okay actually it wasn't just neopets it was more...

do any of y'all also remember Vickimouse Adoptables? possibly vikimouse, i can't remember how the name was spelled

little pixel mice anthros (or other animals), and part of "adopting" was that you went to browse through all of the pixel art that you could use to "build a house" for them

it used to be such a big thing but it's as if it's vanished, i can barely find traces of it existing but it was a huge part of my childhood

@wigglytuffitout I never saw that one, but I miss that kind of adoptables community

@InspectorCaracal me too honestly, they used to be such a huge thing... i remember i also got into the ones that were like, you adopt an egg and see what it grows into, or ones that simulated cat/dog breeding

sites like chickensmoothie are obvious inheritors to a bit of that, but i miss when it was just like small communities of single people on geocities or what have you, and weren't quite like modern adoptables on dA which are typically for cash and for a defined character

@wigglytuffitout .....maybe I should try to revive the Adoptables Community Dynamic with some pixel eggs 🤔 *thinks about how someone could work adopting a little pixel critter into their social media account, since no one has websites anymore...*

@InspectorCaracal yeah, it's hard 🤔 i mean i think it'd be great to do here, until i think about implementation LOL

especially because the conceit usually meant allowing the person to hotlink - like, they'd put the adopted egg on their website, then it 'growing up' would be creator changing the linked picture

making it a more streamlined system is possible, but it does lose some of the... rustic charm? like chickensmoothie is the modern solution, but also... a tad boring.