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What to do with Petpages


by suixx

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One of the greatest things about Neopets is how much it allows us to be creative. We can customize our userlookups, petlookups, fonts, galleries, shops, adventures, and, of course, our pets! But the most creatively open-ended part of Neopets might be our petpages. With no character limit and no designated themes to follow, we can do just about anything we want with these pages. If you’re a premium member with the maximum amount of pets, you’re sitting on 21 blank canvases, and the sky’s the limit.

This guide will introduce you to many of the pre-established uses for petpages. Of course, you’re welcome to combine ideas, branch out into your own interpretations, or do something completely different; the magical thing about petpages is that the creative choices are your own!

Art Page

There is a massive artist community on Neopets, and there’s an even bigger group of non-artists who appreciate viewing all your hard work. If you’ve been drawing your Neopets or anything else you’re proud of (or looking for input on), put them up on a petpage for others to see. It’s a great way to show off your work, meet other artists or art fans, keep track of your own work, and see your progress! Or, if you’re feeling generous, you can even turn it into a public Adoptable site where others can use your art to decorate their pages (while giving you full credit, of course!).

Goals

We’ve all got our Neopets goals, ranging from easily doable to fantastically out of reach. It’s a great idea to start keeping track of everything you wish to achieve. It can help you keep on track, remind you of secondary goals you may have forgotten about, and give you that feeling of satisfaction when you get to finally cross something off that list! Not to mention the type of community it can create when your friends all know about your goals. They can send you tips, cheer you on, help you out, and celebrate with you when you finally achieve it.

Project Pages

Similar to a goals page, a project page differs in that it marks your progress towards one specific goal. Frequently (but not exclusively), project pages are used to track the progress towards obtaining a certain pet. You can include your plans for the pet, why you’re focusing on this particular pet, and your current trading progress towards this pet. It’s a great way to keep yourself focused on your goal, but it also allows others to see your plans, and a generous person may even decide to help you out a little! However, keep in mind that everyone has their own goals, and creating a project page doesn’t make anyone obliged to help you. You’ve still got to do the work!

Wishlist

Again, similar to a goals page, but instead simply focusing on the material goods you need to achieve your goals. Wishlists are a great way to keep track of what items you need for your gallery, what stamps you’re after, what items you need to finish up a pet’s customization, or anything else you can think of! It’s also a great way for friends to know what to get you on those special occasions. ;)

About You

Now, you should always be careful with posting personal information online—but as long as you take care to avoid any information that could allow someone to track you down, go ahead and share! Write about who you are, what your interests are, the kinds of movies or music you like, what you do on neopets, anything! It’s a great way for new friends, or even strangers, to get to know who you are, and strike up a conversation about your interests.

Dailies

While many fansites offer a customizable list of Neopets dailies, it can be fun to make your own. Having quick links to all those pages you visit every day can speed up the process of collecting your free stuff, and also allows you to include any additional links that fansites may not think to include. This can include linking to your guild’s website to check for updates, links to your favourite games, links to the stores you like to restock at, or anything else you enjoy doing on a regular basis!

Avatars

If you’re a serious avatar collector, having a page of all the avatars you still need can help keep you on track. It’s not only a way for you to monitor your progress, but it allows others to see what you need and give advice or lend a hand. Plus, if you choose, you can edit your petpage to give helpful notes or links for each avatar. Keeping track of advice or game guides for avatar games, for example, would be a great use of a petpage, and keep your resources at your fingertips!

Items for Sale

If you’re the kind of person who always has unbuyables for sale, it might be helpful to have a petpage listing all your items. It helps you keep track of what you have, as well as advertising to others what you have to offer. Some people keep all their items in their trades, but if you have 20+ items, that might take up too much space in your inventory. Others keep their “for sale” items in their gallery, but if you already use your gallery for another purpose, a petpage could be just what you want. Plus, the petpage allows you to include any relevant information about the sale item, including (but not limited to!) your asking price, which isn’t possible in a gallery.

Screenshots

Funny interactions on the boards? Cool random event? High end restock? Screenshot it all, and throw it up on a petpage! It can be something for you to revisit and nostalgically reminisce, you can use it as bragging rights for all the cool stuff you restocked, or have your screenies page public for others to enjoy.

Pet Stories

What better use for a petpage than to actually make a page for your pet? If you’re a character creator who enjoys writing stories and drawing art for your pet, creating a biography for them is a great use of a petpage. You can include a biography, personality traits, history, whatever you would like to include. It’s a great practice for anyone pursuing a career in writing, or just those who like to get creative.

Guides

Everybody’s good at something, so why not write a guide about it? Even if you aren’t good at something, “Game Avatars for Those Who Are Terrible at Every Game” would probably have a very large audience. A huge portion of Neopets runs on user-to-user support, and that’s not sustainable without people like you taking an interest in advising others. If you’ve got a petpage to spare and some Wisdom to share, writing a guide might be for you!

