Post by Miu on May 8, 2017 9:54:32 GMT -5
Hello everyone! 
Recently, I've submitted a story, and today I've received a Neomail from TNT stating that "There were certain elements of your story that were found to be inconsistent with what users are allowed to post on the Neopets site."
It is my second time submitting the story, but I just can't get what is the reason for this rejection. The first time has been because of TMGE, but I think it's just a polite way of rejecting?
A (not updated version) story has been posted on fanfiction net after my first rejection, but one of my neofriends encouraged me to try again, and offered to help me beta, so the contents of the story have been published in both of out petpage.
However, I suspect that it is mainly due to some elements in the story, which includes
1. Implied 'real world'
2. Implied character death
3. Is the theme too dark?
4. Maybe my story doesn't follow 'canon' Neopets, but as far as I know, I've published 2 stories that are not exactly canon either?
5. I'm... at a lost here orz
If there is anyone willing to read through my story and point out to me what could be the reason I'd be extremely grateful!
Thank you for taking time to read this post
Recently, I've submitted a story, and today I've received a Neomail from TNT stating that "There were certain elements of your story that were found to be inconsistent with what users are allowed to post on the Neopets site."
Dear miu,
There were certain elements of your story that were found to be inconsistent with what users are allowed to post on the Neopets site. Please visit the Terms and Conditions page to better understand what is not allowed.
www.neopets.com/terms.phtml
Yours Sincerely,
The Neopets Team
www.neopets.com
There were certain elements of your story that were found to be inconsistent with what users are allowed to post on the Neopets site. Please visit the Terms and Conditions page to better understand what is not allowed.
www.neopets.com/terms.phtml
Yours Sincerely,
The Neopets Team
www.neopets.com
It is my second time submitting the story, but I just can't get what is the reason for this rejection. The first time has been because of TMGE, but I think it's just a polite way of rejecting?
A (not updated version) story has been posted on fanfiction net after my first rejection, but one of my neofriends encouraged me to try again, and offered to help me beta, so the contents of the story have been published in both of out petpage.
However, I suspect that it is mainly due to some elements in the story, which includes
1. Implied 'real world'
2. Implied character death
3. Is the theme too dark?
4. Maybe my story doesn't follow 'canon' Neopets, but as far as I know, I've published 2 stories that are not exactly canon either?
5. I'm... at a lost here orz
If there is anyone willing to read through my story and point out to me what could be the reason I'd be extremely grateful!
Thank you for taking time to read this post
Of Hope and Happiness
.
.
.
For a long time, heshe—they drift, from conscious to unconscious, from existing to not.
Then, there is a pressure, squeezing and crushing them, as if compressing and forcing them through a tube all-too-small.
Ah, they think, suddenly aware of thoughts and feelings, it is that time again.
The pressure starts to relax, but they are not fooled. They have been through this process too many times to be. The pain comes a beat after, shredding their insides and piercing their skin like a thousand hot needles.
Pain, a sign that they must be alive.
They do not scream, for they are no longer new to this, having been constructed and reconstructed so many times they have lost count. (This is a lie, they remember a total of 17 times, and they wonder how many more before they can finally rest.)
As the pain subdues into a relatively tolerable throbbing, they become a he, and he finally exists.
He is a blue Pteri this time.
"Hey there."
The blue Pteri opens his eyes to a young human teen. (Human, of course it is a human; it has always been a human.)
I'm Ann," she introduces shyly, hands clenching the hem of her shirt, twisting the fabric into tiny wrinkles. "Do you... have a name?"
Yes, he wants to say. I have more than a dozen of them.
No," he says instead, because he is supposed to have none.
The girl beams, eyes lighting up in excitement. "You'll be BlueBird then, Blue for short."
The newly minted BlueBird snorts mentally. While he has never seen what a 'bird' is, he knows that a 'bird' is very similar in appearance to a Pteri. And he has just been named based on his looks. The only thing that could be worse would be naming him 'Pteri', followed by a bunch of nonsensical numbers. He would know. He has been there.
