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  • Accidental Innuendo:
    • One of the diseases your pet can get is the "Hoochie Coochies," which is also the name for a type of sexually provocative dance.
    • Captain Threelegs has his name because he literally has three legs, but "three-legs" is also a slang word used to describe a man with a large penis. It really doesn't help that he sometimes asks if you want to see his third leg... And he's bipedal in his redesign.
    • One of the Robot Petpets is named the Diddler ("diddle" is a slang word that means to have sex). It was renamed to the Chatter in 2022, presumably for this reason.
    • The Pound is where you can abandon an unwanted Neopet. Another word for abandoning a Neopet is "pounding" it.
    • Some items like the Spoiled Milk and Grey Pencil Case look rather... phallic.
  • Angel/Devil Shipping: Illusen, a good and kind Earth Faerie, is shipped with her nemesis Jhudora, an evil Dark Faerie.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Is Jhudora legitimately evil or is she secretly nice inside? Or, did she perhaps start out nice, but became evil (which Illusen seems to imply in the 2023 Festival of Neggs)? Or maybe she's not evil, but still far from nice.
    • Are certain traits attributed to certain species (for instance, Unis being vain and Lennies being smart) actually true, or are they just stereotypes? Different Neopian Times writers have taken either interpretation.
    • Are Grundos just naturally dumb, or is them starting out as "dim-witted" the result of mental tampering from Sloth? Also, their crying at night — is it due to Sloth's abuse, or just a simple fear of the dark?
    • Are grey pets actually sad or is that just their expressions?
    • Are Meepits actually evil, harmless but just happen to have creepy stares, mischievous but not evil, or do they vary like humans?
  • Alternative Joke Interpretation: In this article, the section regarding not getting paper petpets wet mentions not to let them near the little Neopet across the street "if you know what I mean". Does this mean that the Neopet across the street is a baby and may drool on the petpet, is not toilet trained and may pee on them, or is too young to look after a petpet and may dunk them in water?
  • Anti-Climax Boss
    • The eponymous villain in The Darkest Faerie is built up as being the toughest opponent in her game. If you decide to save your Supernova Motes (or even just your Nova Motes), she's nothing more than a pushover, and the 3 minute timer doesn't actually help her. There isn't more than one phase aside from forced switching, and she isn't even as hard as the bosses before her (unless for some reason you didn't pick up on Tormund's three-hit combo, which is needed).
    • The Neggbreaker from the Y14 Negg Festival event. Listed with a difficulty of 100,000 (which, in comparison, is two hundred times Chiazilla's difficulty) with exactly as many hitpoints, uses some of the most powerful weapons in the game... but equipping the Negg Amulet from the same event lets you deal 20,000 damage to it each round and completely block all of its attacks. Even at level 1.
  • Arc Fatigue:
    • The Obelisk War dragged on for an extended time with no storyline, just repetitive fighting. The Neopets Team seemed to catch on to this; the third bout of the war began without even so much as an announcement on the News page. Now the battlegrounds are in a state of perpetual warfare after never being removed after the story ended.
    • A common criticism of The Wraith Resurgence plot is that there is too little story and gameplay spread across too long a time period. For context, most story-focused site events tend to run for three months, with major story updates being posted twice a week. The Wraith Resurgence's updates were much more spaced out, and the event ran for over eight months.
  • Audience-Alienating Era: It went through one from around 2007 (when the NC Mall opened and the site got a revamp) to about 2010. Consensus among the fans is that The Faerie's Ruin yanked the site out of its dark age. Eventually entered a second one with the Jumpstart buyout, resulting in the firing of almost all staff, the closure of Habitarium and Petpet Park, the apparent and sudden end of such contests as the Caption Contests and the Lenny Conundrum, and many, many glitches. With Neopets going independent, fans maintain hope of this era ending.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The Usukiland advert, a commercial for Usuki dolls that features a short animation of a lemon chasing an apple and gibberish pseudo-Korean text. Still, you get an avatar for viewing it.
  • Broken Base: In the 2020s, TNT has been making it easier to obtain certain rare, valuable and expensive items, such as making the Illusen's Staff obtainable by racking enough points at the 2023 Faerie Festival, making certain Morphing Potions and Paint Brushes available as prizes for the weekly Quest Log, or putting the Seasonal Attack Pea into the bonus prize pool during the 2023 Advent Calendar. Some players are happy with this because they don't have to save tens or hundreds of millions of Neopoints to get those items, but others are upset because it deflates the value of items they feel people should have to work hard to get.
  • Common Knowledge:
    • People who haven't been on the site in years tend to say, "I bet my Neopets are dead now". However, Neopets do not die except for plot characters, despite "dying" being their lowest level of hunger.
    • Everybody "knows" that the Kadoaties at the Kadoatery whine for blue Draik eggs all the time. What they don't know is that they used to do this, but don't anymore. Another myth is that you can win a Kadoatie from the Kadoatery— you can't; the only prizes are trophies and an avatar.
    • The idea that Shenkuu is "the Neopian equivalent of Asia" is only partially true— it was based loosely on medieval Asia.
    • Some people seem to think that Queen Fyora made the Grey Faerie lose her powers. Actually, the Grey Faerie lost her powers due to the cruelty of a character named Jennumara.
    • Some people incorrectly refer to Jhudora or the Darkest Faerie as "the Dark Faerie", Illusen as "the Earth Faerie", Marina or Naia as "the Water Faerie", etc. This is incorrect—- there are six main types of faerie (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Light, and Dark) in addition to several unique faeries who don't belong to a type, such as Queen Fyora and Taelia. Each main faerie type actually has many individuals who fit under it. In short, Illusen, for instance, is "an Earth Faerie", not "the Earth Faerie".
    • "Lupes eat Chias" is only partly true. Lupes used to eat Chias in the ancient times, but it's incredibly rare these days.
