Hello everyone! Monthly news for you all. This is an important newsletter regarding the state of things and the future of the Gachagon Keep, so we suggest you do read it in full.

Species Ownership Change

After a fair bit of discussion spanning throughout the last few months, in late January of 2024 Digimon and 39friend mutually decided to pass main ownership of the Gachagon Keep and its species to a long-time member and admin, togekissed — in turn, Arata has decided to step down from his position as an owner of the species and manager of the site for a myriad of his own personal reasons. Though unfortunate, it was a long time coming, and it ended up boiling down to two final options we came to: either passing the ownership onto another, or shutting down the species in full. Luckily, Toge was gracious and willing enough to accept the position, which we are pleased to announce — and we thank her. :) We trust in her ability to run the species competently and with interest, and we hope you enjoy everything she has planned moving forward!

Due to the change, the species, website and Discord server will all be undergoing some reworking at togekissed's direction. Some of these changes will be things like the addition of some readable lore on-site (and a lore event), added NPCs, feature additions and removals, prompts and such that include more community involvement, the return of Gachapanions, condensing of the Discord server, and more. We will eventually post a newsletter listing and informing members of all changes we have made, similar to how we have done in the past with trait changes and the like. There is no set date for this newsletter to be released or for changes/reworks to be made — things will be fairly slow as usual as we work out the kinks and iron out how and what we are doing going forward.

This also means additional website features, maintenance, updates and bug fixes will also be slower as Toge and I (39friend) learn the ropes of Lorekeeper in Arata's absence. We apologize for any trouble this may cause — if you are having any issues with the site or notice something awry, please send in a report and we will get to it as soon as we are able.

We want to thank our community (especially our long-time and dedicated members) for their continued patience with us and for continued interest in our website and species. It means a lot to us all! We hope you enjoy what we have in store and that you continue to stick around.

Message from togekissed 

Hi all!! I know this is a weird time for the species but I wanted to make a small statement as the new main owner! 

For a short little intro: Hi! I go by Toge and I am sure many of y’all have seen and interacted with me for many years haha.

I have been following the species since it was in development by the original creator who no longer wishes to be associated with the species. This was my first ever experience being a part of a closed species, and I just fell in love with the concept of these special dragons! I joined the mod team early on into the life cycle of Gachagons and have been an active member ever since! I care deeply about the community that we all have built together, and want to continue to grow it with you all.

Rudy and Arata, along with all the current mod team, have done an amazing job transforming the Gachagon species into a fun and accessible space, with the website and quality of life changes. I hope to continue to add onto those as I am given the new role of owner of the species. Gachagons have been a strong passion project of mine since I joined when we first opened three years ago and I want to continue to foster an engaged community of artists and storytellers who are passionate about the colorful dragons we have all made together.

We will be continuing to work on the change of ownership for a while yet, but we are also working on a big lore event and adding new information to our little community! I hope you all continue to support us in the coming months!

Thank you all for participating in and loving this species as much as we do. Y’all are spectacular.

Message from 39friend 

Hello everyone! As mentioned previously, Arata and I have mutually agreed upon passing on ownership of Gachagons to Toge, someone who I've personally been working with since pretty much the creation of the species. I'm super happy she was as willing as she was to take the lead of the Gachagon Keep - I didn't wish to see the species end prematurely, especially with the community we have in mind. I will be staying on as an admin for the foreseeable future and helping Toge as I am able. I am not personally taking sole ownership of the species myself for a variety of reasons, most of which are outlined in this Google document I've written to share and explain my current state involving the species. It's a bit personal, but I want to be transparent with the community about where my head is at going forward if you would like to read it.

Thank you for sticking with us. I'm looking forward to things to come!

March Prompt

This month’s theme is SPRING FLOWERS! Draw and/or write about how your Gachagons/other keep species feel about the season. Is it their favorite time of the year? What kind of weather do they prefer? Do they stop to smell the flowers?

The March prompt will last till March 31st!

RULES (ILLUSTRATED)

• Your illustration must be (at the least) a halfbody with a semi-scenic background! (We should be able to tell there's depth to the piece!)
• Your illustration must be, at the minimum, cleanly lined and colored!
• Your illustration MUST be submitted to the monthly prompt gallery! (As well as when submitting the prompt, you'll need to link to the gallery submission. Gallery submissions can still be linked to before official approval/while pending, so there should be no reason you can't link it when submitting your piece! Prompt submissions with outside links like Discord, sta.sh, etc. will be rejected.) 

RULES: (WRITTEN)

• Your written piece must be at the least 600 words long!
• Use paragraph breaks, it makes it much easier for our mods to read over!
• Your written piece MUST be submitted to the monthly prompt gallery!

This month's raffle prize will be a custom design by togekissed of any of the three species! To enter, you must do the monthly prompt!

Miscellany

• N/A

Thanks for reading! <3