Straight From the Traded Krawk's Mouth

Whether we’re talking about the trading of rare and coveted UCs, name trading, tier trading, looking for that optimized battle pet, or any other sort of pet trading, the pet trade is one of the most active topics and activities Neopians are discussing today. In fact, the pet trade is so busy that it even has its own home on the neoboards — the Pound Chat. It’s here that the heart of pet trading can be found, and, no matter what sort of trade you are seeking, you are likely to be able to find something for you there.

Whether asked for or not, you’re sure to get plenty of advice in the pound chat, and you’ll definitely find out if you’re doing it the wrong way. Likewise, If you prefer to find your information from the cream of the crop, there are a literal plethora of articles about the minutiae, rules, ideas, and all other factors that go into making that successful trade you’ve been trying to find in the Neopian Times Archive.

This afternoon, I was working on a pet biography for my lab rat and future trading pet Scyfi, and a thought occurred to me. While there are plenty of guides about all things pet trading, I haven’t seen so many articles focused on the pets themselves who are taking part in the pet trade. Certainly, I can’t speak for all pets who are taking part. After all, these pets have vast histories that are both happy and sad. I can only imagine that a pet’s background in the trading world and his or her individual feelings and personality would affect how that pet reacts to being part of the pet trade, meaning his or her feelings about it might be completely different from how another pet reacts.

Because of this, if you’d like to know how a specific pet feels about being a part of the pet trade, you would have to talk to that pet, and that was exactly what I decided to do. Finding a trading pet wasn’t too difficult, considering my own Scyfi is one of them, so I decided to catch him between his training classes and get his opinion on a few things regarding being a part of the pet trade. Like I mentioned before, one small krawk’s opinion certainly is no more valid or important than the thousands of other pets involved, this is just the pet I have on hand. If you’d like to know how another pet feels, you might need to ask them (or their owner!).

Muse: “Scyfi, you understand that you are a part of the pet trade, right? I want to ask you some questions about how you feel about that if you wouldn’t mind.”

Scyfi: “Sure.” *He pauses thoughtfully* “Do I get something good out of this? Like how about a chia pop or a ride on the Roo Island Carousel. We can still ride on that even though we’re playing for another team in the Altador cup, right?”

Muse: “Of course we can, and we’ll see. For right now, you just be a good little krawk and pay attention to answering these questions. If you do a good job, it might even get published in the Neopian Times.”

Scyfi: “Oooh that sounds interesting. Okay. Let ‘er riiiiip!”

Muse: “To begin with, I suspect the readers would like to know a little bit about you.”

Scyfi: “Well, first, I lived with a really nice girl named Lyssa. And that was how I got into the pet trade for the very first time. I was already a krawk, but I was a transparent one. My first owner, Lyssa, wanted to have an island krawk. She would have had to paint me into an island krawk — which doesn’t seem to fit my name very well if you notice, or waited for the lab to make me into one, which can take FOREVER, or something like that. Also, Lyssa really wanted to do a quick trade and not have it take a lot of time. She had a list of pets she was willing to trade for a fully clothed Island krawk, and I just happened to be on the list.”

Muse: “This is how Lyssa and I met. She had chosen a pet from the pound, which she wanted to be made into her new island krawk. I happily agreed to adopt, morph, and paint her new island krawk in exchange for Scyfi because of his name.”

Scyfi: “My name is really valuable in the pet trading community, so Muse was really lucky that she happened to stumble across Lyssa’s post when she did. The reason a lot of pet owners would want to have a pet with my name is because my name is a real world word. Not only is it a real world word, but it’s a really popular one as well. Try saying that three times fast. It’s one of those twister tongue things.”

Muse: “What do you know about your name?”

Scyfi: “Basically that Scyfi, now a word in its own rite, is an abbreviation for a type of writing style which combines elements of science and fantasy into fiction. Things like time machines, aliens, dragons, and certain further sub-genres — like Steampunk, for instance — would all be considered examples of Science Fiction, or, Scyfi, as it’s often called. That type of fiction is extremely popular right now, so a lot of people would like to have a pet with my name. Plus, it doesn’t have any other extraneous letters, numbers, or underscores.”

Muse: “Extraneous? You’ve definitely been learning at those training courses.”

Scyfi: “Duh.”

Muse: “I had been looking around for a really well-named pet. My overall goal was to find an excellently named pet and then use every form of training I had available to me to increase his or her HSD over the coming months or years as well as offering a complete and unlimited custom style to the user I eventually traded the pet to — including the possibility of a fountain faerie quest for special colors. The goal, of course, would be to trade into the UC realm of pets since Scyfi is converted. While I might have to settle for a lower tier UC when I trade Scyfi, I do have an ideal trade in mind of course.

The absolute ideal trade, in my opinion, would be for a very well named, unconverted Faerie Xweetok. I would trade Scyfi for her (or him) and, even more ideally, Scyfi would go to an owner who was name hunting for a name like Scyfi that he or she would keep forever, so that I know Scyfi won’t continue to be bumped from home to home. That, of course, isn’t strictly necessary, but it would be a nice reassurance since one does get rather attached to their pets over time, even if they do plan to trade them. In this sort of arrangement, I would love to find someone who wants to keep Scyfi forever and whose UC Faerie Xwee that I want to keep forever.

