Welcome to the Poppies!

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to The Poppies. That’s the Poptropica Community Awards, hosted by the Poptropica Help Network (PHN), which includes this blog (the PHB).

This popping, stellar event is the first of its kind, and will include a week for nominations (starting now!), followed by a week for voting (check back next week for the polls!), and finally, we’ll be announcing the winners as we celebrate the PHB’s upcoming 7th birthday on July 26th, 2015.

First up is the nomination round. How this works is we’ll announce each award category, followed by a brief description (see below). Then, in the comments section, you let us know who or what you feel is worth that award! You can nominate for as many or as little awards as you like.

Without further ado, the awards up for grabs are:

1. Best Creator: Who’s your favorite Poptropica Creator? Is it the nommable Captain Crawfish, or perhaps the lost-to-time Shark Boy? Check the PHB’s Creators Database for a list.
2. Best Dialogue: What is the all-time best, wittiest line of dialogue ever spoken by any Poptropica character?
3. Best Dressed NPC (male): Who’s the handsomest of Poptropican characters? This category is for the guys. (NPC stands for non-player character, so please do not nominate your friends.)
4. Best Dressed NPC (female): Who’s the prettiest of Poptropican characters? This category is for the girls. (Again, this category is not for players!)
5. Best Island (overall): What’s the greatest island of all time, from plot to characters, artwork to soundtrack (if applicable), and everything in between?
6. Best Poptropican Name: What Poptropican name combination sounds the best? For a list of possible Poptropica names, click here.
7. Best Soundtrack: Which music soundtrack from any of the SUIs (sound-updated islands) tickles your fancy? For some possible nominations, you can listen to and get the names of soundtracks on composer Jeff Heim’s soundcloud.
8. Best Storyline in an Island: Of all the islands, which one has the greatest plot? Which storyline did you most enjoy?
9. Best Villain: Who’s your favorite Poptropica villain?

In addition to Poptropica-specific awards, there are also categories for those in the Poptropica community/fandom that you know and love!

1. Best Current PHB Author: We’ve got a host of staff members here who regularly deliver news and other improvements to the PHB, but everyone’s different, even down to their senses of humor. The current staff are Brave Tomato, Blake, HPuterpop, Samwow5, Spotted Dragon, Slanted Fish, Slippery Raptor, and Ultimate iPad Expert – and all of us are automatically nominated!
2. Best Fan Art: Poptropican artists the world over have created many pieces of fan art, but which pieces have you seen that might deserve the title of ‘best’? The PHB magazines are a good place to start scouting for fan art!
3. Best Fansite (outside of the PHN): The Poptropica Help Network includes this blog, the PHC (chat), our Twitter, videos, and wiki, but outside of our network lies a realm of other Poptropica fan sites as well. Nominate your favorites!
4. Best PHB April Fools’ Prank: We’ve done a lot of April fools’ pranks over the years, but which one got you good? Was it the ‘Club Penguin Help Blog’ of 2009? Sending in Agent Chicken Wing in 2010? Reverting to Scary Tomato’s old header in 2011? Gamer Guy’s Mega Fighting Bots, Poptropica-bashing fan site in 2014? Or perhaps this year’s Omegon takeover?
5. Best The POPCORN Magazine Issue: Which PHB magazine issue had all the best stories, fan art, and so on? Read them on our Magazines page and nominate your faves.
6. Best Wiki Article: Over on the Poptropica Wiki (part of the PHN), we’ve got over 800 articles for islands, scenes, items, characters, and so on. But which article is the best?

Now for some undesirable awards! We’re not that mean, though, so we’ll only be giving a few, and it’s just for fun – no offence intended. ;)

1. Worst Island: Poptropica is full of great islands, but not every island was a winner. Which, in your opinion, was the worst of them all (and why)?
2. Worst Poptropican Name: There are plenty of decent Poptropica names out there, but not every name is created equal and there’s potentially some pretty disastrous combinations as well. Nominate as you see fit!
3. Worst Poptropica Moment: What’s the worst thing that has happened in your Poptropica experience? Anything unfortunate is fair game, from glitches that made you restart an island to the time the Jersey Devil on Cryptids Island made you hide under your chair in fear.

And that brings us to 18 awards, in celebration of our recent milestone of 18 million hits (well, 18.4m now) – and also, of course, the upcoming 7th birthday of the PHB.

Nominations will take place starting now, so sound off in the comments who you think deserves the awards! Please limit your nominations to a maximum of three per award. To strengthen your nomination, you can also include a quick reason why you think they (or it) deserve(s) the award.

If no nominations for a certain award are made, the PHB authors will use their own judgment to come up with some options. Next week’s poll options will be based on the most popular nominations, so check back then for the next round and cast your votes then! Plus, stay tuned for the PHB for details on birthday parties and winner announcements. ;) But for now…

Start nominating in the comments below!

Stay popping, Poptropicans, and pop in for the Poppies. :D