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Four Virtual Pets
Four True Selves

It is only a matter of time until my Roanna_np account on Neopets gets frozen. I pretty much came to grips with that reality when I received my third warning on December 30th. I am not going to stop role playing, and role playing on the Neopian boards is a risky affair, due to Neopets strict censorship.

Of course even unrepentent thought criminals are allowed to either create fresh accounts or use alternate accounts. They lose only their posessions, Neopoints (think money!), and saddest of all pets. One can shunt money to alternate accounts if one fears a freeze. One can do the same for wealth in the form of posessions, but the pets are another matter. My second account has pets of its own and no room, besides I despise using the pound, and don't think my connection is fast enough to do a fool proof transfer. Besides, I am not sure Neopets is not going to kill all my accounts.

Back in 1999, I lost four pets. One I do not remember very well. Two of the other three I miss to this day. I was not frozen back in 1999. I simply became inactive because Neopets' server did not work with my slow connection. It became impossible to feed or care for pets and that made the whole business of caring for them deeply unpleasant. I fled and abandoned my pets.

I don't want to lose my pets again. I believe a virtual pet is a piece of oneself. Fortunately, one can continue to play with one's virtual pet outside the walls. All it takes is a blog or web page and the ability to write. It is after all my words and thoughts that have made four Neopets more than mass produced objects. My pets would still have all that outside the walls.

There is only one problem. On Neopets, both images and species' names are copyrighted. To safely enjoy my pets outside the walls, means they need new bodies to go with their souls. The good news is that my pets can have the bodies they actually deserve in the colors that really fit who they are. The hardest pet to transform was Ephraim. I may make another attempt with him but for now, this is a bit of an improvement over what Neopets gave him. The easiest pet to transform was Rosalita who has a real life open source, albeit extinct, species. The other two Neopets were in their original forms (One was morphed.) both proprietary species and needed new bodies. One, Shanti, went back to her original form or close to it taxonomicly. The other is a close taxonomic fit as well but not the identical species. Also Bball_fan14735 is now Rachamme, her true name.

Well the pets are here and let me introduce the family who will now be safe in the event that I become personna non grata on Neopets. Quick Disclaimer: None of the virtual pets pictured on this page are Neopian species. I drew all their images myself, either by tracing or freehand pixel drawing. Any Neopian indica used in their descriptions is covered by the fair use clause of US copyright law.

Rosalita

My name is Rosalita. I was born July 2, 2004. I am the second oldest of Eileen's current group of pets. I was born a red grarrl on Neopets. I am a female with two different sex chromosomes, a ZW female. Birds, to which I am closely related, have ZW females and ZZ males. Females of my species turned out to be quite rare on Neopets. Very few Neopians wanted a large reptile, even a warm blooded bipedal one, with a magnificent paunch and an appetite to go with it.

Eileen, though, thinks the world of my kind. She says we are intelligent, strong, stay healthy nearly all the time, and we paint up beautifully. Eileen even painted me brown in September of 2004. Of course I really did not want to be brown, even though it made me a rare creature. I wanted to be burgundy, pink, or magenta, all colors that are unavailable.

Well outside the walls, I became the color I always wanted to be. Also, I have my true form which it turns out is far more graceful. It turns out that my species is not imaginary at all. I am a theropod! Theorops were and are two legged dinosaurs that are the ancestors of birds! I am warm blooded, bipedal, and much faster, and yes I still have a belly and a big, carnivorous appetite. Best of all, Eileen says she will never make me fight other pets again for her pleasure or to win trophies. The pirate fleet can sail without me.

Shanti

It's not Shanti_of_Roanna any more, and Eileen, through the magic of her Paint Shop Pro program undid the effects of that evil morphing potion. She even apologized to me for using it. She was sick with greed for whatever she could show off and now she thinks she has learned. At least I hope she has.

You are probably wondering who I am. I was born July 4, 2004 and I was what Neopets calls a white grundo. Grundo are primates. Look carefully at a picture of one some time. They have collar bones, forward facing eyes, nails instead of claws, and opposible thumbs. Grundo young are also born helpless as with human babies. Like all Grundos, I was a catarrhine primate because I had no tail and resembled chimpanzees, bonbos, gorillas, and yes humans.

