oh man I've had a few approaches over the years? when I first got here, I was looking primarily for a good name/pet combination because names were individual. If I could find a name and pair an idea with it, I was off to the races. I think if I had it to do over, I'd do it differently? I'm considering letting go of a few pets and really thinking about like. pets as characters and what really connects with me and what I think I could do a good job of portraying?

like for instance, I have a pet called Orin Atlanson who is a Nightmare Torrent - and he's named for Aquaman and the only reason this pet exists is bc I realized I could use Aquaman's Atlantean name and at the time in comics there was a Trench storyline with these nightmare beasts. but my most recent pet is Bao, a custom Nostalgic Tigrean, who is modeled after my FFXIV main's favorite minion because I have an attachment to that minion and a lot of hours logged in that game of looking at that minion and I thought - what if it could have its own representation on a site.

tl;dr I just overthink it at every possible avenue and I kinda wish I could just do it for the vibes lmao

i'm usually a fan of "unloved" animals too, like reptiles and the like. i haven't been gravitating to them much on subeta, though; i think the more "realistic" pets like xotl, zentu, etc aren't ... whimsical enough for me? xotl is super cute, and i love herptiles (reptiles and amphibians) in real life, but i think there's a sort of charm that the ones that don't quite resemble irl animals have for me. that said, i think the pets that are more "realistic" tend to have a better color balance for the "basic" colors (arid, vibrant, etc) that some of the more fantastical ones don't have, imo. maybe i just have my biases, because i think ruffie is super cute and it's basically just a dog. feli is a little more fantastical but basically just a cat :P

i love weird and freaky stuff.

Ahemait is one i found in the pound, used to be a galactic clawsion that i zapped on a whim while

Zuma was in the rift, honestly i didn't expect it to change. so now i've just been zapping it, and i thought about turning it back into a clawsion, but the experiment it turned into is kind of growing on me? still uncertain if i want to keep it, but i like it enough that i've only been zapping zuma

i think the blobs are really charming, i don't know if i want one (at least while i have only 11 pet slots) but i think they're really creative. spectrum, storm, and vibrant are some of my favorites for the blobs. at least you can get them as plushies!

the experiments are definitely growing on me. i think it'd be interesting to see them in other colors, but i do like/think it's cute that they're available in chibi and scribble. i kind of wish common/chibi experiment was a little cuter, but i am pretty charmed by the scribble version

I wish all the experiments came in all the colors too. I guess they have to be turned into regular pets for that, like what they did with the Yaherra and Blob. I should have mentioned I really love Blobs too but I still kind of lump them in with the experiments. I would have all the Blobs too if I had room for them.

Half of my pets are adopted, and the others were created by me! Personally, I like to have different species, but I'm very flexible with the color variants. When I adopt, I enjoy the spontaneity and mystery of the pets. I tend to look for more interesting-looking horror-inspired pets, but I also love adorable pets.

Fin Fin my Tutani was inspired by an old Desktop Toy/Game called Fin Fin on Teo the Magic Planet. I honestly was just amused that no one had taken the name. I also just love aquatic-themed pets and found their design so charming. I really love the common variant.

Ullian was inspired by a human OC. I honestly was just looking for a pet that captured his essence. Ullian's character is definitely more ocean-inspired. But I went for a Hikei because I found them to be very elegant looking, which I felt matched his vibes more.

For Neiren, Neiren was an old alias I used to name my characters in MMOs and interactive fiction games. Since Neiren is closer to my persona, I wanted to reflect some of my characteristics and aesthetic tastes, so I went for a dawn Malticorn, because I liked the design.

All of my adopted pets were chosen for their appearances. I just really thought all of them; Shadow the Common RA-002, I really love their eyeballs, Tarot: the Galactic Blob, she's adorable, and Namiko the Scribble experiment, I love how silly she looks!

I like horses and cats lol.

There are some colors I prefer like reborn, nightmare and bloodred. I chose the species they look the best in my opinion. And then theres the zapper which I love to use. I did not use all of my slots so I can still make up my mind.

i really like the idea of the nightmare and bloodred ones (also graveyard), but i think they can be a little too gruesome for me. while i like that those colors are more adult-oriented in that way, for lack of a better phrase, sometimes i wish they had versions that were a little more toned back. bloodred has a lot of blood (more from a business perspective than a gore one, really), and some of the graveyard ones just make me sad (terracoon being roadkill, for one). i kind of wish there was a color more like the halloween one on neopets. i found some of those a little underwhelming, but i like the idea of the pets being in halloween costumes. i think it kinda hits me the same way as seeing a pet in a costume irl :P still, while they might not be my cup of tea, i appreciate the variety in style and horror content in the available colors

i decide what color and species i want my pets to be before i get them so once i've accomplished that goal, i'm already emotionally attached to them.

