Arklonn

Just joined TDN today. Been a lurker for years. I'm 37, started playing in aught-five when I was 26. Always been huge into the battledome which was one of the main reasons I joined. 11 years now with hiatuses on and off. This is probably one of the few things from my twenties that's still around for me. It feels both warm and melancholy, honestly.

I don't do the petpet lab because I have my ideal petpet, and I don't do the petpet battles so level is meaningless to me. Also don't do the Turmaculus, don't want to lose my petpet. I avoid all the wheels except the Faerie one. I don't really care for the avatars. I also avoid apple bobbing because I also carry dubloons in case the smugglers have somethin' for me. :3

Heya. Thought I'd come on and introduce myself. Been on Neo an age, and lurked TDN for a long time, but never joined till now. Dunno why, but the need to do so finally became a reality for me. Maybe because I thought there wasn't anyone who really shared the hobby after so long. Coming back after a long hiatus it seems the love is still strong, and I'm glad for that. Neopets represented a lot of goals for me when I was younger, and while some of them are ones I'll never see, it's still a lot of old memories. And it'd be nice to share them with new people, and make some new ones. For ease, I generally go by Ark, or Dox, whichever people want to use. Anyway, nice to be here. /salute.

I'm new here, but I feel your pain. I know this is a late post as well, I just wanted to let you know that honestly, there's nothing to be ashamed of. People have done things in desperate times in order to protect the things they love. Sometimes, these actions are wrong in their practice, but good in their principle. A great deal of things are done with good intentions, or out of fear. We are all human, and we all make errors. Your parents are very likely a product of their time; I'm not religious myself, though I once was, long ago, and I know that a religious upbringing can be stressful. In a lot of cases, there are those who believe in the 'letter' of a faith, and those who believe in its message, and its 'spirit'. The ones who only believe in the letter can be judgmental, harsh, and destructive to others who don't believe the same as they do. Those who follow the letter but believe in the spirit I find are warmer, and often have a view of what they think is right, but also have a live and let live view in their heart. You sound like someone who has the spirit of their faith rather than just the letter, whereas your father sounds more like a letter of the faith believer, These two ways are often hard to reconcile.
 
It's clear you want to protect and care for your loved ones, and feel a great deal of pressure from the family of your loved one..but the world was intent on crushing you in its own way. Between people, situations, hard times, and the like. And whether you believe in God, or the cycle of Karma, or what have you, one thing can be said. The times grow hardest before they look up. The fact is, while you may have done something foolish with good intentions, it seems like the price you paid was small compared to what others might have, and that shows that someone, or something, knows you didn't deserve to be beaten into the ground entirely. When the weight of the world is on you, turn to what you believe, and do what you love. But always remember this. No matter what your upbringing, what's most important is to be true to yourself. It's sad your father is being the way he is, but your life is chosen by you. When you die someday, it will be you that answers to your God, not your father. Remember that your life is your road. Even when you encounter bumps on it, like the ones you've had, follow your instincts. Follow your heart. Not what you're told by someone who's so far removed from you mentally and emotionally that doing so would result in endless pain for you.
 
Keep the people you love, like your boyfriend, close, and cultivate what you have. Love is important in today's world. We desperately need more of it. When you've lost your way, there's always a door out to a better place. You're not a terrible person. You're just one person who made a mistake as many before you have. Keep moving forward, where there's a hand to help pull you up. What his mother thinks, what your father thinks; remember, they will be who they are. Instead of worrying about how they judge you, just pray for their eyes to be opened, and that whatever transgressions against you they've made, that whatever or whoever watches, that they be forgiven.Armor yourself in who you are, who you want to be, and no weapons from the tongues of others will do you harm.
 
This is a song I love from years ago. I think it suits the situation well; the transition from despair to hope, and even if you're aimless, you have someone to share it with.
 
can you hear the calling of the raving wind and water?
we just keep dreaming of the land 'cross the river
we are always on the way to find the place we belong
wandering to no where, we're paddling
down the raging sea
 
who can cross over such raving wind and water?
on the rolling boat we sit, shivering with coldness
come by an island, come by a hillock,
it's just another place, we paddle on
down the raging sea
 
but in one morning we'll see the sun
bright shining morning dew singing
they who will search will find the land
of evergreen
 
search for the light..light
 
can you hear the calling of the raving wind and water?
we just keep paddling down the sea, up the river
no destination, but we are together
in the silent sadness we're paddling
down the raging sea
down to no where

Duping is the process of duplicating items illegally using an exploit in coding. 'dupe' is slang for 'duplicate'. Duping items is common in certain games, especially browser or old html games where the coding is easily exploitable or manipulated. It's also common in MMORPGS and single player games on consoles, mostly RPGs, through using glitches in the system. Duped items are used to make easy money usually, by copying high level or rare objects. The problem is, this floods a market with said item and can lead to serious deflation or other economic issues. Using exploits to dupe can also cause a site stability problems. Back in the past, there were people who exploited the code in Neopets (because old java and early HTML were easily exploitable anyway, and even more so now), to copy things like the attack peas. Unfortunately, having a duped item is the same as having something like bought currency in an MMO. People didn't know items were duped, but having them meant they benefit from an exploit, so the accounts are all frozen regardless of responsibility. Some dupers were complete douche canoes, and would send items to people seeming like they were being generous, but they really just wanted to cause chaos and take people down with them.
 
Some people also set things to NF only just because they didn't want a ton of stuff coming in from people they didn't know as well, so there's that.

Heh, sorry about that. Thanks for the welcome. Yeah, back inmid 2000's there were problems with people sending random trades, and sometimes you'd end up with duped items and get frozen, so me and my crew back then had everything set to NF only.