#talk to me about neopets!!! this is an order

[crispyflowerblaze]

ummmmmm i will never stop being obsessed with neopets

so many little games you can play, like absolutely so many, like way more than most other neopets-esque things that are way less complex than neopets and their most complex thing is how many games they have, and like there's so many bangers??? the neopian times, where people submit stories/articles/comics etc, which was one of my first experiences getting my writing out there for other people to read??? so many different lands with so many interesting hilarious quirks to their cultures and histories??? so much amazing-looking food that i will, until the day i die, be devastated aren't real so that i can eat nothing but them for the rest of my life??? so many random little activities you can do, like just absolutely so many and so many shops and features of the website, just so much that i'd never be able to describe it coherently??? and all the neopets themselves??? and all the petpets??? like are you KIDDING me why is neopets so amazing

[furbhii]

ive been talking about this for MONTHS and now it's finally here!!! demencia tips memopad!!!

and also my WHOLE SHOP is 10% off this weekend, and all villainous orders over $30 CAD get a free acrylic pin and also stickers!!! help me justify making more villainous merch because i want to make washis too HAHA

[blondeboyfriend]

𝐂𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓 (𝟏𝟖+)

𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐃𝐍𝐈

[ PAIRING ] Zeke Yeager x f!reader [ AUTHOR'S NOTE ] Another remastered oldie. No cute banner this time because I'm lazy. [ SYNOPSIS ] Your slutty boyfriend convinces you to fuck in a nasty bar bathroom. [ WORD COUNT ] 2.9k [ CONTENT ] Modern AU, established relationship, dom/sub undertones, sadomasochism, exhibitionism, public sex, rough oral sex, degradation (Zeke calls you a slut, says you're dumb), cum eating, drugs (marijuana), alcohol, Zeke's pullout game is mid tbh, and there's Neopets nostalgia.

Any establishment that opted to have red lighting as an aesthetic choice never failed to put you on guard. There was nothing quite like a wannabe speakeasy to set the mood. You had sad men hiding in corners. Sad men waiting for cute girls to talk to them. Sad men who hoped their presence in a trendy, gaudy bar with old guns hung on the walls made them interesting.

You and Zeke passed by it one cold morning and you mentioned how tacky you thought those kinds of places were. You said you wanted to go ironically. And of course called your bluff and decided your next date night would occur there. You reluctantly agreed. Denying him was a near impossible task.

You were the first at the bar, a disappointment because you wanted to have some form of comfort greet you. But no, Zeke was late as always.

He was probably at home, sitting on his ugly couch, smoking his ugly weed. His perfect body laid out next to an ugly ashtray overflowing with ugly cigarette butts, watching old Jerry Springer episodes on Youtube.

There was no other place you’d rather be. You wanted to be sprawled out on top of him, your head on his chest as he dithered about class disparity in the United States.

We can laugh at Beau and Cletus all we want, but look at us. I pay for high-speed internet so I can watch this shit unfettered and make fun of their shoes. You just complained about two-day shipping not being fast enough. And you ordered, what, loose leaf chamomile tea? We’re just as embarrassing as them, maybe even more so. The difference is that we have disposable income.

On second thought maybe you were better off languishing in a faux speakeasy. The ground may have been sticky underneath your shoes, but at least you didn’t have Zeke blabbering in your ear.

“Miss me?” Zeke purred in your ear before.

“Nope, I’ve been too busy.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?”

“Yeah. I got caught up feeding my Neopet… Or if that’s not an acceptable answer, I can say I was sleeping with your dad. You choose.”

“Neopet. I like knowing you care about things.”

“Did you know they never die?”

You order a round of Cuba Libres.

“I don’t like rum,” Zeke whined.

You shoved the drink in his hand and stole a handful of cut limes from the little container behind the bar.

“Really?” he asked bluntly.

“They never put enough. Trust me. Anyway, that little green Mynci you made in 2001 is sitting there. Literally starving! Zeke.” You grabbed his wrist. “That is verbatim what it says on the website. Starving.” You plopped two slices of lime in his drink.

He stared at you, his grey eyes full of concern. He was high off his ass. “She was yellow.”

“What was her name?”

“I can’t remember, but I know it had like six numbers and probably three underscores.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Every fucking day.”

Laughter overtook both of you. You grabbed a table closest to the exit and he slid his backpack under it. You figured he didn’t want to linger long as well. The chairs were freezing. You shifted in your seat. The cold didn’t help your sore ass. Zeke took notice of this.

“I told you I was paddling you too hard.” He took a tiny sip of his drink.

“I still stand by that you weren’t hard enough.”

“You were crying, pet.”

“They were tears of happiness. You know, like when people win a Golden Globe or whatever.”

“No one gets that excited over a Golden Globe.”

You slumped down into your chair. You had no witty retort. This happened more often than not when he was around. In just about every other social situation you were the paragon of humor, a true queen of comedy.

“Aww, did I hit a nerve?” He kicked your shin from under the table. The pain perked you up. You proceeded to stomp on his foot eliciting an audible wince from him.

“How long are you trying to stay here?” you asked, hoping he’d say something like zero seconds or if I stay here any longer I’ll turn into sand.

“Long enough to have sex in what I am assuming is a gross bathroom.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re high, right? You can’t—This place is gross.”

“I had this planned from the beginning.” He leaned back in his chair. “It shouldn’t be too gross. This hellhole hasn’t been open that long.”

“My feet stick to the—”

“That’s character.” He leaned forward over the table, yanking you by the collar of your shirt so you were inches away from his face. “It makes for an interesting experience.”

You let out a nervous laugh, desperately fighting off the beginnings of arousal. The gross old men leered.

“Ugh. Fine. But I wanna be high too,” you complained.

He glanced at the growing pod of old men. “Let’s hit the bathroom.”

He got up, leaving his unfinished drink behind. It prompted you to do the same. They weren’t that impressive. You walked down the hall turning corners until you saw a sign for a bathroom. Zeke kicked in the door and shoved his head inside.

“I’m pretty sure no one is in here. And look, there are even stalls.”

He made his way over to one and tried to lock its door.

“Well that’s broken.”

He repeated this process on the remaining two stalls. None of them had working locks.

You looked around. “This is—”

“An even better opportunity than I could have imagined.”

You were speechless. You knew he was a borderline insatiable tramp, but this was a lot. You were conflicted. On one hand, getting railed by him always sounded like a good time. But on the other, getting potentially caught by one of those decaying dinosaurs sounded like torture. And you hadn’t committed any crimes bearing that level of punishment.

“But those guys are so weird looking,” you whined like a child.

“Who cares?”

“I care. It’d be one thing if they were like your hot friends…”

“You can’t say that and not specify which ones. It’s illegal. You and I both know that.”

“Fuck… Pieck, duh. Or Colt.”

“Oh god. Really?... Colt?” he sounded vaguely disgusted.

“Fuck you! Yeah, really Colt. It’d be a learning experience for him.”

“I wouldn’t let him join in.”

You smirked. “You say that now, but in the moment the tides may change.” You punctuated the sentence with a wink.

“Alright, you might have a point with the Colt thing. But I’m disappointed Reiner didn’t come up.”

“You know you can just say who you would want to catch us? Like my answers aren’t the end-all-be-all.”

You went to join him in the decrepit stall. You hugged his toned body and buried your face into the crook of his neck. His hands went straight to your ass, typical.

“Reiner, because I know it’d fuck with him,” he yammered on. “Or what’s that one guy’s name? The one that hangs out with my brother?”

“So many people hang out with your brother. You really want a 19-year-old catching us?”

“Hush. I’m thinking. Blonde. Blue eyes.” He paused. “Also Colt’s 19, dumb ass.”

“Colt doesn’t count!! Are you thinking of Historia?”

“What?! No.”

Zeke broke the hug and rubbed his temples. “It’s a boy. He is a boy.”

“Well, more like a man.”

“You’re not helping. Blonde. Blue eyes. He’s a,” Zeke paused for emphasis, “man.”

“I think that’s Armi—”

He barreled through your sentence. “Armin! Yes, him. It’d fuck him up too. He’s like an angel; we’d be stripping him of all innocence.”

“Dude, I’m pretty sure a cute, 19-year-old college boy is getting at least some form of action. We all know who the right option is.”

“Alright, fuck it. Fine. Colt. Are you happy?”

“Yes.”

“Pervert,” he mumbled.

“Like you have room to talk.”

You grazed his cock with your hand. He smirked and pulled a joint from his pack of cigarettes. He held it between his lips and sparked it.

“I see you’re not concerned about getting caught.” He took a hit and then passed it to you.

You took a heavy drag off the joint. “I’m already going to get loudly fucked in a bathroom. I might as be high.”

You passed the joint back to him and he took a lengthy hit. He let the smoke drift from his mouth slowly. You plucked the joint from his fingers.

