Neopian Times Writers' Forum

The Neopian Times Writers' Forum is a Proboards forum in which one discusses Neopets, writes and reviews, abandons their sanity at the door, gloats and rants, debates matters of Serious Business, forms 'bloidal family trees, chats and clicks some clickables, and hugs a white weewoo.

For a bit of a historical backstory: the forum was created in early October 2002 by Shidi, who later relinquished the role of head admin to Patjade.

While a Neopets fansite, that's but one section of the forum as a whole. Other parts include The Editor's Mark, for discussion of writing in general; Artist's Alley for artistry; General for off-topic, talk of Real Life, all that; Games and Interactive, having the Discussions and Debates boards and the forever insane 'bloids. The members are much of a big, happy family, with plenty of Crowning Moments of Heartwarming, awesome and funny. NaNoWriMo is a huge event here, leaving the other areas dead the whole month of November.

Another noteworthy event of the forums are the Guild Wars play-by-post roleplays (no, not that one), where members create their own characters (often based on their real life selves) and collectively write a Troperiffic fantasy story based around seven guilds: Pirates, Ninjas, Mages, Knights, Mercenaries, Spacefleet, and Steampunk.

There's also a subpage for the NTWF Mafia roleplay, in which members were assigned different roles (under the category of Mafia or townspeople) and created characters within the roleplay.

Tropes used in Neopian Times Writers' Forum include:

