Hello everyone, Hallowinxer/Superpupu is back :)

[wini13]

Welcome back

[Hallowinxer]

Hey Hallowinxer, welcome back to the forums!! Ngl I don't remember you from before but superpupu sounds amazing. Your new name is great too, and the story behind it makes total sense.

Yeah, horror and creepy gothic vibes definitely suit the HalloWinx spirit!

It's awesome to see someone else who’s been in love with Winx since the very beginning like me, I started watching when I was 4 and it aired in Portugal, it's crazy how long ago that was and yet I still remember sitting down and watch it on my old bedroom, which eventually was where I also years later would join this website and forum and meet everyone! I relate so much to everything you said about growing up with Winx Club and all the memories tied to those old games like Kiko’s Adventure and Attack on Magix. I spent countless hours on those too, although I only saw Attack on Magix on those vintage coffee shops with games installed, they don't exist anymore but they were common back then in Portugal, and like you, I missed Winx Adventure so much... I don't think I spent a day without logging in to that game except... when, yknow, the old, slow computer loading for hours… yeah, I felt that pain back then. Although I believe it was because of the website, it was very slow and had countless bugs everywhere in terms of the scripting. Those bugs are also on waybackmachine so you can open the console and see more than 2000 error messages in some pages I missed the Garden of Charmix release because the website would stop responding and crash my computer.

That's why I rebuilt the website 100% from scratch. Everything you see was redone without a single script from the official old website, but remade by me to the current browsers and being as modern as possible.

Creating this website was a huge labor of love. Like you, this place was my childhood, and it’s so special to hear that others are connecting with it just like I did. Rebuilding this wasn’t just for everyone, it was also for me – I wanted to bring back that magic we all felt. I’m thrilled it feels like a good remake to everyone! Your enthusiasm makes it all worth it.

Also, your favorites are just on point! Stella is my fav again (the season 1-4 one, then I prefer Musa tbh) and I totally agree that the 2nd season is gold. Even though I prefer season 3 and 4 more for the stakes. Darkar and the Trix were such iconic villains, and honestly, Griffin needs way more love in the fandom – she’s fantastic.

Hi again and thank you Lol I'm answering you on differend posts all around the forum all the time
Actually thanks for Winx Club I found the goth style because I got interested in Cloudtower's gloomy aesthetic and witches' fashion and I wore gothic clothes for a long time - nowadays I'm focused on finding more comfortable clothes and sometimes even wear some COLORS and not all black ( ) but I'll always prefer black and dark aesthetic nevertheless

Omg you've been super young when you found Winx Club, that's so sweet! Thinking about the earliest Winx memories in childhood always makes me so emotional and I'm so glad we have so many heart-warming memories :') And the high amount of adrenaline when I saw the episodes and had no idea what's going to happen next, i.e. I was really shocked when Stella jumped after Brandon (who had just fallen down to the ravine in Darkar's castle), I took every new episode so seriously that I even wrote down notes so I could remember the names of the new characters and new spells etc.

But it's just so heart-warming to find other fans who understand exactly what Winx means to you and who you can share the memories with!! :')

I was always thinking all the problems I had with the website were the old computer's fault but if the coding caused it, well, that's a great plot twist I didn't expect after all these years! I was blaming my poor computer too much But this is really giving me so much hope, like, THIS TIME it's going to work so much better and it'll be so awesome!! Even though you missed the opening back then, now you can make your own opening!

It's so interesting to hear your thoughts about Winx and it's cool we have so much in common! I find the 2nd season darker than the 1st, but the 3rd is even more darker, which I like very much. I need to re-watch the 4th because it's been too long time since I last watched it (I have a bad habit of re-watching s1-2 over and over again ). In the last summer I binged 2nd and 3rd so now it's time for 4th and it'll be actually even more interesting because I don't remember as much as in earlier seasons!

And I absolutely agree! Griffin is so confident and independent but also so honest and open about her mistakes and doesn't try to hide them. That makes her so real and reliable. She has some pride but not too much, and I also love her sense of humor.

[Hallowinxer]

The forum really was more than just Winx Club fans community. It was a unique place where we could push our creativity, learn something new, discuss Winx non-related stuff in a safe environment.

Yes I agree so much! People were always so kind there and made it really a safe place!

Oh, I guess the reason why I think that Mattel dolls are so rare is that we've never had them in Russia. In our country Winx Club series began airing in 2008, a few years later than in many other countries, so we had less seasons 1–3 themed stuff in general.

We definetly should create a topic with Winx Club Merch discussion. I'm wondering how our products were similar and what interesting stuff did other countries have.