“I recommend taking another. A long one.”

“Why?” you said, smoke drifting from your mouth.

“Because you’re getting on your knees the second you exhale.”

You held the rest of the smoke in for as long as you could to spite him. But Zeke quickly tired of your bullshit and took the joint from you. He grabbed a chunk of your hair from the back of your scalp and pulled.

“Knees,” he muttered.

You scoffed. “Rude.”

However you did as you were told and he loosened his grip. He took a hit from the joint and blew the smoke towards the ceiling. The ground wasn’t sticky, but that did little to quell your disgust. You were always ashamed at the depths of depravity you allowed yourself to descend into for your boyfriend.

You looked up at him and asked, “Are you really gonna be able to keep the door shut?”

“No. Undo my belt.”

You gritted your teeth and started to fiddle with his belt. His rough hand rested on your head, softly caressing it. You knew such tenderness wouldn’t last long.

“I know you can work faster than that.”

You sighed dramatically. You quickly pulled his belt off and unbuttoned his jeans. You pulled them down and noted that his black briefs were sullied with precum. You yanked his underwear down and was greeted by his thick cock, a beautiful sight to behold. Drool pooled in your mouth, a small drop of it trickled from the corner of your mouth. Zeke lifted your chin and wiped it away with his calloused thumb.

“You’re foul. What will I ever do with you?”

You gazed up at him. “I don’t know… Let me milk every drop of cum from your cock?”

He smirked. “You’re so fucking stupid. Are you done talking?”

“I guess. I can’t think of anything else to—”

He grabbed the back of your head and forced his cock into your mouth. You lurched forward, using the bathroom stall door to keep some semblance of balance. His thrusts were methodical. Never too deep as he didn’t want you to gag on him, it was too early for that.

“You’re filthy, you know that? An utter degenerate.”

He continued to plunge his cock deeper and deeper into your mouth. You carefully breathed through your nose and tried to not cough on his length.

“You deserve to get caught. Everyone deserves to know what a disgusting slut you are.”

You attempted a nod, but Zeke put his rugged palm on your forehead and shoved you off of his cock.

“Say it.”

“I deserve to get caught.”

His grey stared down at you hazy with lust. “And?” He took one last hit off the joint.

“And everyone deserves to know how gross I am.”

He frowned and blew the smoke directly in your face. “Not quite, but close enough.” He shoved his cock back down your throat.

The bathroom stall proved to be a poor source of balance so you rested your hands on his tense thighs. His muscles contracted with pleasure. You relaxed your throat, finally getting the entirety of his cock in your mouth. You held it there for a few seconds before you felt the beginning of a gag. You pushed his hips away from you. He pulled out and continued to jerk off as you coughed and caught your breath.

“I’m getting really close,” he teased.

You smacked his hand away. You spit in yours and jerked him off while running your tongue along his slit.

“Fuck,” he said under his breath. He held your head in place and rammed his cock in your mouth. You grabbed onto his taut ass for leverage. His thrusts were becoming sloppy. He came hard, filling your throat with cum.

“I’m getting fucked, right?” you asked, wiping your lips.

“No, I thought I’d just stand here in this bathroom with my dick out.”

You rolled your eyes and got undressed. He led you out of the stall and shoved you against the sink. He groped your breasts, rough fingers pinching your nipples.

“Ouch!” you yelped.

Zeke laughed and pinched harder. He slipped three of his dexterous fingers into your slick pussy. They slid in and out with ease. He pushed you harder against the sink, the basin digging into your spine. You winced. He took notice and put his hands under your ass and lifted you up.

“Lock your legs around me,” he commanded.

He slammed his cock balls deep inside you. There was no tenderness in his thrusts. He wanted you to moan his name louder than you’d moan anyone else’s. But you resisted. The last thing you wanted to do was to bring any attention to yourself.

“Come on, pet,” he practically begged. “Say my name.”

You shook your head. You pictured those leering old men sipping their martinis, cocks stiff as they heard you moan. Zeke rubbed your clit with his thumb and started kissing your neck. His soft flaxen beard tickled your skin.

“Say my name or else I’ll go find some cheap whore that will.” 

His breath was hot on your neck. He pressed his thumb down hard on your clit.

“Fuck! Zeke!” Your legs tightened around his waist.

He placed his hand under your chin and forced you to make eye contact. His eyes were feral, darkened with desire.

“Weak. You can do better than that.”

You hugged him closer, fingernails digging into his chiseled back.

“Zeke!”

You felt your body growing warmer. Every cell in your body writhed with pleasure. You clung to his body as your orgasm intensified.

“I don’t remember giving you permission,” he whispered in your ear.

You attempted to hold back but it was too late. You moaned his name louder than even he anticipated. He held his hand over your mouth, his cock still inside you, thrusting away.

“I don’t remember saying you should start screaming either.” His tone was anxious. “I never thought I’d say this, but please shut the fuck up.”

You glared at him, but remained silent and allowed him to continue fucking you with his engorged cock.

“Good girl.”

The words barely left his lips before he let out a hearty moan. He pulled out of you.

“Hurry, get on your knees.”

You dropped down to them and opened your mouth. For the first time in years he missed, getting his cum all over your chin and down your neck. You were not impressed.

“You look so cute.”

He pinched your cheek and ordered you to stand up. He held your face in his hands. Just as he went to lick your neck the bathroom door swung open. It was one of the old men. Zeke didn’t stop licking you.

“Oh my word! I am so sorry. You, uh… You two… have fun.”

The guy ran out as quickly as he came in.

“I wonder if I could pay that guy to walk in on us whenever I want.”

You went to search for your underwear and found them inside a toilet. You flushed them away.

 “No. We talked about this already.”

“Colt would be traumatized if he walked in on this.”

Zeke finally put his dick away. You both stood at the sink washing your hands.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?! Whatever, let’s leave before we get kicked out for being absolutely disgusting. Not that I ever plan on coming back here.”

You walked out of the bathroom and faced the geezers. You kept your head down. Zeke on the other hand seemed to relish in the shame and even tried to high five the man who caught you.

Zeke grabbed his backpack from under the table you two had been previously sitting at. You headed to the spiral staircase that led to the exit. It was one of those rickety metal ones that would be considered decorative in a world that made sense. Zeke offered you his elbow and you held on while you cautiously made your way down the stairs. You pushed through the heavy doors and were greeted by a rush of cold air.

You shivered. “Fuck! I was inside before the sun went down.”

You were woefully unprepared for the weather.

“Good thing I’m a genius then, huh?” He pulled out a sweatshirt from his backpack. “Arms up.”

You raised your arms and he tugged the sweatshirt down onto your body.

“Thank you. I didn’t think it would be so chilly.”

Zeke pointed up at the perfectly clear night sky. “Yeah, we’re in for a cold one. Look.”

You both let out a collective whoa. It was a gorgeous sight; it almost made up for the ugliness that had previously occurred moments ago.

Zeke lightly slapped your ass. “Let’s get moving. We need to shower.”

“Come on, you don’t wanna stare at something dumb ass beautiful?”

If you had craned your neck back any further to see the stars you would have toppled over.“I already have a beautiful dumb ass I can stare at whenever I want. Now come on. I was balls deep in a paternity dispute before I got here. You’re going to love it, the baby daddy threw his gold tooth at his ex-wife. Jerry is pissed.”

[aroceu]

some thoughts on leaving a social media website...again

as of 10/16/2024, twitter has announced its intention to implement a new feature into the platform: instead of blocking allowing you to block certain accounts from viewing your profile if it's public, it now just... doesn't do that anymore. it only limits interaction. though this certainly isn't a surprise with musk's twitter rollouts since 2021—when i first saw people start to trickle out—this, in particular, breaks a lot of users boundaries and has prompted many to private their accounts and move to bluesky.

i'm in support of this, btw—the ceo of bsky is strongly opposed to ever running any sort of ads on the site ("won't enshittify the network with ads"), doesn't use any blockchain technology, and has a culture where supplying alt text on images is the norm. your main timeline is in reverse-chronological order (like intended), but there are other separate options to create a custom algorithmic feed for certain types of content, only if you wish to. though bsky is a work in progress, i have high hopes for what it can be in the future: that is, usable, practical, and more reminiscent of what it was like when twitter first started, than how twitter currently is.

but despite my love for bluesky, i won't spend too much time glazing yet another microblogging platform. instead, i'm here to ponder the concept of social media: why we have it, why we use it, and why these moves happen in the first place. people have been trickling in and out of twitter ever since the richest and evilest man in the world took possession of it; especially in a fandom sense, there's been a back and forth between twitter and tumblr due to tumblr's former porn ban, as well. we all have principles and morals that guide the decisions we make, including what websites we decide to use. they speak to a pattern of not only our culture as people at any given time—but how these platforms have the power to implement these changes whenever they want. and we, as individuals, must make decisions both based on those principles, but also our desires to fit in.