But he has a role to play now—no owner likes a jaded pet—so he gives his wings a little flap, and chirps, "what a great name, I love it!"
The response he gets is another bright smile. Inwardly, he thinks it is sickening.
***
He doesn't like young owners, humans that are considered 'children' by their own standards.
It is not that they lack the experience of handling Neopets, though he remembers the hunger pangs he felt when some of his ex-owners had forgotten to feed him, the painful pull of his pelt because they simply did not understand the concept of pain or empathy. No, it is not that. Beyond all these, what displeases him most is that they lack the responsibility. They would play with him, groom him with gentle tugs and feed him delicious food, but that… that would only last for anything between a day or two to less than a year, before they would eventually get bored of him, or get bored of taking care of him, or get bored of just having a Neopet in general.
And when that happened, he would be alone all over again, and he would—
(… He doesn't want to think about it.)
But then again, Blue doesn't like owners who are adults. Adults are the worst. They always have something that they want to do, and they don't respect his feelings at all. Blue recalls that one of his past owners wanted him to get listed in the Gourmet Club Hall of Fame, and that had been a torturous cycle of eating and forced-eating until his owner had gotten bored and left.
That was one of the only times he almost wept in joy when his owner abandoned him.
Currently, Blue's new owner is both older and younger than his past owners, and he absently muses about how she will treat him.
***
Blue's new tastebuds absolutely detest anything sweet, and crave desperately for Gross Food, which is terrible because it deviates from the norm, but at least it is nothing he cannot hide from his new owner.
(He is supposed to be a normal blue Pteri, and his desire for Gross Food would certainly weird his new owner out. He might not like Ann very much—in the way that he did not like his past owners very much—but an owner is still an owner, and he doesn't want to be abandoned anytime soon.)
Ann is a very thoughtful and caring owner, however. Had Blue been a normal Neopet, he might have even liked her a little, because she never ever feeds him things that are rotten or look funny. She deems Gross Food as, well, gross, and feeds him none of it.
Instead, she offers him slushies and smoothies and chocolates, the reputed 'popular food', food considered well-liked by the majority of the Neopian population. Food which Blue has a strong dislike for.
(Blue considers, once, if he should complain about the food or reject it entirely, but no Neopet has ever done that, not unless it is a Gross Food, and he very carefully tucks the thought away.
He doesn't want to be passed off as an anomaly.
Pets with abnormalities are not pets for very long.)
***
Blue thinks that Ann is too dumb.
She does not invest in the stock market, does not restock, does not sign Blue up for the Battledome (which Blue is thankful for, even if he does not voice it), does not bet on Food Clubs or anything whatsoever, despite all of them being the easiest sources of neopoints and rewards.
("Why don't you, owner?" Blue enquires, voice a sing-song to conceal the mocking underneath. "Do you not want to learn how to do it?"
She laughs, giggling like a frivolous damsel.
"Nah, I'll skip those," she answers, "they're boring anyway. Might as well spend more time on interesting things, like— Hey, that looks fun! Why don't we try a round together?")
Ann plays games, rather, from Meerca Chase to Cliffhanger to Roodoku. She is not very good at action games, Blue realises; almost all her scores are even lower than owners younger than her. However, she is unbeatable when it comes to puzzles and strategies, and Blue has never defeated her in a game of Godori.
Ann does not care much about neopoints, but she saves consistently whenever she can. When Blue asks her where she is going to spend all that money, she only smiles mysteriously and says, "you'll know one day" before tugging on his wings to urge him along to the Wheel of Excitement.
Yes, Blue decides, Ann is far too dumb, unlike owners who take advantage of every chance to earn more neopoints, who can easily profit hundreds of thousands in the span of a week.
***
Ann finds great joy in exploring the world of Neopia, taking in the sights of different lands and talking to the natives whenever possible.
Like an overly excited Gelert pup, Blue notes, with an almost fond exasperation. It's funny how she acts so childish when she is older than them.