Oh that explains it, it was completely new to me that you didn't have them even though you're in my neighborhood country! But that's interesting to hear! I think in Finland we had most of s1-3 merch. We had also Witty toy dolls but I don't remember seeing other kinds of merch of s4-5 as much here. But the large amount of so many different Witty lines have really surprised me afterwards But yes, we definitely need to make a larger discussion about this topic!!

But a few days ago I found out that in September this magazine has started publishing in Russia again.
Paper quality seems very poor, but otherwise it looks interesting. I was thnking about buying it, and a conversation with you makes me think that I should do it.

Omg this looks like the Winx 20th anniversary magazines! I've seen photos of the Italian one couple of months ago and fans were so excited that Winxs' iconic s1 outfits are back So maybe because of the 20th anniversary they re-started publishing the magazine in Russia?? Anyway that's so awesome!

I'm still wondering myself why Winx Club was that popular in Russia. We've always had a pretty active art community and a lot of dedicated fans. But all my friends in real life also grew over Winx very quickly, I didn't feel alone about liking it only thanks to the online community.

I've been thinking that maybe Winx was airing in a really perfect time in Europe because we didn't have so many magical girl shows back then. My friend from China didn't know Winx at all - maybe because in Japan ja China they had so much anime series, which came to Europe much more later. In Finland we had W.i.t.c.h. and Totally Spies, many people also watched Sailor Moon but I think we didn't have many other magical girl shows back then. Nowadays there're magical girl animes almost everywhere. I don't know which other series were popular in Russia back them but if you didn't have many same kind of series either maybe that's why Winx was so popular: it felt so fresh and unique. And of course Winx was also very well done! But haha these are only my own speculations.

I like both Witty and Jakks dolls! There also were Giochi Preziosi ones, they looked interesting too.
I like that Jakks dolls have very movable bodies, this is what attracts me the most! I dreamed of getting one of these when they first came out.

In Russia we had only Witty dolls. I'm not sure about Hallowinx line, but we had maaany other ones. Believix, Love&Pet, Sophix, Lovix, City Girl, Charmix... I still dream of them! I like their faces (at least those that were until ~2013) and they just make me too nostalgic not to dream.
Also, these dolls weren't like suuuper expensive back then, but definitely not everyone could afford them without a special occasion. I still remember a video where Iginio Straffi was shocked and disappointed by Winx dolls prices in stores during his visit in Russia in 2010. It was literally on our news.

We still have Winx dolls for sale now, but I don't know what brand of dolls they belong to.

Yeah they're all so pretty! <3 And I'm so glad they made Sophix and Lovix dolls too (even though I don't own them -yet...) Until last year I didn't know Giochi Preziosi dolls exist and I was perplexed how many iconic outfits they had, which we didn't have for Mattel dolls. The Jakks dolls' faces are so ethereal <3 And I also like their articulated hands and feet because they just look so poetic somehow!

Wow it's so cool that Iginio has visited Russia! It'd be interesting to see the video, sounds so hilarious But it's sad that all of the fans couldn't afford them

[Hallowinxer]

Welcome back

Thanks And nice to meet you!

[juleic1123]

Season 2 is definitely darker than the first! But...... the final battle of Season 1 is so iconic to me it's still a better season finale for me than season 2. Even though the stakes in Season 2 were higher, that final showdown with Bloom and Icy was just too good, as well as the second half being essentially war against the Trix. It's hard to top that in terms of sheer impact.

And you're absolutely right—part of the issue was those old, slow computers, but the terrible website scripting made everything worse. Instead of starting from scratch, they just layered script after script over the old pages. The website had countless, COUNTLESS scripts being done on top of pages to redirect to the new version of the website. It was so poorly done it was even in the URLs "?wicket:bookmarkablePage=:sg.rbwmedia.centro.web.page." to avoid users being redirected to the season 3 website in "winxclub.com/page/" They didn’t even delete the Season 3 Character Pages or the Gardenia Park pages—just buried them under piles of code, causing the website to load an insane amount of extra content. Back in the day, if you converted the URL from winxclub.com/page/ or /image/ to the "?wicket:bookmarkablePage=:sg.rbwmedia.centro.web.page." you could actually find old sprites, images, and even the old .swf files hidden because they didn’t bother to clean it up! It was so poorly optimized. Unfortunately I knew about this only through waybackmachine, and none of them are saved... so while they're present in the codes, they're not available to be downloaded... otherwise I could get my hands on Gardenia Park's .swfs even...

