Back on Track (rant) + AJ Tag

Hey Jammers! It's me, Doomy. No, I'm not dead. Just lazy.

I've been lazy and a little overwhelmed as of late, and of course that combo results in nothing but zero productivity.

I've titled this post "back on track", but I really can't say that for certain. I'm now going to at least try to post everyday from today. Pretty weak promise, I know. 

I love AJ and I love AJ blogging, don't get me wrong. I really wanna provide you with interesting and relevant content every day I possibly can! It's just so hard.

I have a little announcement regarding this blog, or rather my sideblog, Berry the Koala. I don't think I can manage a consistent updating schedule with it. I spend whole days working on drafts while I'd rather be going outside, and then when I finally upload it no one seems to notice. Plushie blogs aren't that popular anymore, and I don't really like writing up new entries as much as I used to. 

This is partially because I've tried to make the stories more complicated than they used to be. They used to be only a few sentences, like "berry goes 2 tha store. he buys grapes." and then a screenshot of Berry in a den with an item arrangement made to look like a store. When I started making the stories have actual plots was when I started posting less. 

It was too much work, and all along the way it felt weird. Why am I trying to make up a complicated story line for a pixelated koala plushie? Do people think this is weird? Maybe that's why Berry the Koala got less and less popular.

Anyways, I may or may not continue Berry the Koala. At the beginning of writing this post, I thought I'd give it up altogether. Now, I think continuing it in a simpler format is also a possibility. I don't know if that would be more entertaining or less entertaining.

ANYWAY! Rant over. 

Now, I don't have any real AJ news, but over on a blog called Animal Jam Jumble, my pal lostfairy recently mentioned me in an AJ tag. 

From what I know, tags are a social media thing that give people the opportunity to talk about themselves. You probably know more than me. :0

Q #1: How many buddies do you have (including IRL)?

80-something on AJ, many have already quit and I just keep them in my list in case they ever return. In real life, I have around 7 friends.

Q #2: What is your main look?

Right now, just a blue necklace because that was my first AJ item. 

Q #3: Were you ever included in some bad drama?

Nah. I don't take people seriously when they say mean things over the internet.

Q #4: What computer are you using right now?

Some kinda desktop computer. 

Q #5: Who is your favorite blogger?

MYSELF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

JK, I don't think I have a favorite. I think anyone who stayed with writing an AJ blog while everyone else switched over to YouTube is pretty admirable.

Q #6: How many rares do you have?

pfffffft NONE

Q #7: How much do you care about rares?

Barely. I acknowledge them, but I really couldn't care less.

Q #8: Would you get hacked of all your items or quit AJ?

I doubt anyone would want my mountains of unrare, untradeable garbage so I think I'd rather have some fool get access to my account and have to deal with it than leave AJ.

Jamaa makes me way too happy to even think about quitting! If you take out the boring fighting-over-items mentality it brings on, you'll find a beautiful game about making friends and protecting the environment.

Q #9: In all your years of playing AJ, who is the meanest Jammer?

I think the meanest kind of Jammer is one who takes advantage of younger players by tricking them into giving them things or just outright treating them like trash. 

Q #10: What is a feature you want to come back?

Clickable fun facts! They were just small floating buttons you could click to learn cool facts about nature. They were pretty unobtrusive, but for some reason they were removed around late 2012. 

This screenshot is from before Tierney's Aquarium showed up, when the Pet Wash was right next to the water. The yellow pawprint button had a fact about a swimming world record, I think. There was another one near the waterslides about sand dollars.

All in all, it was a total loss that these fun facts were removed. What, did AJHQ think that AJ was too educational to be popular among kids?

If that's the case, now is a perfect time to bring these fun facts back to balance out all the mindless fun stuff that's come since 2012. C'mon, AJ's only growing in popularity. It couldn't hurt to bring back some tiny buttons.

That's it for the AJ tag. I tag... Animal Jam Stream's secret author, furryfruit73! ;D

See you in Jamaa, and I'll try to post tomorrow too! 
(\(^_^)/)
  (___)
  ( )  ( )

~ DoomyPanda

New Set of Den Items? Best Known Item is Leaving AJ?

 Good Afternoon/Morning/ Evening or whenever you may reading this! Todays post is going to include a lot of things and hopefully you read all of it :) But to start off we are going to bring in some items which may or may not be the new set of den items...?

Arrrrrazing! I tried.