Yet, Blue does not protest even when he is being dragged along.
And if the edges of his beak tug up, he does not notice.
***
Sometimes, Blue watches Ann furrows her brows in determined concentration over a game of cards, and thinks, fluttering thoughts that disappear as soon as they surface, that maybe she is rather tolerable, or even at a satisfactory level when compared to some of his past owners, after all.
***
"Ann," he says one day. "Are you saving those neopoints for a paint brush?"
She laughs, her laughter like bells chiming in the wind. "Of course, not! If I do that, you wouldn't be Blue anymore, would you?"
For a brief moment, Blue wonders about the significance of the colour, before dropping it in favour of a game of Godori with his owner.
***
Days turn into weeks, and weeks bleed into months.
But Ann's visits, they've become…
Less
And
Less
Fre-
quent.
***
It starts with the small stuff, like how Ann stops spinning Wheels and starts to pour more time into more profitable games. Like how before she would take the time to dress the Fashion Fever Neopets earnestly, now she ends the game almost immediately after it starts.
One day, she checks the bank account and looks as if she heaves a sigh of relief.
That day, is the last day Blue ever sees her.
***
Their Neohome is demolished, and a new one built in place of theirs.
He would have bristled, or even felt a tad bit forlorn, but he is too preoccupied with the gnawing hunger that stabs at his stomach.
***
Sometimes, as Blue peeks through the old, ratty blanket given to every abandoned Neopet, he thinks that the pink Uni has taken the easier way. Not necessarily an easy way out, but she is considered much, much luckier than most Neopets.
She has snagged the job of being the receptionist of the Pound, a permanent job until the end of Neopia, most likely, and she will remain there as so, a nameless pink Uni smiling and talking mechanically to anyone who steps in through the door.
He hates her, just a little, for escaping the fate that thousands of millions of Neopets have to go through.
***
Blue dreams, and he remembers, memories of his time spent with Ann flickering in his mind.
(It has been a day where the sun shines just right for a nice afternoon nap under the shade of a tree, and there are no plans for the day, so the two of them decide to simply sit down and enjoy the cool breeze as it weaves playfully through them.
Hey, Blue," she has said, her familiar voice an echo that claws at his heart. "Do you know why I named you BlueBird?"
Blue has known that a Pteri looks similar to a 'bird', has known of Ann's insistence of not getting him painted, but he could not fathom out the actual reason behind his name, so he shakes his head, tousling his feathers, "Why, Ann?"
Ann grins at him with so much warmth that Blue blinks to make sure she is indeed looking at him, but that moment is gone when Ann leans back to gaze at the distance. "In my world, birds are the only animals that can ever soar in the sky; they're the freest creature ever," she explains, with just a faint touch of longing, "and among them, the bluebird is the most special, because it symbolises—")
Blue wakes up, tasting bitter in his beak, and thinks that he could not loathe his name enough.
***
Blue is a blue Pteri, with no special feature and low Battledome stats.
Is it any wonder that no one wants to adopt him?
***
Sometimes, Blue hates and hates, resentment and anger bubbling right under his skin. Why did she force me into her life? he thinks, and waltz right out of it as if she doesn't care? Not a single word, not a single goodbye.
What right does she have over me? Why am I supposed to be her Neopet?
He catches a glimpse of himself in the reflection of a window. The next moment, the window breaks into spiderweb cracks, and his feathers stain red.
How can she leave me with those words? Name me so and abandon me? It must have all been a joke to her, to tear me apart with her poisonous words.
Blue screeches with rage, wings beating furiously, tail swinging, breaking any object caught in the vicinity. Before long, a Defender comes to subdue him, pressing down on him until he calms into a helpless misery.
***
(But you know, there is only a thin line between love and hate, and the horrible, horrible truth is that in order to hate someone—to truly, honestly hate someone… you'll have to love them first.
And Blue did.)