    • Mika and Carassa, the Chias who run the Igloo Garage Sale, are commonly thought to be siblings. They are actually a married couple.
  • Complete Monster:
    • The Darkest Faerie is the ambitious Dark Faerie who seeks to destroy Neopia and rule over what's left of it. Originally one of the 12 champions of Altador, she betrayed her allies and their king for power, causing the whole kingdom to be overridden by darkness. After being turned into a statue as punishment, she returns 1000 years later and quickly conquers both Meridell and Faerieland, terrorizing both lands with monsters, and deciding to announce her arrival by dropping Faerieland into Meridell, which would destroy both kingdoms and kill everyone. Being defeated yet again, the Darkest Faerie is later unsealed by the traveler Reizo, cursing the traveler into becoming her minion, and deciding to turn numerous innocent Neopets into hostile Wraiths, and then steal one faerie's identity to direct the heroes into ambushes. Her ultimate end goal is to gas all of Neopia with poison, which would kill everyone in the kingdom, and attempts this plot twice, both times tying hostages to the bombs.
    • Dr. Frank Sloth is a Mad Scientist with dreams of Neopian domination. Using horrific mutant experimentation, brainwashed and kidnapped Grundo slaves, and his massive fleet of spaceships and loyal soldiers, Sloth's multiple attempts at taking over Neopia have been alongside acts of cruelty. Death, whether of a brave Neopian trying to stall his ship, a group of TNT staff-members stuck at a ski lodge, or of four innocent children in an elevator, is something Sloth happily allows, whether by his own hand or thanks to one of his creations—creations he also doesn't care much about, as the staff-killing robot was later blown up, and the kid-trapping AI lonely and abandoned on a spaceship.
    • "Volcano Mystery" & Neopets Puzzle Adventure: Eithne and Tura-Kepek are an evil duo dedicated to destroying Mystery Island and conquering the rest of Neopia. Plotting to awaken the evil lava monster known as Moltenus, they first attempted it by kidnapping and cursing the five guardians of Mystery Island and by keeping players away from the volcano until it was too late. Years later, they'd return in Neopets Puzzle Adventure, seeking the six elemental wards that would once again awaken Moltenus. Destroying Shenkuu and putting Sekhmet under siege, Tura-Kepek summoned monsters to attack various nations while Eithne tricked the player into helping them get the last two wards. Attacking and killing the people on Mystery Island, they were aided by a group of ward guardians, including a kidnapped and compelled dark faerie. Over the course of their actions, the duo proved that they'd stop at nothing if it meant turning Mystery Island into a flaming wasteland and gaining control over the rest of Neopia as well.
    • "Curse of Maraqua": Captain Scarblade is a vicious and tyrannical pirate captain hellbent on destroying the innocent city and citizens of Maraqua. Originally involved in the pirate Protection Racket and destructive whirlpool that left Maraqua as a ruin, Scarblade returned with his crew seven years later to attack Garin and the "Black Pawkeet" for daring to act on his territory. Realizing that Maraqua is rebuilding, Scarblade immediately decides to go and destroy it for a second time, as revenge for the city attempting to survive the first event. Kidnapping Garin's crew along with an island full of citizens to act as slave labor, Scarblade prepares to invade the city again, fully intending to make sure Maraqua is forever wiped off the map.
    • "Lost Desert": Emperor Razul of Qasala is a power-hungry and eternal life seeking sorcerer who trapped his own city in a nightmarish curse before being banished by the people of Sakhmet. Seeking his resurrection and revenge, Razul tricked his son Jazan into following a prophecy to save his people, which led to the prince desperately attempting to marry a Sakhmet princess at any cost and to the ensuing invasion of the neighboring city. Razul was resurrected once his son married Nabile, revealing that it was all just a ploy to gain immortality, and attempted to destroy not only Sakhmet with his magic, but the rest of Neopia as well. Cruel even to his own son and city, Razul cared for nothing except his own power and domination.
    • Storytelling Competition #127: Jhudora the Dark Faerie sends the Eyrie Jurgis to a Bad Future where she rules as queen over Neopets too scared and broken to fight her, having used a spell to corrupt her fellow Faeries into attacking Neopia. When the Eyries led an army of winged pets to stop her, Jhudora cast a spell to destroy all wings except her own, making all the winged pet species and other Faeries go extinct. When Jurgis and his Wocky friend Lerea go back in time to stop Jhudora, she threatens and hurts other Neopets to get the item she needs to complete the spell, and plans to kill Jurgis first.
  • Creator's Pet:
    • Aristotle A. Avinroo, the mascot of the Gamesmaster Challenge, is a symbol of the site's decline and focus on events rather than plots. Plus, his events have cut short the Return of Dr. Sloth (but thankfully only gave The Faerie's Ruin a slight delay).
      • The team's caught onto this. His event was delayed while the Obelisk War ran on, and even when the event showed up, he went missing in favor of Abagail's unsettlingly-smiling boyfriend.
    • In the pre-Viacom days, Chias were a creator's pet species; Adam and Donna LOVED Chias, and they got two holidays ("Chocolate Chia Day" and "Celebrate the Birth of the First Chia") to every other pet's one. Along with their rather poor design and having the much better designed Lupe as their "rival" species, they remain Base Breaking Characters to this day.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • For a species that was introduced third-to-last in order, the Xweetoks have a fairly high population. They're the fifth most popular pet, and the four before them are some of the first and most marketed pets with a five-year headstart over them. It also used to sell without any merch or characters to help promote it, but this thinned out gradually. Xandra also helped give the species a boost. There's also Lillian Fairwether from the Journey to the Lost Isle plot.
    • The Shoyru is the most popular neopet on the website, yet has barely any merchandise and hasn't gotten many plot appearances. Its popularity is probably a combination of it being a dragon, and the really adorable large eyes.