Database

If you want to contribute to the guides out there, but you aren’t sure what to write about yourself, why not make a database of guides? Gathering up all the updated guides to one convenient location, possibly with a short description of each guide, is a great way to help out others. You can have a broad range of guides, or specify to one category, such as coding guides, trading guides, restocking guides, etc.

Directory

Do you have a love for invisible pets? What about skeiths? Mutants? Glowing lupes? Creating a directory of permanent pets which fit into a specific category is a fun way to build a niche community! You can list all the fitting pets so they can show off their customizations. Just make sure all the pets you post were submitted by the owners, don’t post someone else’s pet without their permission!

Guild Information

Do you own a guild? Co-own? Are you on council? Or simply enjoy participating in guild events? Well, then, use one of your petpages to create a page for your guild! If you’re not in a position of authority, be sure to check with your guild leader before going through with this idea. It can be anything you can think of, such as guild fonts, guild activities, event news, or whatever your guild is about!

Calendar

A calendar petpage is one of the less popular uses, but helpful nonetheless. If you have all your important dates listed in calendar order, you can check back regularly to see what events are coming up, and never forget a day! Some uses for the calendar include:

  • If you run out of transfers but have a pet trade set up, write down all the information for the 1st of the following month so you can go ahead with the trade.
  • Mark down avatars that only occur on certain days, so you don’t forget to collect them. This could be annual avatars, such as the April Fools avatar, or avatars that require some planning, such as the Darigan Pteri avatar, which requires you to view the lookup of a darigan pteri who is exactly 644 days old.
  • Keep a reminder of when your favourite pet days happen. This is helpful if you want to create a limited edition pet on their special day, or if you wanted to train your pet for free at The Academy. It’s also helpful if you do creative content for pet days, such as poems or art, to remind yourself when you need to submit your creation.
  • Keep track of all your own neopets’ birthdays. If you have them all in a list, you’ll never forget to celebrate their birthday and collect their cupcakes for some bonus stats!

Character Profiles

…or other roleplaying tools, such as world descriptions, or the history of that particular roleplay for anyone joining later in the story. It’s a helpful way to introduce others to your story or characters without frequently re-typing them. It can also help keep you organized if you’re participating in multiple roleplays at once.

Lookbook

If you’re the kind of person who spends their evenings on Dress to Impress, the customization fan site, a Lookbook might be perfect for you! You can save all the customizations you create for your own pets for your own personal reference, or create customizations of a variety of pets for others to use or be inspired by.

Note to Self

For us forgetful types, having reminders written down is very helpful. Sure, you can use paper and pencil like a Tyrannian, or you can take advantage of the modern age. You can use this page to remind yourself of ANYTHING, but some suggestions are:

  • If you’re determined to find out the time of day your Magma Pool guard falls asleep, you can make a list of 10 minute intervals (or, for extra assurance, smaller intervals such as 5 minutes) and cross them off as you check them.
  • If you don’t yet have Battledome Boons memorized, it’s helpful to make a list of which teams give which boons, and personally note which boons you prefer. It can make choosing a team and choosing a boon a much simpler and quicker decision!
  • Got a board up you don’t want to lose, such as an UFT board on the Pound Chat? Link to it on your Note to Self page, and as long as the board isn’t deleted (either due to hitting the post limit or not being posted on for so long), you can keep it as long as you need it!

Portfolio

A portfolio can be anything you want it to be, but, at the core, it’s a collection of Neopets things that represent you! You can take any of the above ideas and combine them into one easy page. Common things to include on your portfolio are an “About Me” section, a list of your goals, your pets, and any other quick links, needed avatars, or anything else important or relevant to you on Neopets.

Blank Petpage

We’re telling you to turn your blank petpage into a blank petpage. Crazy, but hear us out! It’s not always ideal to fill up every petpage with content, because you never know when you’ll need a page for something, and you don’t want to have to choose to take down one of your other petpages. It helps to keep one page reserved for those special occasions, such as:

  • You want to show some Neofriends pictures of something, but you can’t post images on the boards, so throw them up on your blank petpage and link them to it!
  • You’re fiddling with coding but don’t want to edit your original layout directly, in case something goes wrong. Copy and paste that code into your blank petpage and edit from there.
  • Trying to plan something visual, such as which pets should go on which accounts for maximum coordination? Put all your pet images on one page and shuffle them around, or whatever else applies. It’s easy and quick, and you can save it on the petpage for future reference.
  • Your dream pet has just gone UFA, and your application is too long for a neomail or board post, that empty petpage is a perfect place for it!

Of course, these are just a few possible ideas. The great thing about Neopets is that there's no need to stick to conventions. You can take inspiration from each idea to make something entirely unique!

 
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