New Stuff Coming for Nonmembers?

Hey Jammers! Thank you to all the people who wished me happy birthday yesterday. Me and my friend went to an animal sanctuary! :D

Because I wanna focus on finishing this masterpiece I've been working on, today's post will be short. Short, but curious.

According to AJ CEO Clark Stacey, some "seriously cool stuff is coming soon for AJ non-members." He doesn't go into details, but boy, am I curious! 

Maybe it has something to do with the figurines in the background:

If you don't know who that little orange fellow is, he is the logo for WildWorks, the team behind Animal Jam. WildWorks used to be known as Smart Bomb Interactive before they changed their name a year or two ago.

If you look closely, you'll see that the WildWorks logo has a santa hat on. The Jamaalidays are going to begin on December 1st, a celebration where each day brings a new gift off of the advent calendar. That hat might hint at something regarding those gifts, but all Jamaaliday gifts are nonmember.

Wait, hang on. Is that Peck in the background?

I have a new idea.

Maybe... the ability to make masterpieces... will extend to nonmembers, come the Jamaaliday update? 

Well, that sure is great news for me!!! I love drawing, but I don't like having membership.

What do you guys think? See you in Jamaa!

It's my birthday!!!!!

Peck in the Phantom Fortress

Peck is trapped in the phantom fortress! Here's some further evidence if you're not convinced:

Still, even further evidence seems to point towards the idea that Peck is not the writer of the bottle messages:

So... who's writing the messages?

Well, the most likely writer is the group of goats who left for Jamaa on a boat, despite the fact that the bottle messages started coming in before they did so. If not the goats, who is the writer? A new character?

That's all for now, Jammers. Happy Feast of Thanks!

The Animal Jam Box?

Hey Jammers! Happy update! Quite a lot of new things today. :D

...But before we get to that, we have the last clues in the bottle message saga:

It ends there.

We still know pretty much nothing aside from what I theorized in this post, which I recommend you read first because you won't understand anything else here if you don't. 

Although, these last two messages seem to imply that the writer is not Peck or any other Alpha as I predicted. That might be right and I might have misinterpreted one of the earlier messages, but Peck still seems connected to this story. Why else were paint-related items attached to the messages? Was it random? Seems... suspicious.

Now that I'm thinking about the prize items' significance, I'm starting to wonder if this "phantom prison" is not a boat, but rather a deep-sea submarine. The items were either art-related or lava-related, and I know of only one lava deposit in Jamaa:

Deep Blue. The deepest part of Deep Blue.

Perhaps those lava items are clues to where the prisoners were kept. Maybe the paintings as well, somehow, but I'm not sure.

I'm really liking how complicated and subtle these clues are and I'm really hoping they culminate into something cool and unexpected!

Next up, the update:

Toucans are here! You know, this new animal is unusually well-animated, at least from my observations. Their movements seem less repetitive. They're also very small and adorable.

The phantom badlands? Gasp! Another 2D adventure! Let's hope we get some clues as to what the heck is going on with the message bottles.

A new den, and a new pet.

New spiked collar/wristband variations!

A new diamond outfit set and a lovely art tutorial!

And... for once, the advertisement at the back shows something new.

It looks like... a lootcrate-looking thing for Animal Jam? Hmm. 

"Artic" Wolf

These are screenshots from the website mentioned in the ad. It's a box of merchandise that gets sent to you every three months that includes stuff like codes and that arctic wolf charm bracelet.

Personally, I'm not all about this idea of having a giant box o' junk (that you'll probably never look at again after opening) mailed every season, but that charm bracelet sure looks fun. It would be cool if we could buy it separately.

On the topic of junk: Black Friday. You know, that corporate "holiday" where you trample people for clothes and electronics, right after the day where you visit family and be thankful for what you already have?

Well, did you know that a holiday completely opposite runs on the same day? It's called International Buy Nothing Day. There are many activities to do on that day, from giving coats to people who need them to forming a shopping cart conga line without actually buying anything. Overall, the principal is just to buy nothing unless you actually need it. There are many other things to do, so I suggest you look at the website.

Thats all for now, Jammers. See you in Jamaa!!!

It's important to me that you watch this

Hi, Jammers. Today I have a video I'd like to show you. It's only 18 minutes, maybe less. I'm sure you've sat glued to a single YouTube video for longer, given that website's popularity among Jammers. 

Maybe that video you sat glued to was about AJ, a cartoon, or some other form of entertainment. Something bright and flashy enough to grab your attention enough to sit still with it. 

The video I'd like to show you is very different from that, but it is very important to me that you watch it. Extremely important, even. 

So much time is spent playing fun and idle games that we can forget the "Animal" in Animal Jam, the reality that coincides with the fantasy. 

I wonder if you pay equal attention to all of the scientists working with AJ as well as to all the flashy items, games, and adventures. I wonder if you knew that along with being Mira's tears, the phantoms are an actual allegory for humans polluting the environment. 

This video I'd like you to watch is about the ocean. You may turn away and open up another tab at this point, thinking "Oh no, there goes DoomyPanda with another one of her boring environmental rants. *Yawn!*" Fine then, do that.

...

...

...

You're still here?

Okay, good. 

