Glad you aren't too -off from finishing your profile!

I think the problem with that pet is more going to be that IF the flower is a representation of the pet, that has nothing to do with an Ontra, so it might be seen as misrepresenting a pet. That flower would be closer to an Aeanoid since that is our plant like pet.

And that is up to the person that does look over your entry and how your story turns out. But if the first thing you see is a flower, they may think that is the pet and not just part of the story/game.

If it fits within the custom overlay rules, you should be fine. Though if you just get an overlay of the straight up pokemon with no changes, that's probably not fine because of copyrighting.

The rules read less to me like "you NEED your pet to look exactly like a subeta pet" and more like "there just has to be some kind of PET image somewhere." For example, I have a pet based on this little white blob thing and I was told in a ticket that an overlay of a similar blob thing with "characteristics/designs of the pet" would be okay as a pet representation

So now its misrepresenting a pet to have a plant art/based pet/layout that's not an Aeanoid...?

I was saying that IF the flower is the pet, then the species needs to more closely reflect that. Right now, it is an ontra. As another example, lets say I have a real life cat. I have an overlay that looks like my cat. But I put it on an Experiment (rhino) pet. That doesn't make sense. It should be a feli or something else that is seen as feline.

It shouldn't be a problem if the pet is an aeanoid because it is a plant with a face, meaning it has sense.

Oh, hi, I didn't realize/remember you had name changed (though now that you remind me I think it was awhile ago ahaha) xD But you're welcome, I do agree that some of this gets a little tricky.

Like I said originally, if your story includes some kind of explanation why your pet is the color/species it is, it should count. So I don't think that having a plant fanpet should mean that your pet has to be an Aeanoid if you're able to make it clear why your pet is a different species. I guess it's up to the judges if the link you provide for that is good enough, I just don't consider it a misrepresentation.

I can't say I'm really against the pet image requirement, but I am a bit dubious about what is and is not appropriate for what "reflects" the pet. I understand the rule in as far as you don't want users misrepresenting their pet (eg my common clawsion is actually a spectrum neela), but even in the aforementioned example of a rhino experiment representing a pet cat, I guess I don't see how that would be an issue. There might be more "appropriate" color/species combinations to reflect a pet cat, but the issue here is the user isn't necessarily misrepresenting anything. They're not claiming that oh, the pet is actually a feli, moreso that here's an overlay of a straight up cat, all while admitting the pet is truly a rhino experiment. I have a hard time calling that misrepresentation in the true sense that would be rule breaking.

Plus there is some murky territory that could be argued. Say, as is something I have considered in the past, I want a pet based on a wild boar- a porcine animal. There are no subetan equivalents to pigs, although there are other large ungulate animals. Would issues arise if my boar pet was attached to a feli? True, a feli is a poor representation for a pig, but you can't make the argument that there's anything better. You could say that a hipottu is the "correct" choice, but by that line of thought, a neela would be as well, in that both are large ungulates that are ultimately related to pigs only very, very distantly.

Plus, this rule doesn't seem to have always been upheld, in my experience. I've had 10+ spotlight wins in the past, and several of my wins ran a bit afoul of this. All of my characters are ultimately humanoid, but I've kept quad depictions, both with and without overlays. Some have ties to the character, but a lot are just because I like the color and species combo. One of my spotlight wins was for a character I've since scrapped and overwritten, but he was a bloodred darkonite whose character was a human robotics engineer. There were absolutely colors and species that would be more appropriate (namely steamworks), but he was a BR darkonite because I liked bloodred darkonites. That was it. He still won spotlight and no one had any issue with it.

The same argument could then be stretched to the above example of the rhino and the feli. Maybe that already has 6 felis in their pet menagerie, and maybe there's no more colors of feli that they want to invest in. Maybe they really like experiment 357, but have no inspiration to create a rhino-type character.

I guess I just think it's a poor argument.

yeah see this ties into what i was saying about people not always choosing a species/color for straightforward reasons. i've seen people use, say, an experiment (the double headed rainbow lizard) to represent two dogs. i've seen a chibi bhakoru with a custom overlay that kept the original pose but was re-drawn as a dog to represent a dog character. sometimes you pick a color/species combo because the pose is perfect but you want it to actually be a different species. sometimes it's because the expression matches the character's personality. sometimes it's because of a thematic connection, or sometimes it's just because you like that color/species.

the exact wording of this rule—"But you must still include a Subeta pet representation on the pet page. We’re proud of our pets here at Subeta and we want to see them and how they’ve contributed to your character creations!"—sounds to me like you need to include an actual literal picture, whether the official art or something you drew yourself, of the species that your pet is. so if i have a popoko character that's actually just a normal earth squirrel, i would still need to include a picture of a subeta popoko on the page because a squirrel is not a "Subeta pet representation."

so not only is this rule unnecessary and restrictive, it also leaves a lot of confusing gray area. we didn't need this. things were fine before. this wasn't, like, a dire problem that needed to be fixed. all we wanted were reasons for rejection and more bearable queue wait times.

I have a popoko character that is just a normal earth squirrel. I am custom overlaying her via the custom overlay option on site because I want to. She will be listed a custom scribble popoko that would be acceptable. I don't need to show the subeta pet representation because it is an animal/anthro custom overlay acceptable by overlay standards.

Now I'm even more confused with the new and bizarre meaning of "misrepresenting" a pet. The entire point of a pet site is to have pets you like for whatever reason. But now creativity is bad and we'll be punished, at least so far as to not be allowed to win the Spotlight, if we don't use the Subeta species/color that's the most literal definition of what the pet represents? Seriously?

