stupid affect? That’s weird” to “clinically depressed & in constant, debilitating chronic pain”, and that’s not even getting into Baelia’s gender dysphoria thing. This insanely jumbled allegory is basically the sole reason I decided to write this essay in the first place. Let me attempt to break it all down.

Neopets life forms can be divided into two main categories: pets (yknow, the anthro creatures) and faeries (more humanoid but still definitely not human). There appears to be some disparity between “greyness” as it applies to faeries versus pets, so let me start with pets. TVW establishes that a Neopet can either be born grey (like Ozzy), or be painted grey (like Styx, who is admittedly a petpet not a pet, but the same principle applies).

Lately, Neopets has moved away from the fourth-wall-leaning “you’re a human being from the real world taking care of your pets in this magical online land!” and moved towards the more immersive “your active Neopet is your ‘player character’ that allows you to interface directly with this magical world that you inhabit”. Yet this shift is kind of unclear and not fully realized in places, especially because a lot of the core mechanics of the website still involve you feeding/taking care of your Neopets (“wow thanks! I will start reading that right away”, “you’re the greatest owner ever!”, and so on), plus the bank manager greets you according to the gender you have designated in your profile, rather than the gender of your active Neopet, etc. Maybe this is a me thing, but I find it really difficult to think of my pets as my self-inserts. I prefer to think of them as having a life of their own, while I’m their occasional caretaker. Like, I’m just here for five minutes a day to make food club bets and play solitaire; you guys go do your thing. That’s the charm of the site to me. Your mileage may vary, of course; the character of Nyx is obviously meant to be a stand-in for a Neopets player who abandoned the site for a very long time, then came back.

On Neopets, by visiting the Rainbow Pool equipped with the appropriate rare item (a magical Paint Brush), you can choose to “paint” your pet a variety of different colors and styles beyond the basic ones (red, blue, yellow, and green). One of these rare colors is grey, which not only causes your pet to turn, well, grey, but also gives them droopy, downturned features and a sad expression. I think we’re meant to understand that being painted grey changes a Neopet’s temperament, but greyness itself appears to be something of an informed attribute and is not reflected in your pet’s behavior or personality. Last week I actually went and painted one of my pets grey to confirm that none of the chipper “wow thanks! This is my favorite toy” type dialogue gets toned down as a result of the new color, though I’m not certain that we’re supposed to take those little dialogue bits as “canon” anyway. So maybe the entire point of TVW was to officially confirm the idea that you, the player, have the authority to decide what “grey” means for your individual pets: kind of a Born-This-Way-esque “I was born to evolve and to BECOME this color because it suits me”. TVW’s NPCs appear to corroborate, but also complicate, this idea. For example, if Nyx is a stand-in for a long-absent returning human player, Ozzy might then represent a human player living with major depressive disorder:

Ozzy: So much of this started because I didn’t…I didn’t like myself. The whole world felt drab and grey and gloomy, so I thought I was doomed to feel—to be the same. I didn’t know how to love myself. I needed other people to love me instead. But I don’t need that anymore. I think…I think that I can finally start to look on the sunny side of things, even if it’s still hard for me. I’ve accepted who I am. I’m Ozzy, and I’m no longer the Grey Painter. I’m just a grey Yurble, and I’m worthy of love because of that, not despite it.

We see that greyness to Ozzy is more than just his appearance or his affect; it’s his internal sense of self-perception, self-esteem, and the way that his mind conceptualizes the external world around him. But the specific order in which Ozzy outlines his worldview here interests me. Note that he makes no reference to his grey color when describing how he used to not like himself, yet eventually concludes that he is worthy of love “despite” his color, implying some level of societal stigma. We see that at least some of this stigma is Ozzy’s warped perception due to his aforementioned sense of inadequacy (for example, he believes no one wants to buy his paintings, yet we see later that lots of Neopets were interested in his art but he ignored them to essentially wallow in his own misery). Yet a stigma against greyness does exist in Neopia, and it is on some level an undesirable color, at least in the mainstream. Greyness is an anomaly; it is not typical. Just look at how various grey items are described on the site:

It has subtle cheesecake taste mixed with a hint of despair.

Yuck, this doughnut is very drab and soggy…

Eurgh this pepper is utterly tasteless!

Aww, cheer up little plushie.

Oh dear, it makes you sad just looking at it…

Maybe if you cuddle him, it will cheer him up.

