1. Who was your first pet(s) that you created / adopted on Subeta? What was their name? Their species and color?

The first pet that I remember creating on Subeta was a Celinox named Kailasa. I think the name meant "crystal", but it's been so long I'm not sure.

2. Did you have a "plan" for this / these pet(s)? Did it change over time?

I vaguely remember wanting to paint her Dusk for an ice theme (there was no Glacier color at the time) but I don't remember why. Kailasa did have friends, but I don't think there was any sort of unifying story or anything.

3. Do you still have this / these pet(s)?

Unfortunately, I do not. I took a hiatus from Subeta some time ago and gave away most of my items, as well as adopted out most of my pets. It would be easy now to recreate Kailasa, but I've already got kind of a spiritual successor to her in Erelin.

Re: the extra activity: Wow, looks like the first snapshot is from all the way in October 2008! I don't have a place to host images otherwise I'd share. Looking at some of the names of pets, I recognize some of them now, along with other things I posted on my profile. (I haven't been studioknights on deviantart for a loooooooong time now. I doubt the page is even still there!) Interestingly though, it looks like Dastrix was an old pet I recreated. I kind of miss Synthea (she had an awesome story) and Ruenis (fan pet for a Threads of Fate character).

THE TELENINE USED TO BE LIMITED?!?!? :O i had no idea!!! and i'm very sorry for your loss your lil guy, who was surely possibly older than some of the people reading this now!

that's such a cute design omgggg!!! and ain't nothin wrong with sparkledogs imo!!!

Synthea is a banger name, would make a good cyberpunk pet if she wasn't already !!!

first pet i MADE was named LAZARUS and he was a lasirus! whom i immediately threw into the rift and had Zero pets for a hot second LOL. then was

ARCADE, my (first) labrat! and then, a day later,

prophet emerged from the cornfields of subetohio. those were my first 3 pets!! :3 and then first pet i ADOPTED was

Teippi, who came to me as Fearne and i only recently renamed back to his legacy name!

once i got LAZARUS back from the rift, he was supposed to be an amateur rift-ologist, who was also into fine art!! ARCADE, like i said, was originally a lab rat but eventually he was zapped into his current form, and he quickly took on his midwestern barkeep demeanor! prophet was always prophet lmao though i DID develop them as a result of making them on subeta, ehe. Teippi is my gourmand and profile tester.

unfortunately, LAZARUS's concept stopped clicking with me earlier this year so i kinda just... unceremoniously dumped him into the pound :^( i still have prophet and ARCADE tho, and both have since won pet spotlight!! Teippi is still chilling heh.

1. Who was your first pet(s) that you created / adopted on Subeta? What was their name? Their species and color?

Pureflower was my first pet and my first ten (back when that was the limit) were:

*Pureflower *Tauren (originally named Noela but did a name change when Tauren cleared) *Daron *Dogged *Voon *Voorik *Dac (actually had Tad but another user asked to adopt and the name Dac had more meaning to me, so it worked out) *Huzzah *Peren *Here

2. Did you have a "plan" for this / these pet(s)? Did it change over time? I think at first, I just kind of picked color/species combos that I really liked and they gradually morphed into characters. I knew I wanted Pureflower to be an arid archan right away (she still is). I loved the galactic telenine, so that's where Dogged came from. I really aimed for a lot of different species in the beginning, because pet slots were so expensive and I wanted a variety.

3. Do you still have this / these pet(s)? I still have all ten and all except Tauren are the original color/species. (I think he was a golden chelon and he's now a golden clawsion - so I guess technically his color stayed the same, lol)

The oldest pet I own is Attorney, who was adopted out to me. His birthday was 2007. (I've technically been active on pet sites since 2004 but didn't find Subeta until 2012.)

Thanks! I laughed the day he won because Highway's win was the day after my birthday...I did not see that coming.

I grew up on OG version but my husband's a huge fan of the Disturbed one - back when we were dating, we loved to introduce each other to new songs and that was one we both enjoyed, regardless of artist.

