Thanks for the reply! Haha, I'm definitely more of a night person as well :D I loooove the evenings, they're so quiet and peaceful.

Exactly, Neopets is incredibly censor-heavy! o_o even with the item names, amazingly enough. I remember someone being filtered for saying the word 'peanuts' ... I mean, whut. I think the site was a lot better in the early years - a 'golden age,' perhaps, but then it just went downhill for lots of reasons sigh

The multiple account allowance on Neopets is really strange when one considers all the restrictions they place on sharing between accounts - I feel like it should be all or nothing. Preferably just one account, because people get confused over what they are and aren't allowed to do and are eventually banhammered.

OMG, an account I made and left 11 years ago still exists, it's ridiculous. I seriously see no evidence of name clearings they supposedly implement. One will be announced occasionally, but for some reason some ancient accounts are still lying around. I suspect they leave them there to artificially inflate the number of users they claim to have.

Thanks again! Hope you sleep well!

Thank you! It is definitely a handful, but in the best way. I'd say a good 75% of the 25 students are behavioral students, so I definitely have to stay on my feet constantly. Friday a little boy cut out a heart and colored it red and gave it to me. Another hugged me and told me he loves me. The little things like that just make it so much better :)

Awwww, that is sooooo sweet <3 it sounds like they just adore you. Those things really can brighten a whole day :D I know I still vividly remember my first-grade teacher ... I doubt they'll ever forget what a great teacher you were!

Awww thank you!! I remember my first grade teacher, somewhat, as well. She was one of my favorites because she was so nice and understanding. I'm trying to be like that, as well, so the kids feel like they have someone who really cares. I'm not a huge fan of their actual teacher. lol She's a bit..aggressive for first grade.

Yep, it's the nicest teachers who stand out most strongly in memories! :D The negative ones do as well, unfortunately, but I'm sure your teaching legacy will be really warm and positive.

Sorry to hear their current teacher is kind of aggressive ... definitely not the best approach for that age level. I'm glad they have you around at least :D

You're very welcome. Yes neopets is crazy with censorship. I mean really, peanuts? It's because it has the word nuts in it I'm sure, they can sexualize just about anything and they have those censor bots set to pick up the weirdest things. You can't talk about having a glass of wine and if you say "a beverage made from grapes," that gets censored because it has the word rape in it. You can't say, "I'm sick today but not as bad as yesterday" because they think you're saying bad ass, so you can NEVER say that anything is as bad as anything. There are SO many things that I just gave up trying to talk to anyone there.

I think you're right about keeping old accounts to inflate their numbers, and since it's owned by corporate conglomerates now they have no shame about what they do. I miss the old days of Adam and Donna. Well I don't miss them anymore since I rarely play there now, but when I WAS playing a lot I missed them.

OK well thanks for the sleep note, I did finally sleep around 9 AM for about 6 hrs and that's about it for me. I don't like sleep AT all, never have.

I hope you're having a good night/day! :)

Haha no way, the grape story made me lol - that is just insane! I've also heard it's against the rules to discuss illness - they gave someone a warning for mentioning their mild concussion, even though TNT used that word in a joking context in a newsletter at some point. Overly eager to censor people AND hypocritical xD

Yeah, it was sad when Adam and Donna left :( Neopets could have been so much better. There hasn't been much focus on site's quality or the users for a very long time now ... but since many of the players are children, I guess they're too young to recognise it.

Thanks so much, hope you have a great day too! :D

It's true, you're not allowed to discuss illnesses. And they ARE hypocritical in many ways, but I can't think of an example of something that THEY can say but users can't. I was once in an ADULT guild, but the owner was SO paranoid (cause she was very young and had been playing since she was a teen) that she MADE us use codes such as 3 for e and ( for a C when we were discussing topics that were against the rules in our GUILD. It was so annoying!!

Glad you got a laugh out of the grape story. That happened to a friend of mine, not me.

Adam and Donna actually SOLD neopets to Sony/MTV when it became such a booming business that they were able to get a LOT for it. It's sad, but they were the original owners and they abandoned us for money, boo hoo. Well I was falling asleep here a few minutes ago, but I stubbornly refuse to go to sleep. I'm trying to get some things done, lol!

I think you're right that kids wouldn't notice, especially since they've added so many new things over the yrs that kids like such as Habitarium and PetPet park. And the young ones don't remember the redraws. I had a baby grrarl ( I LOVE grrarls and I'm not sure I'm even spelling that right, is it grarrl? Not sure) and he was Soooo cute, he had been hit by boochi and I loved how he looked.

His name was Mr. Angry Eye and I'd adopted him. When he was turned baby he was SO darling until the redraws. After that he had this horribly ugly face that had a huge bulbous nose and they made the eyes look dull. Before that he had a gleam in his eye and the name was SO funny after he became a baby. I eventually had to give him away because it disturbed me how weird he looked.

Many of the redraws really were awful. The blumaroos used to sit on their tales and after they redrew them they were standing on huge stumpy legs, and it was ALL so they could put clothes on them, just to make money in the NC mall. Ugh!!!