***
Time eats away at his emotions, until he is only an empty shell once more. When his body becomes too weak and mind too unstable, he simply fades away without a sound, his existence no longer notable to anyone in Neopia.
He closes his eyes for the final time, and that particular memory of Ann resurfaces. He huffs a weak, mocking laugh, finding it all too ironic.
***
("—hope and happiness." And Ann has looked at him, regarded him with such conviction as if he has all the answers in the world.
Blue grins back, the edges of his eyes crinkling.
He thinks that maybe he would feel some sense of attachment or affection for his given name this time.)
***
He doesn't.
***
And for a long time, he—they drift, from conscious to unconscious, from existing to not.
***
(In another world, a monitor beeps weak.
A young teen lies on a white, sanitised bed, comforted by the thought that she has managed to make it before her time ran out.
But what is the saying again, about road to hell and good but misinformed intentions? And how would a human even learn of the inner workings of Neopia?)
***
(In another world, a monitor beeps flatline.)
.
.
.
The End
(Beta’d by the lovely dewdropzz, whom I owe many thanks to!)
Author’s Note: Explanation for the last part: Ann tries to save up enough neopoints for Blue to live comfortably for the rest of his life, but of course—that is not how Neopia works… Lots of things here are quite implicit, so feel free to neomail me to review, critic, or clarify any more doubts you have for this story!
.
.
.
For a long time, heshe—they drift, from conscious to unconscious, from existing to not.
Then, there is a pressure, squeezing and crushing them, as if compressing and forcing them through a tube all-too-small.
Ah, they think, suddenly aware of thoughts and feelings, it is that time again.
The pressure starts to relax, but they are not fooled. They have been through this process too many times to be. The pain comes a beat after, shredding their insides and piercing their skin like a thousand hot needles.
Pain, a sign that they must be alive.
They do not scream, for they are no longer new to this, having been constructed and reconstructed so many times they have lost count. (This is a lie, they remember a total of 17 times, and they wonder how many more before they can finally rest.)
As the pain subdues into a relatively tolerable throbbing, they become a he, and he finally exists.
He is a blue Pteri this time.
"Hey there."
The blue Pteri opens his eyes to a young human teen. (Human, of course it is a human; it has always been a human.)
I'm Ann," she introduces shyly, hands clenching the hem of her shirt, twisting the fabric into tiny wrinkles. "Do you... have a name?"
Yes, he wants to say. I have more than a dozen of them.
No," he says instead, because he is supposed to have none.
The girl beams, eyes lighting up in excitement. "You'll be BlueBird then, Blue for short."
The newly minted BlueBird snorts mentally. While he has never seen what a 'bird' is, he knows that a 'bird' is very similar in appearance to a Pteri. And he has just been named based on his looks. The only thing that could be worse would be naming him 'Pteri', followed by a bunch of nonsensical numbers. He would know. He has been there.
But he has a role to play now—no owner likes a jaded pet—so he gives his wings a little flap, and chirps, "what a great name, I love it!"
The response he gets is another bright smile. Inwardly, he thinks it is sickening.
***
He doesn't like young owners, humans that are considered 'children' by their own standards.
It is not that they lack the experience of handling Neopets, though he remembers the hunger pangs he felt when some of his ex-owners had forgotten to feed him, the painful pull of his pelt because they simply did not understand the concept of pain or empathy. No, it is not that. Beyond all these, what displeases him most is that they lack the responsibility. They would play with him, groom him with gentle tugs and feed him delicious food, but that… that would only last for anything between a day or two to less than a year, before they would eventually get bored of him, or get bored of taking care of him, or get bored of just having a Neopet in general.
And when that happened, he would be alone all over again, and he would—
(… He doesn't want to think about it.)
But then again, Blue doesn't like owners who are adults. Adults are the worst. They always have something that they want to do, and they don't respect his feelings at all. Blue recalls that one of his past owners wanted him to get listed in the Gourmet Club Hall of Fame, and that had been a torturous cycle of eating and forced-eating until his owner had gotten bored and left.
