I am still absolutely heartbroken over not having a Dark Dragon plushie from DragonAdopters back in the day, especially because I've been teased with the premise of it several times a year only to be denied because my parents "wanted free shipping". On occasion I still scroll obscure websites for the toy and never quite muster the courage to press purchase on there.
hey! i was curious what you thought of these dragons from a new site the dragonadopters person made called Pixpets. it’s not all dragons, but these are the dragon pets on the site so far.
VERY cute! great anatomy for the style used, as expected from a designer whose past designs I liked as well! the wings are a bit awkward in some places (mainly shoulder placement and membrane stuff), but overall still p good!
PSA: Do Not Play Pixpet Or The New Dragon Adopters Unless You Know 100% That The Staff Doesn't Still Behave Like They Do In This Post
EDIT: 11/22: The new dragonadopters may not be run by the pixpet staff. However i have not personally confirmed this. I personally will continue to not play it but the choice is open for you to join the discord and find out ig ?
As a quick aside, I fully believe in the ability for people to grow and change, however, this incident was so egregious that I swore off on these sites ever since, only popping in on the new dragon adopters to see what it was like. Please be aware, this happened two years ago (almost three!) in feb of 2022. This was before the Discord Username Revamp, the users very likely have different names now. Also this is probably outdated, however the behavior is still disgusting, I didn't have the most confidence that the staff had changed when I left, because they were making jokes about continuing to use the meme that had started the situation in the first place.
A TL:DR for the chat: Pixpet admins pulled out the white racism card over pepe the frog, then proceeded to hound a black staff member looking to step down with unrelated strawman arguments (while having called said staff member racist, against white people)
I put up with a lot when I play petsites, admins powertripping, bad game design, and much much more. What I won't put up with, however, is any decision that will increase risk of bad actors in communities claimed to be safe. This is why Pixpet, Dragonadopters and any other petsites made by the same team will not be featured on my blog.
Why you might ask? Years ago I tried Pixpet out, and i enjoyed it, i didn't find the weird rpg part as fun but it had interesting things going on gameplay-wise. However, the admins handled a dogwhistle situation so extremely poorly, you should never, ever take someone claiming that something is a dogwhistle lightly, you should listen and do research. You should never defend your favorite meme because you don't think it's a dogwhistle. This is exactly the choice the Pixpet staff team made, I need to preface the following evidence with: this is not a leak, this was publicly released after the incident occurred.
Posted to Discord around Feb 9, 2022 (Archive)
I should not have to explain why the behavior by the staff members who weren't Hexadecks/Inked is appalling, because pepe the frog was very much used as a dogwhistle and hate symbol (probably still is!). The fact that none of the staff did adequate research is disgusting and they should not have treated Hexadecks the way they did regardless of how rude Hexadecks came off as because as Hexadecks said, "it is very much a sign of right-wing troll personas". Chicken Raptor denying this was ignorant and dangerous, and telling hexadecks that they were not better than racists is grossly inappropriate for this conversation regardless of Chicken Raptor's half native status.
Additionally Chicken Raptor calling Hexadecks racist and then claiming white racism is real is also inappropriate in this discussion, white people have colonized so much of the world and destroyed so many cultures that "b-but South Africa!" is not an excuse I will accept. White people colonized Africa and made South Africa an Apartheid that mostly benefited white people. Of course, this is not to dismiss their struggles, poverty and discrimination among white South Africans did increase post-apartheid, and this is not deserved, but touting them around and pretending like this is a reality 99% of other white people can face, ignores the role white people play in destroying other cultures. White people hold so much power of other groups in so many parts of the world that, we cannot treat "white racism is real" as something that is true everywhere, yes, they should not be getting death threats and be getting discriminated against, however this is simply the case in one country. I will not sit here and pretend that white racism is real anywhere else in the world when white people are very much continuing their own flavors of racism in places where they are "dominant". Furthermore, calling someone racist because they told you that you should maybe, just maybe, stop telling a black person to not be offended by a hate symbol used by people who are racist against primarily black people (a little more rudely than that, but you get my point) is disgusting, your half native status does not give you an excuse to be racist nor does it allow you to waive the possibility of something being anti-black. Hexadecks is not South African, they cannot and do not have power over white people to legitimately discriminate against white people past, perhaps, making a mildly rude post that could get them harassed by white people with more social power, touting the same white South African arguments over something probably as simple as a contextless "I hate white people." If you don't believe this is true you have never seen a black person make a social faux pas online and then instantly get dogpilled for it, which is arguably what happens to Hexadecks during this chat. The repeated refusal to listen to Hexadecks in this conversation is telling, and starkly paints the staff in a awful light, because Hexadecks brings up good points, that South Africa is not built off of the bones of white people to the same extent places like the USA is with POC.
I will not claim to have done the greatest amount of research on South Africa, however I can say with certainty that Chicken Raptor had also made a bad statement about BLM as well, claiming that "the other half target only white people." which is a gross assumption to make about people fighting for their rights. And Chicken Raptor's repeated insistence that pepe "was always a joke meme" and refusing to let it go because that would allow the alt right to "win" is dangerous. Additionally Draconic Emperor Takkju, and Chicken Raptor bringing up strawman arguments and forcing Hexadecks to engage is distracting from the topic at hand. I will not entertain and argue that you can be ethically rich in a capitalist society, I will not entertain any of these arguments, Draconic Emperor Takkju and Chicken Raptor are being centrist and ignorant of how meaningful change is made. Regardless hounding a black person and telling them that they're wrong about the racism they experience is harmful and gross, and those two admins do not belong as admins on any website. I do not claim to know Hexadecks, but I hope they are doing well.
The statement linked was posted in the discord and players were allowed to discuss it, however, after the discussion Chicken Raptor did not take discussion of pepe the frog seriously, and made a joke along with another user about it. Hexadecks allegedly having Pixpet's source code and threatening to make a copy petsite does not excuse this behavior whatsoever, it is still disgusting to its core.
Pixpets, Dragon Adopters and any future sites made by Komodo will not be allowed on my blog further than this post and the spare few posts I made about Dragon Adopters in the past. I have left them behind permanently, and I recommend you do the same if they have not changed their behavior since 2022.
I am not worried about being banned anywhere as I am not going to be logging back in or going back anytime soon. I also don't believe this post will go anywhere, as last I checked Pixpet didn't have an active drama blog anymore. However, please do not harass anyone over this post. It is quite literally almost 3 years in the making, because I simply recalled that the text was lying around in my drive. I deeply hope the staff in this post stepped down, and if they haven't that they've changed and grown as people, because this was a while ago. Hopefully they are not still treating the topic of dogwhistles so lightly as to basically ignore it when inconvenient, because they will not foster a healthy environment "for everyone" like that.