    • The less traditionally "cute" Neopets often develop a strong cult following, such as the Hissi, Ogrin, Krawk, and Grundo.
    • Neopia's first Big Bad, Dr. Frank Sloth, is still considered to be one of its most memorable villains due to being an Affably Evil Mad Scientist who can be both a threatening tyrant and pompous dope depending on the situation.
    • Some of the Faeries count, as well, especially Jhudora, The Darkest Faerie, Illusen, and the Space Faerie.
    • Many Altador Cup players, the big one being Team Darigan's Tandrak Shaye. Another example is Lost Desert's Vonde Cayle, who was originally supposed to be in the shadow of fellow forward Derbi Azar but ended up being the more popular of the two. Lastly, there's Jair Tollet, who has several NT stories dedicated to her thanks to her transfer from Maraqua to Roo Island.
      • Speaking of the Altador Cup, there's the Techo Super Fan, the bug-eyed, fist-shaking fanatic who roots for whatever team you do. He even got his own game!
      • The 2014 Altador Cup has Team Moltara, a team almost always landing in the lowest tiers of the game due to being introduced far later than the Altador Cup itself. This year however, they managed to tie first with Haunted Woods and Virtupets for some time, and is even staying in a (comparatively) third place.
    • Abigail Avinroo has this status, mainly due to having a much more likeable personality than her Creator's Pet of a big brother, AAA.
    • Mr. Coconut. When both him and his "GOOD NIGHT!" were removed from the Editorial, tons of users sent letters demanding his return. Site staff responded not by restoring the Running Gag, but making the search for a replacement a Running Gag in itself.
    • The Sharkaw was one of fifty "new pets" unveiled on April Fool's, 2005. It was in a poll to determine which of these would be an actual new Neopet, but the fellow Darkhorse Lamameeah won and became the Gnorbu, which got some major flak for changing too much from the April Fool's design and winning mostly because of a llama meme going around the Neoboards.
    • The Pebble, a Petpetpet given out during Advent Calendar 2023, quickly became beloved for its simple yet adorable design and for being the first (and currently, only) Petpetpet not based on an insect. During the 2024 Neopies, it won Best Advent Prize with 62% of the vote.
  • Dry Docked Ship: There's a number of fans who like to imagine that Illusen and Jhudora are exes.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • A "lab rat" is a pet who is being zapped with the Lab Ray daily until their owner is satisfied with the result. Usually this is because their owner is trying to get a desirable color/species combination on them, but this also applies to pets taken from the pound by kindly owners trying to make them more appealing to other users.
    • The "anagram swords" are six elemental-themed swords sold only in the Hidden Tower: the Sword of Ari, the Sword of Reif, the Sword of Skardsen, the Sword of Tawre, the Sword of Thare, and the Sword of Thigl.
    • "Dailies" are activities that can be done once a day, such as going to the Giant Omelette or Apple Bobbing.
  • Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
    • No, your Neopets cannot actually die. The worst that can happen is they get deleted from account inactivity (to help ease the load on the site's servers), which doesn't happen often and only occurs if the account has been inactive for over 10 or so years. Many posts on Twitter and Tumblr of the "haha, anyone remember Neopets?" variety will almost inevitably include a joke about "I bet my Neopets are all dead by now". Suffice to say, this is more than enough of a dead Uni joke and nowhere near as funny or clever as people seem to think it is.
    • Referring to the site as being run by Scientologists is another big one. While one of the first big investors of the site ended up being Scientologists, the founders made sure nothing from it ever came onto the site. One of the original founders, Donna, shed some light on it in a Reddit thread.
    • The Neopets website is not responsible for or affiliated with the Neopets Metaverse NFT project. It's a separate team that Jumpstart formed behind TNT's back. Yet, the IP has gained a poor reputation outside the fandom because news outlets tend to not distinguish them.
  • Fanon: Occasionally fan work published in the Neopian Times will reach this status, at least within the circle of Neopian Times readers. This is how the pink Uni working at the pound came to be known as Rose, among other examples.
  • Foe Yay Shipping: Jhudora and Illusen are archenemies who hate each other. Some fans ship them or imagine them as exes.
  • Franchise Original Sin: Champions of Meridell started the trend of having the plots feature anthropomorphized characters. Up through that point, they had just involved regular neopets who wore clothes. Champions was still mostly like that, but Jeran the Lupe Knight remained upright the entire time, and Lord Darigan could barely be recognized as a neopet at all.
  • Game-Breaker: Air and Fire attacks in the Battledome. Most other attack types have plenty of defensive items to counter them at all levels of play. These two only have a few specialized items, such as the extremely rare and expensive Claw Shield and the otherwise useless Tornado Ring. As a result, a lot of the competitive Battledome metagame is very air-centric and fire-centric. Before the battledome got a rehaul which among other things removed species-specific advantages, Pteris as a pet species became a High-Tier Scrappy due to their natural resistance to Air.
  • Genius Bonus: There is an aquatic Petpet called the Ghoti. According to The Other Wiki, "ghoti" is pronounced "fish". However, Editorial 113 claims that it is pronounced "goatee".
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • TNT Staff Smasher became a lot less funny after the mass layoff in 2015. Almost everyone in the game were either laid off or left years ago, with the last one, DJ Skellington, departing in early 2022.
    • The Ruki saying "I'll catch up, you just wait" in response to the Bori on the Pet Popularity page became pitiful after the Ruki became limited edition in 2014.
    • One random event has your active neopet sigh and say that they want to play Meerca Chase. After the shutdown of Flash caused Meerca Chase (among many other games) to be unplayable, this isn't as amusing.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • One available Earth Faerie ability, Regeneration, heals 33% of your Neopet's health when used in the Battledome. Years later, the Pokémon ability Regenerator was found to do almost exactly the same thing, healing 1/3 of a Pokémon's health when switched out.