That was one of the only times he almost wept in joy when his owner abandoned him.
Currently, Blue's new owner is both older and younger than his past owners, and he absently muses about how she will treat him.
***
Blue's new tastebuds absolutely detest anything sweet, and crave desperately for Gross Food, which is terrible because it deviates from the norm, but at least it is nothing he cannot hide from his new owner.
(He is supposed to be a normal blue Pteri, and his desire for Gross Food would certainly weird his new owner out. He might not like Ann very much—in the way that he did not like his past owners very much—but an owner is still an owner, and he doesn't want to be abandoned anytime soon.)
Ann is a very thoughtful and caring owner, however. Had Blue been a normal Neopet, he might have even liked her a little, because she never ever feeds him things that are rotten or look funny. She deems Gross Food as, well, gross, and feeds him none of it.
Instead, she offers him slushies and smoothies and chocolates, the reputed 'popular food', food considered well-liked by the majority of the Neopian population. Food which Blue has a strong dislike for.
(Blue considers, once, if he should complain about the food or reject it entirely, but no Neopet has ever done that, not unless it is a Gross Food, and he very carefully tucks the thought away.
He doesn't want to be passed off as an anomaly.
Pets with abnormalities are not pets for very long.)
***
Blue thinks that Ann is too dumb.
She does not invest in the stock market, does not restock, does not sign Blue up for the Battledome (which Blue is thankful for, even if he does not voice it), does not bet on Food Clubs or anything whatsoever, despite all of them being the easiest sources of neopoints and rewards.
("Why don't you, owner?" Blue enquires, voice a sing-song to conceal the mocking underneath. "Do you not want to learn how to do it?"
She laughs, giggling like a frivolous damsel.
"Nah, I'll skip those," she answers, "they're boring anyway. Might as well spend more time on interesting things, like— Hey, that looks fun! Why don't we try a round together?")
Ann plays games, rather, from Meerca Chase to Cliffhanger to Roodoku. She is not very good at action games, Blue realises; almost all her scores are even lower than owners younger than her. However, she is unbeatable when it comes to puzzles and strategies, and Blue has never defeated her in a game of Godori.
Ann does not care much about neopoints, but she saves consistently whenever she can. When Blue asks her where she is going to spend all that money, she only smiles mysteriously and says, "you'll know one day" before tugging on his wings to urge him along to the Wheel of Excitement.
Yes, Blue decides, Ann is far too dumb, unlike owners who take advantage of every chance to earn more neopoints, who can easily profit hundreds of thousands in the span of a week.
***
Ann finds great joy in exploring the world of Neopia, taking in the sights of different lands and talking to the natives whenever possible.
Like an overly excited Gelert pup, Blue notes, with an almost fond exasperation. It's funny how she acts so childish when she is older than them.
Yet, Blue does not protest even when he is being dragged along.
And if the edges of his beak tug up, he does not notice.
***
Sometimes, Blue watches Ann furrows her brows in determined concentration over a game of cards, and thinks, fluttering thoughts that disappear as soon as they surface, that maybe she is rather tolerable, or even at a satisfactory level when compared to some of his past owners, after all.
***
"Ann," he says one day. "Are you saving those neopoints for a paint brush?"
She laughs, her laughter like bells chiming in the wind. "Of course, not! If I do that, you wouldn't be Blue anymore, would you?"
For a brief moment, Blue wonders about the significance of the colour, before dropping it in favour of a game of Godori with his owner.
***
Days turn into weeks, and weeks bleed into months.
But Ann's visits, they've become…
Less
And
Less
Fre-
quent.
***
It starts with the small stuff, like how Ann stops spinning Wheels and starts to pour more time into more profitable games. Like how before she would take the time to dress the Fashion Fever Neopets earnestly, now she ends the game almost immediately after it starts.
One day, she checks the bank account and looks as if she heaves a sigh of relief.
That day, is the last day Blue ever sees her.
***
Their Neohome is demolished, and a new one built in place of theirs.
