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Post by June Scarlet on Jan 4, 2024 13:48:15 GMT -5
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Post by Duke Pikachu on Jan 4, 2024 16:04:37 GMT -5
Going for Usuki/Quiguki, more comedic potential and I think we have a general idea of the premise.
Lands Reversed I feel needs some more time to plan what it's about.
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Post by June Scarlet on Jan 5, 2024 10:54:33 GMT -5
I'm considering switching my vote to land swap. I'm seeing a lot more potential story ideas being discussed for that one. I love the idea of Usuki being expanded to other species besides Quiggles, but I don't see as many ideas stemming from it.
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Jan 5, 2024 14:33:46 GMT -5
I also feel more inspired by Lands Reversed.  It just strikes me as funnier - imagine Neopia Central being the Periphery, for example, and maybe Mystery Island being the mainland instead. |
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Post by Duke Pikachu on Jan 5, 2024 19:07:12 GMT -5
Looks like Land Reverse took the lead. In that case, I think we do need to more discuss what the plan is.
If we want to have cohesion between articles and stories, we should have an all-agreed upon master list of how the lands have been "reversed". And that just doesn't just mean the land, we have to also take into account the citizens and notable characters in/from those lands: Do they also change or are do they just wake up one day to find their homeland has completed shifted under them? This is important as some lands are more culture-based than geographic-based (Altador, Brightvale, Meridell, Darigan Citadel, Neopia Central, Roo Island, etc.), whether their citizens are affected or not will change how the land is reversed.
For example, Altador.
Altador is a Greco-Roman city ruled by a council of fair & just leaders who have worked with its citizens to make it into an explementary "golden" city; it notably uses a lot of sun symbols and imagery.
* If the citizens of the land are affected by the change, we can shift Altador to being a tall-walled fortress which is ruled by a single dictator who rules an authoritarian state. The ruler doesn't even need to be alt Altador, it could be an alt Darkest Faerie, or maybe an alt Torakor. I think after choosing a dictator it would then be fine to let everyone decide what they think this Tyrannical Altador would be like and notable character's roles within it.
* If the citizens of the land aren't affected by the change, obviously Altador wouldn't really structurally change. Instead I would suggest something wacky like Altador get teleported to the dark side of Kreludor; changing from the "city of the sun" to the "city on the moon".
I'm more for the latter idea as it keeps this concept from just becoming a "Reverse Neopia", there are still some things which remain the same and it's only the environment that has undergone change (thus creating some chaos for the citizens of the land).
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Jan 5, 2024 19:35:22 GMT -5
I like the idea of Altador suddenly turning into a city on the dark side of the moon. xD It would still be the democratic, council-ruled city it used to be.... at least, at the beginning. >8) The sudden change in geography has cultural implications but those would be secondary, or would take time to manifest.
So to expand on my vision of Neopia Central turning into The Periphery: it used to be this iconic place with a lot of landmark tourist attractions, like the burger-shaped Food Shop, the book-shaped Book Shop, the Rainbow Pool, Wishing Well, Money Tree and so on. But then all of a sudden it turns into a random place in the middle of nowhere, not connected to any major travel routes, probably on the edge of a mountain or something - somewhere super remote. The citizens then have to deal with the fact they are now Peripheral and no longer have a booming tourism industry.
I guess one question to think about is: How long is this Reversal of the lands? Does the chaos just last for a day?
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Post by Lex on Jan 5, 2024 21:44:40 GMT -5
My opinion remains the same from the last one: I do not personally want this to be super granular and I would prefer creative freedom. I'm fine with agreeing on what lands are swapped, if we want to go that route, but I really don't want to have to approach this as "it's going to be this one specific way for everyone".
Swapping lands was one of the ideas I originally liked, and seeing it take a large lead right off the bat motivated me to start sketching out some ideas and I'm gonna be honest... I like my idea and would prefer not to pivot into something else. I also do not want to force others to adhere to what I'm doing if they don't want to.
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Post by Duke Pikachu on Jan 5, 2024 23:25:05 GMT -5
My opinion remains the same from the last one: I do not personally want this to be super granular and I would prefer creative freedom. I'm fine with agreeing on what lands are swapped, if we want to go that route, but I really don't want to have to approach this as "it's going to be this one specific way for everyone". Swapping lands was one of the ideas I originally liked, and seeing it take a large lead right off the bat motivated me to start sketching out some ideas and I'm gonna be honest... I like my idea and would prefer not to pivot into something else. I also do not want to force others to adhere to what I'm doing if they don't want to. Honestly this is probably the best way to do it, its simple and easy enough to pick out land opposites:
Altador | Kreludor
Brightvale | Haunted Woods
Darigan Citadel | Meridell
Faerieland | Moltara
Kiko Lake | Roo Island
Krawk Island | Shenkuu
Lutari Island | Neopia Central
Maraqua | The Lost Desert
Mystery Island | Terror Mountain
Tyrannia | Virtupets Space Station
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Post by Lex on Jan 6, 2024 9:15:37 GMT -5
Honestly this is probably the best way to do it, its simple and easy enough to pick out land opposites:
Altador | Kreludor
Brightvale | Haunted Woods
Darigan Citadel | Meridell
Faerieland | Moltara
Kiko Lake | Roo Island
Krawk Island | Shenkuu
Lutari Island | Neopia Central
Maraqua | The Lost Desert
Mystery Island | Terror Mountain
Tyrannia | Virtupets Space Station
These are agreeable to me. My specific interest is in a Darigan / Meridell swap, so hopefully others will share if they had specific swaps in mind they wanted to do. |
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Post by Duke Pikachu on Jan 6, 2024 13:42:53 GMT -5