i'll start off by saying this—eventually i'm going to start talking about what social media means for creatives. but there is in fact an extremely well-written article about this already that goes into more detail. if you're more interested in that, let me direct you there first: R U AN ARTIST ON SOCIAL MEDIA??? by omoulo

with that out of the way, let's talk about me, shall we?

i got onto the internet through geocities—crazy sentence to say now after all these years. of course, i played neopets and flash games like many other kids, but that was mostly through knowing those websites and urls existed, and preserving them in my mind so i could return to them for some mindless minutes of entertainment later. geocities was my first introduction to the creative, user-designed web, so to speak. instead of being a number to interact with a thing that someone else has made—a flash game, a youtube video, a website where you can collect fictional pets—the idea of geocities to me at the time was this idea of participating on the internet. being a part of it. writing whatever i wanted and posting it. sharing the link with others. having others find it and read it too—a part of me, my method of creative self-expression, whatever i desired to write and post on the less than permanent internet.

my best friend at the time was the one who needled me into creating accounts—first an email address, then an AIM, then a myspace, then an IMVU, so on and so forth. i wasn't going out looking for these, and though i'd heard of them before or seen ads of some of these sites, i wasn't interested in actually being on these platforms and making these accounts until my friend told me that i should. call me a people pleaser or easily influenced or whatever; i was 12. but it was through this link sharing, this naivety and ignorance of the vastness of the internet, that allowed me to be fascinated with the world wide web in the first place.

i usually cite quizilla as my first "fandom" website, because it was—but it wasn't because i found it by accident. it wasn't that i googled it or looked for a personality test and stumbled upon it. no, it's because i was chatting with a friend on AIM, and she had found some crazy chain letter story and shared it to me for how absurd it was, and sent me the link. it was on quizilla.

literally the moment i clicked that link changed my life forever. even though i read the crazy story, i also clicked on the username of the person who posted it, out of curiosity. that person had jonas brothers fanfics on their quizilla profile, of all things, which led me into an obsession with the jonas brothers in the 2 years that followed. through that link—that account—that platform—i got a lot more interested in writing, webdesign, and what it meant to be on the internet, not just as a numbered participant, but also as someone with an imagination, who finds fulfillment in creative expression. i wrote the longest thing i'd ever written in that time (30k of a self-insert, but we won't go into that), began to experiment with css and website design, and participated, sharing stuff that i thought was interesting or fun, worth 5 minutes of anyone's time.

the internet wasn't just about being a place where my presence didn't matter anymore—it became a medium of self-expression. more than that, it became a place where i could meet and socialize with people, especially as i developed avpd in my high school years.

the internet wasn't always like this. right now, when we talk about the internet, we don't talk about the random websites we find, the links we stumble upon. (i have an entire website dedicated to those for me, though.) the games we spend hours playing, by ourselves, without interacting with others. random personality tests, or just simply the news. we talk about google, but in the same way we talk about facebook, or even twitter. it's a verb; it's omnipresent; it exists within the context of our internet culture, but becomes meaningless outside of it. it's not to say it doesn't have meaning—but that the language we use represents our relationship with it, this assumed normalcy. this assumed dependence.

i bring up my own history because as young as i feel compared to many of my older internet friends, and how late to the game i always felt—i was there. i was there on the internet before twitter (since 2009), tumblr (since 2010), facebook (i lied about my age), bluesky now, and whatever will come in the future. i was there when people were saying that the internet was still being written; when websites were made with tables (eugh); when email was the primary way to connect with others, because irc was for nerds and nothing else had been invented yet.

i'm a big advocate for not looking at the past with rose colored glasses and getting caught up in nostalgia and greener grass. i believe that technology is not inherently harmful or bad—it creates more options for accessibility, especially for those who are disabled. and even outside of that, it allows us to learn about more people, communicate with others with a few keystrokes, and form relationships that we otherwise would never get to have. i don't want this to seem like i'm saying "man remember how good the internet used to be?" because i'm not—i believe that as things change, there are benefits as much as there are hindrances.

of course, it bears saying that the primary hindrance—of current twitter, of many platforms over the years, and the internet with increasing recency—is corporations. big money interests. capitalism.

it's why we get so tired of ads—it's why ads exist in the first place. it's why these social media platforms that used to feel like they were made by the same people who would use them (livejournal, youtube, twitter) have suddenly become these soulless impersonal websites. it becomes more obvious that they want you to use them more because they sell you on exclusivity and visual minimalism, rather than because that's where your friends are, and you have this unique way to express yourself.

in fact, i'll say this: the first time i learned about facebook when i was too young to use it, i was not impressed. i had a myspace at the time that i had dolled up to make pretty with sparkly gifs and obnoxious colors and weird fonts. when i saw how boring and samey everyone's facebook profile page was, i was like, what's the point? sure i could talk to my classmates and random other people in my life that i didn't really care about, but what about making myself different from others? what about my creative expression? what about having an account that makes me look unique, instead of blending in with everyone else?

and so here i am nearly two decades later pondering about the use of social media, our individuality as well as our collective interests, and how the internet has changed so much, both in itself and how it affects us, in that time.

i'm here because i want to talk to my friends and meet new people with common interests and get excited about them. i don't want to feel left out, but that's a normal experience—outside of fomo, it is in our core to connect with others. it's the whole meaning of everything. it's why i even made an email in the first place, in my basement with my best friend, secretly setting up a yahoo account because she wanted another way to talk to me, and i wanted another way to talk to her. it's why people have been leaving twitter little by little for another site—the same site as many others, because that's where all their friends are. whether it's bsky or mastodon or misskey or just back here on tumblr, we're here not just because of our desire for community, but even as simple as our desire for a bond, a relationship with another human being. to me, that is how "social media" is defined—a medium through which we socialize because of this innate desire.

and yet, of course the enshittification and corporatification makes this more difficult for us, in ways more than one. because the fact is that as we (as people) became better at using the internet, finished writing it, and understood it—psychologically and sociologically—so did the corporations. or advertisers, you take your pick. we, the everypeople who use the internet as means to fulfill our social and other self-indulgent desires, are not the only people here. as with many things else in the world, the internet turned from an unpredictable but fun mess of us figuring shit out as we went along, into a product designed to keep us using it and engaging with it more, so some rich people can put even more money into their pockets. it's why twitter is the way it is now; even why tumblr is the way it is. why social media has become about "content creation" and "small businesses." why it feels like, every day, we see more ads and AI generated bullshit, as a little bit of the original soul of the internet gets sucked away day by day.

but even there, i don't want to come across as cynical or world-weary. though i believe this to be true, i don't think it says anything about our lack of agency, or our lack of innate humanity. instead, i believe that this means, at least on the individual level, that we should think more about not only what we're doing on the internet, but why we're doing it. how we're doing it. are we here because we're addicted? or is there something we're getting out of it? sure, many websites now have more addictive UI and algorithms that tell the receptors of our brain to return to them because we were getting so much dopamine from them earlier. but i also wouldn't necessarily argue that the only solution to this is to, then, go offline.

i have many friends who've elected to depart social media but stay online—friends who i met through website building, to be fair, but that's one of my main points. i already wrote a manifesto on my love letter to the personal website; but the tl;dr is this:

the internet is not evil, it is not good, it is just a form. if we desire to express ourselves and socialize with others in this space, it does not have to be just about social media, and creating a new account on a new website every time people move. instead, we have personhood—we have individuality, we have agency. we have the ability to build our own websites, no matter how shitty or times new roman comic sansy or color clashy or sometimes inaccessible they can be. regardless of all these seeming impractical setbacks though, it does not absolve us of that ability to do whatever we want on the internet. and it also bears saying that websites, both the personal and impersonal, can change over time, for better or worse.

i am a huge proponent for people making their own personal websites. it makes me so so happy that neocities is gaining popularity, mostly because i love seeing people try their own hand at making a website for themselves, a new form of self-expression. i won't go into too much detail on this because i've already said everything i want to say about it (see above), but if you take away anything from this post, let it be this: consider making a personal website, a corner of the internet, for yourself, by yourself. not just because you want people to engage with it, or because you want to curate to an algorithm or an artistic/fannish trend. not because you want the things you make to gain traction, to get bigger numbers without considering the people behind those numbers, as soon as possible.

do it because you want to. because you have to. because you think it's cool, and because it's you. people may find it and judge it; but they may like it as well. the more unique and authentic and weird we are with each other, the more we are able to appreciate each other for who we really are. the internet is one of many places we can do this.