He would have bristled, or even felt a tad bit forlorn, but he is too preoccupied with the gnawing hunger that stabs at his stomach.
***
Sometimes, as Blue peeks through the old, ratty blanket given to every abandoned Neopet, he thinks that the pink Uni has taken the easier way. Not necessarily an easy way out, but she is considered much, much luckier than most Neopets.
She has snagged the job of being the receptionist of the Pound, a permanent job until the end of Neopia, most likely, and she will remain there as so, a nameless pink Uni smiling and talking mechanically to anyone who steps in through the door.
He hates her, just a little, for escaping the fate that thousands of millions of Neopets have to go through.
***
Blue dreams, and he remembers, memories of his time spent with Ann flickering in his mind.
(It has been a day where the sun shines just right for a nice afternoon nap under the shade of a tree, and there are no plans for the day, so the two of them decide to simply sit down and enjoy the cool breeze as it weaves playfully through them.
Hey, Blue," she has said, her familiar voice an echo that claws at his heart. "Do you know why I named you BlueBird?"
Blue has known that a Pteri looks similar to a 'bird', has known of Ann's insistence of not getting him painted, but he could not fathom out the actual reason behind his name, so he shakes his head, tousling his feathers, "Why, Ann?"
Ann grins at him with so much warmth that Blue blinks to make sure she is indeed looking at him, but that moment is gone when Ann leans back to gaze at the distance. "In my world, birds are the only animals that can ever soar in the sky; they're the freest creature ever," she explains, with just a faint touch of longing, "and among them, the bluebird is the most special, because it symbolises—")
Blue wakes up, tasting bitter in his beak, and thinks that he could not loathe his name enough.
***
Blue is a blue Pteri, with no special feature and low Battledome stats.
Is it any wonder that no one wants to adopt him?
***
Sometimes, Blue hates and hates, resentment and anger bubbling right under his skin. Why did she force me into her life? he thinks, and waltz right out of it as if she doesn't care? Not a single word, not a single goodbye.
What right does she have over me? Why am I supposed to be her Neopet?
He catches a glimpse of himself in the reflection of a window. The next moment, the window breaks into spiderweb cracks, and his feathers stain red.
How can she leave me with those words? Name me so and abandon me? It must have all been a joke to her, to tear me apart with her poisonous words.
Blue screeches with rage, wings beating furiously, tail swinging, breaking any object caught in the vicinity. Before long, a Defender comes to subdue him, pressing down on him until he calms into a helpless misery.
***
(But you know, there is only a thin line between love and hate, and the horrible, horrible truth is that in order to hate someone—to truly, honestly hate someone… you'll have to love them first.
And Blue did.)
***
Time eats away at his emotions, until he is only an empty shell once more. When his body becomes too weak and mind too unstable, he simply fades away without a sound, his existence no longer notable to anyone in Neopia.
He closes his eyes for the final time, and that particular memory of Ann resurfaces. He huffs a weak, mocking laugh, finding it all too ironic.
***
("—hope and happiness." And Ann has looked at him, regarded him with such conviction as if he has all the answers in the world.
Blue grins back, the edges of his eyes crinkling.
He thinks that maybe he would feel some sense of attachment or affection for his given name this time.)
***
He doesn't.
***
And for a long time, he—they drift, from conscious to unconscious, from existing to not.
***
(In another world, a monitor beeps weak.
A young teen lies on a white, sanitised bed, comforted by the thought that she has managed to make it before her time ran out.
But what is the saying again, about road to hell and good but misinformed intentions? And how would a human even learn of the inner workings of Neopia?)
***
(In another world, a monitor beeps flatline.)
.
.
.
The End
(Beta’d by the lovely dewdropzz, whom I owe many thanks to!)
Author’s Note: Explanation for the last part: Ann tries to save up enough neopoints for Blue to live comfortably for the rest of his life, but of course—that is not how Neopia works… Lots of things here are quite implicit, so feel free to neomail me to review, critic, or clarify any more doubts you have for this story!
