sprinklewinkles

[sprinklewinkles]

I neopet-ified my IRL cat Mimi! Shes an UC faerie wocky called Mimikattte onsite who ive had for awhile (and i jsut forget to post LOL)

look at my gorl though!!

#neopets #neotag #neolodge #art #wocky #neopets wocky #cat #anna does art #pink #yellow #help i forget to post things over here! so enjoy wa!

[sprinklewinkles]

im going to post my thoughts here too... Genuine thoughts to the UC changes. From my perspective. For context i own 16 ucs, that i have gotten via trades, gifts and adoption apps. My first UC, given to me as gift, to trade (which i kept) in March 2019. I have 1 VWN UC the rest are DN -> VBN name formated. To put it out there. I think im okay with this.

My UCs i havnt owned for as long some other folks around for sure, and honestly in the time that ive been trading the announcement that UCs are "coming back" in some form had been around since 2021. So my PC trading period had been spent more in the years leading upto this release vs not.

Trading for UCs was honestly a blast, ive met so many cool people and made many friends over the years. Many whom i speak on a daily basis still. Though it was tough. It was had as fuck. When you start with nothing (i joined neo my first account april 2008. 1 year after conversion) there were so many points in time where i wanted to quit and give up and just convert my UCs pound them and close my accounts. I trained like 5 pets to lv 250 1500hsd. To trade into ucs with. I timer trained with NC training cookies, had FQCs going aswell and ruined my sleep schedual for months. Just to have the quickest outcome to jump into UCs again to work toward the goal of the cat clowder. I dont regret it. And pending on the price of the NC tokens for the upcoming UCs release, i could wager i have spent more NC on training and quest cookies to BD train pets to break into UCs with VS what the tokens will cost. But i had fun doing it! And updating the friends at the time with the progress and where i was going with it!

Honestly i would never wish upon anyone to do the grind to work for an UC it was all consuming (an addictive personality doesnt help here lol) I cannot even bring myself to train pets now, like i have had Sprinkle since Nov 2019 she had lv100 and 300hsd when i first got her. I only got her to lv250 late last year. And shes ment to have been my main BD this whole time. The burnout of the grind was so real. And the struggle and obsessive hours spent trying to work toward a funny little creature. So yeah i dont wish it on anyone. I wish for it to be easier for folks to get their cool art pet, bc not everyone has been as lucky as me to get UCs.

I see alot of folks saying as soon as they get the token they will be pounding their less then VWN UCs in favour of a name they create etc. Which is so valid for starters. But idk the BN names have so much charm. And ppl talk abt UCs liking the nostalgia factor with this change, But like the nostalgia factor could also b the name too. Like SprinkleWinkles is so cute. DN by PC standards. Stinky_minky_2004 has so much funny charm but BN. I wanna know what was stinky in 04 for a kid to make this pet. Love_u_4ever like i just have the name nostalgia w them. I choose my UCs for the names first. Theyre all just funny and make me smile. But the other way is so valid too. Im not discrediting that either. And old pets get a trophy too. Im assuming if theyre older than conversion so april 27th 2007. Which isnt a bad thing!

Idk ive waffled on. But i think im happy w the change and UCs being more accessible. Esp if theyre going to be at a good price point, which a comment from tnt ivy saying she was "plesently surprised" with the price from her as a PCer player whos going to buy them. Going to be providing critical but constructive feedback on thin lined UCs as they come out though cause those will likely be the most changed UCs.

Ive been so done with UC trading for years. And im so ready to get my final 3 UC cats and complete my clowder x3 And im so ready to see other folks get their goal UCs and funky lil pets

#neopets #neotag #main tagging this baby #these were my thoughts from twitter but might aswell post em here too #im ready to legally buy ucs

[sprinklewinkles]

Moderneopets Artist Mistreatment

Hello, I’m wren. I'm an artist responsible for some of the pet assets on the neoclone, Moderneopets. I'm just going to get into it.

Hazer was extremely lucky to somehow cultivate a dense group of largely professional artists to work together to make assets for his site. When it comes to his own management as a site runner, he’s largely hands-off of the art department, which is a good thing! If he can’t be active in the art panel enough to know what goes on in there, he shouldn’t be running it— we have many strong, capable artists on the team who are passionate about recreating the neopets style, who work together on every pet that has been released ever since critique became a requirement. 

It makes sense that, with a project this large, Hazer should have to designate moderators to enforce rules when he is absent. Choosing to bring on moderators was also a good decision. Unfortunately, he chose poorly. 