These are agreeable to me. My specific interest is in a Darigan / Meridell swap, so hopefully others will share if they had specific swaps in mind they wanted to do. One more thing, as I brought up, while we can have some lands simply transform, others it may be simpler to have their "main" cities swap places. The former is preferred over the latter, but for some (at least the ones I made) it makes sense to do just swaps: Land Reversal:Brightvale | Haunted Woods Darigan Citadel | Meridell Krawk Island | Shenkuu Lutari Island | Neopia Central Mystery Island | Terror Mountain Tyrannia | Virtupets Space Station Land Swapping:Altador | Kreludor Faerieland | Moltara Kiko Lake | Roo Island Maraqua | The Lost Desert |
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Jan 6, 2024 13:55:56 GMT -5
Honestly this is probably the best way to do it, its simple and easy enough to pick out land opposites:
Altador | Kreludor
Brightvale | Haunted Woods
Darigan Citadel | Meridell
Faerieland | Moltara
Kiko Lake | Roo Island
Krawk Island | Shenkuu
Lutari Island | Neopia Central
Maraqua | The Lost Desert
Mystery Island | Terror Mountain
Tyrannia | Virtupets Space Station
This works for me as well. A few of my stories have been set in Neopia Central which I portrayed as a bustling hub. It would be interesting to consider a sudden reversal where Neopia Central is not the hub anymore. Do we need any cohesion re: the time-length of the reversal and the cause of the reversal or should we leave that open to interpretation? i.e. Would it matter if I wrote about a one-day reversal while someone else wrote about a much longer reversal? And if I portrayed the reversal as a sort of collective dream, while someone else portrayed it as an actual thing that happened because of faerie magic etc.? |
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Post by Duke Pikachu on Jan 6, 2024 16:49:42 GMT -5
Do we need any cohesion re: the time-length of the reversal and the cause of the reversal or should we leave that open to interpretation? i.e. Would it matter if I wrote about a one-day reversal while someone else wrote about a much longer reversal? And if I portrayed the reversal as a sort of collective dream, while someone else portrayed it as an actual thing that happened because of faerie magic etc.? In my opinion, the more ambiguous the better: Time-Length: I think we should treat this as happening "now" and we don't know when or if it's going to be undone. This is an April Fools joke, and in the spirit of an April Fool's joke you want to treat it as if it's something the reader could go and witness. If it had already happened, well, that's less exciting and, in the off chance we did trick any reader who may not realize today's date, may think they missed a major event which would be upsetting. The only time "issue" may be when it "started". I'm going to guess the April Fools issue this year will be March 29, so I would say for the "start" of it, to make "believable" we would have articles, sometime the beginning of the week or previous weekend. And if you want, you could say next you somehow learned that next Monday there will be an official update, the joke being next Monday is April 1st. Cause: In my head, the citizens of Neopia all went to sleep (be it either nighttime or a day nap), and when they woke up there would had been flipped upside down. No one knows what happened and many would likely be doing all they could to both understand, explain, and try to undo what caused this. And that said, anything else is left up to the writer. It's one of the factors which could be a basis of several articles & stories, so let the author decide how in their version things develop. As long as enough of the surface details is the same it keeps the illusion. If you want an example, I suggest checking the old Wraithland April Fools from 2016. The premise was thus: Portals were appearing around Neopia taking people to a land controlled by the Wraiths: Wraithland. And that's it. Were the Neopians sent to Wraithland trapped and trying to escape? Was it just one land or an entire world? Were the Wraiths mean or nice? All details that articles, stories, and comics explored and came to different conclusions on, but you'd have to read them to figure that out.  |
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Post by Liou on Jan 6, 2024 17:58:03 GMT -5
We were all set to keep it flexible with the fake pets and not expect everyone to conform to a single design or set of designs.
So, I see no reason not to keep the same flexibility with the land swaps!
That is a great list, and putting out the same joke in different entries is a great way to strengthen the prank. But not everyone wants to nor feel like they'd want to. Part of the fun with the articles, stories, and comics is both working within the limitation but also thinking outside the box.
There are twenty lands without even counting places like Geraptiku or the Lost Isle. Twenty lands means MANY possible combos.
I was very surprised that the runner-up was not picked, as Faerie Wars and Goldrun were so memorable.
Land Swap is a challenging theme for me, so the Discord brainstorm has helped me a lot to see what can be made from it.
I think some of the ideas coincide with what's already been discussed in here! (hehe Altador moon) Buuut the rest has run pretty wild too.
Here are some highlights that I'm carrying over to show just how versatile the swaps are.
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Jan 6, 2024 20:27:51 GMT -5
OK how about this. When I'm done writing, I'll post a draft here and you guys can help me see if it fits the theme or not? xD If we've decided by that time that Neopia Central is supposed to swap with Neovia instead of Lutari Island or whatever I can make changes accordingly.
When I was thinking out loud here, I didn't mean to be restrictive or anything like that. I just wanted to get a sense of what the overall joke was and how to contribute to it.
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Post by Duke Pikachu on Jan 6, 2024 21:10:36 GMT -5
Hm, if it's flexibility you all want, maybe we need to rethink the idea a bit (and maybe change the name because I think we've swerved away from the concept of "Land Reversal" and are now more in the territory of "Land Swap"). Instead of having two specific lands reverse/swap with one another, what if there was a pocket dimension for every combination?
New "Land Swap" Premise: The day started like every other day, but then as citizens began walking out their doors, the world around them changed! They were still technically in the same land, but the environment had completely shifted around them! As they figured out what happened, every so often when entering another door, opening a window, or even crossing under a bridge or archway they'd be swapped to yet another version of the land they were in.
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It just strikes me as funnier - imagine Neopia Central being the Periphery, for example, and maybe Mystery Island being the mainland instead.
