Collecting Avatars: A Worst Case Scenario

- Getting a high enough score on Math's Nightmare/Grundo Snow Throw/Korbat's Lab/Escape from Meridell Castle only to be bumped down to 51st position a minute before trophies are handed out.

- Purchasing an item from the Hidden Tower without knowing there's a glitch that's not letting anyone get the Fyora avatar.

- Finally getting as much NP as Adam only to be taxed by either the Tax Beast, Sloth, or King Skarl on your way to the 'About Us' page.

- Or, finally getting enough NP to get the Number Six avatar only to realise that Adam is now carrying a lot more NP than before.

- Choosing to fail Illusen's or Jhudora's 20th+ quest, because 'you don't want to pay 30k+ for an item', the day before their avatars were released.

- Beating the first round of Cheat, for the 239057348967th time, while having caught Capara cheating plus having her be the one with the most cards and STILL NOT GETTING THE CAPARA AVATAR!!!!!! (Sorry, had some flashbacks there.)

- Waiting patiently for an easy game to be featured in Better Than You only to be away the day it finally happens.

- Finally seeing a r90+ chocolate restock only to:

a. Have the 5 seconds rule Chia appear.

b. Picture Code not loading.

c. Not having enough NPs.

d. Too stunned to move.

e. Refresh over it.

- Being sure this time you will win against Meuka/Space Faerie/Black Pteri/Meerca Henchmen/Kasuki Lu only to lose while the opponent only has 1 HP left.

- Finally getting a Malevolent Sentient Poogle Plushie (TCG) only for it to be stolen by the Pant Devil while you were refreshing for the avatar.

- Buying an expensive Hidden Tower weapon only to learn that it doesn't work for the Pant Devil avatar.

- Buying 10, of the same, orange items only to learn that it won't work unless they're different ones.

- Adopting a Skeith from the pound, since it's better to adopt than to create one, only to find that it's very bloated and won't eat anything else.

- Or, it's dying of hunger and the first thing that eats is the Dark Battle Duck* in your Inventory.

- Having a friend lend you a Bony Grarrl Club and feeding it, instead of equipping, to your Grarrl. (We still love you Crystal xD)

- Trying to lend your Bony Grarrl Club to a friend and instead of sending it to the right user, you misspell their name and send it to an inactive account. (It took Bri 3 weeks to get it back.)

- Having to endure the countless boards and posts with 'Squark, Squeak, Squawrk, Squak' only to find out there's a new way of obtaining the ‘Plushie Eyrie’ avatar.

- Being the 101 person to complete the Mystery Island Plot. (Since only the first 100 got the Volcano Faerie Avatar.)

- Being the 10,001 person to complete the Mystery Island Plot.

- Having the people you chose to win, in the TCG Tournaments, lose every single time.

- Clicking on a link, given by a friend over AIM, that opens in the same window your Korbat's Lab game is on.

- Getting the same glitch, for the 5th time, while playing Korbat's Lab, that doesn’t allow you to advance to the next level, when trying to get a high enough score for the avatar.

- Having Boochi zap your Halloween Lupe the day before the Werelupe avatar came out.

- Doing 1500 Edna quests and still not getting the avatar.

- Losing at Extreme Potato Counter, for the 2034959487th time, by guessing one below/above the actual total of potatoes.

- Finding out, the hard way, that if you tie and lose on Deadly Dice, after getting the avatar, it will delete it from your avatar list.

- Playing Plushie Tycoon, for a whole month, and realising the avatar hasn't been activated, yet.

- Losing a Mootix, for the second time in a row, because of some weird glitch that made the Mootix disappear instead of attaching itself to your petpet. (To this day, Tammy still doesn’t know where her Mootixes went.)

- Getting a high enough score in Sutek’s Tomb only to realise the score has been changed for a higher one.

- Having your 100+ days old Slorg/Mazzew/Gruslen eaten by the Turmaculus the day before the Slorg/Mazzew/Gruslen avatar was released.

- Spending more than 1 million Neopoints on a Mazzew only to have the Wheel of Monotony hand them out as prizes.

- Spending 100,000+ on a Jubjub Transmogrification Potion when any, less expensive, Transmogrification Potion would’ve given you the ‘Mutant’ avatar.