It doesnt [sic] really matter what flavour it was, it all tastes gloomy now!

Possibly the most miserable looking turnip you will ever see.

Aww this paint brush is all sad and droopy.

A lot of these are silly examples, sure, but we know what a normal doughnut or cheesecake is supposed to look and taste like. The general state of being grey seems to imply some kind of process, some transformation; a poisoning, a sapping of vitality.

BAELIA

Baelia: Fyora? I hate to let her down… and I really do wish I could help you, but I can’t even help myself. We’ve been trying for years now, but here I am. Still grey…

So there is actually a third method of becoming grey, which applies only to faeriekind. To explain how greyness works in a faerie context, I first have to talk about Faerieland, and faerie society, and the ways in which faeries differ from pets.

Faeries are a magical, pseudo-monarchical race of (mostly) winged humanoid creatures, all very uniformly feminine in their outward presentation. Faeries are solely NPCs; you can’t adopt a faerie as you would adopt a neopet. The way I understand neopets (the pets themselves) versus faeries is thus: neopets can cast spells and can use magic via potions or spells, while faeries appear to possess inherent magic abilities, signified by the presence of their wings.

The majority of faeries’ magical powers correspond to one element or another: fire, water, air, earth, darkness, light. You have the odd faerie like Ilere who has a more darkness-oriented earth theme, and there are also a few “specialty faeries”, like the Space Faerie, Battle Faerie, Snow Faerie, Library Faerie, and…the Soup Faerie lol. And, of course, there is the Faerie Queen, Fyora. (We’re getting there, I promise.) For the most part, though, Faerieland society functions as follows:

One faerie = one element = one name = one set of wings = one set of magical powers.

These basic-element faeries are pretty one-note; the majority of faeries that you can interact with on the site are NPCs who assign you random fetch quests and reward your pet with magical abilities in return. (Note: the element of the faerie assigning you the quest has some impact on the specific dialogue and reward you get, but the structure of the minigame does not vary between elements.) We never really learn anything more about these faeries, nor are we meant to. Faeries are an established part of Neopia; their continued presence in the world is kind of just a given. The game gives us just enough details so the player can somewhat infer how Faerieland society works, but we’re not really meant to know the inner workings of the faeries’ magic itself.

For a faerie, the state of possessing elemental magic dictates everything from your appearance (most elemental faeries tend to have butterfly-like or insect-like wings; water faeries are wingless and instead have mermaid-like tails) to your career options to your general societal standing. I hesitate to call it a caste system, but TVW confirms that faeries who switch between elements are vanishingly rare, and there is definitely some amount of stigma surrounding dark faeries in particular, similar to the dilemma of grey pets that I described in the previous section of this essay. Also: I used the term “pseudo-monarchical” earlier. This is because Fyora does carry the title of “queen”, but we don’t really have any information on how faeries come into being in the first place, so as far as I’m aware, the title can’t be hereditary. TVW seems to corroborate this and characterizes the state of “queen” as a position that a faerie can assume: really more bureaucracy than monarchy. Actually, as I’m writing this, it occurs that faerie society functions almost like a beehive: myriad interchangeable female “worker bees” out buzzing around the world, collecting items for their magic spells; a powerful queen; no mention of drones (probably to keep the game family-friendly, but perhaps there’s some sinister in-universe explanation).

That’s the other thing about faeries. They always seem to know a bit more about Neopia than they’re letting on. Fyora, Jhudora, and Illusen (to name a few) clearly have some skeletons in their closets. Sure, The Faeries’ Ruin plot from 2011 reveals that a lot of the faeries’ magic goes towards literally holding the world of Neopia together, and without it, evil shadow wraiths run amok. But there’s no reason the faeries can’t exploit this fact to basically extort free labor from Neopia on an international scale and not face any consequences for it. Even the Shop Wizard is in on it, for god’s sake! Hell, maybe the wraiths themselves were some kind of deterrence-panic-button-taking-you-out-with-me situation; the Darkest Faerie’s involvement in TFR certainly seems to imply as much. After all, without Faerieland, there really is no Neopets, textually and metatextually.

Again: this isn’t a problem inherently. Neopets is a fun fantasy game, and it’s fun to do fetch quests for magical faeries. But to return to the idea of the Faerieland caste system, I think the area where that description most applies is in the case of faeries stripped of their elemental magic, e.g. lacking a name, and wings. For a faerie, this is the state of being grey.