"and i'm very sorry for your loss your lil guy, who was surely possibly older than some of the people reading this now!" Thank you and LOL, didn't even think of that, so true :D

1. Who was your first pet(s) that you created / adopted on Subeta? What was their name? Their species and color?

That would be

Tak! He's inspired by my favorite Stephen King character who's a... well.... King never says WHAT he is really lol. He's something trapped in another dimension who sends tendrils through a crack into the human world and possesses people.

My pet has always been this species and color. Originally his name was Tak the Outsider because just Tak was taken, but I was able to rename him after the name cleared. He's always been my main pet.

2. Did you have a "plan" for this / these pet(s)? Did it change over time? My plan was to stick to reading/feeding/training just him to make things easier on myself, and I've done that. When I went on hiatus, I quit keeping up with that, and I've given up battling so I don't train him anymore. I need to catch up on the reading and feeding though!

At one time he had a story and a huge TC too, but I took those down at some point after he won the Spotlight. Now I wish I'd kept them ;_;

3. Do you still have this / these pet(s)? Yep, I will always keep him even if I quit Subeta for good (which isn't likely to happen!).

(not doing the Wayback thing because I just had a plain profile for the longest time until I cobbled together the one I'm still using now)

You can share via the link! No need to image host since it's a public accessible image. :) All of those pet names are pretty dang cool, I feel like they could totally be good OCs or characters in a fantasy novel!

Oof that 10 pet limit. The wayback machine reminded me that the limit used to be 5 pets, and you could have up to 10 with a GA. But if I recall there was a period of time where even if you had the 10 slots, you had to have an active GA to be able to fill slots 6 - 10 so if you filled them, abandoned a pet, and then your GA expired you had to get a new GA before you could adopt into that slot.

I started out just picking color and species combinations I liked too! I had zero character ideas lol. It's awesome that you still have all 10! The limited slots I think influenced me to adopt out / abandon pets more in the early days. Overall I still have a lot of pets I've had since the first year and have adopted more over time as I got more slots. But I'd bet it's really uncommon to still have your original 10, and especially for them to all be pretty much the same since day one. Pretty cool!

Happy Belated Birthday!

Princess Gri's profile is very lovely. <3

I'll have to read that King novel! Sounds like a cool character and I've liked everything by King that I've read so far. Haha my old profiles were pretty plain too, in fact the first several whatever color or image was there doesn't even show up so it looks broken lol. I have no idea what it looked like.

Aww, thanks <3 She was my heart's princess, gone at the age of 19, such a good cat, never demanding anything but my shoulder to climb on :) The fact that I was not allowed to use the loo without her on my neck is not really important :D

It's called Desperation and one of his best imho, one of my favorite books of all time. There's also another novel called The Regulators that he wrote under the name Richard Bachman, that's like a parallel or alternate universe version of the story. Tak is very similar in both, but a lot of the human characters are in different roles. The Regulators is more fun to me, but Desperation is better written, so I'd say read it instead (or at least first).

Def nothing wrong with Sparkledogs! They aren't my aesthetic anymore, but I have found memories of them. I drew them soooo much back in high school! Check out my Fursona circa 2010 and one of my OC Jailbreak (both those mega old art are by me aha). Those where good times ahah.

Wow he does look like TIger! I think it's fun to look back on those old designs.

I def remember a lot of graphic design trends on subeta. Right now most things seem to be template based, with all design elements being CSC based which is a very modern design philosophy. I do miss the more graphic based profiles (like Gabriela's), they had a ton of personality! But there's not many profile makers anymore, and those require both graphic design and coding skills so they aren't as convenient anymore.

1. Who was your first pet(s) that you created / adopted on Subeta? What was their name? Their species and color? My first pet was adopted from a friend who quit, Darya. She's born in 2006, I joined 2008. I think I still have most of my original ten, strangely. Darya used to be called Tribal and he was a bloodred devonti. (I still think that pet is one of the cutest ones out there, and had to get one just for old times' sakes even if Darya's concept is.. drastically different now). I remember him having an edgy emoboy design back then, because of course he did. Looked at the dates when I've got these bad boys and I'm preetty sure they're also part of my og gang.

Mairon Vivien Florence Ossirian Mavaric Laurentin

... none of whose profiles are ready, lol.