    • The 2003 April Fool's Day prank, which involved the site being taken over by an orange-suited Totally Radical spokesperson named "Nick Neopia," in light of the Viacom buyout. Also Harsher in Hindsight depending on who you ask.
    • The 2014 April Fool's Day prank involved a "foster program" where users would randomly receive Neopets from the Pound, with these additional pets often causing the cap of 4/5 Neopets per account to be exceeded by a considerable amount. The second half of the decade would see the introduction of additional petslots, including the ability to use Neocash to buy more slots; as of late 2021, an account can potentially have up to twenty Neopets.
    • In December 2006, TNT pulled a prank where they pretended the Advent Calendar was giving out the Seasonal Attack Pea, only for the real prize to turn out to be a Seasonal Attack Pea Plushie and Seasonal Attack Pea Play Set. Then, in 2023, they put the real Seasonal Attack Pea in the Advent Calendar's bonus prize pool.
  • Ho Yay: The epilogue of the Faerie's Ruin shows Jazan with his wife Nabile, with Hanso's narration referring to her as Jazan's "second favourite Ixi thief"; his projecting himself as being Jazan's "first favourite" can be read as having romantic undertones.
  • Just Here for Godzilla:
    • Many players don't care about the pets at all, but stick around for either the marketplace simulator aspect of collecting and re-selling rare items or the website design aspect. The latter is particularly notable since many girls learned how to code because of the site.
    • A ton of players also only stick around to learn about the surprisingly deep lore and see the various story arcs that happen.
  • LGBT Fanbase: A surprising majority of the userbase is queer. A likely reason is that most users are returning users staying with the site for many years, and many of them have since discovered themselves for their identities. TNT has taken notice of this, and in addition to allowing users to more easily express themselves and project onto their pets, via adding an "other" option to user gender selection, adding LGBT themed customization items, and lifting filters on LGBT related words so that users can describe themselves and their pets as such identities, they have also taken to making more queer characters, such as giving a male character in Island Builders a husband, and a female Altador Cup member a girlfriend.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • During a site event/minor plot for Krawk Island in 2011, users on the boards played a game they called "Put Something In McGill's Hand"... where they 'shopped random things into McGill's hand, due to the odd way he was drawn. It spread like wildfire, with most of the boards reaching the maximum number of posts.
    • "Wow, this place is a freakshow. I don't respect literally any of you people." Explanation"
    • i hope you live forever in povertyExplanation
  • Moe: Baby pets, as you'd expect. But special mention to the Baby Bruce.
  • Most Wonderful Sound: When playing the games, there are some sounds that you will be very happy to hear, especially if you are aiming for an avatar or trophy.
    • In Ice Cream Machine, the "ding" that scoops with toppings make as they zoom by, giving you extra points.
    • In Meepit Juice Break, the happy "whoa!" that a Meepit makes when you feed it the correctly-colored Juppie Juice.
    • In Attack of the Marblemen, the sound of a bomb exploding when a shielded Marbleman runs over it safely and removes it from the board.
    • In Crisis Courier, the "whoosh" heard when the Yooyu flies past the pillar at the end of the level, and the Evil Laugh it makes when it grabs the fig and turns into the Mutant Yooyu.
    • In Hasee Bounce, the Hasees happily cooing at the end of the game when you get 100+ points.
  • Narm Charm: The website had, and still does have, a lot of art that is really janky and crude in modern day terms, especially compared to the modern artstyle, but to older players, the jankiness really adds to the charm of the early days of Neopets.
  • Nausea Fuel: Items in the "Gross Food" category are intended to cause this reaction. Mucus Soup, Dung Tacos, Linty Bologna, Chocolate Liver Casserole... just what you and your pets have always wanted!
  • Periphery Demographic: The site started out intended to be for college dorm students who weren't allowed to keep real pets. It began to become popular with young children in the early 2000s, and the site shifted its focus accordingly. Fast-forward a decade, and players who used the site when they were part of the new target demographic are now in college themselves and introducing new college-age users to Neopets, with Jump Start buying the site in part due to the older players. Fast-forward another decade, and the periphery demographic is once again younger users due to lack of advertising to them and any remaining people from when they were the target audience being older teens at minimum; any small children on Neopets in the 2020s are likely to have been introduced to it by parents who also play Neopets.
  • Play-Along Meme: Since 2002, there's been rumors of a place called Jelly World — a place made entirely out of gelatin, as its name suggests. But it doesn't really exist. That would just be silly. So silly that at least one unfortunate crackpot has been canonically imprisoned for life for being caught talking of such lunacy. Users have played along with the Running Gag and dismissed the idea as the preposterous concept it is for decades, albeit in part due to the site's word filters blocking this hypothetical place's name. But mostly because the very idea of such a place would be absurd. If you haven't figured it out, it's an Open Secret that it actually is an accessible area, complete with a daily item collection and a shop. But you didn't hear it from us...!
  • Popular with Furries: To a more limited extent than most series, but it definitely exists, especially with Zafaras, who have more fan-art among that sector than any other pet species due to having a slightly more humanoid appearance. When more humanized neopets began to appear, it gained even more steam.
  • Portmanteau Couple Name:
    • Brynnso for Brynn/Hanso. It's used in the name of an official item, the Brynnso Plushie Set.
    • Illusen/Jhudora is sometimes called Illudora.
    • Hannah/Kanrik is sometimes called Kannah or Hanrik.
  • Replacement Scrappy:
    • Eyries among 1999 fans who miss their Cerpulls. Among the other fans, not so much.
    • Tatsus were also this, being the initial replacement for the Cerpull before itself being replaced by the Eyrie.