I had a friend who spent HOURS and weeks and months developing a pet page that had images of the new and the old of each pet species. He was collecting images from anyone who had an old image (and I can't remember where or how that could be) but somehow he managed to build a huge data base where you could look at and compare the old to the new of MANY pets of all colors. Then after he'd done ALL that work (at some point) the image links broke and he tried putting it on an offsite page (he obviously knows a LOT about coding and such) but eventually the whole thing just got ruined.

Not to mention he lost his main account because neopets has a glitch that they won't admit where some passwords are broken and have an extra two characters suddenly added to them. So one day he was trying to log in and he couldn't and he went around and around with some staff member (through a ticket) and the guy kept telling him that he needed two more characters. Apparently it was a well known problem among ppl who still played there a lot, but neopets staff would NOT admit that it was their problem, they just kept freezing ppl's accounts and acting as if it was not their fault.

He came to subeta after that and then he left here for some other online game. Yawn. I gotta go try to finish my projects, nice talking to you! :)

Yeah, the censorship is especially annoying for adult users who might have had their account for a really long time - then there's like a perpetual nervousness over losing all of that work thanks to Neo's overzealous filters >.> I would get so fed up using code word all the time!

Mr. Angry Eye haha, that DOES sound like a cute grarrl :D I didn't like many of the redraws either, especially of the faerie pets. In general they really do look more dull, and some even had their poses changed to match the plain colours. sniffle

That password glitch thing is just awful ... helpful support over there seems practically non-existant. A friend of mine sent in a ticket about an unfair freezing, and didn't hear from anyone for like three months o_o

It's always nice to hear about people migrating over to Subeta, hopefully that'll increase even more in the future! Nice talking to you too :D

I totally agree with everything you said in each of those paragraphs. And the perpetual nervousness, that is SO accurate and well put. I wasn't able to play on subeta for a little over a yr and had to satisfy myself with neopets and it nearly drove me insane for that reason.

I was so glad when I was able to come back and start over here. It didn't take me long to build up an account that is much more than the first one. OK well it's after 3 AM and snack time. :)

Indeed, Neopets is definitely insanity-inducing xD so glad you eventually returned here, though! :D

Your HA looks epic, btw! I love the hints of red from the lain and the background. Hope you're having a nice Morostide!

I'm truly glad I returned as well. I really didn't like being gone, but there was nothing to be done about it. I'm glad that you got back into playing here as well!! :)

Thanks so much for the compliment on my HA. You're a sweetie!! ❤ I created this last yr for an event that one of my friends did on a chit chat forum called Lovely Rotten Vintage Tea (LRVT for short) around the time of Valentine's Day. It was called the Blood and Chocolate Ball, so even though I don't usually put my HA in gory costumes I created this for one of the contests, and then I created a very sweet looking one as well. I think I used a pink dress that's called a Lolita Dress or something like that.

If you're interested in a forum that has a smaller group of ppl (though I don't really hang out there that much myself) let me know. It's not as busy as some of the other chit chat forums.

The main thing about this HA that I want you to know is that the thing that makes it awesome is the dress which was created by another friend of mine who's user name is Flamingo. It was her first time designing anything (I believe) and she created it in 4 colors. The red one wasn't as popular so she only created one batch of 10 and I ended up buying two of them to insure that the slots would be filled. I recently gave that extra red dress back to her (it's her birthday coming up on Oct 31st) and I wanted her to have it to sell or give away. I would NOT know how to sell a CW that is very exclusive, since only 10 of the red ones were ever made which means it's worth more in sP than other CWs, I guess, I'm not much into them. I only have a few.

Anyway, It think it's the dress that makes this HA (and the background which is not easy to get but I lucked out and got one for 20 mil last yr). I really LOVE those eyes too, and I had a dark shadow added to them, but I had to take it off to put on the monocle. Now the eyes look a bit less "dark and morose" than I wanted them to, but that's the way it is. I wasn't going to use an ooh la layer just for that. I guess it wouldn't be that big of a deal now that I think of it though. Sometimes when I talk about something for a bit I realize that my thoughts (stuck inside my head) aren't really necessarily the bottom line. Talking through typing is processing the info as much as saying it aloud would be.

I have to tell you that it means SO much to me that you said something about my HA since I don't hang with many ppl here and I almost never have anyone mention my HA. I get to the point where I feel as if there's not a lot of reason to change it if nobody is going to even notice it!

And as for the lain, that's interesting because I added that yesterday after I won it from the Ruffie Raffle. I had NEVER heard of that before and then I saw it on someone's profile. It's a fun free little thing that (I think) gives a prize everyday. I love cardinals so I added that to the HA since it sort of reminds me of a cardinal. I moved to a place where there ARE no cardinals (over 23 yrs ago) and I still really miss "home."

Thanks again for mentioning what you thought of it. You have NO idea how much that means to me!! :) I live a solitary life and it's not much fun being alone all the time, but it happened quite unexpectedly almost 3 yrs ago and I haven't been able to get back out into life and rekindle friendships (or make new ones) so for now I'm pretty much alone.