2. Did you have a "plan" for this / these pet(s)? Did it change over time? Laurentin was originally a montre with a modern au situation happening.
   Look at this old art I found. (all art by me :') )
   SPOILER (click to toggle)

   

Strangely, Shantay has had somewhat the same design for the past 11 years, here's some art of him from 10 years ago that I still actually quite enjoy.

3. Do you still have this / these pet(s)?

Yup! Most of them at least. I really should attempt to finish these profiles, embarrassing to have these oldies without ever getting them proper profiles, lol. Thank goodness most of the character concepts have been uh. revamped.

1. Who was your first pet(s) that you created / adopted on Subeta? What was their name? Their species and color?

I had a handful and over time dumped all but one. ( Looks like they all have been deleted off the database too. ) And his name has changed a lot. I don't even remember his first name, might have been something close to Mace. I do know it had been Cozen Rook for a long time, then I shortened it to just Cozen. It took until this year to finally get his story up. An embarrassingly long time considering he's a legacy legacy pet. LOL He started out as a Terrorcoon ? Then a blood red Terracoon, now... I just realized I messed up a pet color. Dang it. ah well. He'll be a racoon again after he wins the spotlight. LOL.

2. Did you have a "plan" for this / these pet(s)? Did it change over time?

Yes. He's always been my 'villain' pet. Started as a traitor to a rebel group that didn't stick and when his name changed he kept the personality of that character and evolved over time to the swindling pawn shop dealer that gets dragged into other things thanks to Annihilator's connections to the mob. That is now.

3. Do you still have this / these pet(s)?

I do. Very proud that I managed to keep one pet when I created my account. Cozen is somewhere near the bottom middle of my profile.

LOL, my youngest cat likes to join me in the restroom too! To say nothing of some of my pups who don't want to let me go anywhere unattended XD

Thank you! I'm adding them to my list! I'm in the middle of a series, then have a whole stack one of my clients gave me, then a dual series my husband keeps telling me I have to read; but I really am excited to check them out, then circle back and chat with you about them ... eventually LOL

Monster Rancher was one of my favorites! I hadn't though about the fact that those kind of profiles need additional layers of coding / skill, but it makes sense. They look great though.

Oh dang, that's cool that you still have multiple of your OG pets!

You're not alone XD I love that you still have some of your art from back then!

Interestingly I discovered at least one of my older pets who has been deleted from the database! I didn't know that was a thing, but it makes sense. Herbal and I are in the same boat, lol. I have pets from at least a decade ago that don't have much of anything on their profiles shame It's cool how his personality and core remained even as you shaped new stories!

Oh, yeah, got 2 of these clingy mutts, I can relate :D

I'm so late, omg, sorry. I got really deep into hyperfixation and am now trying to get back to Subeta, oof.

1. Who was your first pet(s) that you created / adopted on Subeta? What was their name? Their species and color? This is actually an excellent question! I don't believe this is my original account, actually. I don't remember exactly what happened anymore because I've had this account for 17+ years now, haha, but I think back in 2007 or so, something happened where some people lost their accounts? I dunno, I just know this wasn't my original account, aha. :') I know I'd been casually on Subeta for a while before I made this account, and then I ended up having to restart completely. I'm also not entirely sure if my oldest pet on this account is actually the first pet I ever owned on this account, because I have vaaaague memories of different pets - I'm just not sure if that was before I had to start over or not. But, uh, the oldest pet I have on this account is

Caquex ! He used to be a hydrus montre but now he's a hydrus xotl.

2. Did you have a "plan" for this / these pet(s)? Did it change over time? Caquex is a "reincarnation" of a Neopet I used to own, a Red Bori that I had adopted from the pound. (He no longer exists on Neopets; my old accounts were frozen because of some weird event where a bunch of Leopets users got frozen. I decided not to try to get my account back because I didn't really enjoy Neo anymore haha.) I had decided I wanted to remake my main characters on Subeta instead of Neo, because it gave me a lot more freedom. His character hasn't changed a ton, honestly. He's always been a gruff, very apathetic man with a soft spot for his younger sister. I believe I used to have some nonsensical story for him where he and his sister were criminals for some reason but I got rid of that years ago and I don't remember much about it. His design has changed pretty significantly; he went from an anthro Bori to an anthro Montre (although I believe I tended to draw faces as more humanoid, just... with animal features) to a human. But some things were always the same, like his scar and hair.

