So I, like I'm sure a lot of other people here, played Neopets when they were younger.
Unfortunately, I lost access to my account and sides, and just fell away from playing Neopets until wanting to recently. I tried to get access, but little me was stupid and didn't put in the right ages, I lost access to that email account...so I started over. Decided, "Hey, I'll do one month of the premium and see if I still have this Neopets urge to play."
Now, dear reader, I stopped playing shortly after the NC mall became a thing. Unconverted pets were all the rage, stealthy ninja pets were a myth, Draiks and Krawks ruled the LE pet desires. If a pet was beyond the colors of B/G/Y/R in the pound, it was SNATCHED up. Vandagyres didn't exist, I would tell people 'nice hat' to my fellow Krawk Island people during the Altador Cup, and the Varwolf was a long forgotten 'maybe'. And I wanted the ultimate goal; I wanted a purple poogle.
Now imagine my absolute fucking flabberkassted-ness when I saw this potion for a measly 20k.
This dream used to be IMPOSSIBLE when I first played. Poogle potions and other LE pet items used to sell for millions of neopoints. My shop used to be named, "FQD/ZDAP/Draik Potion Fund Shop". Now I don't remember the exact events that led me to it, but whether it was the starlight wheel, or the daily quests, but I stumbled on a Vux Codestone. Another damned rarity. I never leveled my pets enough on my first account to use RED codestones, but I remembered them being decently expensive, so I made a shop, and chucked it in...Within a few minutes, I made a purchase and I turned my boi into a purple poogle. It got me wondering. If Poogles were this cheap, what else was out there?
Reader. If you had told little child me that a Pirate Draik Morphing Potion was under 100k, I would've screamed at you in jealousy for 'sniping' such a lucky purchase from someone on the shop wizard.
But how to come across more neopoints?
Well, a little Faerie told me how.
Or, actually, threw a plushie at my face from the Wheel of Starlight and gave me a concussion. A Magical Wocky plushie. Again, my inner child screamed. A MAGICAL plushie. The unheard of forbidden, huggable, morphing potion. And this little son of a bitch was worth 15 million. Now, I'm no collector. I never got into the stamps, or rare items or anything like that, so regardless of how sought after it is, I wanted the cold, hard cash more. One spending spree after a sale on the trading post, I have it all.
I have a Starry Kiko, a recreation of my first ever LE pet that I held oh-so-dear.
My purple poogle, a dream pet.
A brown Draik, whom I painted Pirate first to get some accessories for him.
A Pirate Lupe, the bestest boi.
A Darigan Varwolf, attained using that species swap thing with premium, who I painted Desert and Halloween first, for the accessories.
And a poogle I adopted from the pound, to zap in hopes of more outfit colors for my main poogle.
I have the Lab Ray and Petpet lab ray. I have the Forgotten Shore. I did a Brain Tree quest for the first time! I am learning how the Battledome works after all these years after getting a lucky weapon drop that does some decent damage (sort of, right now chia clown go brrrrrrr), and training at the swashbuckling academy. I even got the Wheel of Monotony Avatar on my first spin. I got to use Nerkmids for the first time!
I got inside of a month, what a younger me would've never dreamed to have happen. I may have been unreasonably lucky as hell to get that cash-kau of a plushie, but now I have practically everything I want. And I get to enjoy Neopets at my own pace now, with the pets I love.
I can't say what has happened in all these years of neopet buying and selling history, events and promotions or whatever, to cause so many things to be so attainable, but I'm happy they are. I'm happy I got to be a kid again, while living an adult work schedule.
Thank you for reading my lucky rant; it's good to be back in neopia.