Holly's Customization Journal

Neopets blog of hollyfrosty. Neopets account is rarehunter41.

[abominablesnowball]

i picked a hell of a time to get back into neopets, huh.

So I'm sorry to any followers who don't know me personally who are going to see this blog out of nowhere and forget they followed lol. I joined a reunion Discord with some of my old friends that I met (either directly or indirectly) through Neopets, and it made me nostalgic to hop back in. ...Right before Jumpstart announced their freaking NFTs. It's a shame, too, I absolutely would've bought premium and some merch otherwise, but there's no way I'm giving them money until they address all this nonsense in SOME real way.

Regardless, I have no qualms about sitting on their site as a freeloader and making their bandwidth a bit tighter so they have to CONSIDER their decisions next time. So I decided to update my pets' looks!

Throughout the next few weeks I'm probably going to be making daily posts about my thoughts making these outfits, the personalities of these pets (especially since the Discord I joined was for an old RP group, so these are both virtual pets and characters lol), and some of my inspirations for them. ...By which point it'll be time to start working on Halloween costumes lol. This will probably be the loop of this blog: going through each of my pets one by one and then making a collection post of all of them, then moving on to the next theme.

[abominablesnowball]

This is part three of a story I'm generating randomly! Read from the beginning here!

[abominablesnowball]

This is part two of a story I'm generating randomly! Read from the beginning here!

This entry is taking a twist from the Plot Twist Generator, which is:

"There is a sudden snowstorm, complicating the plans of the antagonist."

Which means I also needed an antagonist, so per the Villain Generator:

"This courageous wizard is motivated by vengeance. He employs forbidden magic in his plans, often unleashing unspeakable dark forces to achieve his goals. He wields an unusual artifact."

[abominablesnowball]

Wow I would've worked harder on the background if I knew this wasn't going to get rejected lol, but i got an anti-NFT comic in the Times!

[abominablesnowball]

For those that missed the context, I'm telling a 50k word story, 1000 word pictures at a time! The starting prompt from the Story Generator is:

"The story is about a courageous barbarian and a healthy cab driver. It takes place in a condominium in an outpost. The story begins with an eavesdropping and ends with someone going to sleep."

[abominablesnowball]

So I figured out what my next theme is. This month is NaNoWriMo, in which writers have to write a 50,000 word novel. Well, if a picture is worth 1000 words, that means I only need to tell a story in 50 pictures, right?

Throughout this month, I'm going to be telling a story solely through customization images, and short prompts generated by Seventh Sanctum. My starting prompt is from the Story Generator, and is:

"The story is about a courageous barbarian and a healthy cab driver. It takes place in a condominium in an outpost. The story begins with an eavesdropping and ends with someone going to sleep."

Every second post (posts will have 2-3 customization images per) will have a twist generated by the Plot Twist Generator, and I'm going to try and choose the first one that even slightly makes sense. Will this lead to a cohesive story? Probably not!

I've already generated my first few twists, so I can introduce my lead actors and their roles:

Marik118 is the Healthy Cab Driver

Captain Crumbeard is the Courageous Barbarian

Square Root is the Evil Wizard

Jinzo879 is the Wizard's Minion

[abominablesnowball]

Since it seems like a shame to take off the Halloween costumes the day after I put them on, instead I'm going to upload the new images I made for my shop! This totally isn't just because I don't know where to upload images nowadays without Photobucket

[abominablesnowball]

The final Halloween post, my pets based on... assorted concepts! Here we have Hola_Blu_Kackeek, Nero_Don_Lino, squareroot, and Viris551! This... was a difficult one.

Hola and Nero were both adopted, so I didn't come up with their names, and their personality inspirations are just "artist" and "biker" which is already represented as best they can be in their main designs. So Hola's costume is a blue kacheek, and Nero's is a weirdly floral Emperor Nero.

Root is a pun, with both math and tree theming. Specifically, the Brain Tree, as the smartest and most Halloween-y of trees.

Viris is based on me frantically reading the Wikipedia article "Timeline of computer viruses and worms" and coming across the term for a rabbit virus, a virus that replicates itself quickly to overwhelm a system, hence the wild amount of grundos and the fire in the background (from the system overheating).