Art panel issues should have separate Art panel moderators to take care of them. People who are not overburdened with generic moderation duties from the many other channels of the server, for example. In the same vein, artists should not be moderators. When an artist has an issue with another artist, who happens to be a moderator (which has happened many times, with many people— If the mods actually open threads for all complaints they receive, they should have evidence of this & if they don’t they are not being truthful), the artist would likely not feel comfortable approaching that same artist-slash-moderator to complain about what happened. It breeds an aura of fear and discomfort any time there is an issue with an artist/mod, and that is why star and the_seventh_circle should have to choose one or the other if hazer wants to cultivate a healthy atmosphere in his panel. 

I’ve created many pets for this website. Neopets has been a passion of mine since the third grade. I’m also one of those professional artists I mentioned— my work is also art, industry or otherwise. I care about breaking neopets down into their core, recognizable shapes. I care about keeping them on-model and in the spirit of the original TNT art team, with improvements made where I and the other panelists think they make sense. I have redlined for other artists to an even greater degree, just as other artists have redlined for me and helped me finalize each pet into something simply good: something that made sense to get put on a little passion project website for other people with a similar passion to enjoy. I found the panel to be a community of likeminded artists with which to discuss our favorite childhood petsite while we made art for a clone, as if we could pretend we were making art for neopets-dot-com. It was nice. 

It wasn’t perfect, though. In fact, shortly after I joined in 2021 I took a hiatus because the art panel was fairly dead. I came back a little while later to see we had several new species, as well as an art director, and lots of activity! That was very exciting. Over the next year I would reach out to the panel or, if nobody was sure of how to proceed, I would reach out to the art director to propose ideas for how to make the panel a little more functional; quality of life updates, if you will. I don’t take credit for all of these alone, there were other artists with similar ideas all communicating to the director in private, but some examples: 

A designated “collab” zone where artists could seek out other artists to complete pets with. 

“The Purge,” in which the team was whittled down to ~25 current, active artists to refresh the team and allow for new artists to join. 

“The Approval System,” which I first sat down with in my workshop (public to all artists) to hammer out the details with as many other artists as wanted to give their input— a method for pitching new ideas to eventually break through the “new species/color freeze” that had been plaguing us.

Speaking on the approval system: like most things that required Hazer’s direct input in the art team, it was left without response for a very long time. Artists with ideas for custom species or colors would occasionally murmur about their excitement for the system to get a look-over by hazer, to see if our approval system pitch would be approved. But hazer is busy, as we all know, and the pitch sat for a while. We had new & returning artists on the team to keep everyone busy. 

What I would expect from a years-old panel of artists, when new additions arrive, would be some manner of tutorial. New artists would need to know the pipeline (here’s your workshop, you can post WIPs and anything else in there; here’s how you ping for critique, here are the spaces in which to ask for it; make sure you always ping before your work is submitted on-site), and there would likely be some acclimating on both sides. What I did not expect (but should have), was pushback from new artists on things that hadn’t had pushback in a long time. Why can’t [x] color be a posechange? Well, we’ve created many already and none of them were posechanges. Why can’t I use colored lineart? Well, that isn’t in line with the style standards set by this color; see, nobody else is coloring their lineart. 

Suddenly there was a divide between veteran artists, the director, and the new blood. The divide felt greater when Hazer came to his new artist’s aid to say, approximately: “Eh, if someone wants to go above and beyond and make better art, they shouldn’t have to adhere to the guidelines.” Then he threw the art director under the bus for not somehow knowing that his intentions were always to keep the panel loose and unstructured. But don’t worry, that isn’t the first bus and won’t be the last.

My personal investment in the panel waned around that time. I think a structured “work” environment with easily accessible rules and deadlines is necessary to any project of this size. If we didn’t want to enforce color standards, nor prioritize certain colors for release, and anyone could just submit whatever Nice Art they wanted, why not open it up so any user could submit pet art? Why have a panel at all? Isn’t Hazer taking any opportunity to dunk on Leopets because he wants his site to be better? How is this different? 

But I stuck around. This was a hobby I really enjoyed, after all, and I really believed it could get better. It had a good core, and despite my grievances with individual artists, none of them were bad people. 