Aerith and Bob: A lot of people have names that you don't really see in real life, but then there are some who have perfectly normal names (like Dan, Jo, Carrie, etc.).
Affectionate Parody: Plenty of 'em.
An Ice Person: Several of us. Hunter and Nature are examples.
Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: Quite a lot of forumers, the 'bloiders in particular being prone to this.
Ambiguous Gender: Sarn.
- Kit especially. The knowledge of Kit's true gender is said to trigger the implosion of the universe.
Artifact Title: Doesn't have nearly as much to do with Neopets nowadays as it used to. The fact that a number of its members don't play Neopets anymore is a factor.
Author Appeal
Ax Crazy: Several 'bloiders, Bettyming and Jakie in particular.
- Lord Kass.
Big Brother Instinct / Big Brother Mentor: Fang (the user) is this towards Saeryena.
Bottle Fairy: Rider.
Brain Bleach: Self-explanatory.
Break the Cutie: Hayati trapped Candy in a bouncy box with her husband, Draco, with a lot of beach balls. Ever since then, Candy has never been the same.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: In numerous roleplays, if there is a fourth wall to begin with, it's likely to be shattered at one point or another.
Catgirl: Leoness, Elycien, Yuka, Kitty, Vyt (a catboy)--the list goes on.
Chaotic Stupid: A few people, notably Drew, and several characters.
The Chessmaster: Celestial showed shades of this during Karmageddon.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: This happens a lot in roleplays and Karmageddon.
Cloudcuckoolander: NSQ.
- Much like Crazy Awesome, many members are this, raising the possibility that the NTWF is a fantastic Cloudcuckooland.
Comic Trio: There are different Comic Trios around the NTWF.
Dark Action Girl: Crystal. And Huntress, to an extent.
Deadpan Snarker: Huntress.
Deconstruction: As writers, the NTWF can deal precision blows to any idea in fiction. See this post and onwards for an idea.
Doomsday Device: Parodied with a device that takes all the light beams that fall on the earth and convert them into heat for marshmallows.
Doppelganger: Edgeworth and Hasaki, Quick and Speedy.
Double Entendre: QMs plus anything equals innuendo. Sometimes the idea is taken to ridiculous levels.
Dysfunctional Family: The 'bloids.
Even the Girls Want Her: Correction- Everyone is Scarlett and Giselle for Rider.
Everything's Better with Penguins: Undead penguins, at that.
First Law of Resurrection: Everything from Phoenix Down to Soul-Exchange. We figure there's no NTWF afterlife, just one big revolving door.
Funny Animal: A common character type. The NTWF itself doesn't count, though, as these characters interact with humans.
Oscar, Gentleman Adventurer!
Genre Savvy: Goes hand-in-hand with our nonexistent fourth wall. Sometimes turned up to Dangerously Genre Savvy.
The Glomp: A lot of forumers.
Go-Karting with Bowser: What happened when Celestial and Zylaa met up.
Gosh Dang It to Heck
Grammar Nazi: Played for Laughs with Grammar Hitler Kat.
Gratuitous Foreign Language: Not as common as you might expect, but it still happens.
Happy Fun Ball: Candy has been deathy scared of Balls ever since Hayati Trapped her in a bouncing box full of them, along with her 'husband', Draco.
Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Fang, as well as his character, Monty Fang.
Improbable Weapon User: A lot of NTWFers. And when we say 'a lot', we mean... a lot.
Incredibly Lame Pun: NTWFers often *brick'd* themselves over these.
- Icon. He's KNOWN for his horrid puns, and his custom text and diary even STATE that he makes bad puns.
Interspecies Romance
I Thought That Was: Don't get the NTWF's Guild Wars confused with the MMORPG Guild Wars. Please.
- Similarly, Hilarity Ensued when the NTWFers discovered the National Wild Turkey Federation.
- Let's not forget the National Traveling Women's Forum.
Karma Houdini: Any winner of Karmageddon fits under this trope. Lie, smite people, backstab your allies, use any means necessary and... win the game.
Lampshade Hanging: "Of course"!
Level Ate: The Jelly Kingdom.
Love Dodecahedron: The 'bloids.
Luke, I Am Your Father: Vyt once used this phrase in a game of Above, Self, Below. PFA has been his daughter ever since.
Mad Scientist: Bettyming in 'bloidal canon.
Medium Awareness
Multinational Team: Applies to the forum quite nicely.
Mysterious Past: Drew
Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Demon Fairy Princess Devil Paladin Ninja Pirate Robot Monkey Clown Bandito Werewolf Zombie Vampire Chupacabra Dragon Unicorn Squid Mermaid Leprechaun Chimera Cyclops Hydra Griffin [1] (Slightly more logical than Twilight.)
- The Guild Wars RPs as a whole.
Non-Human Sidekick: Sev to Ikkin, Shiva to Rider, JH to Kat (Hey wait a minute...)
Our Dragons Are Different
Our Werewolves Are Different: Many of the werewolf forumers.
Parental Incest: Happens on the 'bloids sometimes.
Petting Zoo People: So many of the personas.
Planet Eris: All of the NTWF, but especially the 'bloids.
Playing with a Trope: Inevitable, thanks to the NTWFers being genre-savvy writers. Not even the forum's own tropes are safe.
Playing with Fire: A very popular power for Mage NTWFers.
Platform Game: Strife made a small PC game named Jade Phoenix that includes many of the forumers as characters. It's in a Late Beta stage.
- As well as its 8-bit Spiritual Successor, Super Ecksdee Panic.
The Red Mage: Wandy.
The Reveal/Secret Identity: Taken Up to Eleven in this thread.
Rule of Funny: Arguably a major driving force in the 'bloids.
Shout-Out: A heck of a lot: Hunty's continual Discworld references, Sev's Queen rendition, Rider's gradual adaptation of Jack Sparrow's habits and phrases, Corico's GLaDOS shirt.
Sound Effects Bleep: Combine with Non-Sound Effect, and we get things like [BEEP], [EDIT] and [REDACTED].
Stepford Smiler: Leraye.
Stylistic Suck: The Lame Roleplaying Game and The Best Roleplaying Game Ever.
- God Mode: An essential part of the game, sometimes partnered with Kill'Em All For the Lulz.
- Mary Sue: Nataliana VII, Airy, Earthy, Princess Starmy, and El is ab et he Ch ry sa nt he mum Ec la ire.
Suspiciously Specific Denial: Jo is in no way affiliated with the Organization of Mini-Figures for World Domination.
Talking Animal: Another common character type. See a pattern?
Team Mom: Leoness.
The Shepherd: The entire forum but Ginz deserves special mention.^[context?]
Troll: Fang of the Dead isn't one, but, in-universe, his Hissi character Fang is one.
Troperiffic: This should come as no surprise, since most of the members are creative writers and a handful of them are avid Tropers.
True Companions: Many of the forum members are very close.
Unexplained Recovery: Kiddo.
- Hayati, everytime he gets eaten.
Unusual Euphemism: Aside from whatever gets QM'd, some users have come up with their own euphemisms.
- The Forum's filters gave us the brilliance that is "cooking".
Weasel Mascot: Zylaa, who has a weasel persona, fits the personality type to an extent. She does have an army of weasel sidekicks, but they've got the personality of ADD magpies.
What Could Have Been
What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?
Who's on First?: Hu and Spot.
Winged Humanoid: Quite a lot of forumers and characters.
World Building: Fang of the Dead REALLY likes doing this to Neopia - when he gets to writing a story, he likes to explore the sociopolitcal states of Neopia's lands.
Worthy Opponent: Celestial and Zylaa's ongoing rivalry.
Youkai: Specifically Kitsunes. (e.g. Wandy, Ikkin and Thundy)

