Glitch-o-Ween + Coconut Crab

Hey Jammers! Yeah, I know this post is late... I have a ton of school assignments I need to get through, and a big test next week! Blah. School can be really annoying sometimes.

Because I should really get started with my homework, this post will just include what I believe to be the highlights of the update, as well as an extra surprise at the end. ^-^

First off, Jamaa is spooky now, in more ways than one...

You see those static-y rectangles? Yeah, that's never happened to me before until this morning when I logged on. I included them in the picture of the phantom statue to let you know just how spooky AJ is right now.

Adding onto the spooky glitchiness, I randomly decided to go to a Jammer party for the first time all year. It seems like I came at a bad time:

e_e

I had also heard something a couple days ago about no one being able to get into the Wolves Only Party for some glitchy reason. 

I guess AJHQ doesn't have to work so hard patching bugs during the Night of the Phantoms. Static rectangles? Blacked-out rooms? Locked parties? No glitches here, just the phantoms making everything wacky!

Interesting things are also afoot in the center of Jamaa Township...

You can't really see it in the screenshot, but icy blue "lines of power" have been seen lacing across the Township in mysterious shapes.

Perhaps this might have to do with the Mira statue being replaced with a phantom. Maybe it's causing an odd unbalance? Remember the passage in The Forgotten Archives: these lines of power can be drawn upon for a darker purpose.

Also, I just came up with a theory for Night of the Phantoms. The phantoms want to destroy Jamaa, so why do we have a whole month celebrating them and letting them come into Jamaa? I think it might have to do with some kinda compromise that was struck at some point in time –– the phantoms promised to not to do something if they could have a month where they are allowed in Jamaa. Maybe. What do you think?

These lines of power look like they could somehow be compared to a map of Jamaa to determine where the "power centers" are. 

So far, I have no clue where they fit.

Although, I did observe from the brief power line flashes that a circle goes around the well around the bottom of the Township. Hmm...

In addition to this, a new book passage has been discovered in The Forgotten Archive:

I believe that every major update, a new excerpt will be revealed. Maybe at some point we'll be able to put all of them together into full volumes?

On a side note, I really like that image of the rabbit, wolf, and monkey. The style is so cool! I love all these images printed in the excerpts.

I also love how there is a desk with raw material to make printing pigments in the Forgotten Archives:

If you think about it, this desk's existence makes it seem like Zios might also have a body along with a floating mask, if he was physically able make pigments. 

...Or maybe Peck just made them. It really isn't certain what the Alphas' roles are involving the Archive.

You know, with AJ, I used to think that stuff was just coincidently decided, like putting phantoms in Jamaa during the Night of the Phantoms. Now, with AJ becoming increasingly accepting of lore and fan-theories, I keep wondering about every little thing!

Before I go, here's that surprise I promised at the beginning:

Do you know who this is? This, my friends, is a coconut crab! He is a large crab who lives on land, and, as you can probably tell from the name, loves to eat coconuts! He climbs up into coconut trees, uses his strong pinchers to cut down a couple of coconuts (which either break on impact with the ground or are opened up by the crab himself), and then carefully crawls back down to eat his lunch! 

I didn't take the above pictures, I found them in a YouTube video showing the coconut crab. They are so cool wonderful to watch! ^-^

See you in Jamaa, my friends~

The Tortoise

Hey Jammers! Just a quick post today, nothin' fancy.

...unless you count this wonderful tortoise I found in a nature reserve yesterday:

This photo doesn't do them justice, but they had very beautiful eyes that glowed like embers. The tortoise was very still while I sat by them, but occasionally their eyes would quickly dart around.

They let me touch their shell gently (it was lightly grooved, a bit like a fingerprint) and when I got up to leave, they pulled their legs back out of their shell and walked on their way back through the underbrush. 

I don't know if you see it too, but don't the patterns on their shell segments look like handprints?

In other, more Animal Jam-related news, AJHQ changed the webpage title once again:

When I first looked up at my screen in-game and saw this, I thought I'd made a mistake and went to one of those scammy shady fake AJ's. 

Y'know, the ones that were linked by ads like this:

But luckily, I think I wasn't. You can normally tell when you go to Animal Scam™ when the homepage looks like this:

Ahh... just look at that Quality formatting. A truly professional computer game run by W1LdW0rks™ ,, with millions of fans.

That's all for now, Jammers,

See you in Jamaa!

Membership Glitch?

Heyyo, guys! While I was writing the last post, I had said that my membership would expire the next morning. I had read the settings tab, and that's what it said. Or should have said.

Well... it's been a few days since my 30-day membership should have expired. I have genuinely no clue as to why this has happened– I turned auto-renew off and the billing history hasn't had any new additions!

Y'all might be surprised to hear that I'm actually looking forward to being nonmember again. I only get brief 30-day memberships so I can make some Masterpieces to put in my den. 

I can't fully explain why I like being nonmember– I guess it feels simpler –but what is really clear is that this glitch is WEIRD.

Has this ever happened to you?

THE ALPHAS ARE JERKS

Hey Jammers!!! Wow... I just realized something really terrible.

First, let me start at the beginning: 

My membership expires tomorrow morning, and because I probably won't renew it for a year I decided to spend all evening going on members-only adventures. I completed The Hive successfully, got a Phantom Pod. The Great Escape was next on my list, and though I completed it multiple times a glitch happened where I didn't get the reward at the end. A little irritating. I kinda wanted a Mira Emblem. :(

My last adventure was Greely's Inferno, hard mode. It took sooooo long to finish, it feels like I aged 10 years over the course of the game. But at least I ended it completely with little to no glitching. 

