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Post by downrightdude on Jun 5, 2020 23:41:13 GMT -5
We saved the human race!! *plots to overthrows the humans*
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Post by Liou on Jun 6, 2020 5:47:07 GMT -5
The editorial was the first thing I opened this morning, my hands were shaking. What a relief. I'm cool with the tone of the reply, there was even an apology. Thanks to everyone who found words to communicate for all of us. Sorry Geo's and June's articles didn't get in- I get the impression that the editor's current method is to accept entries for the ongoing week's issue, and sweep out all the rest instead of keeping a backlog? So resubmitting sounds all right. It was really cool to reminisce over NT history thanks to June's research.
(Now that we can relax, humans suddenly disappearing from Neopia could make for an April Fools theme, too, in the style of "what if all adults disappeared and kids had to manage" stories x3)
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Post by Geo 🇺🇦 🌻 on Jun 6, 2020 7:34:26 GMT -5
I will have to make some tweaks to some elements in my article to be less passive aggressive and more playful if we do the no humans thing next April. But hey, it sounds like a great idea.
But in Faerieland, if the adults disappear, the faeries step in and I would also love to explore that.
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Post by Huntress on Jun 6, 2020 14:14:38 GMT -5
Yay, successful revolution =D
I'd also be down with a humansplosion April Fools issue - I keep skipping these issues because I keep having zero ideas for them, but I could actually do something with this.
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Post by Killix on Jun 6, 2020 14:22:22 GMT -5
NTWF saves the day again!
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Post by Kat on Jun 6, 2020 19:46:02 GMT -5
LBR if I disappeared my pets would be like "ugh, Kat, not again"
I'd be down for suddenly owners are gone but I'd have to think of an idea. Or just go with my initial idea of me turning into a briefcase full of NT manuscripts.
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Jun 6, 2020 22:22:40 GMT -5
(Now that we can relax, humans suddenly disappearing from Neopia could make for an April Fools theme, too, in the style of "what if all adults disappeared and kids had to manage" stories x3) I like this idea and would be happy to participate xd
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Post by Duke Pikachu on Jun 6, 2020 23:52:24 GMT -5
*Realizing that for some reason his alerts got dis-activated for the last two months of so* Huh, well shouldn't be too much to catch-up on. Hey, what's this thread about... Oh, geez, how did I miss all this? But hey, glad to see you guys got it all handled! Not sure if this would have affected my articles. While I picture myself as being human and owning Neopets, I don't ever say that (and I rarely include my Neopets cause they don't want to get involved in my shenanigans). But yeah, this whole thing sounds ridiculous especially since we have long running comic series featuring humans all the time! *facepalm* But hey, even though I missed it, I'll be down for making this an April Fools theme!
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Post by Blueysicle on Jun 8, 2020 13:12:04 GMT -5
(Let me piggyback on the meme that Duke Pikachu posted, since that was basically my reaction after two weeks of absence. ) My apologies for vanishing so abruptly, since my laptop screen suddenly decided to go kaput two Wednesdays ago, meaning that I've been without my own computer since then. I certainly did miss out on a lot of drama, it seems. Either way, I'm sincerely glad that it got resolved! And Twillie , I truly hope that you can get your latest Blossoms arc back in the Times in the near future!
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Post by June Scarlet on Jun 11, 2020 20:28:42 GMT -5
First off:
That's the comic that was rejected for being against the rules, for having a human in it. It's been accepted now. It looks like everything's dying down, returning to normal...
Except it's not.
Secondly:
This whole debacle has me thinking a lot. About my place in both Neopia and Earth. For a couple weeks, the major hobby of me and my NT friends was threatened. And this isn't even the first, or worst time that's happened. This time only affected people who have humans in their pieces; there was a time where we were worried if there would be a Times at all.
I vaguely think about my goal of becoming an author a lot, but even more so recently. The Neopian Times has been a great training ground for me, but how will I know when it's time to move to the next stage?
Well, some might take recent events as a sign.
I don't plan to quit or anything. But maybe I should start considering stepping back, working on original works more.
Writing that article, "A History of Humans in the Times," it had been quite a while since I've written with such.. such passion. I was writing late into the night, and even waking up early to write more. Technically, yes, it was for the Times, but it was not my usual sort of Times project, it felt much more like writing a college paper, albeit one on a subject I was very familiar with already.
And it's like, if I could channel that sort of energy into original works, what could I do? I could do so much with that. I can write, I can draw, I can make comics. Now it's just a matter of what I want to create, not a question of if I can create it.
That's not to say I couldn't use more experience, or that I don't enjoy writing for the Times. Just that maybe it's time to start branching out. I've been making stuff for the Times for eight years now. I'm graduated and working part time. My dream is to be a real, paid author, to create books I can actually hold. I have ideas. I think I can do this. So what's stopping me, holding me back?