i don't really see these forms of self-expression separate from social media, but i do see social media separate from it. to me, social media is a vehicle to strengthen those connections, those relationships, much like DMs and IRCs; but it is not the be-all, end all of the internet. it's only a small part of it. not everything is permanent on the internet; but everything that ever has been online is a microcosm of the human experience, whether it's an old cloudflare site or twitter dot com in 2010.

our experiences on the internet are not about corporate interests. it's about using limewire to download pirate music, sharing random links we find, building a design that may not be practical or universally appealing but still represents a form of individuality. when i think of how the internet has grown, i don't think about what it means for companies or advertisers or what meetings must go on to get people like me to keep using it—i think about remembering the difference between addicting games dot com and addicted games dot com, clicking links on websites to find even more websites, sitting at the family computer and deciding if i wanted to spend hours on neopets or that one willy wonka flash game i grinded like several hours on one night when i was 7. i think about what it's always meant to me, because the internet was not always a centralized place where i was going on the same website every day. the rise of internet centralization to the point that it's become expected, the norm, the primary way any of us to be online, is not inherently a bad thing—but i wouldn't say it's a universal good, either, when the internet is a wide and vast space, and can be so much more than that.

because the one thing that remains throughout the years is our agency and choice. we still have the ability to make the internet what we want it to be, or at least a corner of it, something separate from the corporations, the enshittification, economically researched user interfaces and experiences, the advertisements, the "like and share so the algorithm boosts me more." there's still a point to it all without the money, and without twitter. and it's both our desire for creativity and self-expression, as well as our intrinsic bonds with each other. despite it all, it's about our humanity.

as the internet continues to grow, so do we. nevertheless, the importance of our humanity, and retaining it, will remain. oftentimes it is up to us to remind ourselves of that.

-

links here, for access:

Bluesky CEO Jay Graber Says She Won’t ‘Enshittify the Network With Ads’

R U AN ARTIST ON SOCIAL MEDIA??? by omoulo

links @ kingdra.net (my links, like bookmarks)

A manifesto of sorts; or, my love letter to the personal website by me

[catbountry]

Does anybody else remember Pandora? Not the box, or the fictional planet where James Cameron's blue alien cat people live where there's a literal mineral called "unobtanium" that can only be harvested from that particular planet. My man literally called that shit "unobtanium," fucking portmanteau of "unobtainable" and the "-ium" suffix for newer elements. No. That has absolutely nothing to do with anything else I'm writing beyond this point. This is a post about music.

This is a post about the customizable internet radio station Pandora. And also it's going to briefly cover ClickRadio, it's going to talk about my experiences with YouTube Music, Spotify, my own iPod and how I find and listen to music, and how it's a core part of my creative process and I put a bunch of music references in pretty much all of my creative work. None of it being musical, by the way. I can barely carry a tune and I can't play any instruments more complicated than a kazoo.

It also got really long and rambly, look, I'm high, I'm sorry. You've been warned.

It's 2001. I'm in high school. My life looks like this drawing I made a few weeks ago.

Music is a big part of my life. The internet was a lot slower. It would take several minutes to download an .mp3 file of a song that was only about three and a half minutes long, so I would listen to the radio a lot. But the thing about listening tuning into radio is that it's not the internet. You can't pick which song to listen to whenever you want. If you want that, your best bet is to own the songs you want on their physical CD releases, or risk exposing your mom's computer to a million viruses. But in order to skip a song, you have to press a physical button to skip a song. And of course, if you're listening to the radio where you can discover new songs, you can't skip the latest Limp Bizkit or Disturbed track with the vain hope that maybe they'll play "One-Armed Scissor" by At The Drive-In or "Go With the Flow" by Queens of the Stone Age, or any single off of Kid A. Everything you hated the most, hated more than Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boys, was all lumped together under the formless "alternative rock" label, which weirdly included hip-hop artists like Eminem, House of Pain, Beastie Boys, Cypress Hill, Gorillaz and Outkast; all stuff that I guess radio stations looked at and thought "yeah, this can appeal to white people."

You know I heard Dynamite Hack's version of "Boyz N The Hood" before I ever heard Eazy-E's? That should be a crime. That should be considered a human right's violation. Fuck you, Dynamite Hack for introducing the entire world to the concept of ironic hipster covers hip-hop songs which led to the fucking white people with ukeleles versions of Tupac songs. I am so glad that we, as a society, have all come together against these dynamite hacks and decided this was cringe and something that belongs in the past.

But this isn't an essay on awful YouTube music trends of the early 2010's, this is listening to music in the internet age in the early 2000's.

In 2001, ClickRadio launched. It was a desktop application that allowed you to listen to radio stations via the internet, but it had something real radio stations did not; if a song like, say, Dynamite Hack's cover of "Boys N The Hood" came on, you could click a thumbs down button and it would let out this cartoonishly loud "thud" and then that station would never play that song for you again. And if they played a song you really liked? You could click a thumb's up button and it would play that song more often.

I cannot understate how fucking mindblowing an idea this was in the early 2000's. Yes, ClickRadio would slow down your computer as the Neopets Flash games you would play gringing for Neopoints to get a Halloween brush for your Lupe that you named after a member of your favorite band. Anybody else do that?

No? Just me? Okay then.

ClickRadio would quickly get enshittificated, within only about a year or two being filled with more and more unskippable ads. I went back to just loading up MP3s in Winamp and playing music that way by the time I was in college, but it was a pain having to listen to whatever song I had physically on my hard drive, or a few years later, going to YouTube to see if somebody uploaded a crusty version of a NoMeansNo song with a Spanish-speaking DJ speaking in the opening bits of the video. Not ideal.

But then Pandora showed up.

I don't remember where I first heard about Pandora, but after Napster, there were a bunch of music start-ups hoping to be legitimate in the eyes of artists and record labels. Clickradio was just a radio station. But Pandora... was an experiment of The Algorithm.

You see, Pandora started what is known as the Music Genome Project, a way of organizing music into hundreds of different subgenres across five large umbrella genres; Pop/Rock, Hip Hop/Electronica, Jazz, World Music and Classical. What Pandora did was use this as a way to allow users to craft their own custom radio stations. And not only would it play the stuff you liked, but it would be tailored to a seed artist or song; you put in Nirvana, you get a lot of 90's alt rock radio faire, but then maybe it plays Mudhoney. Maybe it plays Sonic Youth. Maybe it plays Melvins, and you like it. And when you give a thumbs up, you hear more and more artists in similar subgenres. And let's say you've been looking into obscure or underground music for years before you start using Pandora, and suddenly you're introduced to artists you never would have come across more organically. And buddy, you'd bet my Pandora station was a fucking hodgepodge of hundreds of seeds, which allowed me to discover highly influential /mu/ core bands like Swans, Animal Collective and Neutral Milk Hotel, but also bands that are so obscure that their Spotify listens are in the lower four digits at maximum and maybe a couple tens of thousands of views on YouTube. So many songs I found through Pandora are from bands that I very rarely hear a lot of people talk about, but they've made songs that have just lived in my brain for decades.

And for a couple years, I'd be listening to Pandora radio while writing up new TF2 fanfiction to terrorize TF2chan with. Certain songs would come up so often because I specifically bookmarked them. I didn't really know a lot about shoegaze before Pandora, but now I own a physical copy of all three of Slowdive's albums, and you fucking bet "When the Sun Hits" was in heavy rotation while I was writing Respawn of the Dead.

Yes, this was playing while I was writing out Respawn of the Dead, chapter by chapter. And so was "Beautiful Plateau" by Sonic Youth, "The Sound" by Swans, "Dead Flag Blues" by Godspeed You! Black Emperor and "End of the Line" by Murder By Death. And also this song by a band called The Clock Work Army, which split up and reformed into another band called Calico Horses, and I know this because I found this out while trying to track down a song that would play constantly on my Pandora station and it has, as of writing this sentence, 2,588 listens. And it might have more by the time you read this because I might just put it on loop because oh my god, I love this song so much, it hits so perfect for me, why don't more people know about this song?

It's not on YouTube, where I usually tend to listen to music, since I'll go through a rotation of songs that I call "work songs." I put on music while I write, and some songs are just so perfect that I can listen to them on loop with a very select number of songs that just never, ever get old for me. My neurons in my brain light up as though I was hearing it again for the first time.

Swans, Sigur Ros and The Dillinger Escape Plan are all artists who I found through Pandora that I've had the privilege to see live. By the time I was just discovering bands because I had a bunch of friends and mutuals with similar taste in music to mine, Pandora was slowly getting more and more ads. It was getting to the point where the free service would, if you were lucky, play only three or four songs before playing an ad. And when the length of those songs can span anywhere from less than three minutes for much of my beloved 80's and early 90's punk, to up to a half an hour for post-rock, noise, or ambient music. And the number of ads that played between songs had increased. What was just one every half an hour or so was now two to three for what could potentially be only after seven minutes of music. Pandora really doesn't like it if the music you like includes a lot of songs that are longer than an episode of The Simpsons.