Now admittedly, the likelihood of it working out in exactly that way is likely slim, but it’s my dream goal. More likely, I might have to trade to another UC pet in the middle and spend some time training him or her, and likely won’t find an “end-user” trade for Scyfi, but it never hurts to have the ideal in mind.

Now, what might interest some people is seeing how a day in the life of a pet in the pet trade can be spent. Could you tell us about that, Scy?”

Scyfi: “Well, it depends - for quick trades, those pets may be getting traded around every few days or weeks. And, in my opinion, those pets are probably the ones likeliest to be unhappy unless they really enjoy adventure because they never know when or who they’ll be going to next. In my case, however, things are much slower. Muse already knows she has an excellent name in me, so now she is spending time training me so that my potential matches my name. Someone could do some really amazing things with me in the Battledome one day because of my training, though I’m just getting started for now. Muse uses a combination of three different training methods on me: faerie quest cookies, the Island Academy, and the lab ray. This can make training a little bit tricky. After all, when you are using the lab ray or a faerie quest cookie, you aren’t guaranteed a certain stat will be changed. In fact, using the lab ray, the change may even be a negative one! So, the order in which these are used changes a bit. For instance, once, the lab ray gave me five endurance points three days in a row. In order to keep from having to advance up too many levels and increase the cost of training, it was several days before Muse tried the lab again. She spent quite a few days just using Faerie Quests and training classes to even out my other stats before going back to the lab ray. However, in any given week, I generally go to the lab ray a few times, take at least two classes per day, and complete a faerie quest.”

Muse: “How do you feel about visiting the lab ray?”

Scyfi: “Well the very first time I got zapped, I was pretty nervous. After all, people do say some scary things about it. It wasn’t long before I found out that it can’t actually hurt me though. It can take away some of my training or give me more or make me a girl instead of a boy — I was a girl when Muse first got me — or change my color or pet species, but it doesn’t actually hurt in any way. In fact, it’s always kind of fun waiting to see what will happen on a zap day. Maybe part of the fun is because I have a petpet, and I take him with me and let him get zapped by the petpet lab ray.”

Muse: “What are you hoping your petpet will become?”

Scyfi: “I’m not sure yet. I think it would be neat if he turned into something that you can only get from the lab ray — since petpets can’t use Fountain Faerie Quests. I also think it would be good if what he turned into went along with my name and was kind of Scyfi-esque. There are a lot of really neat possibilities for what he could turn into, so I don’t want to limit us. Right now, my petpet is a pile of soot, so I just kind of scooped him up and am keeping him in my pocket until the ray decides to turn him back into a pet again.”

Muse: “Does it bother you knowing that you could change species or color on a whim?”

Scyfi: “Nope. The idea was a little strange at first, but i’m always going to be me no matter what color or species I happen to be. As long as I end up one day as something that fits my name when I’m done visiting the lab ray, that’s all that really matters. In the meantime, everything is just a fun adventure.”

Muse: “Do you have any advice for pets who aren’t as happy in the pet trade?”

Scyfi: “Well.. maybe try to keep your chin up and look at each new owner you meet as an opportunity to do or try something new. If you get traded around a lot, you never know when just the right owner will find you and want to keep you forever. You also never know when something neat will happen to you — like when I turned into a transparent krawk with the lab ray. That’s been one of my favorite species and colors I’ve been so far. Personally, I think Muse was a little happy when I zapped into a faerie because transparent pets creep her out a little bit. I thought it was funny when I got zapped Maraquan even though we’re playing for Kiko Island. Anyway, try to think of life being traded as an adventure. Look forward to the future that will happen next and all the opportunities that you’ll get. There are lots of worse lives a neopet can have.”

Muse: “Some people would say that trading is a bad life. What do you think would be one of those worse lives?”

Scyfi: “Well, like to wind up on an abandoned account where the owner gets busy and forgets about Neopets and his or her pets. That, to me, would be the most boring thing ever. Promise you’ll never do that muse.

Muse: “I promise. I’m addicted to Neopets and have been since 2005. I agree with you, though, winding up just sitting on an inactive account would be a really boring way to spend time.”

Scyfi: “Agreed. I’d way rather spend time getting trained and zapped and all of that. I like to imagine that one day when Muse finishes training me and she finds just the right trade for me that I’ll go to someone who’s absolutely crazy about the genre of fiction I’m named after — maybe as an alien aisha or something like that! and then just hang out with that person forever. With all the great training I’m getting from Muse, I could even be that person’s main battle pet. There are a lot of possibilities for what I could be doing once I’m finished being traded, so it doesn’t make sense to worry about all of that now anyway. Besides, I’m sure Muse will only trade me to a responsible owner who has a plan for me.”

Muse: “So basically, you don’t find anything bad or offensive about being involved in the pet trade?”

Scyfi: “Nope! I actually think it’s a lot of fun and maybe even an honor of some kind. After all, some pets are named badly and no one would really even want to trade them. I could be a whole lot worse off, y’know?”

Well.. there you have it folks. Perhaps Scyfi can’t tell you how every pet feels about being part of the pet trade, or summarize what happens in the life of all pets who are being actively traded, but he can at least give his own view on the subject. Next time you think about it, if you have a trading pet, ask them their take on being involved in the pet trade. You never know what your pet might tell you!