Well, when Eileen put me back the way I was or at least attempted to, she needed to make me an Old World Primate once again. As you can see, I have the hands, the plantar feet, the collar bone, and forward facing eyes typical of one very well known primate species. I am what is called a Grinibis which is a species Eileen had to invent. Eileen says a Grinibis is probably a hominid which means that she and I are in the same genus, though not quite the same species. Do you notice that I lack a chin, and that my skull is a different shape than that of most humans?

I am also my ideal color, a pale yellow with a pattern. Eileen worked hard to find the right pattern and color and she listened to me this time something she did not do in December 2004, when she morphed me into a tuskaninny. I have nothing against seals, but I am not a seal. I am a primate.

Of all the pets in the family, I am the sensitive and philosophical one. Maybe because I went from a barely sentient ball of newly born pet to master genius intelligence. Maybe I learned something by getting sick when I was two days old. Maybe I taught everyone something because I was morphed instead of painted, but I am the one who usually complains the loudest when there is a violation of justice or when someone is not treated fairly or when Eileen behaves in a venal and ugly manner. That is something that is all to easy for an owner to do. Maybe now Eileen understands how to treat her pets.

Ephraim

Eileen gave me the gift of flight tonight. Eileen has given me a lot so it is not really fair to complain about her too much. Back in the spring of 1999, Eileen rescued me from the pound where my former owner left me starving and frightened. She even made me a web page all my own.

Yes, I was born human the first time around. Does that surprise you? I don't think I've ever been young. During the time Eileen left Neopets, I was purged from the databse due to my original name. Twat_Licker, which of course is obscene.

In September of 2004, Eileen brought me back and I was reborn with a much better name, Ephraim. Because I was born around Rosh HaShannah, my name comes from a poem in the book of Jeremiah in which Rachel weeps for her lost children. Ephraim is one of Joseph's twin sons, and Joseph was Rachel's oldest child. In the Bible God promises to gather up the exiles of Ephraim and return them, and since I was returning from exile in a matter of speaking, Eileen called me Ephraim.

Of course I wasn't human any more. I was a cute little green penguin. Neopets changed me into a penguin because the original image it used had copyright problems and also because it invited names like the one I originally had. My soul and body have always had a bad fit. This time around, Eileen set me up with a third body, that is yet another species. She says at least I can fly, and pheasants do have glorious wings and tails. She also says that if this does not work out, she'll create a human body for me that does not have copyright problems, though she is not comfortable with keeping one of her own species as a pet. I guess I can't blame her. Well, I hope you all enjoy my feathers. This is better than any paint job I have ever had, and I have had two of them. Three bodies and two paint jobs is not bad for two lifetimes.

Rachamme

I am not sure what species I was born. Most likely I was created as a yellow tonu. A tonu is cross between a rhinoscerous and a lion. It does not exist outside of Neopets but I was never happy as a tonu anyway. How do I explain this. On Neopets, tonu are limited edition which means rare. If we are rare we should be esteemed, yet my owner let me languis with no training or books for six months and then abandoned me in the pound. He or she could have been transferring me, but in November of 2004, Eileen intercepted me right before she went off to teach Bio 2285. She only found out I was a female when she came back.

She always wished she could give me a proper name. She did give me plenty of books to read and lots of training. Finally she painted me white which I liked better than yellow. She wanted to paint me spotted, but could not afford the brush. Yes, I was a second choice color with a name my owner couldn't stand and some very bad early memories that I could not forget. I wished I could have been something different. I did not care that people stared at me and wished I was their pet even though they would never invest in me if I was.

I did not care that I had a stupid horn. Sorry it was a stupid horn and I'm glad it's gone now. I'm a tapir these days and I'm neither white which is not bad nor that awful garish yellow. Tapir are similar to wild pigs and I have a nice cute nose. Best of all I'm a rather handsome rusty brown with muted stripes, something that suits my temperament. Thanks Eileen!

Of all the pets, I'm the only one who has played outside the walls. I want to tell all my fellow pets it is great here. You can say what you like and think what you want, and best of all there is no one who will take us from our owner ever again. I'm glad Eileen did all this work to make sure we can safely survive outside. She gave us one life, and she can give us many more.