I never hear anybody talk about Pandora anymore. Spotify is THE name in internet music streaming, and it favors listens of entire albums and other people's playlists. I don't like Spotify; sometimes I just want a specific song from a specific album. I could make a playlist of these "work songs," but I like when YouTube notices that I'm listening to music, and in the recommendeds, there's another song that I've listened to on repeat. Why yes, I would like you to play "Classical Homicide" by Dälek for me again. What's that? An hour loop of Deadmau5's "Professional Griefers" featuring Gerard Way? Yes please. I apologize for nothing. That dude's way better than Skrillex.

God, do you guys remember the Deadmau5/Skrillex shipping that was all over Tumblr in the early 2010's. I remember it. I remember it so hard. Everybody shipping them and the members of Daft Punk, posting Steam Powered Giraffe (blech) and Die Antwoord (lol) on my dashboard. In Die Antwoord's defense, they had some pretty funny music videos.

I got AdBlocker for YouTube, so the ads aren't a problem there. I mean, I could make a playlist for Spotify of my go-to songs, but I'd have to deal with ads. And there's something nice about YouTube's robots that sell my precious data to faceless corporations at least having the courtesy to be like "You look like you could use another stream of 'Anything (Viva!)' by Foetus. Or Scraping Foetus off the Wheel. Or... whatever, fuck it, it's J.G. Thirwell's band, okay? It's the guy that does the music for Venture Brothers."

Foetus was introduced to me through a friend but it was Pandora serving me up more of their music that made their albums "nail" and "Flow" ones that got the honor of Being Downloaded onto my iPod so I can Listen to This in my Car. I still use my iPod and even if there's albums that I haven't gone back to in years on there, I like having them there. I haven't listened to the soundtrack for Panty and Stocking in ages but having access to it so that I can FLY AWAY NOW, FLY AWAY NOW, FLY AWAAAYYYY on a long drive? I like having that option.

I still buy CDs so I can burn albums onto my iPod. My iPod doesn't have ads and switching between artists doesn't mean I have to flip through a CD binder. I also try to buy albums off of Bandcamp. Especially for smaller artists, or artists whose work I love enough to want to give them my money. I don't want to listen to ads. It throws off my workflow, shakes me out of the trance-like state that is pure, focused creativity. Whether it's working on comics or thinking about things I want to do in those comics, I'm usually listening to music. Sometimes the same album, hundreds of times over. I admit I haven't listened to that much King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, but I've listened to Nonagon Infinity front to back more times than I can count.

Nowadays it feels like I don't have a lot of friends who share my taste in music. I've so fully entrenched myself in fandom circles that I've been exposed to the average person's taste in music and I'm like "oh yeah, most people aren't as big of a fucking nerd about this as you are." You know how hard it is to get people who aren't music nerds to get into The Residents? Everybody I know that likes them already knew about them before we met, and people who had never heard of them before they met me usually find them deeply weird and never get fucking obsessed with them like I have. I own a physical copy of, not their original version of their album The King and Eye, which is an entire album of them covering Elvis that sounds like this, but the fucking remix of that album that does shit like this to their covers of Elvis songs. And you know what? I love both versions, but that remix of their cover of "Surrender" is a work song.

Listening to music is the only way I can guarantee that I'm actually working on something and not playing with my phone. I guess what I'm saying is... it sure would be nice if Pandora existed like it did back then right now.

Especially because I stopped cleaning up a page of my horrible Deltarune fan comic (MASSIVE Dead Dove warning, not even kidding, the entire story hinges on some very upsetting topics) just to write all this down and make sure there were links to every song in this essay. And like... I've even used the comic as a not-so-clandestine way into tricking them into listening to my music before. Whether it be directly namedropping bands and songs, writing about a specific character's taste in music and using that in the story somehow, or literally just making the title of one of my comic installments... this.

It is really good. 686 listens on YouTube. Absolutely criminal. And the example above? That's me not putting in hundreds of references into the comic and wondering if anybody else has noticed them.

I guess what I'm saying is that I am a huge music nerd, even though I always feel like I'm getting into artists super late (unless they're like Death Grips, but that was only after The Money Store had come out), but I fucking hate Spotify. I want more physical releases that can be preserved digitally, and I don't have the money to get into collecting vinyls as a hobby. All the vinyl I own is toys, and uh... I own a lot of those.

Thank you for reading through pure, uncut music autism mixed in with nostalgia and griping about capitalism because that's apparently where my head is at all the time when I'm not daydreaming my little stories or making up video essays in my head that will never be made. That's why I do stream of consciousness Tumblr essays full of minute details that absolutely are not necessary, but this is how my goddamn ADHD brain works. Now you know what it's like to be in my Discord server.

That post is, of course, pinned in the music channel.

As it should be.

... Fuck Pandora, I don't even fuck with it no more, I miss Grooveshark, weh, my playlist on that site was eight hours long before they shut it down in 2014. Devastated. I was in the middle of using it when it went offline.

Okay now I'm done for real, sorry.

[aninkwellofnectar]

Author Questionnaire Tag Game

Tagged by @tryingtimi and figured I'd give this gauntlet a go, lol.

About Me

When did you start writing?

Very, very young. I'd say about 6. I used to get on the computer and type out storylines similar to the animated movies I was watching (some mixture of Disney stuff lol) so they were kind of fairytale-oriented then I later moved into Neopets territory and then outright fanfic. I started writing seriously in my late teens to early 20s. Before that it was exclusively something I did for fun.

Are there genres/themes you enjoy reading different to the ones you write?

I used to read a lot of contemporary fiction though I've started reading a lot more fantasy in order to write it better. But my background in reading is very heavily oriented towards contemporary fiction and classics. It's weird now because I find I can't... get into contemp as much anymore. Part of that might be to do with how much I feel alienated and disenchanted with the real world, idk. Indie has gotten me into more things I otherwise wouldn't have touched like romance and horror (the latter I'm not opposed to on principle it's just not something I would pick up on its own) and I'm grateful for the expansion.

Is there an author you want to emulate, or one to whom you're often compared?

Before I read Patricia McKillip I would say no but she absolutely has what I want in one package. I admire her greatly. I wouldn't say I've ever been compared to an author but I'm open to comparisons if anyone has any.

Can you tell me a little about your writing space?

I do a lot of my writing at my desk with my desktop or on my laptop in my bed. I also write on my phone (blasphemy) but I suppose my desk is my "writing space" as it were and it's very cluttered ever since I start publishing with an array of stuff I use to run a business out of my bedroom.

What's your most effective way to muster up some muse?

Reading excerpts of books that have inspired me or re-watching scenes on Youtube of dialogue and characterisation that strikes the mood I want to bring to my own scenes. I find this helps overcome the "empathy gap" because I'm not a very emotive person. I'm very rational and what some people call "repressed".

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and places you write about?

I suppose the family dynamics I write but I never really considered it until other people started talking about it in terms of "oh, it'd be nice if some families weren't dysfunctional" to me it's the normal families that are weird, even growing up with my childhood friends it was very abnormal for anyone to have like a stable two-parent dynamic. Perhaps this is just a class/background kind of thing but I write what feels emotionally true and familiar to me.

Are there any recurring themes of your writing, and if so, do they surprise you at all?

Self vs society, power vs love, escaping the constraints of a toxic community to seek liberation. And it's not really a surprise why that would crop up continually because it relates to things that I've continually had to grapple with in my own life.

My Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favourite character?

Laila Rose. She's the protagonist of my fantasy series and I love her to pieces. We've been through a lot together and even when I eventually stop writing her I will probably always love her the best and the most and want to continue her journey. Working up the courage to say goodbye to her has been immensely difficult, more than I anticipated. It's like trying to part ways with my soulmate. I feel like I've spoken at length on why I love her and I don't really want to repeat myself so please read The Essence of the Equinox and I hope you'll come to love her too.

Which of your characters do you think you'd be friends with in real life?

I'd definitely befriend Lyra, she'd be a riot honestly. Laila I'd be too intimidated by in real life to even think of approaching. Maybe I'd befriend Sabina as well, I could fix her, but not many of the others.

Which of your characters would you dislike most if you met them?

Dominus. He's pretty much like... everything I hate rolled into one package.

Tell me more about the process of coming up with your characters.

I often get inspired by favourites in media and I pluck pieces of them and fit them together like a little puzzle until it becomes one definable template and then I sort of keep expanding that puzzle piece by adding little bits here and there. Dialogue, voice, ways of moving and emoting, until they become real to me.

Do you notice any recurring themes/traits among your characters?