3. Do you still have this / these pet(s)? Yep! On that note, he's actually the only one of my former Neopets that I haven't renamed in some way! His name is strange and bothers me a bit, but I've never found an alternative that felt right for him.

4. Extra Activity: Take a trip to the Wayback Machine and share the oldest screenshot of your profile! If you've changed your UN since you started, don't forget to modify that in the url! Man, I was gonna do this but all my oooold profile snapshots are super broken, which is unfortunate.

Interestingly I discovered at least one of my older pets who has been deleted from the database! I didn't know that was a thing, but it makes sense.

Way back hrm pre 2010 maybe as early as 2014? Subeta didn't have a huge server, inactive accounts didn't just clear, they were deleted. Along with pets and items on those accounts. After the server upgrade and additions, accounts and pet names -cleared- giving users a chance to return and pick up where they left off from. With only needing to rename pets / UN's.
My pets were all 2007 - so yeah ^_^ they've been gone for a while.

No worries, I think a lot of us go through that at times! Oh wow, I joined in '07 so I must have missed that - thankfully because it sounds like it sucked (to lose your profile)! I was playing with the wayback machine and noticed that the site looks totally different and even has an interesting "plot" type theme pre-2007 so I wonder if the big change was part of why people had to start over? It's cool that you have him still, and that his character has "traveled" with you for so many years through different sites. How do you pronounce his name? It has a "French" look to me with the -quex.

Oh wow, I had no idea!

Congratulations on the spotlight win <3

My Week 15 Answers I had a pet-adopting palooza recently xD I dropped all my sP and CSC on slots and added six new pets in the last month. O.o Santeri from Wallie from Zeridyn from Amalea from Teelo from Revel from Before this group, my last new pet was Gwin who I adopted on 5/3. She's actually nominated for the spotlight already, which may be the quickest I've gotten a pet completed ever lol.

I adopted all of these kiddos. I haven't made a pet since pre-non-unique-names, and even then I tended to primarily adopt. Names are absolutely what draws me to a pet, I tend to change everything else. I usually find a name that has a meaning that gives me creative inspiration or that feels like a good fit for a character / idea that has been mulling around in the back of my head for a while.

I have plans for everyone! Something I've started this year is using google sheets to track pet progress (helps me be a little more focused and less overwhelmed) and to immediately put my ideas for a pet on their profile as soon as I adopt them. Usually species and color is the easiest for me and I do it right away. Zeridyn is the only pet who I haven't chosen a species and color for yet, but that's because I have a specific character design and am debating which pet would work best or if I just eventually splurge for an official overlay. Everyone else had their species and color changed though. Right now I'm playing around with Santi's profile while I finish some writings for a few other pets, then I plan to dig into getting these ideas flushed out into full stories. When I'm just not feeling writing, I try to play with profile templates and get those done so that will probably be the next "completed" step for these kiddos and I'll continue to add notes to their brain dump profiles until I actually sit down and focus on their story.

Something I'm very happy to share, thanks to the discussion last week I finally found what felt right for Chemukh and she is finally complete. <3 Kamots is a tribute to Kamots / The Dutcher's project / wolves and shares a bit about my personal journey / feelings. Chemukh is now a very loving tribute to my original subeta babies as the OC's they were on day one and to the story I wrote a long, long, long time ago for them. Thank you all for the inspiration.

1. Tell us all about some of your newer pets! I've gotten several new pets since coming back from hiatus in December! Too many to talk about here, but here are the three most special!

Bob-omb[pet not found]

Beacara

2. Did you adopt them? If so, what drew you to them? / Did you create them? If so, what gave you the idea? Bob-omb: I snagged a Graveyard Blob from the pound just b/c I love Blobs, then decided to turn him Dark Matter to make a Bob-omb pet, because I'm obsessed with Bob-ombs lol.

