Staff Litter 2024 Discussion Thread

[LunaLate]

I'm curious, why do people seem to value staff dogs more highly than a normal monthly pet? No shade to them, they're adorable and creative and the lineart edits are so cool! But do they usually end up rarer than other pets or something? Or is it just the distinctive look? Thank you!

Last year’s staff pets are very common so I expect these ones will be very common also (or perhaps extremely common). All staff pets are equal rarity so none are more rare then the others.
As for why they are more in demand, I don’t really know. I think it might proof a point though- the cooler the pet looks, the more people value it. People probably consider the staff pets the coolest monthly pets of the whole year so they are more valuable to them. A lot of the staff dogs are just as edited as store pets!
So I guess it’s just because of how cool people think the staff dogs are, they don’t want to trade them for just an ordinary monthly pet. They could be the most common pets ever and people would still value them more highly than ordinary monthly pets.
(Maybe they should try an experiment-everyone gets 100 staff dogs and then every outcome would truly be the most common of the omg so commons- would people still value them more?)

Edit: also it’s nice how they started adding the staff dogs to the archives even before the artists claim them this year!

[GreatWhiteDragon_1]

Hmmm...

Oh now I can definitely see it
Bouldering being their hidden talent and them liking mountains suddenly makes a lot more sense looking at a pup with ram horns, and gold being their favourite colour would track as well
Is this your pup Emberwolf?
(And for bonus points, is their name Castor by any chance?)

side by side with this previous one too, i think yall are right! gosh what a gorgeous design ;w; i love all of them so far but the floofiness and the soft colors on this friend, they look so huggable

You are forgetting something... toes. Look at the toes.

[Lex.]

Have a feeling this one belongs to dogtreat xp

yeah

YAY i recognized the epic style of coloring + lines!!!!
FORGOR do they have a name :o ?

[Pallastronomy]

Have a feeling this one belongs to dogtreat xp

yeah

YAY i recognized the epic style of coloring + lines!!!!
FORGOR do they have a name ?

They do! It’s Caesar

[takara]

I'm thinking this one for ~Trompy [he has stated that he won't confirm/deny until fully grown, but i wanted to collect my reasoning now before it slips my mind]
he specified that they['re]
-inspired by a mammal [which would possibly be a deer, or other cervidae- looking at those antlers],
-Crepuscular [deer and other cervidae are crespusclar]
-not afraid of bugs [i'd sure hope not with that cloud of fireflies],
-favorite season is summer [maybe because that's when fireflies are out?]
-have line edits
-have "too much hair" for hot weather. [this one's obvious]
-several answers indicated that the pup would be nature themed.

also the shading has a striking resemblance to ~Trompy's other work.

[dogtreat]

Have a feeling this one belongs to dogtreat xp

yeah

Okay to elaborate on some of my hints and/or the answers I gave here.

This is Caesar! They use any pronouns/mirror pronouns.

Aside from all the questions I answered here about her, I also created one large hint trail; which eventually lead to what is (albeit temporarily) currently in my signature: "but i was homesick for familiar trees".

The hint trail started with various, sometimes hidden texts in posts left here.

Hint 1:

Their name; Caesar. The Caesar Cipher is an ancient, very simple shift cipher. Where you shift the alphabet left or right.

Hint 2:

Hidden text: "042010=D"

This lead to the =D pet from April 2010. If you found that pet in my groups, you would notice the pet name was as "Why not Trade?"

In small text in my trading rules the following could be found:

"not caesar but a numbered blaise; site identification is the key"

Hint 3:

"tok c wxk bfgepawb zoo xudclfsl klebk" is encrypted text/ciphertext. Originally encrypted with the Gronsfeld cipher but could be decoded with either Gronsfeld (or brute forced Vigenère) to read "but i was homesick for familiar trees"

So what did Hint 2 Mean?

Not Caesar = (not Caesar cipher)
but a numbered Blaise = (The Vigenère cipher, which uses Caesar as part of it, was named after Blaise de Vigenère; a version of the Vigenère cipher that uses numbers for encryption instead of letters is called the Gronsfeld cipher);
site identification is the key = my chickensmoothie ID is my site identification "869603"
if you used my ID as an encryption key and ran my text through a gronsfeld cipher encrypter (or did it yourself on paper); it would return "but i was homesick for familiar trees"

what does the poem mean?

it's part of a large verse from Helen of Egypt by H.D that really resonates with everyone that ever has to leave a place they consider home; "but I was home-sick for familiar trees, I wanted to hear the wind, to feel snow, to embrace an ancient twisted pine"; Caesar was meant to be this comfy pup, blanketed by love and home and all those plants and trees you cant quite forget, no matter how far you travel.

I hope this explanation suits your curiosity fluffy :> it was a lot of fun to come up with something more difficult for you all this year and i hope to do it again next year! (maybe even more complex😈)

[Avianahelena]

I'm not so sure this is Emberwolf's.
This guy's name in my group is "Lacuna?"



Also I'm not salty that we still have blanket pups. Not one bit.

[Mysticality]

I'm not so sure this is Emberwolf's.
This guy's name in my group is "Lacuna?”

Lacuna has stated that their pup’s nose is green and it is also smaller than a bread box which I am going to assume this guy is not.

[Doglike]

I am down to turn down one outcome from three presented to me if anyone would like to give it a shot!

[Avianahelena]

-snip-
Lacuna has stated that their pup’s nose is green and it is also smaller than a bread box which I am going to assume this guy is not.

Good point, thanks! If I'd had any sleep this week I'd have remembered about the nose myself.
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I am down to turn down one outcome from three presented to me if anyone would like to give it a shot!

The tags on all three of these lack the "www." portion and two of them are done in palette colours; this matches your style from past years.
One and three are floofy/scruffy which also fits your style. The second one I just fell in love with instantly as soon as it grew which is ALSO par for the course with Doglike pets.
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Though I'd post some clarification on this clue of mine --
No part of this dress up is related to the story that I wrote for my staff pets. There is no representation of characters, plot, or lore.
But it's still a clue.

Also, Goosey is not a character in the story, either. But, again -- it's a clue.

That reminds me, I've been meaning to ask whether your puppy stage this year is a departure from your usual lack of line edits.

Or perhaps I should ask the spokesbird if his friend is mechanical and that metal-plated puppy I've been eyeballing in a real Codexy kinda way is actually...well ok, I should probably not ask Goosey compound questions like that. But if "noncorporeal" isn't the answer then I'm suspecting "mechanical" might be.
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EDIT: The theory below my post re:Lacuna's pup...I love it.