While TVW shows us that grey neopets can come to terms with, and indeed be perfectly happy with, their grey color, greyness for faeries is painful, dysphoria-inducing (we’ll get to this), and literally strips them of their physical ability (their wings or tail). TVW eventually reveals that greyness is meant to be a temporary state of being for a faerie, a voluntary ritual taken place to switch one’s elemental magic. But because a faerie’s elemental magic is semi-analagous to gender (in that it is how you present to the world and is kind of shorthand for how people interpret you, but it also means something unique to you internally), while also having implications around physical bodily functions and ability, TVW ends up making some really bizarre connections between mental illness, dysphoria, and identity.

Baelia, or The Grey Faerie, is a long-established Neopets NPC. Offscreen, irl decades ago, she turned grey as a result of her name and wings being forcibly taken away from her by a dark faerie named Jennumara, but she still participates in faerie society in a limited fashion, assigning quests and asking other elemental faeries to grant the expected magical reward in her stead. Tavi, her longtime friend, has tirelessly attempted to assign her a new name and therefore get her magic back, but nothing has worked:

Tavi: Supposedly, only a new name can lift the curse that Jennumara placed on her long ago. But, no matter how many names I try calling her… Baelia: Still grey. --- Luxinia: You’re a good friend, Tavi. And I know Baelia knows this too. I can feel something stirring in her… Something warm. I think she knows you’re worried. --- Baelia: I used to feel completely alone. Just being around other faeries, even ones I was comfortable with, made me feel like an outcast. But there was one person who never made me feel that way. If I didn’t have Tavi, I would have been trapped in my own misery forever.

You can see where TVW is starting to go with these tidbits of characterization. Baelia is a beloved character; she deserves a happy ending. If she can just find the impetus within herself to self-actualize, she has the power to get her magic back and become a light faerie again. (I will circle back to the ableist implications of this idea in a minute; bear with me.) And knowing that she has a growing support system (Tavi, Luxiana) in place will only hasten her path towards autonomy and self-love. But TVW subverts this concept. Crucially, when Jennumara stole Baelia’s name/wings/powers, the name “Baelia” stopped being Baelia’s own. It was the only name she knew, but it didn’t feel like her name anymore; maybe it never did:

Baelia: Back when I was a light faerie…it always felt like something was wrong. I looked like everyone else, and they were kind to me, but…whenever I saw myself, it felt like someone else looking back. Then I lost my wings and became a grey faerie. For a while, I thought maybe it was good. Maybe now I would feel more like my useless, misfit self…but I still felt wrong. I still didn’t look like me. I didn’t feel like me. I didn’t feel like anyone…

Contrast this with Fyora’s reaction to being made Faerie Queen:

Drakara: How does it feel? Fyora: Strange. But not…wrong. I feel like…Like this was meant to be. Like I’ve become more like myself.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with Baelia’s transformation into Iridesia from a technical story standpoint; it’s built up plenty throughout the plot. But TVW has now conflated mismatched elemental magic with both gender dysphoria and general mental illness in a universe that also contains…regular old gender dysphoria and mental illness. Broadly, this means that Ozzy’s arc now contradicts Baelia’s, and vice versa - if we want to take Ozzy’s arc as the guiding thesis of the story, Baelia/Iridesia doesn’t work; if we take Iridesia’s arc as the thesis, Ozzy’s doesn’t work. Because Ozzy fundamentally doesn’t like himself, he makes everyone around him suffer, but realizes over time that he wants to love himself because of his greyness, not in spite of it. Baelia felt depersonalized, depressed, dissociated, and dysphoric BEFORE her grey transformation, so greyness means something totally different to her. Ozzy’s greyness is an immutable facet of himself with which he must come to terms to find peace; Baelia’s greyness is a physically and mentally agonizing symptom of something underlying to be cured; these two arcs are given equal narrative weight.

“My…my wings? But how?” Baelia says, wincing as the ever-present pain of the vestigial follicles on her back flares up. Those few feathers have always somehow been so heavy, and right now they feel as though they may bring her to her knees. “You don’t need her!” Luxinia shouts. She sounds almost right next to Baelia now. “And you don’t need those wings to be useful! You’re more than that!”

Note Luxinia’s choice of words: You don’t need THOSE wings. Previously, in Baelia and Luxinia’s little mini-arc, Baelia’s self-sacrificing tendencies spur her to save Luxinia from falling into a hole, instead falling into the hole herself. Luxinia sheepishly says “Baelia, I have wings” afterwards, acknowledging the disparity in physical ability between the two characters.