A lot of them are not very "likeable" people. They're not underdogs. They're not bastions of purity and goodness. They fuck up a lot. They hurt people, even and including those they love, they can have unchecked bigotry, they lie and cheat and scheme. But they're all very real and human in a way that, again, feels true to me. For me a character is defined more by their flaws than by their virtues.

How do you picture your characters?

Some are more vivid than others but once I get a face claim something clicks in my mind and it's like I'm seeing them even clearer than before.

My Writing

What's your reason for writing?

It's just a part of me. It's like asking me why I eat or sleep. It's a compulsion and it makes me feel useful, accomplished, grounded. The fact that all of my current friendships stem from me writing doesn't feel like a coincidence because it connects me to the world in a way I wouldn't bother indulging if I didn't write.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating coming from your readers?

I don't get many comments from readers but my closest friends reached that level by showing that they spent a lot of time truly thinking and dissecting and ruminating on what I write and why I choose to write it that way. When I get a lengthy comment from them showing that they've truly turned something over in their head or pointed out themes or little hints I've tried to pepper through... it makes me feel seen and appreciated.

How do you want to be thought of by those who read your work?

I want to be seen as talented, of course, I want to be seen as someone who is skilled in my craft and meticulous with detail. I want to be seen as an accomplished wordsmith. And I work very hard to try and attain that standard for myself.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I think it's being very visually-oriented. I really feel like I can paint a scene with my words in a small amount of them, especially when I discover that right combination.

What have you been frequently told by others is your greatest strength as a writer?

People have said it's crafting immersive imagery, whether that's with food or settings or even when it comes to eroticism and sex. I'm very sensory-driven as a writer and I want to really transport you somewhere else when you read.

How do you feel about your own writing?

I think that I'm good but that I can be much better and that's always the mindset that I carry into my work. I internalise criticism a lot although I'm also very good at pushing back against it if I don't fully agree but whenever I sit down to write something I always think "how can I make this much better than the last piece I've written" and I do think I've accomplished that.

If you were the last person on earth and knew your writing would never be read by another human, would you still write?

Yes, because honestly my writing isn't nearly so dependent on external validation as I thought it was. I used to think the thing I wanted most to be read and adored and while I do long for recognition it's more about being awarded for merit and being acclaimed for hard work, talent, and vision. I do sometimes get sad when people don't love my work and I took it quite hard when I first published When the Stars Alight, I will admit that. But I've found that I've come to terms with being constantly at odds with the world, having less popular tastes and interests and viewpoints, and I feel like my writing is just an extension of that. So rejection was not only to be expected but accepted. I myself will still always love my stories deeply and think that they're great stories worth being shared with the world regardless of what anyone else thinks.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely what you enjoy? if it’s a mix of the two, which holds the most influence?

Before I published? Absolutely not. But as a businesswoman I have to be a bit more shrewd. I never write entirely to market tastes because it'll stifle my authentic voice and I don't really think I could do a paint-by-numbers job without my lack of passion showing. But I do weigh up a lot of my ideas based on what I've seen work commercially a lot more than I did before going indie. At the end of the day I'm a pragmatic creature who will do what needs to be done.

tagging: @laufire @words-after-midnight @pinespittinink @ladyniniane @rose-bookblood @i-m-p-a-v-i-d-u-s @sometimesraven @jazmine-here @zmwrites

[synthaphone]

long post talking about making neopets style art, but not in a way that's useful or coherent or proofread

idk why of all the things that i struggle to do, the thing i keep coming back to trying to pull off is 'imitate the neopets art style circa 2004-2007'. i'm really proud of the stuff i make in that style, but i've always got a nagging feeling about how there's like, very few applications for this very specific skill i'm building, and i could be spending this time improving at anatomy or perspective or anything else. i guess that's just the power of 'wanting to learn something really bad' combined with, critically, 'believing im really close to figuring it out'

there's something about the line weights on a lot of old pets that's really hard for me to capture, and i've gone through a bunch of different ideas of why that is- like, maybe its easier to do in flash, or its something about the way i have the pressure sensitivity set up on my pen, or maybe the official artists also carefully shaped and weighted their lines while scaling the drawing down every so often to make sure they 'feel right' on a small scale (lol), or maybe its that shit that artists who've been inking shit for a long time learn how to do intuitively that i'm just not at the level of yet.

i'm looking at this smug bastard like. how do they decide which lines should be thick vs thin. my instinct is to go thicker on the corners of points like the ear tips, but this artist went thinner, and i think weighted the lines heavier on the undersides of shapes where the shadows are? neo artists aren't immune to stuff that frustrates me when i'm making pet art either, almost every pet has some part of their lineart that makes a weird tangent with the damn Circle. the linework on the hands straight up isn't clear at all, but i can tell what the pose is from how the shoulders are positioned and the expression of the character, so i guess that doesn't really matter at the end of the day

im pasting the lines i'm working on next to existing pets with varying levels of detail, but it might be too early to tell if they have the right level of clarity. i'm also i'm back in photoshop because that's easier for me, but maybe i should have tried flash again- doing the art in vectors does give the finished image that hard to detect Crispness that i'm always chasing

in order, these were drawn in photoshop in 2019, photoshop in 2022, and Flash in 2024. i was going to be like 'oh god, the Vully DOES look sharper than the centibyte, it must be Flash' but honestly i got the halloween one to look pretty close?? maybe i scaled down my photoshop images differently in 2019............ i think i've also gotten better at mimicking the lineart style, so it could also be that, but that doesn't account for why the top one looks kind of blurry in comparison. am i crazy. is it visible to anyone else.

anyway ive gone off on a tangent. for some reason this is what i'm obsessed with doing so i'm just gonna keep on trucking until something else seizes my attention instead i guess

[fuzzyfoe]

if pet hotel had little games and activities like neopets or club penguin puffle games, what would they be?

whatever would be within my skill level to program i guess

i think i would start out with a game where the pet is holding a basket beneath some trees and you have to catch falling fruit by moving the pet left and right. sounds nice and simple enough, and once i had enough of a variety of simple games i would then feel free to try and experiment with something more complex and take as much time as i need since the simple games are able to fill that space where something needs to be right now

if i made this a website-based virtual pet game like neopets and flight rising are, something that's gonna be tricky and would probably take me a long time is i would have to learn how to make an html5 application (which is what these games would be if this was the case, since flash is dead) that would be able to read pet information and user information from a database so the pet could appear in the minigame, be able to modify values like the amount of money the player has so the player can earn money by playing these games, and this database needs to be able to be read and written to by both these minigames and by regular pages like a player's profile page where you'd be able to see your current money balance, for instance. The only experience I have in regards to creating an html5 application is running the html dist Gradle command that libGDX has, which just converts all of your java code into javascript as its own contained thing when for this I would need to make something that actually has the ability to talk to other things. I would have to learn a ton of php in order to make this a thing as well, which I don't have a lot of experience with either.

If I were to turn the pet hotel into a fully-fledged automated and programmable game with my current knowledge and skillset, I think I'd have an easier time using libGDX and Java Swing to make it, and then people would have to download a jar file for it off of itch.io in order to play it. I feel like more people would play it if the game was entirely website-based because people don't really like to download things, which is kind of understandable, but learning web development is really hard and from what little I do know about it I'm kind of bad at it. I took a class where I learned how web sockets work in Java so I think I could be able to make something that connects online like this, but I would have to rent some server space in order to do this so the pet hotel would become something that starts actually costing me money to run if I did this. Also I already have a full-time job so the progress I would make on this would be pretty slow, and sometimes I struggle to muster up the motivation to even just make regular art during the time that I'm not working because my brain just kind of sucks like that. So for now i just run this thing that pretends to be a video game but is actually not because my brain prefers the instant gratification of watching youtube videos and playing video games that other people have already made instead of using that time to learn how to make a video game myself

[thisismycorneroftheinternet]

I'm taking Neopets Art Commissions!

Okay, so, yeah, um, here comes the sob story about my life, but times have been a bit difficult for me in this past year or so, and mainly in recent times my sister and I have gotten to a level of financial tightness we're relying heavily on the university's two free meals (and bread we technically steal from the university restaurant to eat as breakfast and late night meals), rice and stuff our house mate gets for free from his mother, and sporadic donations to make it through the month, and, even then, the smallest of medical or house issues are enough to get us into debt. Also, long story short I can't get a job because of university classes being inconveniently spread out throughout the day (I could not get transferred to night classes), because, despite the university being free, the staff there still thinks you need to be rich to study there.

Long story short, money's tight, we can't tighten the budget anymore, so I'm trying to look into sources of income, and, well, given I have plenty of experience with art, I decided to start offering commissions.

Here are the prices and explanations for the three types of art I can offer for now:

How can you order a commission? At my shop at Shoppy. And how do you contact me for the commission details and progress? Through email, Instagram, my Neopets account or in here (although I prefer the talk to be through email or IG since I get the app notifications).

