Secre

I might have had a brush off it many moons ago, but I don't think so. I'd likely have remembered!! I did once get a Xweetok Transmogrification Potion from an RE and promptly sold it in my shop for 99,999np... because I was an idiot! I mean, I've been playing daily for five months religiously now and not had more than a 5000np prize!!

So I posted a little while ago about my foster sister joining the site. I sorted her a welcome pack and everything. One of my pieces of parting advice was 'Always spin the Fruit Machine!'. Well... it looks like that worked out for her... Names removed to protect my email address and her details in general as she's under 13. But what bloody luck is that!?

I love the Halloween Grundo, but the marshmallow Grundo is a close second!! I have the same issues with sides. I'm aging two extras currently and have already filled one... I might need to start my final permitted side to age... I love your description! That sums it right up!! Or bubblegum maybe...? You know I actually had to google that... but yes, you are pretty much spot on!

I've been looking for an excuse to get a Vandagyre. The current colour selection doesn't tempt me though!

Hmmm... The red sauce with that gelatinous glob of 'creamy sauce' really doesn't help the image at all... It's rather like what I'd imagine a jilted lover might hide under the back patio...

Having completed my first NC trade sometime back in early July... I have to admit, I am addicted. I have 16 Mermaid Gift Capsules stockpiled just in case and have spent a ridiculous amount of time trawling the NC board for interesting items. I've checked a fair few off my wishlist and have been using the other pretties to bolster my appalling side closets. I've discovered that I have a particular weakness for pretty backgrounds. Even if I don't have a specific outfit in mind, I still can't help but grab the pretty backgrounds. On the plus side, nearly all of my side pets now have pretty backgrounds and I've gained a few items for my Yooyu gallery. I also managed to borrow the Weewo garland and the Ornamental Lake with Goldies before they disappeared from the Dyeworks. I even have spares knocking about because for some reason the site was determined that I should have yellow Weewo's when I wanted pink Weewo's! I did trade one spare for the Dyeworks Orange: Cold Winter Night Background though and isn't it pretty!? On the downside, I have probably spent way more actual money than is wise over the last few weeks. I have 4000 NC in hand and am refraining from buying more gift capsules.

I buy for the long game - so I'll always buy at the lowest possible point and be perfectly willing to wait months for the gains to become apparent. Being able to buy at 10np a share is therefore a huge boon saving me 5000np straight a day, which is far more than I'd get on bank interest. If I don't get a second FFQ soon though I may have to go for the Faerie Refresh boon for a little while...!!

The Sway - I don't tend to look at the odds, but the stock boon is too tempting to resist!

I shall look forward to it! I admit, I only caught the new contest by chance on Friday - I don't know if there's a way to include it in the TDN announcement schedule somehow?

I'd missed the tattoo - I thought it was part of the paint job, but you're right, that's very cute! Meerca's as a whole are difficult to dress though. They are so short and chunky that like koi's, most things look ridiculous on them!

Hmmm... what kind of candy is that meant to be?? I mean, it's strangely cute but I'm not sure I've ever seen a candy like that!! I like the outfit mind, particularly the shirt and pants which would go well with numerous different outfits. Pity that when I eventually get a Grundo it's going to be Death incarnate so you wouldn't see the shirt anyway!!

Yep! They definitely are! It's all about the number of letters in the name vs the letters in the petpets name - like books. And my lutari clealy has an awkward name size as the Quadrapus didn't want to attach initially either!! Now all I need to do is paint my Lutari!!

Something Has Happened! You are now eligible to use 'Quadrapus' as an avatar on the NeoBoards! Whoot! I now get to put my new Snowbunny on that pet and paint it Maraquan! Excitement! EDIT: Well, that was a faff. I was about to get really cross that my pet wouldn't accept his bleeding expensive new petpet - and even changing the language wasn't working! I then had the idea to attach it to a different pet, paint it and try to re-attach to my pet. Thankfully the 'Maraquan' in front of the name seems to mean that he now likes it!

Yep, there's not even a clue in the colouring of the potion as of yet!! I have been toying with getting a Vandagyre as they are quite cute. But there are so few colours currently and none of them wow me... here's hoping the mutant switches that up! Hah! Always room for another mutant on another account??

You realise the site is still very much up and running and alive? Still staffed and updated etc? And I imagine there are far more people who consider it a fond memory of their childhoods - many of us have returned during the Coronavirus epidemic. Lining the pockets of the new owners as we can now afford Premium and NC...

Not really a huge fan of meerca's in honesty but that Burlap colour is both creepy and cute at the same time. It kind of looks like a haunted doll! I like the detail that has gone into the textures as well. The outfit doesn't do much for me...