How they look~ Aesthetics!!

Tigers happen to be my favorite animal, lol. That and I like to look at the different colors they can be.

I keep a list with images of all of the pet/color combos I love and when I have a new slot, I look it over and pick the one I need the most. But sometimes they’ll release a new pet or color and I need it immediately, so that happens, too. I’m a huge fan of the glade pets.

But most of my Lord of the Rings-named pets were named first and then I chose what I felt was the most appropriate pet for my idea for them or their overlay.

my cats name is korra so when i saw one of the species was named kora it was a done deal

My dog pets are based on my real life doggos and everything else was just combos I liked the art for :)

I don't have any sort of strict criteria, and my pets are mostly chosen on various whims. Marlon, Franchy, and TheSuk are based on human OCs of mine because the species fit their respective characters well, and I had their colors planned out to go along with their characters. I created Lil_Oyster and adopted Lull because I liked the designs of their species, and their colors were decided on later. Oyster's color was picked because her name is a reference to Blue Öyster Cult, and Lull's was picked because I found the Sweetheart Darkonite hilarious. Bongo is a former labrat that I found in the pound, turned FNAF spoof because I decided its name was just too perfect to not do that. And Chonkers is the current labrat while I decide what I want it to become down the line.

If I was going to start collecting pets, I'd try to collect all the zapper experiments. I love those abominations so much, but I have a hard time deciding which of them I want over other experiments, so it'd make sense for me to just go for them all.

I'm a fairly simple woman. I like bat/cat-like things and I think the scribble pets are hilarious.

This question is wild because of all the pets I have planned, only one of them is visible to the public lol. I'm very secretive about my creative stuff until I'm certain it's close to perfect, or at the very least presentable enough to be somewhat enjoyed by others.

Barney went through development hell. He actually started out as as a charlie, which I worked into his current character. Tried to think of a good concept for him in charlie form, failed, tried again, kicked around the idea of turning him into a torrey because I liked the play on the charlie/torrey evolutionary thing, eventually got struck by the idea of "what if a charlie who was canonically an absolute rat bastard got zapped into a cutesy little pink torrey and really leaned into the whole I'm-an-adorable-little-birthday-boy-who-never-did-anything-wrong robs you" thing? I designed the overlay on that basis in the hopes of giving off that kind of vibe, and the premise of his story (ex mafioso has to pretend to be a normal pet after going into witness protection) came later.

There are a couple other pets who will make their debut. One is the polar opposite of Barnaby in design and demeanor, but I won't say more than that. The other is... kind of a palate cleanser of sorts? Some aspects of Barney's page will get kinda heavy, and once his page is done, I want to do something that's a bit more fun and silly. The third pet I have planned just kind of wraps up the little mythos I'll be building - or at least, they're supposed to. All my pets will exist in relation to each other, and will create a unified narrative once finished. It's nice because it's something I'll be able to chip away at and work on over the course of months and years, a low-pressure, low-stakes way to bleed out all my pent up creativity. ^^

...sorry I went OFF lmao. Tl;dr: I like coming up with fun character concepts and designs and I like Irony and that's what drives most of my color/species/design choices.

For me I honestly look thought the subetapedia and think about what I would like most and have idea for what they would carry, like the story I can tell with them for some. Others I just love... like a lot of the Nostalgic set of pets... are actually things I owned as a child and so I deeply want to work to getting them. Like the beanie baby one, the furby, etc. The art of the pets is what drew me to this site. (The avatar stuff was a huge pleasant surprise for me)

Oh man, it was years ago... I just adopted Ivan and Felli from Adopt R'us, just a random choice. And a few days ago i adopted Entropy because she is sooo beautiful. That's it :D

anything cute tbh

I'm a sucker for nostalgic pets. Also storm, but don't have as many of those. I always get the free pet slot on my subeta anniversary, so the pet slots add up steadily! I don't set any limits for myself re: species or color, whatever I like and don't have at the time works for me.