Putting on Your Grey Face

In celebration (sadbration) of Grey Day, it is our pleasure to put forward for your consideration some thoughts on how to decorate your user-lookup adequately for Grey Day. Not with fancy CSS and graphics, but rather, using the tools that TNT, whether knowingly or not, put into place to make user profiles look woefully gorgeous for Grey Day.

In general terms, your Grey Day user lookup cannot be extravagant, or splendid, or outrageous... no, for Grey Day we must aim for a bit of the miserable, some pessimism, and a little despondency.

So, without further ado... here are some thoughts for adding the weight of sadness to your lookup.

Pets

Let's start with pets, who are in many ways the star of your user lookup. The obvious thing would be to simply paint all of your pets grey – but that is rather an expensive suggestion, unless you have some serious connections with the Fountain Faerie. (If that is the case, please neomail us, we would be very interested in getting some details on what, exactly, is going on between you and the Fountain Faerie of Frustrating Elusiveness.)

Suggestion 1: starve your pets. It will make them cry.

Please sir, may I have some more? NO.

Please note - this suggestion is made only in the spirit of Grey Day, with the tears and unhappiness that ensue. We do not advocate starving your pets for any lengthy period, that would just be cruel. Just "forget" to feed them for long enough to get some sad faces going. If people criticize you, tell them you are starving them because they are being negged, and also to mind their own business. Then throw a ptolymelon at them for being so judgmental.

Suggestion 2: consider some of the following non-grey paint jobs.

Consider a mutant Koi. Note how he looks vaguely distraught, his blank-staring eyes, his general air of discombobulation...

Consider a zombie Cybunny. The downturned mouth, the vacant eyes, the silent plea: brains :(

Consider a Stealthy something-or-other (pictured above: Blumaroo). As we learned while putting together this article, most neopets these days that aren't specifically painted Grey have a beatific smile on their face all the time, except when they are being starv- er, negged, and Stealthy comes with convenient masks. You can't see it, but this Blumaroo is extremely sad behind his mask: he just ate his last Juppie.

For ultra bonus points, make one of your pets an Onion Chia. Then don't feed it. This is revenge for all of the times an onion has made you cry.

Moving on.

Shopkeepers

Your shopkeeper shows up on your user lookup, and is a greyt opportunity to add some shades of grey to your profile. How many shades of grey, you ask? Good question. We do not know.

I am sad because I am pulling my own ears and it hurts.

This Cybunny is a nice choice: he will lend an air of whiny distinction to your lookup. Perhaps he is philosophising about the nature of woe. Perhaps he is trying to make his ears look longer for the ladies. We will never know.

Brooooom.

The toy car above is this sad Chomby's only friend. If you, too, are friends with inanimate objects, and feel sad about this, this would be an excellent choice.

Like tears in da rain.

Anything Grey Faerie is perfect for Grey Day. We try not to judge her for being so emo.

Why won't anybody take my present?

This is Sad Hissi Bearing Gifts of Dung. He has been discussed at length in one of our previous Grey Day articles; suffice it to say that, for some reason, no one wants the pile of dung he is offering. And so, he bears this heavy burden bravely, day in and day out, and presents it, always with a fresh glimmer of hope, to all new passersby, on the chance that someone, somewhere, will want it.

Avatars

If pets are the star of your lookup, your avatar is the face of your Neoboard presence, and in general an indicator of your hobbies, personality, current mood or all of the above. What better way to express your devotion to the Grey Side by putting on a relevantly-themed avatar? The following are several suggestions that, personally, we find are as somber as 50x50 floating squares can get. Talk about a limited canvas. These artists did a great job and should all be rewarded by the Sad Hissi Bearing Gifts of Dung.

If you have one or more Neoboard pens, you get super bonus points: not only can you sport a single grey identity, you can sport several. This feature is also ideal for having conversations with your multiple gloomy alter egos when you are bumping alone on the pound chat.

