Possession Makes The Heart Grow Fonder?

People who are wandering around the site are being assaulted by Random Events that are depositing random pets from the Pound into our accounts. The players are laughing. They're welcoming their fosters. They're even congratulating TNT for a prank well played. Some people are even upset, because they'd been planning to use the new month's transfers to trade pets, and their trades are being delayed by the closed Pound.

The most startling phenomenon, however, is how warmly we're welcoming our fosters! I'm seeing people with four Draiks falling in love with their foster Green Ixi. I'm seeing people falling in love with badly named Unis, and with hilariously named pets. There are also rumors floating around that people are getting unconverted foster pets, which makes me want to navigate the site in a desperate attempt to refresh new pages and get unconverted fosters!

People are hoping that at the end of this day, we'll be able to seriously adopt the foster pets. After seeing one person's tiny Baby Xweetok, I have to agree!

I'm very intrigued by how loving we players are. The players that I respect the most, those with amazing galleries and amazing pets and a wealth of games trophies, are openly admitting that they are falling in love with their badly named basic pets, which I think is charming!

As for me? I'm falling in love with my badly named Blue Pteri foster pet. Never mind that I already own a Draik and many other fancy pets... This Pteri captures my heart! Her name is adorable and I want to zap her into a painted pet.

Does possession make the heart grow fonder? What else can explain how people with 6 unconverted pets to their name are still raving about how awesome and wonderful their badly named foster pets are?

What can explain this bizarre phenomenon?

Well, this situation is nothing new to some people. I'm a frequent visitor to the Pound Neoboard, and it regularly hosts threads where people declare that they've fallen in love with their pets and refuse to trade them any more, even though they had "higher" goals in mind, such as unconverted pets, Draiks, and Krawks. Their love for their current pets grew and grew, until the players considered the pets to be "part of the family." How lovely!

The same thing happened to me! I fell so in love with my Plushie Kiko that I couldn't bear to trade her, even though she was never a dreamie of mine. She's the newest member of my Neopets family, and I love her to bits!

On the other hand, I have an amazingly named Pirate Draik on a side account of mine, and no matter how much I try, I just can't get attached to her, even though she's a "rare" and "expensive" pet. She's up for trade right now, and I hope to trade her for my Neofriends' dreamies. I hate to be disparaging towards an innocent, helpless pet, but I can't help myself -- I'm just not in love with her. Hopefully her new owner will love and cherish her like she deserves!

The fact that possession can make the heart grow fonder is true in other areas on Neopets. For instance, I have a close Neofriend who still has her first ever pet, a badly named JubJub she adopted from the Pound and zapped into Island. It was her first ever painted pet, and she'll never, ever trade it or give it away!

Some people have badly named accounts that they refuse to self-freeze and start fresh from. Their usernames are cute, often featuring their favorite bands from years and years ago, or featuring their favorite television shows. They're proud of the 10+ years they've been on Neopets, and their badly named accounts are proof of that!

I, personally, have a very peculiar Battledome set that I've equipped to my Battledome lab rat, Esselor. Though I can afford more expensive Battledome weapons, I have sentimental reasons for keeping Esselor equipped with just 2 Ylanas Blasters, mainly because I did so well in one of the Neopets plots and the Ylanas Blasters were the prizes. Every time I see Esselor's weapons, I smile and acknowledge that his stats garnered me the top trophy in the plot. Plus, it's incentive to keep zapping him, in the hopes that he reaches 2000 Health Points someday! I want him to be a truly formidable battle pet!

In closing...

One interesting thing about TNT's prank is that it's been evolving throughout the day. At first, the pets were static, unable to be fed or played with. People complained that the prank was boring, and many people logged off instead of refreshing new pages and spending the day on Neopets. Now the pets CAN be fed and played with, as well as morphed, groomed, read to, and many other things.

TNT is watching us, people, especially on the Neoboards! Always have faith that TNT will do something fun and interesting, because they really do care about what we think!

People are currently making armies of their foster pets. I just finished laughing about one person's collection of Striped Meercas, which she declared was her personal chipmunk army. It was my biggest laugh of the week, and her twenty chipmunks were screenied by everyone who knew how to!

Thanks for reading this article, my fellow players! It was fun to write, and it was nice to understand why we love the things we do. Stay tuned for more articles from yours truly, and have a spectacular week!