I find TVW’s depiction of physical disability to be strangely muddled, not helped because the story confirms that the Library Faerie, another specialty faerie NPC, canonically uses what appears to be a pair of forearm crutches to move about Faerieland. (I don’t mean to criticize the representation itself, but I think it’s a shame that the Library Faerie is ultimately superfluous to the actual themes of the story. She’s in the plot basically just to say “Hi, I’m the Library Faerie! Fyora wants to see you.” We could have just had Fyora summon the characters to where the plot was happening instead; you can literally get this exact random event while browsing the Neopets website.) A better narrative choice would be to, in addition to the Library Faerie, also make Luxinia - an actual major character in the plot and foil to Baelia - physically disabled. This could develop “faerie wings” a bit more in relation to “physical ability,” perhaps showing that wings are less of a physical characteristic and more of a rite of passage or a metaphor, not something explicitly tied to a faerie’s mobility level. We could also learn firsthand about different accessibility options within Faerieland; I think there is enormous story and worldbuilding potential here. As it stands, without TVW fully delineating its mess of disability/dysphoira/depression, Iridesia’s arc could mean anything from “you have the power to self-determine your identity” to “stop being depressed and in pain lol just be happier”.

TVW wrote themselves into a corner with Baelia/Iridesia, I think. Faerie society couldn’t be too negative towards Baelia ("I looked like everyone else, and they were kind to me, but..."), because they needed the reader to like the faeries and to support Faerieland's status quo, meaning that Baelia’s struggle had to be internal. But that ironically made faerie society worse, because the whole plot hinges on Fyora keeping this secret of the Grey Ritual from Baelia, e.g. hey Baelia, my trusted confidant and sometimes-hidden-tower-shopkeeper. Sorry I never told you that I could literally cure your chronic pain and dysphoria anytime I wanted to lol. The story even addresses this:

Baelia: The Grey Ritual? Fyora: It’s not how she makes it sound, I swear to you, Baelia. […] The Grey Ritual was meant to be a pilgrimage of sorts… One that faeries who felt a disconnect with their magic could voluntarily choose to undergo. Baelia: Why…why would you hide this? Drakara: Because, ‘choice’! ‘Choose’ is the important word for this ritual, but the almighty Queen came to believe herself above that, didn’t she?! Baelia: Faeries used to… choose to be turned grey? Fyora: When I took my predecessor’s throne, I forbade the use of the Grey Ritual as anything other than a means to help faeries find what called to them outside of their magical ties. The one time I went back on that… When I used it as a punishment– just like the former Queen… it changed everything.

I think when Baelia finds out this information, she ABSOLUTELY needs to be conflicted and be VERY tempted to wield the Acrimonious Paint Brush herself. In a better version of the story, Baelia already understands why Ozzy is doing what he’s doing but Luxinia still wants to stop him, so the characters have some tension.

Since Baelia/Iridesia is the only faerie of their kind, it would also help the story to see some other examples of faeries who successfully underwent the Grey Ritual, changed names/elements, and came to different conclusions about their individual senses of meaning and self-determination. (We get this with Drakara to an extent, but that’s a separate problem and raises more questions than it answers.) Again: Luxinia is right there and could have served this narrative purpose. But it doesn’t have to stop there! Show us more faeries with chronic pain! Show us more nonbinary and transgender faeries! Show us wingless faeries! Show us disabled faeries! Show us how these faeries with varying levels of ability navigate their world!

I hope I am conveying how bizarre I find TVW’s writing choices around dysphoria, disability, and mental illness. Despite actually liking Iridesia’s design and being excited that Neopets now has a canonically nonbinary faerie, something about the conclusion of their arc just does not sit right with me. I believe that in order to meaningfully comment on disability/chronic pain/etc, the story MUST say something definitive about the society in which the characters exist. I do not think TVW does this adequately. I would even argue that by giving Iridesia a new set of working wings and convenient new magical abilities that ultimately turn the tide of the plot’s final climactic battle, TVW does not ever meaningfully challenge Drakara’s words - “a faerie without wings is useless”.