And Winx Adventure? It was added to the website nine times, one for each language, and whenever you clicked "Play Now," the site had to check your websites browser’s language to load the right version. Naturally, this caused glitches, and sometimes the game wouldn’t load because it couldn’t find the right language file, leaving you stuck on loading or straight up not loading.

Looking back, it's hilarious to understand all this as a programmer now. As kids, we were just frustrated with slow loading, but now I can laugh at the madness behind the scenes. It feels surreal how fast my new version of the site is compared to that mess. I’m so proud of recreating it all visually from scratch, but ensuring none of that old pollution is there.

And you know, I feel bad for saying all of this, because at the end of the day that was and is my favorite website. Nothing can remove the happiness I felt there. The updates were so regular and there was so much care into the content we had in that time I feel bad just pointing out at their flaws, but it's sad that it was really bad.

If they had made a full sweep of the season 3 website, they could easily made the website much faster and bug-free...

[korolyova]

I still don't understand why they had to close the forums

[juleic1123]

I still don't understand why they had to close the forums

I sort of do. It's pretty sad but understandable-ish.

It was probably taking too much space on their servers. The forum was FILLED with topics, I bet it probably wasted a good chunk of the servers' resources. That and the fact that they had to be active and ensure nothing dangerous was happening, like grooming for example, it is supposed to be a safe space for children, and the admins were barely active. If they closed the forum but kept it there, I'd believe it was more of the latter, but I really believe that the truth is actually the space it was occupying. They had to pay more than 100€ to keep the website running, while now they pay no more than 20€ and changed platforms to a wordpress built-in server. I'm pretty sure that was the reason. Especially considering the website renews its domain and server in July, and the forum was locked in January 2014 and permanent deleted in June 2014, right before they renewed.

The minimods wanted the data but first I don't think they'd even know how to save the data, and it wouldn't be easy, the forum had to be the same phpbb version (this one) and the server tables had to be recreated, since the users were connected to the web avatar server tables for sure, which would need to be recreated BEFORE to ensure they wouldn't glitch. And the login method would need to be the same server, so it would be nearly impossible for a fan do it. Not even I know what server they were using before. I recreated the website in ubuntu, but I have no idea if they used ubuntu. The only thing I know is the same is the forum version, which is this one.

And legally, they couldn't do that, they would be arrested if they even tried. You can't sell data from children, let alone from children to children.

[korolyova]

And legally, they couldn't do that, they would be arrested if they even tried. You can't sell data from children, let alone from children to children.

Ohh, I can see. I remember they wrote smth like "we need to clean the space for facebook, insta, etc... the platforms you love". I loved forums! And this sounded rude that the forum just smth to clean

[natie]

Omg this looks like the Winx 20th anniversary magazines! I've seen photos of the Italian one couple of months ago and fans were so excited that Winxs' iconic s1 outfits are back So maybe because of the 20th anniversary they re-started publishing the magazine in Russia?? Anyway that's so awesome!

It seems so! Judging by the information that I found, they stopped publishing the magazine in 2021, but now it’s coming back

I've been thinking that maybe Winx was airing in a really perfect time in Europe because we didn't have so many magical girl shows back then. My friend from China didn't know Winx at all - maybe because in Japan ja China they had so much anime series, which came to Europe much more later. In Finland we had W.i.t.c.h. and Totally Spies, many people also watched Sailor Moon but I think we didn't have many other magical girl shows back then. Nowadays there're magical girl animes almost everywhere. I don't know which other series were popular in Russia back them but if you didn't have many same kind of series either maybe that's why Winx was so popular: it felt so fresh and unique. And of course Winx was also very well done! But haha these are only my own speculations.

I agree with everything you've said. Animation culture in East Asia is totally different so it's no surprise that Winx didn't get much attention there.
In Russia, we also had Sailor Moon, W.I.T.C.H. and Totally Spies. By the way, if I'm not mistaken, all three of these were released in Russia before 2008, which means before Winx came out there. I don't even know if there was anything between their releases and Winx. This may explain the boom of Winx in Russia at that time.

Winx Club really got a perfect timing. Those were the times when we didn’t have such an abundance of content; everyone in the country watched the same TV channels and the same cartoons on them. As I see it, W.I.T.C.H. series was the only real competitor for Winx back then. Sailor Moon already felt a bit outdated in those years, and Totally Spies lacked a good storyline. And I guess W.I.T.C.H. "lost its battle" because it was aimed rather at a little bit narrower audience of teenagers, while Winx managed to attract both very young children and teenagers. Ngl it still makes me sad that W.I.T.C.H. series never got a continuation, even though it was because of Winx Club.

