My favorite thing about CS is how nice the older members were when I first joined. I was even randomly gifted a rare my first week on the site! It was the most amazing thing ever. Also, roleplaying in the forums is where I was able to cultivate my love for genre fiction and creative writing, and now I'm majoring in English in college! I can't say it's all due to Chicken Smoothie, but this is definitely where it started and I'm forever grateful for that.
Sadly, when I first joined I was somehow under the impression that adopting more than one of each pet would take them away from other users who wanted them (kind of like the pound, I guess?) so for my first few months on CS I only have one outcome of the many available. I'm glad that the adoption pages have a reminder now to adopt as many pets as you can so that newbies have a chance at getting all of the outcomes!