the-last-neopian - Tumblr blog

[the-last-neopian]

Here’s the text version for all my screen reader friends!! *Zola voice* Y’all wanna hear a story about how me and this b (Neopets Classic) fell out? What’s Neopets Classic? It’s a fan recreation of the pre-2007 Neopets experience. It runs on donations (used to be patreon, now Buy Me A Coffee), and honestly…it’s a fun game. I won’t deny that. I had a great deal of fun and I loved my pets/the friends I made there. I also will not be mentioning any specific names in this post. Anyways! So four-ish months ago in the Neopets Classic (NPC) discord, there was some banter. It’s not unusual that conflict would arise in such a diverse player base. Someone casually joked that they would love to see some items based on Jewish holidays in the game. Immediately, another person clapped back and said that they don’t want religion on site. They insisted that Christmas was a part of “generic society” and culture. It was appalling, but nothing was done. In fact, the site owner posted google image search screenshots of the word “menorah” to get a one up on the Jewish players in the game. Telling them something like…SEE, it IS a religious symbol! Soon after, myself (Black, Muslim), and some other minorities were consulted for inclusive holiday content for the site. They didn’t really internalize any of it cause they drew a hijab faerie with skintight clothing and arms exposed, but I digress on that, haha. 
 I should pause here to note that the moderation style of the official site discord is to say “This conversation ends here,” and throw on 6-hour slowmode. It’s a site of mostly adult players, so obviously that never resolves anything. The “main” mod in question always had some real life situation or exigent circumstance. I’m not knocking that, life is hard. But – let someone else take the ropes if that’s the case. Fast forward to late May. A couple people express discontent that they’re having their pet names deleted without reason (Bimbo, Abort, Soviet, so on). I took a second to make a comment that it was interesting that white supremacy had been spewed in the server a month earlier and nothing was done. Yet, here are people having their pet names deleted. Names that could mean something to them personally. Not three minutes later, I noticed that a moderator of the site had a pet named Minstrel. I saw red and admittedly was not that kind. I said something along the lines of “How the **** is there a pet named Minstrel on the website, I dare you to google it.” I should note that slow-mode was on, of course. So I added this in as an edit to my last message. I was promptly banned from the discord – although other people were being much more terrible. The mod who banned me swore it was an accident. Some chaos ensued from other users asking what happened. Next, the site owner appeared and made an announcement lecturing everyone for “bullying” his mods. He locked the server down to supporters only. Don’t get me started on the implications of that, as minorities don’t generally have the extra cash to spare. Soon after I received an apology from the mod who banned me. Another mod (female) made an apology announcement and created a server for BIPOC folks to brainstorm what could be done. The general consensus at first was that they need to diversify the mod team. During this time, a new server was created for users who wanted to chat and play, and also had a vent space. I was made privy to some not so great things said about me in the server & I sent them to a mod. They told me it happened in another server so there was nothing I could do, which I understood. I moved on. The alt server later got cleaned up, and I was invited to join and be a mod. I love my little community. It even has a little rant space. Soon after, people noticed they were being banned on the site for things that were said in the rant channel. I soon learned from a rogue staff member (whom I adore), that a moderator from the site had an alt account in our rants channel, and that members of the art team were sending screenshots to their ”staff chat” to get folks banned as well. It’s another server, so I’m unclear why any of it matters. Plus, a lot (all) of it pales in comparison for what I have to show you soon. During this time, the site creator disappeared for a bit (2ish months). I don’t even have a real gripe with this other that people had donated money for account signup links and were waiting for an account. Life happens, mental health happens, I totally understand. People opening their wallet deserve communication, however. It also seemed like the Easter event was going to last until Halloween. Back to the server stuff, though. A diverse set of individuals did apply to be site moderators, but pulled their applications after seeing the news of site moderators and art team members snooping around the alternate discord to ban people. Soon, a new moderator (also an art team member was appointed). They began restructuring the discord and closed down the Spanish & Portugese channels. When people questioned why, they said that it’s a standard in gaming communities for English to be the only language spoken (causal xenophobia, ya know). After the pushback, they agreed to create new language channels with specific channel moderators. The problem? The moderators they had appointed did not even have accounts yet as they were waiting for signup links, and they had never once spoken in the site discord, which had been around for 2 years at this point. At this point in the alternative server, the rants channel was moving at rapid speed. Soon after, we decided to revoke access to that channel to all art team members, and weed out all alts. The server was cleaned up and we were content. Art team members were upset and started commotion, I’m glad no one budged. You’ll see why. So, time passes. BIPOC server gets deleted by mod. I find out that there are still alts being sent by art team members and mods into our server. I cave and message a site admin. I asked her to examine what her mods are doing in making us feel unsafe. We had a pretty productive talk, she left to get on with her day. I was excited to hear back from her cause I wanted to be able to build a bridge between the communities. She did note that she was really hurt about some of the things said in the peeps server. I apologized, but noted that people ranting in a reactionary matter to bigotry/racism is not really comparable to racism at all. I didn’t expect her to understand, but I felt like I should have said it. I should also note that three new mods were appointed. One woman of color, and two white folks (one being the art team member I mentioned before). As an aside, I will also say that some members of the NPC community began building their own Neopets Clone site. They streamed themselves building the code from the ground up. Each of these users is an original Neopets Classic player, meaning they had played for almost two whole years. They were important to the community in many ways, and even contributed their time by creating user scripts that improved users’ quality of life around the site. They were all frozen after being accused of scraping code. I won’t go too much into that, because it’s not my story to tell and I don’t know the details. The team on the alternate site is extremely diverse as well. I hope they can say their piece at some point. Anyways, as the day passed and I awaited admin’s response. I was made privy to some messages that the NPC staff had been sending to one another. Here are some of them. The one about not owing an apology is from the owner of the pet minstrel. As is the one about black history. Lol. I’ve also included the response from the admin. I messaged her crying. I told her this too. https://imgur.com/a/vp1YIca

Neopets Classic: What Happened?