But I noticed some trends. New artists would receive feedback that they didn’t agree with and retaliate by bringing in their emotions or personal preferences. Any disagreement where multiple veteran artists stepped in to say their piece would escalate to the point of very long messages on both sides, and would need to be left to hazer to give a final input. Often he didn’t come around to it, because he’s busy, as we know. I didn’t step in to every argument; they became cyclical after a while, and I didn’t have the time or energy to spend simply tapping the proverbial sign (or style sheet). I would try to give positive suggestions when I could, for example: I don’t think this color needs another alt for just one single design, but we did talk about eventually making this color that your design would fit into really well. 

I’ve done my time having arguments on the internet. I really just want an art environment where the rules are set and people actually enjoy following them, because I do— I see art rules as helpful guidelines at best and obstacles to cleverly navigate at worst, which is still fun. But of course not everyone is going to feel the same way, that’s normal; that’s life. 

On 11/9 I was given this message by Hazer: 

It reads:

Hello wren,

I am reaching out to you today to inform you that effective immediately you are being dismissed from the Artist and Consultant Panels. This decision has been reached through discussions and based on repeated offences in the form of user harassment and subjecting the panels to a toxic atmosphere, after multiple reports and concerns brought up to us by other users.

While we understand concerns regarding panel management, there is a distinct difference between criticising and condeming the way the panel does things and criticising and condeming users that are on the panel, and we believe this line has been crossed one too many times, further supported by concerns brought to us.

We appreciate the passion and drive of our team—all of them—and we understand you have been very passionate about the panel. Given some of the messages we see, we have also concluded that due to things in the panel not working out as you have wished, it has caused you much stress and upset as well, which we do not want. All in all, we've decided that the atmosphere of the panel and your own enjoyment of the website are hampered by your presence on it. Because of this, we have decided it is best to have you part ways with the staff sections of the website.

Effective immediately after this message, we will be permanently removing you from the panels. While normally we do a temporary removal, in this case we've seen that your compatability with our management and handling of the panel will not improve, and it will just bring stress to both sides.

We understand you have put a lot of passion into the projects you have been working on for release in Moderneopets, and in lieu of that, we offer you the option of having the project(s) still be released even after dismissal. Rewards will still be granted for releases per usual, and credit will still be given. If you decide, due to dismissal, you do not want your unreleased work to be released on Moderneopets, simply state it as such, and we will discard all progress on projects you have been working on to respect those wishes.

This decision is final and will not be revoked.

Best wishes to you,

The Moderneopets Team

[end caption]

My response:

It reads: 

No warnings huh?

[end caption]

Hazer didn’t have an answer for me. I was already removed from the panel. 

This came as a shock. I’d been there for over two years, I felt I had a good rapport with the other artists, I felt I’d been a helpful and active addition to the team. Like I said, I’ve done my time having arguments on the internet… what toxic behavior? Discussions over style guides? Giving redlines to people with permission? Working with the whole team to bolster several new color releases? I had an entire species that Hazer wanted ready to go since March— I just pushed through the Swamp Gas release, I just created the Mystical alt? 

No warnings?

Let me reiterate: I have never been spoken to by any staff about my behavior. Hazer, Kat, Star, Seventh, Nidrew— none of them have ever been in my DMs to issue a warning. I have spoken TO the mods about others’ behaviors, and nothing ever came of it. The one time (and I mention this for full transparency only) the art director came to talk to me about something I said, it was stated clearly that it was not a warning, and even so I adjusted my behavior around said issue accordingly. And that was well before the purge. 

But, don’t take my word for it. Here it is from hazer himself, speaking over his mods who were busy telling the rest of the panel that they always issue warnings: 

It reads:

No in this case I do agree that this has been an abrupt situation and I understand the blind-sided-ness of it. No official warnings were given out regarding the actions that resulted in the removal of artists today and that’s on fault of myself and deebs not working things out properly despite the moderation team bringing issues to a us a few times – also due to our lack of availability recently.  [end caption]

So… What happened? Well… here it is from Hazer, in longform: 

For those who use screen readers, above are several enormous discord screenshots; I've placed it in a paste bin here: https://pastebin.com/dHLiBRTF

Two other artists immediately stepped down. Hazer admits here in his message that he and the mods had multiple tickets opened about my behavior, that they had known they wanted to remove me. They never gave a warning, never talked to me until the moment of my dismissal, but they had known it was coming for months? 

Why did Hazer and his gang of mods let me continue working on art for their panel? Why did they let me work so hard to pull Swamp Gas together for an official release? Why did they let me put together a whole custom Alt and workshop it for so long? I’ve been active this whole time. Why did you let me keep working if you knew you wanted me gone? 