This video is a TED talk by Sylvia Earle, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence and was the first female chief scientist for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A few months ago she and two other scientists spoke at the natural history museum in my city and it was unbelievably wonderful. It wasn't the stiff, boring stuff you'd normally associate with science, it was rich and emotional and empowering. 

I want you to watch this video because I care about the world very much. The natural environment is the world, really. It's everything, no matter how much you chop it down and blow it up and pave over it with asphalt. 

You wouldn't believe how much of this world is ocean. The ocean is what makes Earth such an oasis of life and diversity in this solar system of toxic, mostly lifeless planets. 

Learning about humanity's impact on the environment, particularly the ocean, can feel like a losing game, especially if you're a young kid. Maybe you'll be tempted to convince yourself that these issues aren't as big a problem as they're made out to be– trust me, they are –but the real solution to the anguish of powerlessness is to realize that you do have power! 

There are a myriad of things you can do to help in a big way, even if they don't instantly save the whole world with a click of a button. You don't need to make huge donations or even to become a scientist to do your part to help, though those big things do definitely help. 

It's a matter of creating small behaviors, like not using your car unless positively needed, recycling and composting, or picking up trash by bodies of water. Those actions ripple outwards and influence others to do that as well. This is why it's important to talk about the environment, to let people understand the situation and why they need to help. Inaction is more stressful than action, in this case where you need only change your behavior a little to have positive change.

So this short video I'd like to show you is about the beautiful ocean and the situation that affects every drop of the water, and in turn every animal and person. Sylvia Earle is a wonderful, inspiring speaker. Please watch this.

Hopefully this loads.

Everyone big or small has so much power, no matter how little you think it is.

Interesting Clue for a New Land

Hey Jammers! Someone pointed out in the comments a clue that I completely missed this update!

"We're going to travel and we might take a boat, so see you later!"

This is definitely purposeful. Up until now, there have been no messages left by traveling animals. 

What with the messages in bottles arriving by sea, do you think that these goats have something to do with it? Are they *gasp* one of the captives?

We definitely know that Peck is probably trapped as well, so the goats might be going along with them. But one important factor remains: the timeline. The goats announced their leave after the messages were found, so they couldn't possibly be the captives at this point. That's pretty disappointing, I know...

...Until you think about what the goats' travels could lead to.

Some people have wondered why goats in particular went traveling, simply because they're so popular. Typically, it's the unpopular animals that go traveling. So why were goats chosen?

Well, I have a theory. You know that undiscovered land at the top left corner of the map? Pretty mountainous, right? Seems like a perfect place for a mountain goat to live, huh? Somewhere they might want to travel? And I can see no problem with getting there by boat, as a convenient body of water runs right through that land and into Jamaa. 

It's been a handful of years since the last new land, so might this possibly be the time for a new one? Finally, at long last?

Maybe. Maybe not. What do you guys think?

See you in Jamaa!

The Secret Writers Revealed

Hey Jammers! As you all probably know by now, new bottled messages are washing up on the shores of Crystal Sands every other day. The writer of these secret messages has remained anonymous and under debate... until now.

Before I show you today's message, I'd like to line them all up together for you to see the whole story to today.

Today's message

What we know from these messages:

1. There are multiple prisoners
2. They are being held captive by the phantoms
3. The prison may or may not be on a ship
4. The writer of the message may possibly have the kind of eyes in the picture.

And from today's message, we now know that...

5. The prisoners are in a position where they need to keep an eye on the phantoms. They aren't just bystanders. They may be spies or leaders opposed to the phantoms, maybe like...

The Alphas?

Today's message pretty much gives it away, but it isn't as simple as that. I don't believe all the Alphas are currently imprisoned by the phantoms. Perhaps one, perhaps a few, but which ones?

A massive hint presents itself in a hidden room in one of the new 2D adventures:

This interaction with Greely ends here, his riddle is never answered, but we're left with this: Peck is somehow involved with the phantoms. Right now, that involvement points toward her being one of the captives writing the messages!

That checks out if you look at the eyes in the image. Peck nor any other Alpha's eyes look just like that, but out of all the Alphas Peck's eyes match up the most, if not in color, but in shape. They have a lot of similarities with the default bunny eyes:

Besides, it would be too much of a giveaway to make the eyes look exactly like one of the Alphas because all their eyes are unique. 

Another factor that supports Peck being a captive is in the gifts in the message bottles:

If you didn't know already, Peck is an artist. It's even been rumored for some time now that she lives in the Art Studio. Quite a lot of these items are art-related, as you can see, so that ties into the theory that Peck is a prisoner.

Today's item, however, is a little strange because it isn't art-related:

This could be a hint as well. Maybe it signifies a place where the phantoms are, or hints at what the environment of the prison is. The next series of gifts could be lava-related to signify that the writer of the messages has switched for now, perhaps to someone more associated with lava.

If it's another Alpha, it could be Greely because in Jamaa, wolves are associated with volcanos for some reason. You know how the Wolves Only Party is in a volcano and Greely's den has lava? Hmm... that would mean the Alphas were captured one after another, Peck first and THEN Greely. The reason for this is that Greely was there in the adventure to tell us about Peck's earring. He expressed curiosity, so maybe he went looking for Peck and accidentally got caught as well.

Until the next message comes around, this is all the information I've got. Do you have any speculation? Comment below if you do, and I'll do my best to respond! :D

See you all in Jamaa and have a lovely Autumn!