On my home computer I don't use a VPN, but my work computer does. I ran a tracert and it's getting through the local connections and timing out a third of the way through, so when I called my ISP, they didn't think it had anything to do with my local connection, that one of the servers the connection to the neopets and other sites was going through along the way was the issue. They did reboot my connection for me, but it didn't help. I guess all we can do is wait until it's fixed, but it's annoying. I'm going to try from the library tomorrow to see if I can get access that way.
***when I ran the tracert, it went from my home ip address to 3 ip addresses in Nova Scotia-first 2 of which belonged to my ISP, then through Roger's main hub in NS, then to 3 of their servers or ip addresses in Toronto, and then after that it got as far as an ip address or server that originated in Chicago and after that it started timing out, so I suspect that's where the problem is.
updated on Saturday Oct 9: finally came back up this morning on my work computer, I did get access to the site where you can file a ticket from the library yesterday and everything worked there, so it seemed to be my home connection, and Neopets, and the pictures on TDN and Jellyneo are now loading, so fingers crossed it will work on my home personal computer