Horsedreamer: I found a pet in the pound with the legacy name of Cotton Pony, and since I am also obsessed with vintage My Little Pony, I decided to adopt her and make her a Nostalgic Hikei.

Emily: Snagged an Angelic pet with the LN of Beacara from the pound and turned her into a Blob because I really wanted a holy cloudpuff!

3. Do you have plans for this pet? Character designs, story ideas, TC shaping up, profile plans - get excited with us, let us cheer you on!

Bob-omb: He's finished except for getting more TC stuff. I didn't have plans for him other than "I want a Bob-omb pet," but having to come up with a profile caused me to turn him into an OC and tbh this pet has sort of changed my life. Some of y'all already know this, but I made him into an OC from a Mario 64 rom hack (a fan game basically) called B3313, which is the most popular Mario 64 hack of all time. Now I've become really active in the B33 community, thanks in part to wanting to share Sparky with them.

B3313's creator liked Sparky and we've actually become pretty close 😊 and talk a lot now. The other day he told me he actually read Sparky's whole story (I had no idea!), and really liked the concepts/headcanons I'd come up with. Sorry this turned into a novel lol but tldr I met someone great because of a Subeta pet, and he's not even on Subeta 😂 ANYWAY.

Horsedreamer: I plan to make her a profile focused on my love of MLP and my collection, which started with my first pony in 1986! I now have 100s, and MLP is a lifelong love and source of comfort for me. So she'll be sort of like my pet Smiley rather than have a fictional story.

Emily: For a long time, I didn't know what to do with Beacara and struggled to come up with a character idea for her. Then recently I decided to make her a pet based on an OC I've had for a long long time in various forms, who has slowly developed into what she is today. She's a key figure (possibly the most important one) in my omniverse mythos, so I'm looking forward to sharing her with everyone!

1. Tell us all about some of your newer pets!

Snozzberry was an idea I came up with when I was watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I had the thought "I wish there was a story of 20 years later, when Charlie has been running the factory a while". So when I got a pet slot, Snoz was born. xD

Mango I created because I love mangoes and the reborn manchu is just such a character! I only knew I wanted her to have a mango-themed TC at first but I recently figured out (and drafted) a story I really like. Basically, three sisters who came from the same tribe of lemurs but two were forced to leave their island home and ended up in totally different environments. All three sisters tell their stories.

I think

Bumbles is my next-youngest. As previously mentioned, he'll be a Bumbles fan pet. His story is a WIP and I also want to do some poetry for him.

There are several new pets I'd love to add. It's so annoying to wait for that next anniversary slot sometimes! (Maybe we'll get +5 MC and CS slots for Subeta's birthday or a Quest-a-Thon this summer? Fingers crossed!)

2. Did you adopt them? If so, what drew you to them? / Did you create them? If so, what gave you the idea?

I think all of my pets except Attorney were created by me. My inspiration comes from all over - my characters, fan pets, favorite foods, former and current pets, nature...a handful are just names that sounded pretty before unique names and I loved their characters enough not to change them when non-unique names became a thing. (Quisp and Ising are two off the top of my head.)

3. Do you have plans for this pet? Character designs, story ideas, TC shaping up, profile plans - get excited with us, let us cheer you on!

I guess I already covered their story concepts pretty well above, lol. Snoz is going to have a rainbow candy TC and Bumbles is a mix of Bumbles-themed books and honey-themed items.

Mango and Bumbles have profiles well in the works. Snoz will probably have something candy-themed but I don't want to do anything too similar to Twix, Trolli or Eji (my other sweets/candy-themed pets).

I honestly can't wait to get to July because when it gets too hot to do anything outside (and my job hopefully calms down) I'm hoping to have a pet complete-a-thon and get some pets finished.

No freaking way, I love that Sparky ended up uniting you and the B3313 creator!!! How cool is that?! And that he is also now a Sparky stan (I'll send him an e-vite to the fanclub) has got to be so affirming and special. I love this for you.

Hums the OG MLP theme song that is now on repeat in my head I have a very distinct memory of getting in trouble when I was younger because I "borrowed" my sister's MLPs so they could play with mine, and I cut the mane of one of them because I thought it would grow back. Bless, little Jen learned the hard way that day lol.