Kanrik is brooding – over what, we can only guess. Possibly it is due to the fact that his faction just lost to the very manly Brutes. Perhaps he is wondering what Hannah is up to now, or who put Pawkeet feathers in his most recent meal. Anyway, adopting his avatar instantly makes you look like the unimpressed, darkly contemplative type.

If you thought Kanrik wasn't impressed with you, wait 'til you see this Anubis. He is positively glaring. The whole of Neopia owes him desert corn. His image is perfect for your Neoboard identity: withdrawn, reclusive and just a dash of the perfect glower.

The random event through which the Black Pteri sometimes makes himself visible says all: The Black Pteri sits on a fence post howling doom and misery for all to hear... He is pretty much the embodiment of Grey Day. Possibly mourning the loss of his singing voice or just enjoying being mysterious, the dark colours of this avatar contrasted with the red are great to work with when designing the rest of your lookup.

Don't be deceived by the happy colours of this avatar. This Bori is not excited. It is very possible he is grumpy because his stuffing claws do not enable him to dig below ground with the rest of the Boris. He wishes he could be ice-tunneling with his favourite cousin.

Jhuidah would like to be free. We can't tell if there is a tear in the picture or just mysterious blue highlights in her red hair (in which case we would know she was imprisoned for her tastes in colour matching). Until then, she will remain trapped in this little animated square as a symbol of your Grey Day-related sadness.

Trophies

Whether it be admirable skill in Chia Bomber or a lucky ticket at the Neopian Lottery, most users have at least a few of which to boast on their user lookup. In celebration of Grey Day, we have decided to suggest a few extra trophies for which you can aim, to grey-ify your profile.

Please note that these should ideally be obtained in the silver variety for best effect. Top gamers, we get that it's a lot to ask and a major inconvenience, but restrain yourselves from the gold. Gold is a rather happy colour... We suppose bronze may do in a pinch.

The Lupe in the NeoQuest 1 trophy looks positively petrified. Our personal guess is that he was halfway to work when he realized he forgot his wallet at home.

The Tyranu Evavu Usul would tell you why he's feeling so down, but the Tyrannian language barrier makes this somewhat difficult (which is, additionally, the whole point of the game). We can only guess from his sign language (hand over heart) that he is emotionally hurting and could do with a surprise bouquet or two.

MAGAX is on a rampage. Please, friends, no matter how frustratingly grey your day gets, try to refrain from running around with an axe. People will be afraid of you, and you will end up being that person previously alluded to in the avatar section talking to themselves with multiple pens on the Pound Chat.

"Rawrgh, I have so much money... I am SO dissatisfied. D:"

We believe the Tax Beast is the only pet actually capable of holding a gigantic bag of Neopoints and still look so displeased. Perhaps it is too heavy to carry. In any case, this trophy is more of a random luck of the draw than anything: good luck getting right amount for silver!

Account Age Shields

Shields make a wonderful splash on your user lookup, right beside your user information. The following are some existing shields on the Neopets database that would be suitable for Grey Day.

The Grey Faerie is the natural first choice for a shield. As indicated in the image, the account age that proudly (morosely) bears this shield is 51 months. We did some quick calculations and found that in order to have this shield for Grey Day Y16, your account would have been created around the 14th day of Sleeping, Y12! (Time to check that, everyone who has a custom shield.)

This is Kanrik's second mention in the article, and we have already discussed why he is a suitable candidate for embodying Grey Day. Currently he is threatening someone with a knife. Calm down, Kanrik... or don't; stay that way so our lookups can be extra-grey themed. Accounts created around the 14th day of Hiding, Y10 will be wearing this shield on Grey Day this year.

So, there you have it – our recommendations for how to make your account look just greyt. Aren't you greytful for this wonderful agreygate of suggestions?

It is our sad duty to note that, unfortunately, even with all of the miserable modifications you can make to your user lookup on Grey Day, even if you follow all of our recommendations one hundred percent, there will always be a smiley face there somewhere.

We're looking at you, you obnoxiously happy Neofriend button. Can't win them all.

(We know it can be coded away by clever CSS, coding whizzes. Go away.)