Item lists below the cut:

Steal Hola's look:

Blue Shoes

Hardy Blue Trousers

Scared Kacheek Mask

Seasonal Turtleneck Jumper

Starry Blue Background

Steal Nero's look:

Altador Cup Colosseum Interior Background

Autumn Guitar

Charming Lupe Dress

Earth Faerie Daisy Ring

Sunflower Sandals

Steal Root's look:

Brain Tree Wig

Fingerless Asparagus Gloves

Maths Background

Muddy Boots

Ruki Adventurer Trousers

Scary Teeth Mask

Willowed Dress

Steal Viris's look:

Dark Faerie Eyeshadow

Discarded Magical Blue Grundo Plushie of Prosperity Monitor

Evil Twin Goatee

Fire Painted Background

Grundo Admirers Foreground

Purple Cybunny Pyjamas

[abominablesnowball]

The penultimate theme for my pets' Halloween costumes... hyper specific references? This was a weird category but it's the only way I could group them. In this group is blockedworld, Crumbeard, KeithMarsh, and Xorrand! The explanations are long and weird so they're below the cut.

Block was created primarily so I could use his petpage for a parody of Jelly World, any links to which are (were?) blocked on the NeoBoards because obviously Jelly World doesn't exist. While the petpage is ancient and mostly broken, I still have some of the original image files to get an idea of how "creative" I was:

So, Block's Halloween theme is... blocks.

Crumbeard's costume is also based on old art, my original comics of him, seen best (though not the best drawing quality) in my second Christmas comic. I don't know why I drew him in clothes that were tattered, but I guess that's what I thought pirates looked like?

Keith's is even more esoteric. I mentioned in the first post about him that he originated in an Ace Attorney pastiche, which means that in accordance with the series's naming conventions his name had some sort of punny meaning. Except I couldn't remember it, so I searched my old forum to find out. Apparently, his name is a combination of the TV Trope Keet and the last name of the discoverer of the Apatosaurus, Othniel Charles Marsh. So I had to figure out how to make a childlike, feminine version of this guy:

...I did my best.

Xorrand's design is based on an old, self-frozen side account. Like the dr_lupe account, it was designed to be an account of another OC, but I didn't really have any attachment to the pets so I self-froze so I could have more pet space on an account whose name I liked more at the time. That account (and OC) was named Glitchio, a researcher of glitches whose body was so riddled with glitchy radiation that he had to wear a protective suit at all times to stop the radiation from leaking out and corrupting the world around him. ...He was a weird character.

Steal Block's look:

Censor Bar Glasses

Destruct-O-Match Shirt

Faerie Poacher Lupe Pants

Snow Block Belt

Snowmuncher Ice Block Slippers

Square Mania Background

Steal Crumbeard's look:

Krawk Island Pirate Ship Background (again, No Trade, sorry,,,)

Pirate Cutlass

Singed Trousers

Ultra Fashionable Potato Sack

Yurble Chef Shoes

Steal Keith's look:

Adorable Chomby Shirt

Bone Vault Background

Chomby Belle Makeup

Chomby Gentleman Jacket

Chomby Red Tuxedo Bowtie

Chomby Red Tuxedo Trousers

Chomby Sleuth Magnifying Glass

Magnificent Beard

Scientific Wig

Wellington Boots

Steal Xorrand's look:

Steam Respiration Mask

8-Bit Mossy Rock

8-Bit Mystery Island Background

Strange Green Mist Foreground

[abominablesnowball]

You can totally tell what they're supposed to be, right,

So my second set of Halloween costumes and much less successful ones: Neopets inspired by video games! Jubjudge is inspired by The Judge from Ace Attorney and Questionare is inspired (in personality) by Chuck Quizmo from Paper Mario. Anzam and Rijkard both take their inspiration from Kingdom Hearts: Anzam obviously from Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, and Rijkard's personality comes from Luxord.

Jubjudge's customization is probably the only successful one, even if I had to use the Negg Shell Hat as a bald cap. The Judge is simply the bumbling judge who offers rulings in the Ace Attorney series.

QA's costume falls even shorter of the mark, probably not helped by the fact that her costume is based on a worm. Chuck Quizmo appeared in various places in Paper Mario to give him quizzes in exchange for rare Star Pieces.

Anzam... was very limited by clothing options. Vaguely close to the mark, at least? Ansem, Seeker of Darkness is the main villain of the first Kingdom Hearts game, and has lore that would be way too complicated to quickly summarize here.