Hey all! Some of y’all have definitely heard the rumblings of issues regarding racism/antisemitism/other forms of descrimination with the neoclone site neopetsclassic.com  I’ve posted about it a few times and I always get anons asking me to go into detail about what happened or to “prove” my claims. I never respond bc 1. I find it incredibly weird to put the onus of proof on someone who has been directly affected by that violence and 2. It’s impossible to tell who is actually concerned vs. who just wants to see the drama. That being said my lovely friend has compiled her experiences with the site and the admin team and asked me to share them on Tumblr. I apologize it’s all screenshots atm, but I will try to get the actual text for folx who rely on screen readers! For now I’ll say don’t support neopets classic (npc) don’t support people who are willingly apart of this racist team. I know some of them are on tumblr, one recently deleted but I’m sure he’ll be back at some point. If you’re looking for a good neo-clone I recommend Moderneopets, Virtupets, or Grundo’s Cafe all of which have very unique approaches to the classic neo experience and all of which have cut ties with the owner of Neopets Classic because he’s a dick. Read Ayesha’s write up below!

Keep reading

[the-last-neopian]

Neopets Classic: What Happened?

Hey all! Some of y’all have definitely heard the rumblings of issues regarding racism/antisemitism/other forms of descrimination with the neoclone site neopetsclassic.com  I’ve posted about it a few times and I always get anons asking me to go into detail about what happened or to “prove” my claims. I never respond bc 1. I find it incredibly weird to put the onus of proof on someone who has been directly affected by that violence and 2. It’s impossible to tell who is actually concerned vs. who just wants to see the drama. That being said my lovely friend has compiled her experiences with the site and the admin team and asked me to share them on Tumblr. I apologize it’s all screenshots atm, but I will try to get the actual text for folx who rely on screen readers! For now I’ll say don’t support neopets classic (npc) don’t support people who are willingly apart of this racist team. I know some of them are on tumblr, one recently deleted but I’m sure he’ll be back at some point. If you’re looking for a good neo-clone I recommend Moderneopets, Virtupets, or Grundo’s Cafe all of which have very unique approaches to the classic neo experience and all of which have cut ties with the owner of Neopets Classic because he’s a dick. Read Ayesha’s write up below!

[the-last-neopian]

btw y’all this person is a whole fucking racist as soon as they became a mod in the neopets classic discord they went on a whole xenophobic spree of deleting spaces made for people who don’t speak english and there’s screenshots of them actively mocking the people who called them out and targeting poc directly. 

[the-last-neopian]

neopets classic is such an awful site for people of color. the admin and mod team will literally do everything they can to prioritize white comfort over poc and especially queer poc being able to enjoy the game and make spaces for themselves. i’ve never felt so policed online before.

[the-last-neopian]

some kacheek stickers based off old sketches. shop ☆ twitter ☆ commissions

[the-last-neopian]

☆*: .｡.HAPPY PRIDE MONTH .｡.:*☆

[the-last-neopian]

please im having war flashbacks of when my roommate saw i posted the words "sorry i poofed" onto neopets dot com last year

Cringey Neopets Language That Literally No One Else Would Use

Poof/Poofy - Means you are going away from your keyboard, or randomly disappearing. I’ll be a bit poofy today, I’m cleaning the house. / Sorry I poofed! Dog was choking on a hot dog.

Dreamie - A neopet that you really want to own, maybe one of your top wants. A baby kougra is my dreamie!

Permie - A neopet that you intend to keep forever. (Note: a “PC Permie” is much more finite) Please don’t offer on Fireball2278, he’s a permie!

*Pokes Siggy* - Used when a player would like to direct someone’s attention to their forum signature. Vote for my pet in the B.C! *pokes siggy*

[the-last-neopian]

I’m reposting my bullshit attempt at a meme because I thought it was hilarious. Please pity like

[the-last-neopian]

Not today luv

[the-last-neopian]

[the-last-neopian]

I got high and decided to make a holiday edit for the neopets homepage.

[the-last-neopian]

I didn’t see anybody else make one so I did my own Neopets Iceberg and a blank one as well!

[the-last-neopian]

anyways

[the-last-neopian]

UH OH SISTERS! *Official warning from The Neopets Team*

[the-last-neopian]

whats he dooiinn

[the-last-neopian]

a header i drew for the tiny item gallery i made on neopets!

little sneak peek of the gallery itself:

[the-last-neopian]

heres some more cowboy neopets! aisha, usul, cybunny, and kiko!