  • The Scrappy:
    • The Kiko Lake Yooyuball team, for featuring in a random event which has essentially supplanted the Pant Devil as the face of random item loss. Their claim that they need to raise funds to get to the Altador Cup that year is dubious at best — they're the only team to have taken home the Altador Cup three times, despite not even being able to participate one yearnote  — and the random event framing it as a "generous donation" on your part makes it all the more frustrating when it occurs. Even the staff had to step in and reverse the damage in one incident where they stole a Kanriks Blade — which is a TCG rare item code prize that's rare even by TCG rare item code prize standards — and give it back to the user. To make matters worse for them, the hate only escalated after they won Altador Cup X due to being backed by cheaters.
      • Kiko Lake itself is a location example. It is overall generic and lacks interesting lore, is noticeably the only major area of the game that has had no big plot arc take place in it, and, of course, is host to the aforementioned hated Yooyuball team.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • The randomized bracket used in the late stages of Altador Cup VII was widely loathed due to the resulting brackets not being very balanced. Out of the top four teams, Kreludor, Mystery Island, and Meridell almost never had to face each other; Darigan Citadel never had matches against MI and Meridell, but lost three separate rounds to Kreludor. The randomizer also put Shenkuu and Roo Island in the same bracket for every single round.
    • Darigan Yooyus are disliked due their gimmick of being fired off in random directions when you try to shoot with them. Many a scoring streak has ground to a halt due to this Yooyu's refusal to cooperate.
    • Prior to March 14, 2024, Neopets would refuse to eat foods, read books, or accept Petpets that have the same amount of characters in their names as their own. While changing the site language so that the length of these items' names change is a potential workaround, it doesn't work for any items introduced after early 2015. This made getting records for gourmet food and books a nightmare and was a nuisance if you spent a lot of money on a Petpet without checking to see if your Neopet will object beforehand. Fortunately, this feature was completely patched out, meaning that players no longer have to worry about their pets declining certain items, regardless of character amount.
    • Pages affected by wraiths during the Wraith Resurgence plot are plagued by a turbulent purple background element that causes the page's primary functions to lag, on top of giving you a pop-up suggesting you go to the Faeries' HQ every time you went onto an affected page. As the plot moved on, more and more pages and features began to be affected, especially those for dailies.
    • Random events where an item in your inventory gets stolen, "donated," or vaporized, because rare and expensive items (even ones that could be lost forever) are not immune from them, and they can hit you before you even get a chance to store them away safely. Though this scenario is rare, it's enough to induce Paranoia Fuel in players, and runs counter to the collection focused nature of the site. Fortunately, Neocash items are not affected.
      • There are similar events that can occur which can cost a user a certain percentage of their hard-earned Neopoints (the hardest-hitting one is the Angry Tax Beast, who takes 25% of your on-hand Neopoints). As consolation, some of these events (specifically the Tax Beast, Angry Tax Beast, and Sloth's Invasion Tax) could get you a shiny trophy, but you have to lose a lot of Neopoints for that to happen, since your "score" is calculated by how many Neopoints you lost compared to others who got the same event that month. And there are also events that take a percentage of your Neopoints (such as King Skarl's tax, damage to your Neohome, or the Emperor of Shenkuu throwing a festival for his daughters) without even giving you a trophy!
    • During the 2023 Faerie Festival, anyone who didn't join either Team Illusen or Team Jhudora on the first day was assigned to one of the teams at random. This was most likely so players could not choose their team based on whichever one had more members, but people were not happy with it regardless.
    • Grarrls and Skeiths can eat any item, including things that aren't food. This includes Morphing Potions, but "use on [pet's name]" and "feed to [pet's name]" come up as two separate options when using a Morphing Potion on a Grarrl or a Skeith. If you choose the latter, it will "feed" the potion to the Grarrl/Skeith as if it were a food item, but not change them. A lot of people have accidentally done this.
    • Trying to get a Petpetpet attached to your Petpet is a pain. You have to keep it in your inventory and every time you refresh the site or open a new page, there is a small chance that the Petpetpet will attach to your active pet's Petpet. This could take days, weeks or even months, during which the Petpetpet could be stolen by a random event like the Pant Devil or the Kiko Lake team collecting donations. And even if you're not trying to attach a Petpetpet (for example, if you want to sell it), it could randomly decide to attach itself to your Petpet while it's in your inventory, and is impossible to remove once it's stuck on there.
  • "Stop Having Fun" Guys: The Altador Cup. If you join a popular team, an unpopular team, or submit less than 100 wins per day, you will be mocked on the forums for it. Guaranteed.
  • Tainted by the Preview: With the announcement of all then-preexisting unconverted pets being converted into the post-customization poses to make way for the Neocash version of unconverted pets in 2024, lots of players that still owned them were not happy with this decision, as they felt that it would force them to buy the Neocash version with real money. Some players were also not a huge fan of the old unconverted art being redrawn with black lineart (Most notably with the Faerie Ixi) instead of the wonky yet nostalgic look that most of them had, and wished they were kept untouched. However, when the unconverted pets did come back, the art team took some of the feedback into account and the new unconverted pets have been well-recieved by most of the playerbase.
  • Take That, Scrappy!: For a long time, the 'down for maintenance' error message was accompanied by an image of a generic crying red Pteri. Because users began to associate the Pteri with being unable to access the site, TNT eventually made him a one-player Battledome challenger for the express purpose of allowing your pets to beat him up. For bonus points: he's portrayed in a much more sinister light, complete with red eyes, an Evil Laugh, and a Psychotic Smirk.
    Random event that unlocks him: An ominous looking Red Pteri strolls up to you and cackles, "I hope you didn't want to actually do anything in Neopia today." *BRAAWWKK*
  • That One Achievement: Some of the avatars can be really frustrating to get.
    • All of the the stamp-collecting avatars are obnoxious to get, as the bottom row of every album page consists of stamps that rarely stock in shops and can easily resell for tens of millions of neopoints. Making matters worse, many stamps either don't stock in shops anymore or are prizes for old site events and competitions. Since stamps are 'used up' when they're put into albums, this means there's a steadily-decreasing number of these rare items.