Ohhhhh, I'm looking forward to Emily's story! I love that you found a plan for Beacara that felt right!

Snozzberry is such a good name, and what a perfect color! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with for him!

Mango's story sounds really cool! I love when an idea just expands like that into something you're really excited about!

Bumbles is so cute! I love bees and have two pets who's stories will include bees, but aren't exclusively about them (Tegwen and Sweden).

OMG yes, anything that gives us more pet slots please!!! Not that I don't already have plenty of pets to work on LOLZ, but yeeesss we can never have enough!

That's really cool that you get inspiration from all over - you're like a conduit for wisps of creativity!

It's already so freaking hot here. It's a hard season for me with work because a lot of my clients really need to do outdoor lessons, but that means we have 7-9am at best to work with unless we luck out and have a super shady area to use at 6:30 - 8pm. Even at those hours we're covered in sweat and humidity. It's brutal. Thank God our backyard is very shaded by lots of mature trees. Granted, we've given up on the idea of ever having grass (the dogs would just trample it anyway though) but I'll take dirt and shade over grass and sun!

1. Tell us all about some of your newer pets!

Happy to! :) The most recent ones are:

Pareidolia - just wanted a Steampunk Yaherra :) The name is a word meaning the ability to pick out meaningful patterns (like a face) from something random. It's not unusual for people to give their pets random words as names, but I prefer words that are both kind of obscure (or at least not commonly used) and look like they could theoretically be a name (to me anyway, your mileage may vary).

Mistral - Was looking for another ice-related name - I had a bunch left over from an old, unrelated-to-Subeta story I worked on years ago, but didn't like any of them for this character. Then I read a book called Lessons from Lucy by Dave Barry, and in the introduction he talks about a poodle his family had when he was a kid. The dog's name was Mistral, which is a French word for a cold northwest wind (neither Dave nor his family gave the dog that name, it used to belong to a rich couple who either didn't want the dog anymore or couldn't care for it for some reason, I forget which). It sounded like the perfect name for this pretentious fellow I'd made, and I liked the story behind it, and so Subeta Mistral got his name XD

2. Did you adopt them? If so, what drew you to them? / Did you create them? If so, what gave you the idea?

Created both of them. In Pareidolia's case I kinda just wanted an excuse to make a Steamwork Yaherra - Yaherras are my favorite species on Subeta and eventually I would like to have all the Yaherra redraw colors. Nothing wrong with the basic colors at all! I wouldn't mind having them either, but it would take way more time and funds than I can devote right now.

With Mistral, I'd had a Glacier Popoko before, years ago, but I adopted her out when I took a hiatus from Subeta. Since coming back, I'd wanted to make another one since I've always liked how they look. Recently I'd been toying with and rearranging parts of the big Subeta story I'd had in mind for a while, and finally found a way to work in his character. So once May 23rd rolled around (my 17th Subeta-versary), I picked a free pet slot and made him that day.

3. Do you have plans for this pet? Character designs, story ideas, TC shaping up, profile plans - get excited with us, let us cheer you on!

I don't have any specific plans for Pareidolia, although based on their design and the meaning of their name I thought it might be cool for them to be a security robot that specializes in facial recognition. Maybe even draw them an overlay that's more of a modern-looking robot than steampunk-themed.

Mistral, on the other hand, has already got a place in my Subeta story XD He's a snippy antiques dealer who almost never actually sells any of his antiques, because they were inherited from his mother. Even though she passed away some time ago, he still loves and misses her dearly, though almost no one knows it or sees that side of him because he hides it so well with the haughty, condescending front. His older sister Mertensia opened a tea shop inside the store so they could make at least a little money. While she's usually the more sensible of the two, she's got...let's say problems of her own...so the only one who actually does most of the work in either establishment is Cleria, their kind, longsuffering employee. There's also the Blue Building business...man? Cobalt, who manages their finances.

Those four have their own situation, which is part of a larger story I'm working on (and off, and on, and off, etc). But at any rate, yes, I got plans for him XD