Emma isn't exactly sure how she ends up getting sucked back into Neopets of all things.
Okay, that's a lie.
It starts on Youtube. She's not too proud to admit she's the kind of millennial nerd who watches gameplay video, instead of actually playing game.
In her defense, her habit started when she was still too young and poor to buy most of the games herself, because she had terrible impulse control and always splurged her allowance long before she could save up enough for anything out of the bargain bin.
Anyway, now that Emma's got slightly better impulse control, and more importantly, an actual job that pays her a not insignificant wage, she's got more than enough cash to buy her own games, and then some. Unlike most competent working adults, she's also got a job with awesomely flexible hours, so she's got more than enough time to play them too.
Still, regardless of her initial reasons falling apart, the habit stuck. The blonde likes getting previews of games to see how good or shitty they are, and she's never been the type to mind spoilers, anyway. Plus, the reactions are pretty hilarious, most of the time. She doesn't claim to be deep about her interests, okay?
So, she's watching gameplay vids, of this one Youtuber in particular, who's especially fucking hilarious, being more of a comedy than gameplay channel, really, and she comes across his latest upload.
Neopets.
That's the actual title of the video, and the moment she sees it pop up in her notifications, she just stops still and blinks a little.
Woah, how many years has it been since she's heard about that game?
Obviously, Emma clicks the video. What follows is a truly hilarious trip down memory lane. Every little thing that pops up on screen, even when the accompanying voiceover sends her into fits of laughter every two seconds, sends a wave of nostalgia flowing through her that cannot be completely dispelled.
-o-
Emma is eleven years old the first time she logs onto the Neopets website.
It's the afternoon after sitting through Neal Gold's PowerPoint Presentation about all about it during computer class. The assignment was to show off their skills in the program by preparing a presentation on a topic they were greatly interested in. Emma did one on chocolate, and basically just threw a bunch of photos from a Hershey's catalog, because she was lazy kid who went on the computer to play games, not make presentations, obviously.
Of course, Neal makes his presentation about the one game he's been bragging about for weeks now, and more specifically, how awesome he is, at it. Though she's been curious since she first heard about it from him, especially as more people from
their grade seem to be joining in the trend, she's been staying away out of pure stubborn spite, because Neal annoys her and she has no desire to play a game with him. Having PE together was bad enough.
But every slide he shows makes Emma's eyes widen, and every word-even though they come out of his stupid mouth-only makes her more curious. By the end of it, she's completely committed to checking the site the moment she gets home.
And she does.
What follows is almost three years of her life, where she makes the kind of cash she will actually make in her actual lifetime, where she becomes kinda sorta famous by having crazy ridiculous luck at all the many, many gambling games on the supposedly child-friendly website, where she meets the best of friends-and one very best friend of all.
-o-
By the time the video ends, Emma is already clicking on a new tab and typing in the bar, with the speed of old instincts ingraining itself once more.
The moment those familiar yellow borders and black stars load up, a small, delighted laugh slips from her mouth. It hasn't changed at all, she thinks, feeling another wave of nostalgia at the sight. How many hours, every day, had she spent staring at these same pictures?
She already knew, of course, from the video. But it's different, actually seeing and clicking with her own eyes and hands. Some part of her had expected to find it shut down or completely different, like so many other old mainstays of her childhood.
For a moment, Emma just grins kind of stupidly at her screen, feeling far more much joy over a bunch of pixels than she probably should. For a moment, she thinks, of her.
It's been so many years-nearly two decades now-since she last thought of Regina Mills.
Okay, that's a lie too. She still thinks of her every now and then, feeling wistful and regretful, and usually pretty drunk, when she does, but it's normal to reminisce about your childhood friends sometimes, right?
In any case, what are the chances she would still be playing this old game? Even if Emma has somehow managed to rediscover it again, what are the chance the other girl-woman, now-has too? They were only a few months apart, so Regina must be in her early thirties now too.
What was she doing now? Foolishly, she wonders if maybe she managed to become an Olympic horse jumper, after all.
(She didn't, of course. Emma checked, every time the summer Olympics rolled around, and never found her name).
Well, Emma didn't exactly end up in of the myriad of random careers she'd wanted as a preteen either. But, bail bondsperson is kind of close, and, after knowing far too many detectives over the years in her line of work, she's definitely dodged a bullet with that career change.
In any case, she shakes off any thoughts about her old friend, focusing her eyes on website homepage again.
Her mouse quickly goes to the upper right of the screen, where the login button is. The username comes easily, to her faint embarrassment, as she types out wondergirl_3MM4, with only the slightest of delays.
She'd had a huge crush on Wonder Woman as a kid (okay, until now too, but she's badass and hot, it's perfectly understandable!), and, for some reason, thinking it was better to use "3MM4" instead of just straight out writing Emma. At the time, she probably thought she was being cool or smart. Ugh, hindsight, she thinks, cringing at her child self.
But as easy as the username comes, the rest of it, does not, unfortunately. Password? It's been so long, that for a moment, the blonde stalls, forgetting. Shit, she changed her password way too many times as a kid. She can't remember which was the last one she used for this site.
Biting her lip, she hesitantly begins typing out what she hopes to be the right password.
Nope. It's immediately, obviously wrong. Emma slumps for a moment, before she tries changing a few number. ….Still wrong. Damnit. Curse her child self for being unable to stick to a single password for more than a month.
The blonde thinks this trip down memory lane might be over before it even starts when she notices the lost password button. Crap, what does it ask for to regain the password? Birthday? Emma's pretty sure she used a fake birthday when she first signed up so she could get on the neoboards (like hell she was going to wait the two years to be thirteen, she was even more impatient then).
All it asks for though, is her username, and she's all set. To have a password reset by email, that is. Thankfully, this one is much easier to guess. It's basically the same name as her neopets username, after all. Sure, Emma hasn't accessed this email since she middle school, but she's pretty sure it should still work. Hopefully. She remembers the password for this one, at least, because it's just her old locker combo.
There's a tense few moments as she switches tabs and signs into her old email account, but before she knows it, she's in, and staring at some really old emails, some new spam and a link from Neopets. Score!
Grinning, Emma opens the email and quickly resets her password. Soon, she's back onto the website and staring at a bunch of pixels while trying not to cry.
Her old pets!
There's her Ice Bori, which she remembers getting through some promotional Yahoo thing, her cute little cotton ball of a Cloud Jubjub (appropriately named cottonellie), her equally cute cookie of a Biscuit Kiko, and her crowning jewel of them all, her totally awesome Rainbow Chomby.
Yeah, Emma may or may not have totally squealed as she looked at all of them over again. They were all totally dying and frowning accusingly at her in return, yet not even that could ruin her parade.
It's been over fifteen years since she's last played this game, and it's probably changed in a bunch of ways she just can't see right now, but she can't stop smiling, because, honestly, when she looks at this silly little site with its too bright yellow theme, it's like she's all of eleven years old again and everything's a world of possibilities.
A/N: The video Emma refers to below is an actual thing, btw, made by the Youtuber videogamedunkey.