- Getting a perfect score of 24, for the 23057939486th time, and still not getting the ‘Bilge Dice’ avatar.

- Losing in Bilge Dice after 9 winning streaks.

- Unequipping your almost 365 days old Snowbunny just to test ways in which the ‘Whee’ avatar can be obtained.

- Losing at Raiders of Maraqua with a score of 795.

- Buying a, very inflated, Rock petpet and Rock Balloon thinking they will give you the ‘I love my Rock’ avatar.

- Losing with a score of 223 in Ultimate Bullseye.

- Adopting, or creating, an Elephante that refuses to eat a Bag of Peanuts.

- Feeding the Bag of Peanuts to said Elephante, in another language, only to discover that you didn’t get the avatar.

- Buying the wrong Morphing Potion, for the second time, when trying to morph your pet into an Elephante for the ‘Elephante Surprise’ avatar. (The shops didn’t load all the way and Kelly clicked on the wrong MPs…)

- Having King Skarl not laugh hysterically, nor get moody, at your joke for the 2348905749568th time.

- Coming online 2 minutes after the ‘Evil Jhudora’ avatar was retired.

- Having beaten NQII a week before the ‘Devilpuss’ avatar came out.

- Having beaten NQII, for the second time, the day before the ‘Bionic Cybunny’ avatar came out.

- Picking up a Pile of Dung as a last item when trying to get the ‘Pick Your Own’ avatar.

- Getting a high enough score in a game and then discovering that either the site's down for maintenance or the score just won't send.

- Losing at 14 guesses on Tyranu Evavu.

- Losing at the Silver Die, for the 2349057839487th time, in Dice-A-Roo.

- Painting a Quiggle with a Mystery Island Paint Brush and discovering it’s not old enough to give out the avatar.

- Beating Tournament 12 of Cellblock and still not getting the ‘Master Vex’ avatar.

- Equipping a Gruslen in another language and learning there's a glitch that won't give you the avatar because of it.

- Having been lent an item for the ‘Pant Devil’ avatar only for it to be stolen by the Grundo Leader. (By the way, why is the Grundo Leader PINK of all colours? O.o)

- Getting the 1000 at the Wheel of Mediocrity days before the ‘Mediocre’ avatar was actually activated.

- Getting your account back, after being frozen, 4 hours after the Easter avatar retired.

- Zapping countless Jubjubs hoping they get painted Coconut and having them turn into everything EXCEPT a Coconut Jubjub.

- Having friends flood your Neomail Inbox, and spending the next hour trying to delete them, when minutes later all you have to do is send a Neomail saying 'I love Neomails'.

- Buying a very expensive Pepito when any aquatic petpet would've worked.

- Finally getting one avatar more than the person above you on the HST and then discovering they somehow managed to not only tie, but go one above you, yet again.

- Having your petpet eaten by the Turmaculus before the ‘Turmaculus’ avatar was released.

- Getting an anagram that has 2, or more, possible choices in The Castle of Eliv Thade when you only have 1 life left and no hints.

- Have the above happen for the second time in a row.

- Dying countless times to a Plains Lupe, and not getting the avatar, only to realise it hasn’t been activated, yet.

- Having one of your avatars, which took a lot of work to get, deleted from your list because of some weird glitch.

- Losing at Gormball when there’s only 1 opponent left.

- Running into a red negg when you’re just 5 points away from the avatar.

- Getting a glitch, for the 7th time, in MAGAX: Destroyer that tells you there’s still 1 enemy left when you’ve already killed all of them and you only need about 300 more points for the avatar.

There you have it, an almost (I know I missed some) complete list of bad/funny things that can, have and will happen, to a lot of people, while trying to be an Avatar Collector.

*Only 2 DBDs have been eate.. uhh used for research purposes.

I would like to thank the following people for giving me the inspiration to write this article (OK, so I’m taking advantage of your bad luck… but uhm, yeah -whistles-): unice_crystal, reeses_pieces0710, pencil_, ebilkitty, esperpower, neonism, x_ramsey_x, lika_r, mewman13, akm_and_jaz, bashk and sunset_rose285.