The Guild Wars roleplays contain examples of:

Action RPG: FableQuest: Origin of the Phoenix Knight takes place before the events of the first war and borrows characters from the Pirates Guild.
Action Survivor: Nasue.
An Adventurer Is You
Badass Normal: Hunty, Rider, and Amneiger, to name a few.
Boisterous Bruiser: Kovaran Mokra, THE SWORD THAT CLEAVES EVIL!
Chekhov's Gunman: Farmer Bob (aka Robert). Had a very minor role in GW2. Years later, he returned as a fairly important NPC.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Usually what happens when someone leaves the roleplay, often due to Real Life circumstances. Sometimes it's explained later, or even lampshaded.
Cool Boat: The White Weewoo/Black Beekadoodle, the Pirates' ship.
Dark Is Not Evil: Celestial. Subverted, however, in the third Guild Wars plot.
Drives Like Crazy: Spacefleet!Zari (there's two of them) has two speed settings: fast and too fast.
Easily Forgiven: Pretty much any Guild Wars character by the end of a particular roleplay.
Extremely Short Timespan: ~~Most~~ All wars take place over the course of a few days.
Fainting Seer: Kat can often perform extraordinary magical feats, but will just as often crumple into a heap soon after.
Fantasy Kitchen Sink: The Guildverse has everything from medieval villages to a massive space station on the moon.
Fluffy the Terrible: The Blarf, at least at first. It got to be a lovable giant really, really quick.
Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Hunty made her own batch. There's Death, War, Famine, and Too Many Connections.
Karma Houdini: Leraye. Plain and simple. I doubt anything could kill that dog-kicking godmode-in-a-box.
- In retrospect, he's pretty much responsible for everything that happened in Guild Wars II, and, to a different extent, the following plot named "Redemption." And he gets away without a single scratch.
Knight Errant: The Knight's Guild.
Knight of Cerebus: Strife.
- The Underdeep, when it becomes personified.
Mad Scientist: Merpo and Leraye.
Magic Knight: Most of the Mages are either this or a Squishy Wizard. Some characters, such as Ikkin and Kat, are aligned with the Knights and Mages simultaneously.
Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness: Spacefleet is on the softer side.
Musical Assassin: Nature wields a sitar, for goodness' sake. (Much like a certain Nobody.)
Ninja: One of the guilds.
Omnicidal Maniac: Strife. He transforms the entire guild continent into stone with petrifying ooze, forcing everyone to evacuate to Spacefleet HQ as refugees. Afterwards, he forces his best (and only) friend to sacrifice their life in order to rig the security systems in his own guild into killing thousands of the aforementioned refugees with ceiling-mounted machine guns.
Pirate: Another one of the guilds.
- Pirate Girl: A good part of the aforementioned guild.
- ... Actually everyone but Goosh and Doody. In the 11-person active member list.
Play-By-Post Games
Punctuation Shaker: Parodied with "the cliffs of Ap'str'ph'".
Rule of Cool: Arguably a major driving force (along with Rule of Drama).
Steampunk: The city of Brassport, which fell from the sky during Guild Wars III and remained largely ignored until the following RP.
What the Hell, Hero?: Many roleplayers have given their characters an abrupt Face Heel Turn in order to start conflict. An example of this is Ikkin's Cold-Blooded Torture of Kit in the first RP.
Your Mind Makes It Real: The Gray Lands in a good way, and the Underdeep in a not-so-good way.