    • Starting in 2016, the Mysterious Vibrant Collectable Scarab is awarded annually to those who have participated in 11 different Altador Cup competitions. Since the Altador Cup only happens once a year, if you just started participating, it would take you 11 years to earn the scarab in real time.
    • Avatars that rely on luck to obtain, especially since most of them are from dailies, which means you only have one try a day to get them.
    • Lenny - Finneus requires you to beat the Altador mini-plot. This includes completing infamous steps like the punch club, the Vaeolus care, and the water plant.
    • Neopian Times Star, which requires getting into the Neopian Times ten times (Excluding Editorial posts). If you aren't good at writing or drawing comics, consider yourself hosed.
    • Avatar Collector, Freaked Korbat, Draik - Escape from Meridell Castle, and Babaa - Maths Nightmare require you to place in the Top 50 daily high score table for avatar collecting, Korbat's Lab, Escape from Meridell Castle, and Maths Nightmare respectively. Getting on the high-score table for any game is a harsh feat in general, but now avatars are involved in it.
    • Attack of the Slorgs and Dr. Grumps shouldn't be hard avatars to get... but the games are nearly impossible to get working, as they run on Shockwave, which most browsers don't support anymore.
    • There are several avatars that require certain items to obtain. Some of these items can be wickedly expensive, such as the Bony Grarrl Club, Zafara Double Agent Plushie, If you can't find an extremely generous person willing to lend you their avatar items, better start saving your Neopoints.
      • Super Attack Pea is one of the hardest, as it requires both a Pea Chia (a rare, expensive pet) and a Super Attack Pea (one of the rarest and most expensive items ever) and you’ll probably have to find two different people willing to lend you both of those at the same time. And some users require a certain amount of Neopoint/item collateral to borrow their Super Attack Peas.
    • Painting your pets the color you want personally, be it new or old or just because it's one that's popular, is an accomplishment in itself for most players (especially given since newer or highly-desired paintbrushes or morphing potions are more expensive and, therefore, harder for a player to get their hands on). Additional complicated point if you're seeking all the map pieces for the Secret Laboratory. Double complicated points if you're after an exceedingly difficult-to-get Fountain Faerie Quest or catch the Lava Pool guard asleep.
  • That One Level: Level 36 of Attack of the Marblemen. The blocks are placed in a tight spiral pattern that your marbleman has to navigate around, and every single bumper has to be correctly placed or it won't be able to reach the center before the timer runs out. Bumpers can't be removed from the board after being placed, either, so putting even just one bumper in the wrong spot will force you to start over.
  • That One Sidequest: Getting access to the Magma Pool. It is always watched over by a guard who will refuse you entry due to "not being well-versed in the ways of Moltara," but he sleeps for 10 minutes at the same time each day, during which you can sneak past him to paint your pet Magma. This 10-minute interval is at a different time for every individual user, so in order to find yours, you have to keep going back to the Magma Pool and check off every minute you find him awake. Fan-made tools like Jellyneo's Magma Pool Time Checklist can help you track your times, but it's still quite tedious.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The site has quite infamously made many big changes over the years that rarely paid off.
    • The site underwent a major revamp in Year 9 (2007), which not only changed the layout of the entire site, but standardized the artwork of all pets in order to allow for customization — something which is still intensely debated in the fandom over a decade later.
    • The new version of Yooyuball for Altador Cup VI was not well received thanks to the controls being unnecessarily simplified. They were fixed the following year, at which point complaints turned to the new bracket system.
    • Doubled down when it was sold to Jump Start. They shut down two major sections of the site, the Habitarium (which was a huge moneymaker for many players) and Petpet Park, and many things were broken due to bugs. Two years later, and some major features, such as galleries of over 500 items, are still game-breakingly broken with no fix in sight.
    • Charity Corner's 2020 iteration removed perks - the main thing players liked about the event as it allowed them to easily do strenuous tasks such as change a pet's color or species - due to issues involving Flash migration and nerfed Sticky Snowballs' point rates due to how easy it was to farm themnote , torpedoing the event's popularity.
  • Unfortunate Character Design:
    • Because of the way the Fish Negg is positioned in its official art, its mouth and fin are commonly mistaken for a scarred eye and a giant tooth.
    • The Cocorot is a fruit consisting of two tiny coconuts attached to the stem of a carrot, making it look like a penis.
  • Values Dissonance: In some places, the site's age tends to show. For instance, until 2018, the word "Gypsy" was commonly used on the site to refer to the "fortune-telling caravan" aesthetic, which was the term's most common use in the site's home country of the United Kingdom where it's used as self-description by traveling caravans. All mentions of it except for one were Ret Conned to "Wanderer" after knowledge of the word's status as a racial slur in other countries became more well-known worldwide. The one that stayed — the "Gypsy's Curse" trading card game card — could not be changed because it was printed on physical media; the on-site item's name changed, but the physical card's name is still visible (albeit almost-unreadably tiny) in the image.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion:
    • Meela Kitah of Kiko Lake; despite being pink and having a vaguely-feminine name, he is male (or he is now, thanks to an unexplained gender change).
  • Viewer Name Confusion:
    • Some people think that Psellia is named the Air Faerie, Illusen or Iyana is the Earth Faerie, Fuhnah is the Fire Faerie, Nereid, Naia, or Marina is the Water Faerie, and Jhudorah, the Darkest Faerie, or Maelstra is the Dark Faerie. Actually, terms like "air faerie" and "dark faerie" refer to what sort of faerie the individual is, not her name. This confusion perhaps stems from the fact that some faeries are known as "The X Faerie", but even that's a title, not a name (for instance, the Snow Faerie's real name is Taelia).
    • Some people think the Darkest Faerie is named Jennumara, when actually those are two separate faeries (albeit both dark faeries).