DRAKARA, FYORA, AND FAERIELAND

Drakara exists to develop Baelia/Iridesia. I really wish this development wasn’t spelled out in some kind of high-stakes battle-therapy between the characters, but what we get is interesting nonetheless. Baelia decides to transform into Iridesia of their own accord; Drakara assumed the name “Jennumara” and became something of a faux-dark faerie under the direction of The Darkest Faerie:

[…] Iridesia can see the fear in their former tormenter’s eyes. It’s a familiar fear, one Iridesia had seen in their own reflection in the past as Baelia many times. Fear of life, fear of the world around them, fear of themselves. Perhaps Drakara was right. They did have something in common. Iridesia: How long did it take you? […] How many years did you spend trying to find your new name? […] Did you even try? Or did you lose yourself wallowing and brooding, like I did? […] Drakara: You don’t find a name, fool, you are given one. It simply took me some time to find someone worthy of granting me a new name. She and I may have started off on the wrong foot, but over time, I proved my value and earned the name Jennumara, as well as my place by her side. […] Iridesia: Was that place where you wanted to be, or where you felt you had to be to survive? […] Who are you? […] Am I speaking with Jennumara, or Drakara? Do you even know? […] You called yourself Jennumara when you took my wings, yet you’re going by Drakara now. Why is that? Why don’t you go by the name gifted to you? The one that transformed you? […] Even with your new name, you still can't move forward, can you? No matter what changes, you still see Drakara in the mirror. […] That must be why you still have feathers.* I understand more than most. I spent years wallowing, certain I would never find a new name. Then I met people who wanted to help me find it. Find me. We were set on the same road, but didn’t go down the same path. You never took the time to find out who you are for yourself. You let someone else decide for you.

*Apparently feathered faerie wings indicate that grey, colorless “larval state” (if you will) of a faerie lacking elemental magic. Fyora comments on Drakara’s wings too: “You aren’t a Dark Faerie, Drakara. You never were—not a real one. Just look at your wings!” which in context does fit with the established lore, but also on a surface level (and due to the aforementioned mess of the dysphoria/disability allegory) kind of comes off like Fyora being transphobic lol. Recall Fyora describing becoming queen like she was becoming more of herself. Fyora wanted to be queen, or identified with being the faerie queen, so her transformation is an affirming moment for her. But where does one’s self-determination end and external societal influence begin, particularly within a society that venerates some elements and professions, while denigrating others? Again, because the rules of the faeries’ magic are not fully established (nor should they be), TVW kind of unintentionally argues that some faeries are just inherently suited to be the queen, and some are suited to be subservient to the queen, and these conditions appear to be deeply-seated, nigh immutable. Just so, Drakara couldn’t help making weapons:

Drakara: My weapons are wonders! They are works of art for me and my allies to wield alone. Testimonies to our might! To [glancing at Fyora] our right to rule! […] Iridesia: Is that really why you started crafting? […] Are you sure it wasn’t to impress someone else? Maybe another faerie you looked up to…? […] What went wrong? Why did Fyora feel as though she had to take away your magic? […] Drakara: I could never stop! […] Haven’t you been listening? I was born to craft weapons! It was all I knew, all I was. You might as well ask a Shoryu to stop flying. Iridesia: Crafting weapons during a time of peace was truly all you could do? Surely there were other things you could have crafted — other needs that you could have fulfilled— Drakara: Craft something different? Nonsense! […] I craft divine weapons, masterpieces of magic, to bestow supreme power upon those I deem fit to rule. […] That is why I craft. Why I exist. That is my supreme purpose!

To me, this sentiment actually straddles a really interesting line between personal accountability and lack thereof. I think you could make some kind of rule of writing that whenever a character says “I had no choice!” they are ALWAYS lying. But Drakara’s admission doesn’t totally work for me because, in effect, this is the only real characterization that she gets. Maybe if we’d kept up with her consistently throughout the story (she wouldn’t need to overstay her welcome, either), this could have been a really powerful moment, the pinnacle of her arc. But I do think some elements would need to be rearranged. “I did it for Fyora” -> “I did it because crafting weapons is my supreme purpose” is an interesting choice of buildup because to me, the Fyora thing holds much more emotional weight; it’s something we can appreciate and understand, while the crafting thing is a bit more abstract and Drakara isn’t really developed enough for it to work. Nothing about faerie society or Drakara’s role in it makes me really buy what she’s saying here; we don’t know enough about her to really understand what she TRULY means when she says this stuff. I personally like to think that in some way, Drakara saw darkness in Fyora and hoped to use her weapons crafting skills to draw it out. Maybe THAT is what she wanted. (Again: getting a lot of hashimada vibes from this.)

