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The In and Outs of Adoption


by dragondancer007

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With many new colors released recently and no way for many Neopians to get them without access to hundreds of thousands of neopoints or a little luck with a faerie quest, adopting out rare and painted pets has become one of the hippest ways to increase one’s karma in Neopia. This reporter, along with many others, examines the neoboards daily in order to stay on top off these trends. Having noticed during my explorations that, with rare pets, comes rarely seen amounts of competition in the application process, I decided to host an interview with a user experienced at applying for pets, so that readers who may be interested in applying for their own up for adoption pets can get some inside tricks to the trade.

The results of said interview can be seen below. For the protection of the user interviewed, her name has been changed to alias of XxunicornsitterxX.

So, for our first question, I’d like to ask how one can tell if a pet is up for adoption in the first place. Is there a certain way that this is done?

XxunicornsitterxX: Yes, there is! It’s really quite easy to tell if a pet is up for adoption. Obviously, pets only go up for adoption in the pound chat^1, as that’s where all pet trades are dealt with, so that’s the only place you have to look. And as soon as you see a board with the phrase ufa or ufqa in it, then you’re set!

I’m sorry, ufa and ufqa? I’m afraid that I’m unfamiliar with what those terms stand for. And is there other information that goes into boards? Or is that all you look for?

XxunicornsitterxX: You don’t know what ufa and ufqa stand for? Jeeze, you weren’t lying when you said you’ve never applied for a pet before. Ufa stands for up for adoption, and ufqa stands for up for quick adoption. So if you see them in the title of a board, then you know the pets inside will be up for adoption. But to answer your other question, no, that’s normally not all you look for. Usually, the foster adopting out a pet will include some other information in their title as well.

Other information? What type of information?

XxunicornsitterxX: Well obviously, no one wants to just adopt ever single pet that goes ufa. You can only hold four pets in an account! So normally, fosters will also put some other information in the title of their adoption boards, to give potential adoptees and idea of what pet needs a home. For example, if someone was trying to find a home for a stealthy Draik that also happens to be a Greek Mythology rw^2, then they might make a board title of “-insert name of pet- the Greek Mythology RW Stealthy Draik is UFA!”

Ah, that makes sense. But once you’re aware of the pet that’s up for adoption, what do you do to get it? Does the owner just give it to the first person that asks?

XxunicornsitterxX: I wish that’s how it worked! No, normally adoption process take a long time. A few days at the least, unless it’s a very quick adoption process, in which case that might only take a couple hours. But with long adoption processes, you have to make an application for the pet. The application can either consist of a neomail or be placed on a pet page, and the one thing you have to do is show love for the pet being adopted out. The owner isn’t just going to hand it to any old person who stumbles along. Trust me, things get desperate when it comes to competitive applications. A potential adoptee might even do something foolish, like try to get their love for the pet published in the paper… I LOVE YOU KE—

Please, can we stay on topic? It would be best to keep out of adoptions currently happening, and focus more on the actual adoption and application process. Can you expand more on these two types of applications, the pet page and the neomail? What exactly are they?

XxunicornsitterxX: (grumbles) Fine. But that had better not cost me the adoption. Anyway, a neomail application is exactly what it sounds like. You send a neomail to the current owner of the pet explaining why you think you would make a good choice to adopt him or her out to. Of course, when you do that, you’re limited by the amount of characters you can send in a neomail, so that method isn’t that popular. I almost never do it.

Never do it? Then you must be an expert in this second method. Please, continue.

XxunicornsitterxX: An expert, you say? Well I suppose you’re correct. I am kind of an expert. It’s a good thing that you’re interviewing me, and not some other poor person on app chat^3 who thinks he or she knows what they’re doing. I’m probably the best person you ever could have chosen for this job, considering how experienced I am at applications. In fact, maybe I should be the one writing this—

I’m sorry, you seem to have gotten off topic. You were telling me about pet page applications?

XxunicornsitterxX: Hm? Right, right. Well if you insist. Though there’s really not that much to say. Pet page applications are also exactly what they sound like, though they can get extremely competitive compared to neomail applications. You put why you think you would make a good future owner for a pet on a pet page. But because there’s no character limit, you can write a lot more. And you can also put art, to show how much you have planned for your pet. And character information. And you can make fancy coding. In fact, now that I think about it, maybe I should have added more to my last app…

One last question, before we let you go. Are owners allowed to prefer one application method over another when searching for a new owner for their pet?

XxunicornsitterxX: (distractedly) No. No bias is allowed to be shown. Now if you’ll excuse me, I really have to get going. Maybe if I sprint over to her now, Maia might just let me add a little bit more to that app I submitted… MAIA HOLD ON, I’M COMING! (sprints away).

Well, there you have it. The ins and outs of finding pets up for adoption, and what you should look to do when applying for them. You also got a once and a lifetime chance to see how the mind of someone applying for a pet looks like, and I beg you to use this information carefully. This reporter thinks that there’s a fine threshold between applying for pets and insanity, and she would hate to lose any of her beloved readers to that…

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Footnotes

1. The Pound Chat, also commonly referred to as the PC, is a neoboard that commonly deals with pet transfers, whether to the pound or another user.

2. The term rw commonly stands for real word. When applied to a pet, it most usually means a pet whose name makes up a real word.

3. App chat is a reference to a board on the PC that commonly deals with giving advice to potential adoptees working on pet applications.

 
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