I got the reward I was looking for: Greely's Desk!

Out of curiosity, I looked up all the prizes for the hard mode of Greely's Inferno, just to see what I might have missed.

Greely's Bookshelf, Greely's Desk, Greely's Passage... and the normal mode of the adventure gives you a choice between Greely's Blackboard and his Wardrobe.

What do all these items have in common?

They're all Greely's furniture.

...Alright, I know that's obvious, but think for a moment about when Cosmo, Graham, and Liza gave them to you.

They had greeted you by the portal, not Greely. Which, again, is obvious to anyone who has done the adventure. Greely has just frozen the volcano before it could erupt, saving all of Jamaa, but it is unclear and unlikely that he survived. 

From these three Alphas' lines of dialogue, it's clear that they are near-convinced that Greely is dead.

Because he's presumed dead, there's no need to keep his stuff lying around AJHQ, right?

So, to clear up space, as well as save themselves the trouble of collecting cool prizes from the rubble of the volcano, the Alphas decided to just give out Greely's old furniture to random Jammers like some kind of awful yard sale.

THANK HIM!?!? For what, dying so you could finally get rid of all his dusty furniture!? I see you, Graham... I see you...

It's been some time since Greely's Inferno came out, and since then we've been on other adventures that have let us know that yes, Greely is still alive and spooky.

But even after all this time, keep your eyes peeled. You never know when Greely might wanna drop by and pick up his stuff again...

See you in Jamaa!

A Treasure Trove of Lore

Hey Jammers! Wow... boy oh boy, this is one amazing update.

It's so amazing that I think I'll save the best for last and quickly talk about the smaller side-stories first.

Saving the best for last, here's the not-so-best first: Goats are back, with no new land along with them as was predicted by their departing message. I guess that message was flexible– it wasn't necessarily a hint.

A little better news: a new, pretty different exhibit is over at the Conservation Museum!

This exhibit is about domestic animals. Eh... I'm not too wild about it, no pun intended. I had thought it would be about important "jobs" animals have in ecosystems, like fungi and vultures helping decomposition, wolves keeping deer populations stable, and bees and bats in pollination.

I guess the main problem I have with this thing about domestic animals is that they did not ask to be isolated, bred, and used against their will for things that do not help them as individuals. They just wanted to be independent and free. But that's just my humble opinion, I don't wanna get into any arguments lol

Next up, some pretty cool news that made me very happy! 

In celebration of World Rhino Day on September 22nd, rhinos are for EVERYONE!!! Click here to learn more about how to celebrate and help protect these beautiful beings.

Now if only along with this, nonmembers could get an extra animal slot. I don't wanna have to choose between my rhino and my turtle!

Pet scorpions are here– an extremely cool creature! Mama scorpions carry their babies on their backs like this:

How sweet!!! I love little desert creatures ^-^

And now... what you've been waiting for...

The unveiling of the Forgotten Archives.

This is only a small part of the archive rooms. It is one of the coolest rooms in Jamaa, having a similar vibe to The Basement of Secrets. Only there's more to explore!

If you click different books and scrolls, different passages appear. Here are all of them so far:

I wonder if those lines can be "decoded" and ascribed to different areas in Jamaa. 

That eclipsed sun is a shutting eye! It reminds me of something I might doodle on my notebooks. I like to draw shutting eyeballs for some reason. :D

Is that the eye of Zios? 

You know, I think this update really shows how willing and adept AJHQ is at balancing a lighthearted educational game with some good, genuine lore. 

The lore, especially the recently revised stories, have good messages against divisiveness and support a moral of environmental respect. Honestly, I think those are the most important things to talk about, especially today. 

I am so excited about this new archive.

I'm sure there will be new passages to piece together soon...

Before I go, here's an inspiring quote from my friend:

Truer words have not been spoken.

And here's a Masterpiece I'm trying to finish before my membership expires:

See you in Jamaa! :D

????

Zios/Viracocha Art :D

Hey Jammers! I think that finally, I'm satisfied with my blog's layout.

AT LONG LAST. ō_ō

But I guess the REAL question is... are you? If anything, you're the one I design my blog for, so I'd appreciate if you could tell me how this layout compares to the last recognizable one I had last year. 

Are there any things I should add? Someone told me I should add a search bar, which I agree with an will get to ASAP along with the addition of an environmental conservation page and the completion of that 'trading post' page that has been empty for so long. If you didn't know, that page will have a detailed explanation of item rarity, the history of item rarity and how it's changed, and how to trade fairly in today's messed up system. ^___^

Anyway, onto the main focus of this post: this cool fan art featured on AJHQ's official Instagram:

I hope it's okay for me to post this here. Lakeahana, if you're reading this and you want me to take it down, tell me in the comments please.

It's by a talented Jammer named Lakeahana, and aside from being a wonderful drawing reminding me of my favorite things about Animal Jam, it reminds me a lot of that theory I developed in the last post about Zios being based on the Incan god Viracocha, definitely in appearance and perhaps in lore as well. 

I'm not sure if it was intended or not, but this drawing of an anthropomorphic Zios sure looks like this drawing of Viracocha:

Same kind of outfit/armor! 

I guess what I'm interested in is whether everyone at AJHQ is aware that Zios was inspired by Viracocha (that's not even a theory at this point– that's just a fact. Their faces– or should I say masks, –are nearly identical) and if they thought of that when they reposted the drawing.

What do you guys think? I sincerely doubt anyone at AJHQ looks at my blog, but what if this is a little recognition of my theory? Not very likely, but maybe.

See you in Jamaa~!

~DoomyPanda