Should I really depend so heavily on an online newspaper whose acceptance of pieces is so fragile? Is this really what I want my livelihood to be? What I want to spend all my freetime on? Or should I start working on feeling out other publishing methods?
I know, a lot of rhetorical questions and musing. And I do actually still have some ideas for the NT that I'm excited for. And I'm getting very close to having 100 submissions, which I'm also excited for. But I think I'll start making a conscious to work on original stuff as well.
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Post by Kat on Jun 11, 2020 21:46:02 GMT -5
I get what you mean, June. If I had not found the Neopian Times in high school, I doubt I would have gotten into writing at all. The NT was what helped me become a (better) school paper reporter and editor, and I partly owe it to the NT for giving me opportunities to join campus journalism competitions, even going as far as representing my region in a national tilt. I also continued to write well into college when I was also part of our anime organization's documentations committee and then part of our college publication, and even won a RL storytelling competition.
When I left Neopets and the NTWF for years (only to return briefly to chuck a couple of short stories before sinking back into lawyerbot school), I was able to write some original stuff, and come up with original ideas I want to put on paper and hopefully get published. I did manage to get published a few times - in a newspaper and in a short story anthology, and I became a semi-regular for a sorority's literary folio despite not being a member of said sorority - but I still dream of writing a novel in between the horrors of the legal profession. But the thing was, everything I wrote was short. Fanfic one-shots. Short stories. What I had failed to practice while I was gone was writing longer pieces in preparation for writing a full blown novel.
The Neopian Times, once again, would be my training ground to relearn how to write long stories, especially because when I sat down to write A Hero's Journey...with a Princess, I found myself pouring so much heart and soul into something that was 66 pages long and fundamentally ridiculous but would hopefully have something profound hidden beneath it. I started to get more ideas on how to expand the universe and lore I worked on in college, which I believed would help me figure out how to build my original world.
But coming back to the Times as it is now, with this 12-part series getting TMGE'd twice, I'm becoming pessimistic. I'm starting to wonder if I should just take this series, make it more realistic (and less Neo-friendly) and simply post it elsewhere like on Tumblr or AO3. Or heck, even on the NTWF. Still, I enjoyed the challenge of making this monster series Neo-friendly. I missed the feeling of getting published on the NT. I want to pick up from where I left off in my NT goals and finally write down the ideas that are punching me in the face.
I COULD bring this same energy to my original novel but 1) I don't feel confident enough yet and I sorely lacked the practice I missed out on years ago and 2) there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to come back to something you greatly enjoyed writing as a sprout. Besides, I do enjoy what I'm doing right now. Sometimes I ask myself why I'm still exerting this much effort on a story for an online publication that has been downsized while I was gone, but the answer is simple: I do it for myself. I do it to improve. I do it because I enjoy pouring my heart and soul into characters I have grown to love very much, be they original Neopets characters or the canon ones I've written so extensively about that sometimes they also feel like my own.
Maybe these days the NT is far less about series than it used to be. I get that series aren't as popular as the other pieces that are published. But again, I don't do it for the popularity or the readership, I do it because I want to. (And if the problem is series length, well, I've had a 3-parter also TMGE'd, and other short stories and an article. It would also be a simple matter to cut down the length of accepted series, tbh, and eliminate the upper limit of 12 parts.)
And it frustrates me when I feel like I have to write to the editorial and straight up ask them how many series they usually take into an issue nowadays just so I don't have to keep chucking the series I worked so hard on at them until I get something else besides a TMGE.
Besides, it makes no sense to give me a TMGE when the new series section is going to remain blank for a few issues.
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Post by Bianca <3 on Jun 12, 2020 22:58:57 GMT -5
Jumping in a little late to this conversation (just read the whole thread and wow! Can't believe what was happening). That said, I wanted to chime in with June and Kat.
I really took a step back from writing for the NT back around the time everyone was laid off and my account was hacked. I was upset by all the lay-offs, and the account hacking was icing on the cake. I wrote so many emails to TNT/support trying to get my account back, and for the life of me, I could not figure out my original neo email. No matter what proof I sent them that this was in fact my account, it didn't matter if I didn't have the original email.
I was so upset and frustrated that I left the site for a while. Even when I did manage to guess the email correctly and got my account back, I stayed away. The whole ordeal forced me to really focus on writings that were non-neo-related, because I felt like neo wasn't an option for me anymore.
While I'm glad I focused on original works (I've written a novel and a novella since then, posted them on Wattpad, and have had some success there), I think it's somewhat sad that issues like this can really force people away from the site. I've been trying to brainstorm a new series to write for neo (it'd be my first thing in the Times in about four years), but I don't know. Sometimes I'm not sure it's worth it...
Just my two cents from observing all of this from afar.
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