Rijkard... oh Rijkard. Namewise I have no idea what his inspiration was, having adopted him from the pound, so I'm going fully with his personality inspiration. Luxord is a member of Organization XIII, the villains of Kingdom Hearts II, and uses playing cards as his weapons. During his boss fights, he challenges the protagonist Sora to games of chance using his time magic.

Steal the Jubjudge's look:

Brightvale Prison Cell Background

JubJub Detective Shirt and Tie

JubJub Detective Trench Coat

Negg Shell Hat

Spellseeker Wizard Beard

Stormy JubJub Shoes

Toy Judge Gavel

Steal QA's look:

Berry Zafara Tail Sock

Bow Tie

Citrus Background

Occultist Zafara Hat

Sleepy Neopet Blanket

Thick Glasses

Steal Anzam's look:

Chef Lupe Trousers

Forgotten Shore Background

On the Go Lupe Wig

Torpedo Lupe Jacket

Wellington Boots

White Lace Gloves

Steal Rijkard's look:

Black Lace Gloves

Card Tower

Cashew Eardrops

Chef Lupe Trousers

Medieval Hood

Tyrannian Concert Hall Background

Wellington Boots

[abominablesnowball]

One of these things is not like the others...

First up on my Halloween theming: pets inspired by comics and manga! ...Sort of! Marik118 and Jinzo879 are more accurately inspired by their anime counterparts but I needed to group another pet in here somehow, so Anatidaephobia's Far Side inspired design had to join in.

Anati's design is inspired by the same Far Side comic that inspired his name that I embedded in his first appearance on this blog. Sadly, I could not find any background item of a mallard to put in there.

Marik and Jinzo, however, are both inspired by characters from Yu-Gi-Oh! Marik is inspired by Marik Ishtar, and particularly Yami Marik.

In Yu-Gi-Oh, Marik was born into a family that had guarded the tomb of Pharaoh Atem, along with two of the ancient magical items that resided within. The pain of his initiation process, the mistreatment by his father, and the magical powers of the Millennium Rod merged together into a second personality usually referred to as Yami Marik.

Jinzo's origin is in one of the monsters from Yu-Gi-Oh, one of the signature cards of Joey Wheeler.

The Jinzo card, whose full Japanese name translates to "Android - Psycho Shocker", was first used in the anime by the false psychic Espa Roba. Joey faced off against him in a duel and realized that the secret behind his "psychic" powers was his brothers spying for him and reporting on what cards his opponent had in their hand. After Joey won the duel, Espa handed over Jinzo.

Steal Anati's look:

Basic White Shirt

Broken Stained Glass Window Background

Khaki Trousers

Magnificent Moustache

Negg Tie

Office Desk With Altador Cup Stickers

Steal Marik's look:

Cave Painting Background

Count von Roo Contacts

Desperado Chia Shirt and Cape

Dueling Decks Mynci Wrist Wrap

Elegant Gear Boots

Khaki Trousers

Moltaran Charm

Silver Wig

Tarla Inspired Staff

Steal Jinzo's look:

Battle Faerie Top

Buzz Meshed Wings

Buzz Musketeer Trousers

Dark Buzz Boots

Dark Buzz Cape

Faerie Painted Background

Flat Necklace

Fyora's Arm Wraps

Respirator Work Mask

Steam Respiration Mask

[abominablesnowball]

Last up, on their lonesome, is Fourteen_Fifteen, my lab rat! They are based on Fourteen Fifteen from season four of Friends at the Table, an assassin who can put their consciousness into a new body when they die. Their initial look is based on the first incarnation we see in the show, The Gunslinger, and the second is based on the second we see, Worthy of Grace. (Which includes some NC, but it's all stuff I scrounged from the Money Tree,,,)

While wrapping up my pets' primary looks, this also technically starts my Halloween theme: I'm dressing all my pets up as their original inspiration! Either the inspiration for their name or their RP personality, depending on what makes a better costume. I'll be grouping them by category, mostly to get them all done by... November 1st,,, Maybe I'll post twice on Halloween proper idk

The only thing below the cut is the list of items I used:

Steal The Gunslinger look:

Balthazar Vest

Elegant Gear Boots

Garoo Trooper Blaster

Hardy Blue Trousers

Holidays on the Space Station Background OR Nighttime in Brightvale Background

Jakes Fedora - Remade

Jazzmosis Glasses

Steal the Worthy of Grace look:

Beautiful Hair Flowers

Blue Usul Bow (optional)

Elegant Ballerina Facepaint

Galaxy Lipstick

Garoo Trooper Blaster

Sparkler Dress

Sparkling Emerald Earrings

Usul Beatnik Sandals

[abominablesnowball]

Now for the former villains of my stories: Nero_Don_Lino and Rijkard! ...And also sort of Anzam and blockedworld. Block and Anzam died in some of my stories before I realized I would get back into Neopets proper, and I can't afford the paint brushes yet for how I chose to depict their undead forms! 😅 So they're just cordoned off with caution tape. They will get Halloween costumes, though, because "realistically" it's not like they'd dress up regardless!

In my stories, the Lupe Pack was nominally led by the fictitious owner of the account, Dr. Lupe, who realized he was being manipulated by the true villain Anzam and turned against him. So, they're all former villains in that some are redeemed, some are dead! Whoops!

Nero is a biker, which is difficult to portray with non-NC items (it's probably still difficult even with NC items, but I haven't really checked), but I did my best with what I had. He's also in jail! In my stories, he's the one who took the fall for the Lupe Pack when everything broke bad for them.

Rijkard is a gambler, and if I'm honest I hate this customization for him lol. His design in my head always had a white tuxedo, which is just not a thing that can be achieved without NC. Hopefully Neopets will stop this nonsense so I can actually properly depict these characters!

Steal Block and Anzam's "look":

Caution Tape Garland

Steal Nero's look:

Red Striped Vest

Torpedo Lupe Jacket

Chef Lupe Trousers

Wellington Boots

Censor Bar Glasses

Crumpled Paper Bag Background

Brightvale Jail Cell Foreground

Steal Rijkard's look:

Noxs Mansion Background

Assistant Scientist Jacket

Grey Moustache and Wig

On the Go Lupe Shoes

Patterned Pyjama Bottoms

[abominablesnowball]

Next up in my customization journal, my Neopets who are most closely tied to things I've written: Crumbeard, Jubjudge, and KeithMarsh!

Crumbeard is an outlier here because he is primarily featured in my Neopian Times comics, Crumbeard's Ship Log. I think the idea here mostly just came from Yurble ears looking like cinnamon rolls, and their ruff sort of looking like a beard, then anything -beard sounds like a piratey name. That's about as deep as the idea went.

The Jubjudge and Keith Marsh both appeared in the same story about ten years ago, though I only created them as actual Neopets recently. It was a Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney pastiche, and The Jubjudge went no further in personality than being the Ace Attorney Judge, but as a Jubjub.

Keith Marsh was one of the witnesses, written as (what I did not fully understand to be) camp.

In his original portrayals, his femininity was supposed to be part of the joke, but now that I've realized I'm a trans woman I'm trying to portray his gender nonconformity more positively. And also establishing him as dating Jinzo, don't tell TNT! Other than that, his characterization is that he's a restocker who loves listening to M*YNCI and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Steal Crumbeard's look:

Khaki Trousers

Brass Gear Belt

Krawk Island Pirate Ship Background (No Trade and from a promo code so uh. you've either got it or you don't,,,)

Pirate Yurble Seafaring Hat

Pirate Yurble Captain's Coat

Pirate Yurble Sailing Belt

Pirate Yurble Skull Tattoo

Wellington Boots

Loaf of Bread Bat

Steal The Jubjudge's look:

Magnificent Beard

Altador Cup Colosseum Interior Background

jail time, because stealing is a CRIME

Steal Keith Marsh's look:

Neopian Marketplace Background

Sunflower Sandals

Hardy Blue Trousers

Adorable Chomby Shirt

[abominablesnowball]

Well, the trainwreck with Neopets continues to be weird, but at this point I'm just going to focus on celebrating the good times and hoping things improve. I will still be attempting to stream on my Twitch on Monday mornings 8-11 AM NST, raising money for Cool Earth Action to try and counteract some of the damage that JumpStart is going to do with the Neopets NFTs (if they even end up happening at this point). Depending on the day, it might be exploring other pet sites, playing through NeoQuest, or something else Neopets related! My plan for next monday is chilling out and exploring Subeta as a potential alternative just in case JumpStart continues running Neopets into the ground.