    • Some players believe that the Uni who runs the pound is named Rose. Actually, that's just Fanon, popularised by a Neopian Times story.
  • Viewer Pronunciation Confusion: The site has a pronunciation guide, but most players don't read it, which leads to them pronouncing things differently than the creators intended.
    • The Mynci species is consistently assumed to be pronounced "min-see", as would be the case with typical pronunciation of English. Its correct pronunciation is "moon-sea". Although "mynci" is a corruption of the Welsh word "mwnci", it's not intuitive for Welsh-speakers either; the correct Welsh pronunciation would be "mun-key" (and "mwnci" would be pronounced "mwn-key", approximately "moon-key").
    • The Gnorbu species is pronounced "nor-boo", but some players have mispronounced it as "Guh-nor-boo".
    • The Aisha species is pronounced "eye-shuh", but it's been mispronounced as "Asia", "ay-shuh", "ay-ee-shuh", "eye-ee-shuh", "ah-yee-shuh", or "ash-ee-uh". Even some official material has gotten this wrong; the line of jumbo talking plushes from 2003 all used the "ah-yee-shuh" pronunciation, including the aisha plush herself.
    • The Eyrie species is pronounced "eerie", but some have said it wrong as "eye-ree" or "ee-ree". This is despite it having been used for puns in the past, such as a book item titled "An Eyrie Evening".
    • The Lupe species is pronounced as "loop", but some have mispronounced it as "loop-ay". Similarly, Elephante is pronounced "ellie-fant", but players have mispronounced it as "ele-fant-ay", "ele-fent-ay", "ele-font-ay", or just "elephant".
    • The pronunciation for the Xweetok species is "zwee-tok", but it's been mispronounced as "ex-wee-tok" or "swee-tok".
    • The Pteri species is meant to be pronounced "terry" (as in "pterodactyl"), but has been mispronounced by some players as "puh-terry" or "pee-tree".
    • The correct pronunciation for the Usul species is "oo-sul", but some have pronounced it wrongly as "you-sul" or "uh-sul". The pun in the minigame "The Usul Suspects" isn't helping matters either.
    • The Gelert species is pronounced "gell-ert", but it's been said wrong as "jell-ert" or "gul-ERT" by a select few players.
    • The place Tyrannia is pronounced "Tie-rain-ee-uh", but some players — as well as official merchandise, such as a talking Scorchio plush — have assumed it was "Ty-ran-ee-uh".
    • The staff had to clarify in one Neopian Times editorial that the Petpet known as a "Ghoti" is not pronounced "fish", despite the origin of the name. It's pronounced "goatee".
    • Dieter's name is sometimes thought to be pronounced "diet-er", which is admittedly a fair assumption as that would be an Ironic Name for a chubby critter who eats as much as he can in his game.. Actually, it's a German name, pronounced "deeter".
    • Juidah's name is pronounced "Jwee-dah", but is sometimes mispronounced as "Joo-ee-dah".
    • MAGAX's name is sometimes mispronounced with a hard "G". It's actually pronounced with a soft "G".
    • Some players think Taelia's name is pronounced "tay-lee-uh". It's actually "tee-lee-uh".
    • Vira's name is pronounced "veer-uh", but some mispronounce it as "vye-ruh".
  • What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The game is a rather weird example in itself. By the mid-2000s, when the site's popularity was at its peak, it was clearly aimed primarily at young children; however, when the site first started out, it was mostly used by college/university students. Various remnants of material from that time (such as the Ski-Lodge Mystery plot) stuck around, waiting to be prime scariness for any children who happened to stumble across them. Nowadays, the kids who used the site during its heyday have grown up and many have returned out of nostalgia, while the number of younger users has decreased significantly, causing another shift back to an older audience - while the site remains very similar to how it was when its audience skewed younger, complete with infamously overactive profanity filters and highly restrictive forum rules banning people from mentioning other websites and "controversial topics". The current fanbase frequently requests the addition of a section of the Neoboards for older users, with less restrictive rules.
  • Win Back the Crowd: Many old players returned when Neopets went independent in 2023 thanks to many improvements made both on the front-end and back-end, with the implementation of Ruffle to bring back the Flash games that were unavailable since 2020 being a particularly big draw.
    • The return of unconverted pets was a huge talking point for old and new fans, caused more than a few people to come back just for the old pet art, and caused Demand Overload to the site when they launched in 2024.
  • The Woobie:
    • Grey Faeries are intentionally like this. They lose their beauty, their wings, and their names.
    • The Darigan Citadel, once you learn what happened to them at the hands of Meridell.
    • Also, the Discarded Magical Blue Grundo Plushie of Prosperity. The name should tell you enough, but it's a discarded blue grundo plushie that sometimes rewards you for visiting it. Heck, even your pets feel bad for the poor thing, as sometimes they lose happiness when visiting it.


Plots provide examples of:

  • Creepy Awesome: Xandra is a dangerously cool and scary once her true colors are revealed.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: A lot of plot villains get this status, no matter how evil they are.
    • Lord Kass is the first villain to really get this status, even getting a Shirtless Scene.
    • Kanrik got this, too, although he later earned a good reputation.
    • Jhudora and the Darkest Faerie. Most evil Faeries in general get this because they're The Beautiful Elite.
    • From Return of Dr. Sloth, Ylana Skyfire gets this for being pretty badass and being a Bounty Hunter.
    • Captain Scarblade fell victim, mainly because users love pirates.
    • Like Kanrik, Prince Jazan did a Heel–Face Turn and redeemed himself.
    • Xandra is the DILP in The Faerie's Ruin, mainly because of her points about Faeries even though the story largely disproves them. Fyora admitting that, at least to an extent, she DID have SOME valid points helped this portrayal along.
    • Hoban to a degree, mostly because he's something of an Asshole Victim (who didn't die).