I don't do the Spotlight, never have, but now I'm worried about how far this new definition will reach into non-Spotlight pets. Will my Aeanoids count as "misrepresentation" because they don't represent plants? Would Butterfly Bruise be "misrepresentation" because a Kora looks absolutely nothing like her feline design? Would Sona Lua be "misrepresentation" because she's a dog and therefore ""should"" be a Kumos, not an Archan?

I feel that is is extremely excessive and staff should not ever be policing what species/color people choose for their pets. Pretending your pet is a Subeta species/color its not is obviously misrepresentation and should be punished. But picking an out of the box color/species for your pet absolutely is not and shouldn't be.

For a few of my pets, I only picked their color/species because I wanted one of those and the pet didn't matter to the character. I mean, is there a "right" pet to pick to represent a typewriter? How about a Kirin, since some could be more dragon-like and some more horse/deer/etc.-like? Am I gonna get dinged on that because the staff member disagreed with what pets are allowed to represent that? Am I allowed to use a Legeica or Paralix, but not a Hikei or Endeavor? This rule was unnecessary from the start, since the pet shows on the news post, and now there's the added gray areas that weren't there before.

As twocents has said, lets get back to the topic of the board. I apologize that I got the board off track.

I get the change more or less. Like, it is the pet spotlight and all that. But I guess I also see that 1) you see the pet in the news post already, and 2) it's already a spotlight (if not site requirement.. idk?) requirement to call out the pet's color and species so 1 + 1 should = 2?

Also if nothing else, the amount of characters for a pet profile should be upped to accomidate for this so people who can't literally add anything else to their profiles can add this kinda stuff in there. Or raise it in general. I wasn't aware there was a character limit, is it called out anywhere or why is there even one. That's an entirely different form of creative restriction imo.

Also this:

That's always kinda been mind boggling to me? Like it's more of a problem to call out a pet's species or gender to win the spotlight than it is to actually do one thing on the profile outside of upload the coding/text/own the pet. I mean it's not hard to police or anything... give cred and don't win, or don't give cred and get frozen then have a year to reflect on your life.

Also there's this.

Valid point. I have some pets with custom overlays and stuff and even then it means something to me but I'm sure the rest of the population is like "okay I don't get it but it's your money so w/e". It makes you wonder how adding a pet image to a profile is really going to help connect any dots unless the dots were glowing neon signs, even with quad pets. I remember the first time I saw a fluffycat pet win that's formal species was a popoko. Like I get it, it's the tail right?

ps:

In my experience, with enough alcohol, any animal could be a perfect representation of another animal. You just have to be convincing enough. Then again, I have a hyena overlay on a kumos when really hyena are more kin to felines than canines... but, well you know.

But you see the pet in the spotlight post before you even see the pet? And I'm sure you guys see the pet image prior to looking at the pet itself (or, at least, I think you SHOULD see the pet image/name/owner/etc. in your system if you don't currently)? This is why I'm so confused about this! It just seems like an unnecessary and arbitrary rule when you already see the pet image before you even go onto the profile. It's your first impression and feel of the pet, and it's pointless to me (and this is why I don't usually have pet images on my profiles!) to show it again. This rule is hampering my creativity (hell, I don't even want to participate in spotlight anymore), rather than enabling it. x:

Also, if you don't mind me asking, why was the grace period only two weeks long? I don't understand why pets that were in the winner's queue weren't just automatically grandfathered in, especially if they had been there for a long time (months to a year+)??

Also, this! I probably wouldn't have been as upset about this rule if I could have actually prevented my one pet in spotlight from getting kicked over this rule. :/ I don't want to add an image to Rose's profile, but I didn't even have the option if I did want to unless I edited information on her profile (which... . . is a separate problem imo, and shouldn't be the go to suggestion to solve this).

[edit] wow i sure do appreciate the response and staff's willingness to help me at all!!

I'm happy that the pet spotlight is getting attention, and I've always respected the Subeta staffs' decisions, but I have to say that this new requirement is something I don't really agree with. Like many users have pointed out, the pet image will already be on the news post. It is also already a requirement to list the pet's color and species in the profile. It seems very redundant to include a pet image as well.

In addition, people have varied and complex reasons for choosing the pets that they do to represent their characters, and I think it's a bit silly to force people to show a literal connection between their pet and character. To use the example that is already in the thread, does it really matter if a sweetheart ontra is being used to represent a flower character? Maybe whoever has that flower character thinks that Aeanoids look mean and unpleasant, and they think that the sweetheart ontra better represents the cute, fun image of their character. Who is to say that they are wrong? I think it should be up to the pet owner to decide what qualities they want in the visual representation of their character, and they shouldn't need to justify their choice.

Even writing the connection in the story seems to be a bit silly, imo. I (like many other pet people on this site) write fiction with human characters in the real world, and it would really throw off my writing if I had to put something like "Ramon is a glacier Donadak because he is in a very lonely place, but is looking forward to the future, and the Donadak also looks very sad, but hopeful". My story takes place in the real world, where there are no Donadaks! XD I haven't the faintest idea how to gracefully incorporate that, lol.

Of course, I realize that the main argument for this change is that Subeta is a pet-site, and not an OC-site. While that is true, the fact remains that many people on Subeta who do things with their pets (write stories, make profiles, draw art, etc) use it like an OC-site and get the most enjoyment out of Subeta by doing so. I believe that the spirit of this requirement alienates the very people who would use the pet spotlight. And sure, maybe these people don't have to enter the spotlight, but I think that takes away from the thing that makes the spotlight so wonderful: the chance to see the variety of ideas and stories, art and design, that the Subeta community is capable of.