Fyora: I’m sorry, Drakara. It is for your own good. Once you have found yourself… Found an identity outside of your… obsession, then you may return.

I like the way this kind of implies that Fyora still maybe wants the weapons, she just doesn’t want a zealot like Drakara building them. TVW correctly recognizes that after the revelation that Fyora abused the powers of the Grey Ritual, defeating Drakara cannot be the plot’s endgame anymore. We have to significantly change the status quo of Faerieland and establish serious accountability for the faerie in the position of “Queen”. But the plot ends before any of this can actually happen. Fyora vaguely abdicates the throne and we find out in the epilogue that Iridesia and Luxinia are working on assembling faeries for the new council, and….that’s it.

Sure, the Faerie Queen is more of a trope than a political position, but I definitely agree with some folks on the Neoboards arguing that it is mighty hypocritical for Fyora to be removed from power by the writers and not, say, Skarl. Faeries do exert a greater amount of control over the site than any other race or magical land, so I understand why TNT keeps plumbing the depths of faerie lore to attempt to generate site content. But Neopets appears to be stuck in this cycle of paying lip service to progressivism while simultaneously milking nostalgia and fantasy and the imagined past and wish fulfillment and faerie queens and monarchy good and capitalism good and advertising to children good and hell, even a little monarchy-critical and trans-accepting sentiment can be good in small doses because it’s good for our bottom line. Oh yeah that’s right.

TVW MORE LIKE P2W

Remember Luxinia, whose mini arc I enjoyed? You can find her in Neopets’ own mobile color matching game, Faerie Fragments. Download it now on your mobile device so we can show you ads on multiple platforms! And be sure to use Neopass to connect your accounts together so we can establish a profile on you to show you ads that better serve you!

In the two years between me quitting and returning to TVW, TNT introduced a variety of quality of life changes. Some of these changes appeared to legitimately streamline the plot experience and provide better transparency for its reward system. Some of these changes upset a lot of people, but I wasn’t there for those so I’ll leave the reader to research them independently. The change that was most apparent to me were a variety of new popups such as these:

Want to be able to earn more plot points? If you use a Chapter Meter Energy Booster, you can increase your plot point limit for the chapter by 1000! Visit the NC Mall to learn more!

Uh-oh! It looks like your Adblocker is jamming our communication signals. The Grundo engineers are having a hard time keeping the Virtupets Space Station online – and worse, Dr. Sloth is LOVING it. Subscribe to Premium for an Ads-free experience and more perks.

You can watch an ad to win another prize when you play again. Or you could subscribe to premium and enjoy an ad free experience.

Want to zap your pet some more? With Premium, you can use the lab ray again!

Tired of collecting all that void essence manually? Dr. Landelbrots Void Attractor Prototype can help with that! Check it out at the NC Mall to learn more.

Tired of actually playing the plot yourself? Tired of playing the game? Just pay your way through! The grind is the point; the tedium is the point. TVW serves the player constant reminders that you are wasting your time and that the plot is just you checking various boxes every day, thereby increasing the odds of you seeing an advertisement or, even better, deciding to directly exchange a portion of your real world paycheck for made-up virtual money. Come on, we’re Neopets. We know you. You grew up here; now you’re a busy adult. You’ve got no time, but you’ve got the means.

CONCLUSION

There is not really another website like Neopets. It is astounding to me that Neopets still exists at all, let alone the fact that TNT cared enough to tackle a story of this scale in 2024-2026. Despite the notable dip in quality of TVW compared to previous plots, it was pretty cool to witness a new era of Neopets where the fans who spent their childhoods on an earlier iteration of the site are now continuing the stories they grew up with. All these character conclusions for long-beloved NPCs in TVW kind of makes me wonder if this is Neopets’ last hurrah, like they wanted to give The Grey Faerie closure before the site closes for good (especially because they seem to be building up to something with The Darkest Faerie in TVW’s epilogue). TVW embodies the state of Neopets in 2026, I think, a site that must change to survive, yet if it changes too drastically, it will cease to exist. As you can probably tell from the word count of this essay, I find that conundrum really compelling. So, thank you, TNT, for writing a deliciously flawed story that says a lot less but also, perhaps inadvertently, a LOT more than it’s trying to say.

Also for the record, I believe Prigpants and Sworthy absolutely explored each other’s bodies.