I am a professional artist. My work is art. Hazer made the knowing decision to exploit my time and effort for his website. He’s not paying me, he’s not paying any of us. It’s volunteer work. But I did not volunteer to be mistreated like this. To not even be given a chance to defend myself. To him, artists are disposable. To him, if someone has worked on your team for years but speaks up when your friend tries to overturn the system, even civil discussion is cause for disposal. Civil discussion negates years of effort, passion, time and care. 

I didn’t have to make art for you, Hazer. And you don’t deserve the team you have. How many artists have voiced their discomfort with your actions? How many artists are taking a break from the panel because of how you handled this? Ah, wait, you wouldn’t know… you’re busy. 

Hazer and his mod team are just another corrupt group of individuals unfortunately heading what could have been a fun and promising petsite. Everyone who speaks praise of modneo does it by and large because of the new and unique art. Hazer was extremely lucky to cultivate a dense group of largely professional artists to work together to make assets for his site. 

If Hazer wants to show any sign of his potential to be a better person, I believe he needs to formally apologize to his site for the misuse of his power and the mistreatment and exploitation of artists on his team. He needs to apologize to you, the players of his game, the subscribers to his patreon, for allowing this to happen under his watch and under his word. You know you fucked up, hazer. You shouldn’t have sided with your friend without any actual evidence of misconduct. You shouldn’t have spoken about me like I was a toxic, subhuman hindrance to your art team. You shouldn’t have treated me like that. I didn’t deserve it. None of us did. You can apologize to me and the other lost artists publicly.

#oop #another neoclone abt to bite the dust #pipeline from good neoclone to shit hitting fan seems to b a couple years #happened w neoclassic now modern neo #side eyes grundos cafe

[sprinklewinkles]

open my tumblr to come in and post this.. bc i am desperate LOL. PLease RB

UFT faithful_neo_heart UC RB Kougra T8

Seeking nameswaps only. Open to any format, as long as it fits with my chara idea, which im picky for, apologies in advance!

DM/Pings welcome!

#neopets #neopet #neotag #neolodge #neoart #i am sobbing and begging please #i have brainrot for this meme #neopets tag #neopet tag

[sprinklewinkles]

i dont think i shared this here,,, super chokato chia (was for chia day AG earlier in the year)

#neopets #neotag #neolodge #neoart #neopets art #art #artist #neopet #chia #anna does art

[sprinklewinkles]

Starry friends (Attack on staryanna_ on twitter/insta)

#neopets #gelert #wocky #art for me #and to the neoblog too

[sprinklewinkles]

WAKE UP BABES,, NEW PRIDE ART SPRINKLE DROPPED!!!!

#neopets #neotag #neolodge #neopets art #art #artist on tumblr #cat #faerie #wocky #anna does art #welcome to im trying to post places again #here i am loool #please RB haha

[sprinklewinkles]

A burst of energy, who will fly past you! This Kitty is full of energy ready for 3am zoomies! Meet PixieTwixie, or just Pixie for short!

#neopets #neopet #neotag #neoart #neolodge #wocky #pastel #cat #art #rainbow #anna does art #pixietwixie #ive had her for a few months now #but jksdhfskjd jsut getting around to posting this here #shes like cousin to sprinkle

[sprinklewinkles]

skdjhfsdjkf here we are i guess

#skjhfds we love minimal art thoughout the year

[sprinklewinkles]

Artfight: attack on @staryanna

It's a Pop cat Faerie Wocky !

(My AF user: Chanty)

#RBs again bc i use as my icon hehe

[sprinklewinkles]

Uhhh url change here spacegelert -> SprinkleWinkles

Still a neo blog. Sprinkle is the name of one of pets hehe

[sprinklewinkles]

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

#dgajfks damn i knew the shit that happened was bad but yikes #neopets classic

[sprinklewinkles]

Pop sprinkle hehe

Artfight: attack on @staryanna

It's a Pop cat Faerie Wocky !

(My AF user: Chanty)

#i never log in here anymore. but i saw the @ notif

[sprinklewinkles]

Hi i barely post here but im doing art fight this year and have many neopets to attack!

(Alot are cats)

#neopets #neotag #neolodge #artfight #artfight2022 #artfight 2022 #cat #cats #wocky #kougra

[sprinklewinkles]

i genuinely hope people who support neo classic rethink their subscriptions after this drama,,

#neopets classic #npc #neopets #yea im main tagging it #hi i havnt posted on this blog in forever #but sips tea #its shitty what happened and ive only read whats happened but im in full support for those who have been banned or hurt from the situation

[sprinklewinkles]

Neopet Neggfest! Wrapped up this years site event with a few art assets I helped design and collaborate on.

