As you all know, Neopets.com is a fun site, but it does come with its flaws. Nasty users, automatic freezing bots, games that dont work, plots and new features that take forever to be released, hideously expensive items, and so forth. But I have stopped playing Neopets for quite a while now, and my neopian adventure has just been getting better and better.
How did I do this? By spending the last thirty dollars I will ever give to neopets inc. and buying an interactive Shoyru plushie. Ever since I named her pezzini25 in honor of my first (wrongfully frozen) pet, I knew my neolife was about to get a whole lot better. For one, she is now a lot easier to fit around my schedule of school and work. No stopping in the middle of my homework to sneak online and check on her, oh, no. I just lean over in between writing paragraphs and give her a quick hug. She giggles, and all is happy. I also dont have to clog up our one phone line with what my father calls “useless goofing off.” Hes happy, Im happy, and pezzini25s happy. What can be better than that? I can tell you.
Tired of playing “Meerca Chase” for hours on end to buy that Darigan paint brush in the Hidden Tower, only to find that Gyora has raised the price on it, again? No need to do any of that now. You see, pezzini25 was a faerie Shoyru before I lost her. Lucky for me, these Shoyru plushies are nearly the same shade of purple as a faerie Shoyru. So, I cut off the dragon wings, custom-sewn a pair of faerie wings, and presto, instant interactive faerie Shoyru plushie. And this works for all neopet plushies, it just takes some more work. For those of you who are not squeamish and have a marginal amount of sewing and/or quilting skills, simply carefully remove the fake fur “skin” from your neopet. A screwdriver, a seam ripper, and lots of patience will most likely be needed. Once the skin has been removed, take it apart with your seam ripper, taking note each step to how you disassembled it. This recording is crucial if you dont want your new alien Aisha to end up looking like a disco Dr. Sloth. Then, select your fabrics or fur that you wish to use. What pet do you now want? Remember, this way, you can “paint” your pet any way you want, no NP involved! Ive included a few ideas below:
Ghost neopet: Paint the eyes red, add dull silverish-grey fur. For an added touch, you can place dry ice in a specially sewn compartment in the skin on the back to make eerie fog, and presto! Ghost neopet!
Fire neopet: This can be done in a multitude of ways, from simple to outright sewing genius. These will go from simple to genius:
– Find a fire-patterned fabric. Follow the rest of the “painting” steps below.
– Get a lot of black fabric and some yellow and red fabric paint. Once the solid black skin is finished, paint flame patterns on your pet, one section at a time.
– Find black fabric, shiny red fabric, and solid yellow fabric. Appliqu the red and yellow in a flame pattern to the black pattern pieces. Sew.
Invisible neopet: This is the best one yet! You dont even have to spend money! Just turn and talk to your new invisible pet, there! To the left of your computer! Yeah, right there! It wont talk back to you, though, the batteries have worn out and you cant seem to replace them. But who cares! Note: people might think youre really strange talking to your new invisible neopet plushie. Pay no attention to them, theyre just jealous.
Anyway, now that you have the plaid fabric for your tartan neopet, take all the neopet skin bits you now have and lay them around the fabric. Remember, this is going on a 3-d object, so arrange the pattern pieces so that the fabric underneath flows in a nice pattern when you put it on your pet.
Youre in the home stretch now! Look at your disassembly chart. You did make one, right? Good. Cut out all the pattern pieces, leaving a quarter inch around them, and sew them all back together following the disassembly chart, only going backwards. Get a parent to help if you are unsure of how to sew this stuff. Then fit the skin back over the plushie, restuff anything that needs restuffing, and poof! A plaid Scorchio! A faerie Shoyru! A snot Aisha! Anything you want!
Even better is the fact that you dont have to keep the same species, either. Always wanted a Krawk? Sew your own Krawk plushie, put in the “brains” of the plushie, and presto, a krawk, with an identity crisis. Sure, he/she may constantly say he/shes a Scorchio, but you can humor him/her for the sake of now having the rarest pet around!
Another good thing about pez is theres no extra time needed to take care of her. She needs no “food,” no “medicine,” and I have a job, so I can use that money on the only thing I need, which is fabric for her new skin if raiding my moms fabric stash doesnt yield the right material.
This leads us to playing games. As you no longer need useless NP, you can focus on the more important things, such as teaching your Scorchio how to play “Soul Calibur.” Pezzini25 and Kilik will take on any and all challengers, for those who wish to know. She has also assembled a pretty decent Heroclix team, and she plays a mean Solitaire. At the moment, the only game shes having difficulty with is Dance Dance Revolution, because her legs are a little too short to reach all the buttons on time.
You now also have the freedom of speech with your improved neopet. You can prance about in front of your custom faerie Shoyru blathering on about how president Bush would be so hot if he was a Buddhist, and never worry about getting your pet taken away from you for mentioning such “taboo” subjects. You could cuss up a storm and the most your pet would probably do is tell you to lower your voice.
Battledome fights get more interesting as well. Here, cheating, creativity, and everything else imaginable can be done once you are freed from the constraints of the site. If your friend has, say, a custom Krawk/(Kougra) interactive plushie, you can battle them in any multitude of ways. You could go with the old school Dungeons and Dragons style of battle, using three dice and a piece of paper for each combatant. Or you could throw the plushies at each other. You cant tell who wins this way, but getting beaned by a plushie is always good fun. Or you could forget the plushies altogether and engage in a friendly match of checkers to see whos the best.
In that same vein, weaponry now becomes more fun. Always wanted a yoyo of doom? Just get an old yoyo, some paint, and tape, and you can equip your pet with one of the most dangerous weapons from the hidden tower. Hey, go all out and equip your pet with every weapon imaginable from the cheapest rainbow guns to Jhudoras wand. All you need is cardboard and some ingenuity. And, of course, if your pet doesnt get lost underneath all those weapons, all of them can be equipped because you are now free of the “you can only equip eight items” rule.
Speaking of equipping things, how about petpets! You can also have a ball with petpets. If you wanted to give your new Krawk plushie a Krawk petpet, simply stitch up a Krawk petpet skin for an existing petpet plushie, implant the “brains” of said petpet, and poof, a little pet with an identity crisis for your big pet with an identity crisis! Once again, since this is not the website, you can give your pet an entire herd of petpets! If you dont want to spend all that cash on more petpet plushies, you can make them yourself by sewing them, or making them out of clay. You could infest your Noil with a bunch of little clay Mootixes!
Tired of waiting for Neoschools to come out? Well, with your plushie, you can hold your own Neoschool graduation if you wish! No need to wait for the neopets team, just make up your own adventures and go! You can take your pet anywhere now that he/shes not tethered to the internet. Im still working on making straps for pezzini to make her look like a plushie backpack, Ill let you know how that works out. But speaking of plots, are you irritated at the slowness of the coming war? Just make a giant cardboard cutout of Lord Kass and throw your pet at him repeatedly until he falls over. No weaponry required, and youre instantly the hero!
I hope that this little list of advantages the real world has over Neopia makes you think about going offline for your Neopian experience. I could give thousands of other ways why Neopets is much more fun without Neopets.com, but at the moment, I have to go teach pezzini25 how to play DDR (Dance Dance Revolution). – kitsune364 (frozen)