I will be taking up to 5 different commissions at a time. Right now I have 0/5 pending commissions.

Please don't forget to check my shop's Carrd for FAQs and Rules for commissioning me.

Thank you for your time.

[ravenwolfie97]

i had a thought and suddenly realized that Neopets is turning 25 this year

and it would be cool to do something for it

but i tried to find the thing i wanted to pay tribute to and i can't seem to find anything

it was a video that i had found on either the forums or the neopian times on neopets way way way back when

and it was a song naming all the neopets in alphabetical order

and it has always stuck with me all these years, and im a little sad that i can't find it and properly pay tribute to it since idk who was the one who made it in the first place

if anyone knows what I'm talking about and have a link to it, i would greatly appreciate it :3

[multiplekittens]

was looking thruogh the neopets seasonal attack pea insider trading notes and was having difficulty finding an explanation. as someone who used to be REAL into it but hasnt actively played neo in maybe 2-ish years i would love to hear what the hell is going on so much

Happy to oblige!! This is going to be a long post, so I'm putting my answer under the cut

Alright, so I think part of why you're having trouble finding an explanation is that there isn't a definitive answer yet! With that in mind, I'm going to divide this post into a fact-based description of what happened, followed by my personal speculation. I'm not someone who's big in the community, so all of this has come from me reading (mostly on the neopets reddit); my perspective is bound to be biased because of that, so take my speculation with a grain of salt!

The facts as I heard them:

---First day of the Advent calendar. People are shocked and surprised to find the seasonal attack pea is part of the prize pool for the hidden prize. For anyone who's reading this who doesn't have a neopets background, the seasonal attack pea is an extremely rare, powerful battledome item (the battledome is what it sounds like, and has both a PvNPC and PvP mode). Its going price before all this started was 2 billion neopoints; that is significantly more than the average player will ever make in their lifetime. Some (imo, most) people are excited that this item is going to be affordable (still steep, but possible to buy); some people, (I think?? Mostly long-playing wealthy players and/or battledome players) aren't happy because they're worried it'll break the neopets economy OR unbalance the battledome.

---Second day. Someone on Jellyneo, an extremely popular fansite whose mods have some level of communication with the neopets team (TNT), makes a note on their advent calendar guide saying that the seasonal attack pea has been removed from the prize pool. This note is now deleted, so I don't know what exactly it said; I saw some people say that it indicated the pea was removed because of ambassadors complaining to TNT directly, but since I never read the post I can't confirm that. (I don't really understand what ambassadors are; I think they're long-running fans that can communicate to TNT in order to bridge the gap between the fanbase writ large and TNT, but I'm not 100% sure about that).

---People are FURIOUS. Some people are saying they'll cancel their premium subscription because of this, others are saying they'll leave the site entirely. Some people are saying this is proof TNT can act fast, but only will when rich players complain (previous snafus in events have taken TNT like a week to react to, so hours/days is out of character). People who got the pea and sold it for 20 mil because they thought it was about to be deinflated to hell are devastated. People's posts on the subject were getting deleted off the neo boards by the neopets team, who have not released a single statement. People were going to John Legend's Instagram to ask him to fix the neopets economy. (I saw at least one person post something along the lines of "look, I still got a pea today," but I don't think a lot of people saw that; maybe they just assumed that person was secretly getting last day's gift.) It was a mess!

---Third day of the Advent calendar. People get the pea as a hidden prize.

---Now people are upset AND confused. It's highly unlikely that TNT would be so fast-moving (and wishy-washy) to remove the pea for exactly one day and then put it back, so people start speculating if the pea was even removed in the first place. They start turning on Jellyneo, since the website quietly deleted the post saying that the pea was removed from the hidden prize pool. This is where the insider trading accusations come in; I'm going to talk more about that in the speculation section.

---JellyNeo releases a statement, shown here (picture stolen from satansboyussy on Reddit)

---People extremely do not trust this post.

---Day 4 (today): talk about this has died down a lot, especially since TNT put a Kadoatie in the normal prize list for today's Advent calendar. Most people are kind of just joking about it now

Speculation:

Most of what I'm about to say is unsourced, outside of "this is what people on Reddit said," so don't believe everything I write here! But here's why people are thinking of insider trading specifically:

---ive seen people say that the "complaining ambassadors" I referenced earlier might be either someone on JellyNeo's mod team or someone close to JellyNeo's mods; the calls might have been coming from inside the house, as it were

---ive also seen some people saying that they saw someone on JellyNeo's team buying up cheap peas and selling them for a gigantic markup, but I have seen absolutely no actual proof of this. I'm absolutely sure people have been flipping peas like that, but I don't know if that's insider trading specifically or just neopets economy being neopets economy. Huge if true, though!

---I find it extremely strange that someone would, in good faith, see no one posting peas on the trading post for two hours between 12 and 2 AM PST and decide that definitively meant that peas had been removed from the pool, then post that as fact on an extremely popular fansite. The majority of neopets players are US American, so that seems like a natural dead time to me.

--- On a side note, People seem to buy that the pea chance has indeed been lowered by TNT; I'm not really sure if I do, just because TNT historically has not reacted that quickly ever since the new team was founded, but who knows!

I hope this answers your questions!! Please let me know if you have any more; you can ask in the replies and I'll do my best to answer. I think a lot more info might be able to be found on the Neopets discord, but I refuse to join any more discords lol

[nagalias-mindscape]

Does anyone remember the Neopets game for PS2? Was thunking up a hallway trap for a story and came up woth the infamous tower climb from that game, then spiraled into nostalgia over coming home from school and being able to play neopets with mom until dad came home.

I miss that game, and the memories. I think it’s mostly the memories, because I also miss the spyro games. and the jax ‘n daxer games. And Katamari. Legacy of Kain. Kingdom Hearts. Gauntless: Dark Legacy. Castlevania. Conker’s bad fur day. Goldeneye 007. Mega man. Star fox.

Even the one game whose name I can’t recall? You played as a dude named Max? Maximilian? You were, like. This warrior or something with a connection to death. Exploring through darkness and all that shit. When you died that avatar of death would bring you back ans mock you or something? Might be mixing two games, though. Any help figuring that one out would be nice.

I miss a lot of the games I used to play. The stuff just isn’t like they used to be anymore.

There was. Even this one game. Different set of memories, my uncle instead of parents. Out of state. He had this game. Don’t remember a lot about it, but I remember the beginning because it starts you literally in the middle of a war. You’re an immortal fighter, and you have an immortal wife (which may have been your enemy in the beginning?) and two (non-immortal?) children who are equally just as powerful, and you eventually get to fight enemies with all four people. I recall being so surprised that fire wasn’t effective against ice. The scene I remember most clearly about it, though, was the funeral scene where you have to burn the rope in a specific order according to the people who approached you.

Don’t even remember the game or anything else. Just that funeral scene being stuck in my head rent-free. I’d love relocating that game, too. Uncle has no clue what I’m even talking about.

My Google skills have failed me.

[atlasllm]

sometimes i'll just suddenly get REALLY obsessed with listening to a specific kind of youtube video and it'd be the ONLY thing that i can listen to to finish my homework or something and so far i can name, in no particular order:

This very no-substance series of videos by a weirdly popular channel called Reaction Time and for some reason the hosts' actual name is Tal Fishman

RT Game's Kirby and the Forgotten Land video

Wilbur Soot (Geoguessr videos)

Wilbur Soot (you laugh you lose)

Dream Team Minecraft challenges (literally anything but the manhunts bc those were too intense for homework)

Markiplier's The Mortuary Assistant let's play

Literally any Markiplier x Analog Horror video

Jacksepticeye watching tiktoks and other react videos

Emkay reddit narrations, specifically by Lexi (currently in this phase)

Blameitonjorge lost media documentaries

Gab Smolders' I'm On Observation Duty videos

Markiplier's RAFT series

Overly Sarcastic Production's Trope Talks

Crit1kal's Tier Lists, specifically on Baby Food, Toddler Food, then Adult Diapers

Crit1kal's psycho serum saga

Crit1kal reacting to bad cooking channels

PhantomStrider's Spongebob lists

Quackity soap opera VODs

Saberspark reacting to bad movies

Snapcube's Sonic Destruction + Sonic Dubs, but literally only listening to them and hearing the voices rather than sitting down to laugh at the bits

Also Snapcube's Puyo Puyo Tetris, Team Sonic Racing

Snapcube playing Neopets: The Darkest Faerie was a HUGE one for a while

Snapcube Sonic Unleashed VODs

Snapcube Resident Evil 7

Markiplier Phasmophobia

Markiplier Reviews

Markiplier UNO

Literally any Jacksepticeye/Markiplier video about playing Whack Your ___ games

etc

Like, this shit would be the ONLY thing my brain would pay attention to and therefore the ONLY thing that would help me focus on homework, but the struggle would be trying to find out which one it'd be for the current time period

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

It’s Robin! My reasons in no particular order:

1. I like Robin.

2. I already for humor purposes have Robin collecting an ever-increasing long-distance friend group. Like there’s the core “nerdy goth mages with shitty evil dads” with Soren, Leo, and Hubert. Chop off the “nerdy” part and add Sonya. Arvis’ father was certainly an asshole but he's been dead twenty years and is not an active problem to anyone, but Arvis' cursed bloodline and cult problem fits in nicely with this group of weirdoes.