Anyway, to the actual point of this customization journal! I want to finish off showing off my pets' "canonical" looks before I move on to their Halloween costumes, so I'm gonna be going three at a time! These three are from my attempts at generating "real word" named pets way back when: Anatidaephobia, Questionare, and Squareroot!

Anatidaephobia is, somehow, my only successful one real word out of the bunch. Anati's name comes from a Far Side comic, which defines anatidaephobia as "The fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you."

Beyond that, Anati didn't really have much of a personality in any of the stories I wrote, but I wanted to give him one, so I randomly decided "what if Don Quixote, but for ducks". So he's dressed like a a weird knight, in a peaceful garden, on the lookout for rogue evil ducks.

QA is even less successful than Anati, being a misspelled real word. Her design at this point is "zany game show host", and I don't have much beyond that.

Root is two real words, and a real noun phrase, which is not as impressive as a single real world. Root I actually used in my old stories as a scientist on the Virtupets Space Station, and was a tertiary character who showed up whenever my characters needed high-tech know-how. He had a rivalry with Marik of science versus magic, but I don't know how I'd handle that at this point considering how much Marik blends the two.

Steal Anati's look:

Haunted Wood Foreground

Neopets Tabard

Gnorbu Jockey Riding Pants & Boots

Dented Imperial Guards Helm

Courgette Field Background

Gnorbu Cowboy Holster

Dark Gnorbu Sword

Steal QA's look:

Topsi Inspired Negg Dress

Berry Zafara Shoes

Berry Zafara Jacket

Bow Tie

Easter Bowler Hat

Maths Background

Cobbled Path

Steal Root's look:

Gothic Ruki Leggings and Boots

Ruki Scientist Jacket

Smarmy Monocle

Melting Test Station Background

[hollyfrosty]

We give you the tools to engage with your donors and raise more for your charity

Short version of the below: for the next two Wednesdays (10/13/21 and 10/20/21) I am going to be streaming NeoQuest on my Twitch channel to benefit the environmental charity Cool Earth Action, to protest and counteract the environmental effects of the NFTs being planned for Neopets by their parent company. I will be streaming from 12 Pacific (NST)/3 Eastern to 8 Pacific/11 Eastern.

Neopets is a site that I have a lot of nostalgia for. My primary account is now old enough to vote, all of my oldest friends are people I met through the site, and I have enough decade-old merch that I will just sometimes just find some Happy Meal Neopet in a random part of the house I'm cleaning. I've even been published in the Neopian Times my fair share! ... A long time ago, but my fair share!

Unfortunately, JumpStart, the current parent company of Neopets, has decided to introduce a new partnership in the form of NFTs. The initial announcement on its own led to protests, given the well-documented environmental effects of NFTs, but JumpStart's partner company in the Neopets Metaverse has continued to make decisions that only make things worse in terms of posting notoriously fascist memes in response to criticism, and allowing unfettered racism, homophobia, and transphobia in their Discord.

This has led to a protest over the past weekend, with twenty of the most prominent Neopets fan sites supporting a blackout of the site, requesting that members of Neopets Premium cancel their membership in response, which people have done willingly and with pride.

I would like to be optimistic about these protests! Clearly Neopets Metaverse keeps getting slaps on the wrist from higher-ups when they are too openly hateful, and I would like to think that at some point JumpStart will decide that having a team of rabid fascist scammers sullying the Neopets IP is too much of a liability to continue. But if JumpStart is committed to cashing out and letting Neopets burn in the process, I want to do my part to help mitigate the environmental damage that will come from something I love.

Cool Earth Action is an organization that works with local community to protect the rainforests, important not only to slowing the effects of climate change but huge in the fight for the rights of indigenous people in these areas. My starting goal, as an extremely small streamer, is $2050, ten cents for every NFT that the Neopets Metaverse plans on producing. When you donate, you can change the look of my on-screen Chia Vtuber avatar (or, ChiTuber) or change my NeoQuest settings to make it easier or harder on me.

If you read through all of this, thank you! I hope to see you there! (Also, for reference, you can find my neoblog at @abominablesnowball, though it is not currently the most active thing.)

[abominablesnowball]