#love ghe talpidats

[sprinklewinkles]

What’s going on on the Neopets Pound Chat

aka “Sawk what is this ‘drama’ you keep talking about’

Gather round my friends, this could be another big scandal in the making and this will be a LONG post. Certainly YouTube video-worthy.

Some screenshots are mine, some were taken by others and generously shared with me.

tl;dr Some prominent pet traders got frozen, a couple mysterious people have been saying they’re cheaters for months, and I guess they finally got caught red-handed because they’re all frozen alongside all their nice pets.

Long version:

The user at the center of this debacle is ‘synisters’ (who goes by Ivy) and to a lesser degree, ‘millionare_wana_be’ (who goes by Will). There are other users who might also be involved (some frozen, some not) but there hasn’t been nearly as much evidence against them so I’m not really going to address them.

For those who don’t know, every Neopet needs to have a unique name. Most of them either end up as made-up names or plain gibberish. But some pets have real word or real name (RW/RN) pets with names like ‘Captain’, ‘Tubby’, and so on. These pets are very valuable in the pet trading circuit.

Enter Ivy. She had a ton of nice RW/RN pets, and she always seemed to get her hands on more and would trade them around for other nice RW/RN pets. She was a well-known person on the PC. Some people (myself included) were suspicious of this, but most people seemed content to shrug off the fact that she magically materialized these amazing pets out of thin air.

Over the past several months, a couple users in particular made several boards calling Ivy out for stealing these names off of inactive accounts and selling them off site on Neopets black market websites (yes, that’s a thing. People legitimately pay hundreds of dollars for certain pets). Some people believed the OPs of these threads, others would come to Ivy’s defense - that she worked hard to trade up for these nice names, she was just SO NICE, even if the pets were stolen they were being made available to the masses, all kinds of excuses. Curiously it always seemed to be the same people ready to go to bat for her, including Will, who also had a few nice names such as ‘Skunk’ (who will be relevant later in this post).

Well, late last week Ivy’s account was finally frozen, alongside Will’s and some other PCers. More boards were made by the same people, celebrating their freezing and saying they got what was coming to them. More and more people are now coming around to the reality of what Ivy was doing, as well as people coming forward saying they were harassed by Ivy and her friends for trying to speak up about what a terrible person she actually was or outright expose her cheating.

It sounds like the thing that finally broke the camel’s back was her cheating OTHER CHEATERS.

And also some drama involving names of characters from ATLA.

And on this particular board the OP was making allegations that TNT was somehow involved. Fucked up if true.

Enter Skunk.

The OP provided a couple of screenshots to back up their claims:

Skunk had been floating around the on PC for a long time, even though it was well-known it may have been a compromised pet (and surprise, turns out it was!). Why people wouldn’t be careful and just not offer on a potentially suspect pet is beyond me, but I guess shiny RW/RN/UCs are more important than avoiding a reversal or freezing to some people?

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE.

Apparently Ivy was also involved in stealing items that are bought with the site’s premium currency, Neocash, which can only be bought with real money and can only be exchanged for other Neocash items

As a result of this board yet another board about Ivy was made on the PC:

Then shit got ugly.

The screenshot was posted to My_Hana’s lookup, then ninjajette (possibly Ivy) admitted to having faked it to make a point that any screenshot can be faked. Which is fair, but like… everyone knows what YOU were doing, girl.

And after this point the board de-escalated, then got deleted about half an hour later.

All in all, it has been very entertaining to see this situation develop and to finally see someone I’ve been suspicious of for a long time finally get the hammer. I personally have seen quite a few pets that used to be on long-inactive accounts move to new accounts quite suddenly, and then shortly after make their way into Ivy’s hands over the past few months. Like I said, I was very suspicious of this but really didn’t have any proof so I didn’t say anything to TNT.

I’ve also seen a couple different people say she has several of accounts (but likely many many more - one person claimed ‘hundreds’) and that TNT has probably known about the kind of stuff she’s been pulling for quite a while. And only NOW did they finally decide to do something. I can only guess what kind of info they got that finally made them freeze her and her cohorts, but it was probably from other cheaters that she’d finally pissed off enough that they were willing to come forward.

For now that’s all I’ve got, but I’m sure there will be more developments and I will definitely keep you all updated because wow what a fucking ride.

#dude shfjskfkks #re activating my neoblog for da teaaaa