Just seen this on Reddit: So it looks like the Vandagyre is the new mutant! And one player could make a bloody fortune selling that!

I got that one right! It's a pity they aren't a definite from the GBC either as you could open one and get lucky or have to open ten!

It's even more the pity that they can't be gifted then, as I know at least one member of this community would want the Disco one just for the disco in its name! Thanks for the confirmation though - I'll use it as a regular gift box!

This may seem like a stupid question, but I've been wondering a while... is there any point to the special gift boxes? Like the Disco Fever Gift Box for example? Do they do anything more than just act as regular gift boxes? Has anyone tried them and found out? I'm brand new to this trading of NC thing and can't figure out if they are anything more than a slightly fancier looking gift box or not!

So this just made my day. Anybody else got any other wholesome feel good RE's to share?

No worries, I saw it being floated on Reddit and thought it might be worth posting here! If anyone missed it this one is 644 days on October 10th; http://www.neopets.com/petlookup.phtml?pet=Vritria (@FreyaFox as you reacted with a sad face!)

Just as a PSA, Flockton the Darigan Pteri turns 644 days old at 12.48pm NST today - 13th August 2020 - and will stay 644 days old until 12.48pm on 14th August 2020. So if anybody is looking for this avatar, today may well be your day!! http://www.neopets.com/petlookup.phtml?pet=Flockton

@jellysundae I'd say the Polka Dot Bruce, Hissi and Zafara are amongst the worst of a generally bad bunch. I agree that they are better when there is a solid colour somewhere to counteract the sheer excess of polka dots, but even they aren't great then!! I mean the Ogrin looks almost as mismatched and randomly put together as his mutant counterpart!!

Nearly all my my current books are bought on Kindle as then I don't have to store them. And if I'm honest, my husband does have a point. We have no room for more books. I have books overspilling the bookshelf, on the window sill... personally, I just say we need more bookshelves. I've just bought Kindle Unlimited as well... so I now have access to SO MANY BOOKS! I just finished two fantasy books that were both absolutely fantastic in very different ways. Middlegame by Seanan McGuire and Dragon's Reach by J.A. Andrews. Seanan McGuire is one of my favourite authors of all time and Middlegame has only cemented that in my mind. This is a very different novel to others I have read by the author. The sarcastic humour that I have come to know and love from the October Daye series is very much reduced, leaving a work that is far more serious and heavy weight and sits the uneasy line between fantasy and science fiction, never quite stepping definitively into either. Middlegame is a complex adult fantasy, despite its focus on two children as they grow into teenagers and young adults. It's confusing and frustrating at times as you don't have all the information, but it is also intricate and brilliant and I have to admit that I loved it. Roger and Dodger are experimental twins, created and then separated at birth, each having one half of the 'Doctrine' within them. Don't ask me to explain the 'Doctrine' because I can't. At least no more than it is the very epicentre of the universe. When put into one child, it is too much for the human brain to handle, but when split into two - mathematics and language, with each part encased in a different human soul, the results are far more manageable. But Roger and Dodger have no idea of the plans that have already been made for them. There are so many varying and contradictory influences and concepts here that it could easily have become a mangled heap of confusion. With philosophy, science, literary references and even entirely invented literary foundations, it would be easy to lose the plot entirely. But McGuire pulls it off. And that is partly because of the characters she has created, but mostly down to the writing. McGuire has a knack for putting profound insights into words and making her characters bounce to life before you. She manages to capture the minutiae of an individuals life as easily as she does the broad strokes of the wider influences. J.A. Andrews is a new author to me and yet it's been a while since I have been quite so caught up in a story as this one and there isn't a shadow of doubt in my mind that this novel deserves all the five stars I can give it and then some more. She has a way with words and a knack for breathing life into her characters as she captures a true sense of humanity at its lowest and its best. What I think I liked most about the novel though is that it doesn't start as an epic quest to save the world, although the world is surely threatened by the end. Instead it begins, and ends, as a very personal story. You meet Sable, bound to a Gang for her livelihood and her safety and everything hinges on her own personal quest to make a better life for herself and her sisters. Even when the plot begins to spiral into far wider concerns and consequences, that individual narrative is what everything else hangs on. I also admit that I adored the characters, more or less each and every one of them. There is a real sense of humanity here, with no character being perfect but all of them having flaws and hang ups that make them feel completely and utterly real. All in all, J.A. Andrews is an author I will certainly be following with interest and I look forward to reading more of her existing works. If they are anywhere near as good as this one, I will be in for a treat.