(Arvis: "I'm twenty-seven years old. I don't want to be part of a group chat."

Robin: "What does that have to do with anything?")

I haven't actually detailed how Robin meets anyone else besides Hubert, because I don't know, but I started actually trying to think about how Arvis and Robin could've connected, and then I thought. Hey, what if that friendship started when they were younger?

3. Is it funny? is the driving question behind most choices for this AU. But I also think that a friendship between Arvis and Robin would be kind of sweet, especially when they're kids, because it'd be nice to have a friend/confidant who can also understand the experience of "hiding my heritage that connects me to a cult and their dark dragon god, while I'm living in a country that venerates Naga".

(When he's in middle school, Arvis admits this in an email to Robin, freaks out after he sends the email, tries to devise his own way to force the email client to un-send his message, spends 18 hours in a blind panic, and then gets a response from Robin that's like "oh shit no fucking way me too".)

They lose touch as they get older and life gets busier, but when Robin is in college and doing all of her research about dragon cults across the world, she gets deep into learning more about Jugdral and Loptous, and learning in even more depth how much stigma there still is attached to anyone who might've had ancestors connected to the Loptyr Church, never mind the whole bloodline shit, Robin's like "I wonder how my old internet pen pal is doing with this shit" and sends an email. Arvis, being rather paranoid and always worried that any of his accounts could get compromised and people could learn things about him, still checks on his childhood email and Neopets account and everything else, and he and Robin start talking again.

This is where the "sweet" also turns into "funny", because Arvis is paranoid and "I'll take my secrets alone to my grave with me", while Robin has met the Shepherds and become a "power of friendship" bitch and that's a quality dynamic right there.

(Robin: "I know you'll be able to find people who'll ignore superstition and accept you when you tell them about your bloodline. :)"

Arvis: "No thank you, I think I will just die.")

[scootakip]

Pengu Survives Christmas

I've made an arcade highscore game based on Pengu Saves Christmas by STANNco on Newgrounds

This wasn't originally a Pengu game, it was actually an original minigame being made for the Neopets private server Neopets Classic. Titled "Jump Bruce", it had mostly the same gameplay and obstacles, just originally made using a Neopets skin.

The idea was for a pixel-art arcade game that would progressively get more difficult the longer you survived by adding more obstacles. I love those original score-based arcade games and I feel like it's a form of gameplay that a lot of these kids MMOs base their minigames on, so I thought it'd be fitting

These are some of the original assets. Pengu went on to replace Bruce, Quiggle was replaced by a piranha fish, and Pteri never got reskinned. Rather than having an enemy who flys through the sky, I settled on replacing Pteri with the seal from Pengu Saves Christmas, who now resides on the bottom platforms.

This brick got replaced with an icicle, and the fireball's sprite got remade and reused. The Brucicles would eventually become the varied Christmas treat pickups in Pengu Survives Christmas.

It's a real shame that none of these assets got put to proper use, because I'm fairly proud of how they came out. The game was actually near completion, but it unfortunately got canceled because the Neopets Classic developer that I had been in contact with decided to start ghosting me.

It was a nearly completed game that I thought had potential though, so I decided to reuse it for another now canceled project called the Newgrounds Bootleg Pack.

The idea of the Newgrounds Bootleg Pack was to make a Newgrounds themed minigame collection based on those bootleg NES game packs. Y'know, the ones that hilarious mistranslate and misname classic games, also sometimes containing some of the stankiest bootleg homebrew known to man such as "Angry Birds" or "Plants vs Zombies" NES roms. If you don't know what I'm talking about, look up some videos of them, they're hilariously terrible.

Anyways, Jump Bruce got reskinned to be "Fulp Hero", which was just a direct reskin of the game.

Rather than Bruce, you played as Tom Fulp's avatar and collected Beers

You'd avoid bullets shot at you by Pico

And dodge flying envelopes and Tom Fulp's cat, Sherbert. I kinda had a difficult time coming up with obstacles related to Tom Fulp and Newgrounds, but the strangeness of it fits with the bootleg theme in my opinion.

The Newgrounds Bootleg Pack was going to be released for April Fools 2022, but unfortunately wasn't finished in time. I might end up making a blog post dedicated to the bootleg pack itself just so I can share some of the minigames I made that never saw the light of day.

2 canceled remakes of my first released Newgrounds game Egg-Legs and 2 more canceled Christmas projects (that I cannot talk about right now because they might still be finished in the future) later, we've come to Pengu Survives Christmas. I really wanted to get something out for Christmas, and considering that Jump Bruce/Fulp Hero was already nearly finished, reskinning the game and releasing it for Christmas wouldn't be a very tall order.

Turns out I wasn't entirely right

The original code for Jump Bruce goes back as far as 2021, and dear lord I was a bum-ass programmer back then. A lot of the code was kinda buggy so I tried to fix it, but it was just so poorly made and shotty that attempts to fix it resulted in even more broken code. The organization and build of the project itself was so poorly organized that trying to navigate it to fix its issues was such a headache.

The jumping felt terrible and was such a pain to fix without rewriting it. My system for having platforms you can jump through the bottom of was just amateur, but the organization of the actual scene was so poor that I'd have to go through each and every physics object individually and fix each one. The platforms also weren't instances of one platform, but each an individual node. I'd have to fix each of the 5 platforms individually. Like what the fuck was I thinking when I originally made this.

Overall, I decided to simply remake it from the ground-up. I felt it'd be easier to make the game feel the way I wanted it to feel if I just remade it all rather than trying to sort through and fix my shotty work from over a year ago.

I don't know how entirely right I was to do this, if it really was faster and more efficient, but overall I'm proud of the product that I've made. In addition to remaking the original game (minus the flying enemy on the top of the level), I also added new obstacles in the form of the seal on the bottom platforms and the rising water. Overall, this version of the game feels and looks way better than any of the previous versions. It's also a much cleaner project which will make it easier to make additions to if I decided to update it in the future (which I'm already thinking of doing, as I'd love to implement a hard-mode and potentially more level layouts)

You can play the game here if you'd like, sign in to Newgrounds to be able to unlock medals and post your highscores to the scoreboard!

Follow me on Tumblr or Twitter to hear more about games that I'm making (or really just whatever else I'm up to)

[nicotinzwei]

June <3333333

Book

I havent finished it but i'm reading "Joyland" by Stephen King. I was so surprised to find out its from 2013 because it feels so similar to his old work. He still got it i guess. And so far he's only been weird once. The book is about a guy in the 80s who goes to work at an amusement park over the summer. I was looking or something that felt very suthern gothic, blazing heat, horror and I ordered two books. Couldnt get into the first one yet but this one was PERFECT for that. It's a pretty light read but still keeps you interested. I also accidentally ordered it twince (one new, one used) because they said one couldnt be delivered. So now i take the used one everywhere and dont think about hurting it. Trying to maybe give the other one away or at least lend it to someone.

Life

When i went to my parents i brought home a disposeable camera nad my old camcorder. It's from 2013 and i got it for my confirmation. I feel like taking phone pictures is kind of awkward. Because people expect you to post them and get shy about it. But they react better with other cameras. Maybe it's just the novelty. I'll try to bring it around this summer and maybe make a longer video. Music

I knowww everybody is talking about her but i also love Chappell Roan. I think her music is always gonna remind me of this summer shes really taking over. I haven't been big into pop at all the last years. Liking current music makes me feel like i'm in 2009 watching the charts on viva. It's just really nice everyone agrees about her.

Movie

I think I watched it on the last days of May but I didn't mention Challengers. I feel like it is THE summer movie, like Barbie was last year. Even though I liked it A LOT I didn't love it as much as Luca Guadagninos other movies. Call my by your name and Bones and all are just very different mood wise and I think i prefer his melancholy. But the cinematography was more creative and i appreciate that a lot. I loved being the ball.

Internet

I really like when people reclaim the online space. Most of the stuff we use is owned by the same people and allows little creativity or personality. I love when people make personal artistic website projects or digital shrines. If you want to check out some there is a collection on Neocities. I kind of also want to make one now.

P.S. new neopets plot for the first time in like 15ish years started