And yes, I agree, that after all Winx was simply very well-made series. It had stylish vibrant visual, great music, interesting storyline — everything was on point. It did feel refreshing and modern. Well, these are speculations of mine. Yet I'm still surprised that the fandom has remained that active for such a long time, because the series has had more downs than ups over the years.

Yeah they're all so pretty! <3 And I'm so glad they made Sophix and Lovix dolls too (even though I don't own them -yet...) Until last year I didn't know Giochi Preziosi dolls exist and I was perplexed how many iconic outfits they had, which we didn't have for Mattel dolls. The Jakks dolls' faces are so ethereal <3 And I also like their articulated hands and feet because they just look so poetic somehow!

Lovix is my favorite line from Witty. Although there were so many lines that it's hard to decide haha
You are so right about Jakks dolls' hands and feet! These dolls really do look very elegant! And the fact that they can take different poses makes them even better.

I also like that Jakks released special edition dolls, they looked cool. It's just too bad they released only Bloom in the limited Silver/Gold/Blue Believix lines. Like, I get that it's a limited series, but I still wanted to see other fairies.

Wow it's so cool that Iginio has visited Russia! It'd be interesting to see the video, sounds so hilarious But it's sad that all of the fans couldn't afford them

I can't find this video on YouTube, but I'll definitely upload and show it later. This video perfectly reflects the popularity of Winx dolls at that time in Russia.

[Hallowinxer]

Season 2 is definitely darker than the first! But...... the final battle of Season 1 is so iconic to me it's still a better season finale for me than season 2. Even though the stakes in Season 2 were higher, that final showdown with Bloom and Icy was just too good, as well as the second half being essentially war against the Trix. It's hard to top that in terms of sheer impact.

And you're absolutely right—part of the issue was those old, slow computers, but the terrible website scripting made everything worse. Instead of starting from scratch, they just layered script after script over the old pages. The website had countless, COUNTLESS scripts being done on top of pages to redirect to the new version of the website. It was so poorly done it was even in the URLs "?wicket:bookmarkablePage=:sg.rbwmedia.centro.web.page." to avoid users being redirected to the season 3 website in "winxclub.com/page/" They didn’t even delete the Season 3 Character Pages or the Gardenia Park pages—just buried them under piles of code, causing the website to load an insane amount of extra content. Back in the day, if you converted the URL from winxclub.com/page/ or /image/ to the "?wicket:bookmarkablePage=:sg.rbwmedia.centro.web.page." you could actually find old sprites, images, and even the old .swf files hidden because they didn’t bother to clean it up! It was so poorly optimized. Unfortunately I knew about this only through waybackmachine, and none of them are saved... so while they're present in the codes, they're not available to be downloaded... otherwise I could get my hands on Gardenia Park's .swfs even...

And Winx Adventure? It was added to the website nine times, one for each language, and whenever you clicked "Play Now," the site had to check your websites browser’s language to load the right version. Naturally, this caused glitches, and sometimes the game wouldn’t load because it couldn’t find the right language file, leaving you stuck on loading or straight up not loading.

Looking back, it's hilarious to understand all this as a programmer now. As kids, we were just frustrated with slow loading, but now I can laugh at the madness behind the scenes. It feels surreal how fast my new version of the site is compared to that mess. I’m so proud of recreating it all visually from scratch, but ensuring none of that old pollution is there.

And you know, I feel bad for saying all of this, because at the end of the day that was and is my favorite website. Nothing can remove the happiness I felt there. The updates were so regular and there was so much care into the content we had in that time I feel bad just pointing out at their flaws, but it's sad that it was really bad.

If they had made a full sweep of the season 3 website, they could easily made the website much faster and bug-free...

Yeah the final battle of the 1st season is SO iconic when Bloom and Icy are using their most powerful spells but there's also funny scenes. And Bloom getting her powers back is so symbolic and feels special to me I just realized I enjoy the journey of getting into the Darkar's castle and portal even more than the actual battle even though it's epic too But all the schools co-operating against the Trix and Bloom fighting alone against Icy is something special

It's so interesting to read about the problems of the old website because now I FINALLY understand what happened back then! I'd never believed the coding was such a mess but at least we can learn from that (and hopefully they'll learn too) and don't need to repeat the same mistakes I can imagine my computer struggling with all of this and trying to survive while I'm sighing heavily and staring at it fiercely But nevertheless I have more precious memories and I felt that even though all the loading took a lot of time it was worth it <3