Go From Blah... to Wow! A Guide To Personalities

Well, guess what? Today’s your lucky day. No, you’re not going to get that Maraquan Paintbrush. No, you won’t get a white Weewoo, or a rainbow Faellie, or even a blue Kookith. And you’re DEFINITELY not going to get the lab map or a secret hoard of codestones showering down on your head like meteorites. No, what I have for you is even better than that. It’s a guide to make your pet seem like it’s the most brilliant one ever! Even if it’s not painted Maraquan.

Warning: It takes time to create the perfect personality. This is just a guide, and it’s not going to get you the most original pet ever. You have to do that yourself, by tweaking the boring spots until they become unique, and by tweaking the unique spots until they become VERY unique. And only you can create the perfect personality for your pet. So, with that in mind, let’s move on.

First of all, think about real life. Everyone’s got a different personality, right? They all have one little thing that makes them unique. Plus, they’ve got certain traits, three or four words you would use when describing them. That’s the first rule: your pet can’t have a huge, confusing personality. It can’t be nice, beautiful, harsh, cruel, demanding, snobby, funny, creative, a killer, and popular all at once. Although those traits would be fine when separated, they clash when put together. Would you ever see them all in a real person? I think not. So...

Tip One: Choose three or four main personality traits for your pet. Try and make them unique, but not clashing (mean, snobby, kind and popular? No way).

So, now you’ve chosen your three or four traits. Just as an example, let’s say you chose funny, caring, and outgoing. Now, none of those seem very unique, do they? I thought not. So, let the tweaking begin!

First, we’ve got the trait “funny”. Think for a minute- how is the pet funny? Is it a jokester, a prankster, a stand-up comic, a comic artist, or a tap dancer? What about the trait “caring”? Does the pet work at a nursing home? And outgoing. This one is a great one to work with. Does the pet say things it shouldn’t? Does its big mouth get it in trouble? Does it do stupid things, or can it never refuse a dare? Does it have a lot of friends?

It’s easy to work with personalities. You just have to spice things up a bit. So...

Tip Two: When you’ve got your traits, start tweaking! And don’t stop until you love the personality, and you’ve never heard of it before.

Now it’s time for the thing no one really likes. Flaws. All great characters have flaws. If they didn’t, then nothing would be interesting. Flaws are what creates the danger, the chances, the hanging-off-a-cliff-about-to-die parts. Without flaws, there is no suspense. So now, you’ve got to create these flaws. They should be based on your personality, although they do not have to be. You might even have already been working on this, like with the example above. If an outgoing pet can’t keep their mouth shut, that’s a flaw. If a caring pet always feels like it has to help everyone, that’s a flaw. If a funny pet sometimes goes overboard and insults people, then, yep, that’s a flaw. So...

Tip Three: Flaws are necessary for creating suspense. You can base your flaws on the personality, or keep them completely separate.

So, now you have to choose your flaws. For this example pet, I’m going to say they can’t keep their mouth shut, insult people by accident sometimes, and can get pretty annoying, even when they’re just trying to help people. Now, I bet you guessed it! We’re gonna do some tweaking.

First we’ve got the not-shutting-up flaw. How can you make that more unique? Think about it for a minute. Maybe their big mouth gets them into fights a lot. Maybe they start talking about things and won’t let other people say anything. Maybe they interrupt people a lot. Then we’ve got the insulting flaw. Well, maybe they insult people with mean jokes sometimes. Maybe they gossip about other people. Maybe they’re even... –gasp- rude and snobby at times! And, lastly, we’ve got the annoying flaw. When are they annoying? Do they have good intentions, and no social grace? Do they purposely annoy others?

This is more difficult than tweaking the personalities, so it doesn’t have to be quite as original. After all, you don’t want your flaws to always show, although they have to for your pet to seem real. Also, you may notice that the flaws were beginning to run into each other. If you’ve got a really great personality, it will be difficult to tell where one trait begins and another ends. Sooooooo...

Tip Four: Start tweaking your flaws like you did your personality. They don’t have to be super-original, because you don’t want them to be the shining point of your personality.

Now, the only thing left for you to do is go overboard! No humans look exactly the same, so why should pets? Customize their appearance. Give them wings, or weird spots or stripes, or even glasses and clothes! If you’re an artist, draw your pet with its new look. If you’re not, then there are a lot of people who will make you custom adoptables. All you have to do is tell them what your pet looks like, and they’ll draw it for you! If you don’t feel like making their appearance, then make them a past. Was your pet adopted? Tell about the horrors of the pound. Was it found on a doorstep? Tell about that. These stories can be as unique as you can make them, so go all-out.

The last (and hardest) thing to do is make them a petpage. If you don’t know HTML, Neopets has got a nice, simple guide here. In the pet page you can insert a story, any pictures, the personality, and anything else your heart might desire.

Tip Five: Go overboard with pictures, stories, and pet pages.

Well, that’s about it. If you managed to read this whole guide, you can now have an original, exciting pet. If you just read the tips, well, then, um. At least you clicked on the page. And if you just skipped to the bottom, go back up and read the whole thing, you scoundrel!

There’s only one more piece of advice I have for you. So...

Tip Six: Have fun!