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • The Meridell plots gave us Lord Darigan, who was the first morally ambiguous character on the site and later made a Heel–Face Turn; Jeran, a Knight in Shining Armor and a Noble Wolf; and Lord Kass.
    • Hannah and the Pirate Caves was so popular, the eponymous Usul adventuress appeared in her own plot, which introduced another Darkhorse, Kanrik.
    • From the Curse of Maraqua, we have the Maraquan Aisha sisters, Isca and Caylis, and the villain, Captain Scarblade.
    • The Lost Desert plot gave us Prince, now King Jazan, who was popular enough to return for The Faerie's Ruin, and his friend, the Nightsteed. It also introduced the Angry Orange Yurble Foreman/Chef/Janitor/Librarian. His presence in a plot is viewed as a very good sign.
    • A Tale Of Woe is another interesting case where one of the central characters was already a Darkhorse. Sophie is still one of the most popular characters on the site due to being a very amusing grump. Bruno is another example, due to being Ugly Cute in his mutated form, and Adorkable before AND after.
    • Despite being a mini-plot, the Cyodrake's Gaze gave us Hoban, a grumpy navigator, and Bonju, the temperamental chef.
    • Although it suffered from a big-time Gecko Ending, Journey To The Lost Isle spawned Lillian Fairweather, who actually happens to be a Xweetok! Roxton was also one, and appeared in Atlas of the Ancients.
    • From the Return Of Dr. Sloth, Ylana Skyfire is ridiculously popular due to being a very, VERY badass Bounty Hunter.
    • Even before The Faeries' Ruin, Hubrid Nox was beloved for years despite never doing anything. His death and ghostly reappearance solidified this status.
  • Growing the Beard:
  • Hollywood Homely: The Court Dancer's true form is almost always described as hideous. What does her true form look like, you ask? Effectively her illusion form, only painted Darigan.
    • Grey faeries. They're supposed to be faeries who have lost all their beauty, but at worst, they simply need a new outfit. And even their ragged dress is form-fitting, so their beauty is still (albeit subtly) highlighted.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Xandra crosses the line by crashing Faerieland to the ground, as can be seen here.
    • Dr. Sloth arguably crosses this when he creates a cyborg that proceeds to wipe out almost the entire Neopets staff.
    • Most plot villains jump over the Moral Event Horizon somehow; Galem jumps over it when he's willing to cause a species to die out of his own Greed; Scarblade is actually attempting to destroy a land and commit genocide out of Fantastic Racism; Razul cursed his own city—and his own son—so he could achieve eternal life as a fiery demon; Krawley manipulated everyone into furthering his whims so Neovia got worse; and Kass declares war over false declarations of peace.
  • Narm: The Darkest Faerie's plot in The Wraith Resurgence was to arbitrarily kill everyone with a giant hourglass filled with smoke. Players foiled this plan by... collecting rocks to close it off.
  • Seasonal Rot:
    • The plots, both short and overarching, were in decline from about 2007 up until 2010, when The Faeries Ruin brought things back to a 2004-2006 level of awesome.
    • Out of all plots, though, Atlas of the Ancients is the best example of Seasonal Rot; poor art (which is unforgivable when there were earlier plots like A Tale of Woe, which had GORGEOUS art); a really bad, almost non-existent story that was a Random Events Plot; Having a lot of Neocash Events in addition to the plot, which irked lots of users; and being a gaming event like the Daily Dare in a crappy plot guise. About the only good thing it brought was Moltara.
    • Many fans really dislike the Wraith Resurgence plot for shallow characterization, New Powers as the Plot Demands, a Random Events Plot, Ending Fatigue, and shilling of Kaia.
  • Strangled by the Red String: In the Lost Desert plot, Nabile falls in love with Jazan the moment she meets him, and they get married just minutes later.
  • That One Level:
    • Neopets: The Darkest Faerie has the Oubliette. Locks everywhere, doors everywhere, you'll have to backtrack plenty of times just to progress through it, and more if you're collecting the treasures.
    • From the Faeries' Ruin plot, the Barrier Shield Reinforcement step. The four tasks are already challenging, but because you have to cooperate with three other players (who may or may not be competent) while dealing with the site's horrendous lag, and the fact that it's timed sends it straight into Fake Difficulty territory. Slightly mitigated by the fact that you can form groups with users to do this step, thus ensuring a level of competence.
    • Some of the challenges in Act 4 apply as well. In Heroes' Rest, the Earth challenge will prove to you that a block-moving puzzle (that is not Sokoban) can be made difficult.
    • From the Altador plot, the water plant part. The Luck-Based Mission to end all Luck Based Missions. You can spend days, weeks, months, even years mindlessly turning wheels and pulling switches with no results whatsoever. It's so infamous that bringing up the plot in any context on the Neopets subreddit will cause people to wince in pain over this puzzle.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The characters from the War of the Obelisk plot are well-designed, and would seem to have unique and intriguing personalities, but none of them are ever developed beyond basic traits. A major reason for this is that the War of the Obelisk never had any plot comics, just some cinematics and brief character dialogue.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The War of the Obelisk was introduced in epic fashion, complete with cinematics promising that the outcome would change the future of Neopia. It didn't. The Sway won the right to open the obelisk, though the ending would have been exactly the same no matter which of the six factions did so. A mysterious being made of light known as the Oracle was found to be living in the obelisk, and ever since the factions have been fighting continuously for her favour in bi-weekly skirmishes. No further information about the Oracle or her prophecies has been given.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: Brynn has been mistaken for a boy by a number of users, despite other characters using female pronouns to refer to her.
  • Viewer Name Confusion: The Pant Devil is sometimes thought to be called the Paint Devil, most likely because Paint Brushes are some of the most valuable items he can steal.
  • Win Back the Crowd: The Faeries' Ruin was a smash hit for most fans for its dark plot and site-changing events.

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