Thanks a lot! So glad I discovered Subeta, it's literally like 98457x better than Neopets xD

Awww, it's totally my pleasure!! Interesting that you created the HA around Valentine's, because it totally fits both Morostide and Survival events on Subeta :D (another thing that's great about Subeta ... that unique spin on Valentine's day :P)

Thank you so much for the forum offer! These days I usually don't post much though (aside from sticker threads), because of rl busy-ness - I usually just do dailies and some quests when I log in. I'm hoping to be more active in the future, there are some interesting posts around :)

The dress is certainly a very beautiful design, well done to your friend! I agree, it can be difficult to sell CWs, especially because it's sometimes hard to determine a price. And no problem at all about the compliment, your HA really is super lovely! <3 I rarely change my own one, but that's usually because of my laziness haha xD

The Ruffie Raffle is great, I love all the life-like pet dolls! The lains are especially adorable, in my opinion :)

I'm so sorry to hear you feel lonely sometimes! :( I hope things get better in the future and you have the chance to spend more time with others. I totally know how it feels - I'm temporarily disabled because of some health issues, and while I'm glad I can work on things like assignments without needing to be overly active, it does grow lonely without being able to regularly communicate with others. I find Subeta is a nice diversion from that, though :D

I've been meaning to get back here and thank you for your very kind message, but you know how it is with Morostide. It's like a full time job when I'm online, lol.

You're welcome RE: the forum. I know what you mean because I only started posting on forums to get raffle ticket. I wasn't turning them in, however, because I was waiting to see if they'd come up with a book or two in that forum shop. Then they started giving points instead of tickets and they have NO way of turning in the tickets (and no warning that they were going to do that) and I have 15 tickets. I hope they fix that.

I'm sorry to hear that you're temporarily disabled. I know how it feels to be isolated. I've been permanently disabled for 22 yrs (due to a condition that I was born with, which I pushed past in terms of the pain, til I could push no longer). I stopped working when I was 37 and it was the best thing I ever did for myself.

I almost always had a partner to share my life and friends, though as ppl age it's sort of normal for their base of friends to shrink, especially if they find someone to spend their life with who seems like a keeper. I had someone like that, and we only had a little over 4 yrs together. We never married for financial reasons (both being disabled) and I thought he'd be with me and we'd be together til we were 100. I TRULY believed that.

It was a HUGE shock when he stood up and dropped to the floor (and that was the end) almost 3 yrs ago. He was only 55. I've been pretty "lost" since then and it's a long story of just being left alone by my family and the few friends I had left because I had always been so independent--I guess they thought that was an OK thing to do. I had been very dependent on Joe, which was a mistake. He wanted to take care of me, so he was doing all the shopping and errands and I got so used to staying in that I no longer feel comfortable out in the world.

I used to be VERY independent and I would walk or bus all over the place and I truly allowed myself to lose that out of deference to his need to "take care of me." I never imagined that he wouldn't always be here. Well if I had children I think it would be different. I don't know why I keep telling ppl this story. I guess it's my only way to grieve. I was in shock for over 2 yrs and have only recently come out of it, but I'm still inside all the time and alone.

Initially I made a LOT of phone calls to find some sort of social services to help me and I hit a LOT of brick walls...after awhile it just felt like too much rejection. I'm on California Medicaid so I should qualify for a social worker to advocate for me, but I wasn't able to find the right place to call and after awhile I gave up. I figured if the suicide hotline didn't have any references to give me, then that was sort of the end of trying. And I wasn't truly suicidal, I was just desperate to find a lead to getting some help. My doctor doesn't even "get it" or know how to find resources.

I have someone who comes over about once a wk who shops for me and does some housework and I'm paying her out of pocket. I should qualify for In Home Support Services but I was turned down. They say you have to be so bad off that you'd need to be in a nursing home w/out the service, but that's just not true. I know ppl who are out and about on their own doing way more than I am who have qualified for help. It's just that I don't have a diagnosis that ppl understand. Pain is NOT measurable and neither is depression. My doctor finally added PTSD to my diagnoses, so if I apply again I might get help.

It's just hard for me to even pick up the phone. They do a pre-screening when you call and they try very hard to eliminate ppl at that point. I'm tired of fighting to have my needs met. I'm 59 and I was active in the world til age 37 and in a LOT of pain since I was 15, and I have fought for yrs to get the ducks in a row. Having Joe die as he did was simply the last straw. I get by, but my life has very little quality. I talk to ppl here and it helps, but then when they are kind and they talk to me I end up having a hard time keeping up with them.

Then I feel guilty. I also risk having ppl say things to me that are harsh and totally NOT helpful. I always submit that if you haven't stood in another person's shoes you can't ever know what their life is, nor do you have the right to judge or give advice, but I certainly have been subjected to more than my share of that sort of ignorance. Well thanks for listening and I don't expect you to know what to say. My story is a pretty grim one (and I know that there are ppl who are much worse off than I)