These items are called "The Pirate Ship Couch" and "The Crow's Nest Table". They can be found and purchased in Jam Mart Furniture.  Will this be the latest Den Set?

Now we have an item from the Diamond Shop...

Look at this Hyena Claw! I never knew there would be such a thing, but I guess there is! I haven't seen how the plushies look though, have you guys seen the Hyena Plushies?

This is the Aquarium and can be bought at Epic Wonders. This is a very unique item!

Now onto the items that will be leaving us shortly...

:OOOOOOO

Wowwww, AJ  this is cruelty. This item is a very precious item, but AJ has made the decision to take it away from us, but I mean you have 5 days to fill your dens with Wavy Bookshelves!!!

If any of you enjoy vicious plants on your heads then make sure to buy this Chomper plant in Jam Mart Clothing!

This is the Mad Scientist hair which is in Jam Mart clothing and it will be leaving in 4 days. That looks more like a creature that can walk, do you guys see it too? Weird...

That is all for this post Jamaalians! I'll cya later gators!!

!Toodles!

I drew my panda :0

Hey Jammers! For the past few days I've been working on a digital drawing of my panda. Because I don't have fancy stuff like a tablet and have only the most basic understanding of Photoshop, I did many things the hard way. Which is why it took three days to make.

I've been excited to show it to y'all! Though it's not much, I think I still worked hard on it:

I may or may not add shadows and shine later on, but for right now I'm too tired to think about working on it more. XD

I'm a lot more comfortable drawing with pencils and paper than on the computer. Here's another drawing of my panda that I made last summer:

I just really love how AJ pandas look. c:

In other news, I updated Berry the Koala!!! After 2,000 years!!! Click here to read Berry the koala plushie's newest journal entry! 

I feel so accomplished.

I'd really love if you'd check it out because I worked really hard on it, all morning and afternoon. I did this for YOU, guys!!! (>^-^)>

That's all for now, Jammers. See you in Jamaa and have a lovely day/night, wherever you are! <3

Headdresses & Hideouts

Hey Jammers! I'm really sorry I didn't get to the latest update. I could lie and say that I've just been busy, but the truth is that I've just preferred to stay in my room and read a lot this week. That, and the fact that my little brother's been using my computer a lot, but I digress. 

I do my best to post daily, but I'm just lazy sometimes, ya know?

Anyway, onto AJ! 

Today's new item is the Turtle Shell, but I've also included a few items that I've missed during my lazy absence. I don't understand the Summer Dress that much, nor the Turtle Shell, but it's nice that AJ releases birth flowers every month.

For those who don't know, the Gladiolus is the flower of August. In America, at least. It's different in other countries.

The centerpiece of the most recent update was the new semi-2D adventure that's currently being tested by member wolves only. 

From my understanding, the adventure doesn't require in the story for the player to be a wolf, so the restriction seems pretty odd. Sadly, because I nor my little brother have memberships, I can't give you a walkthrough of The Hidden Falls. 

What do I know? I know that it involves jumping on floating chunks of land and that phantoms are involved somehow. Maybe it involves a waterfall, too, given the name. I dunno!  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Up next is some old-but-interesting news. Headdresses will never come to stores again, and this is why:

Image taken from the wonderful Animal Jam Whip by Nafaria AJ

Headdresses aren't that popular anymore and there are TONS of items that get discontinued, so a lot of people have been asking the same thing: "Why just discontinue them? If AJHQ wanted to be respectful, why not delete them from the game?"

I'm happy that AJHQ took the action they did because headdresses are very culturally significant to many people, but are often used inappropriately and disrespectfully as accessories by others. 

However, I think it's understandable that AJHQ just vowed not to have them sold in shops again rather than outright delete them. Headdresses aren't as popular as they used to be, but a lot of people would get really upset if one day they logged on and one of their items was gone. 

As far as my understanding goes, Headdresses aren't fought over as much in trading as say, spiked collars or wristbands. AJHQ wanted them to have a quiet death without causing too much backlash. 

I wonder if they did the same with the nonmember variant of the Headdress, the Head Feather. 

Headdresses were officially discontinued back in May, and this koala toy that came with a Head Feather came out in June... but I'm pretty sure they decided on accessories long before May. Hmm...

From the little that I know, I'm not sure if a headband with a single feather has cultural significance. Head Feathers are sometimes used in stereotypical portrayals of Native Americans (*cough*Disney movies*cough*), but as far as I know, they're just used as a harmless accessory on AJ. Correct me if I'm wrong; I'm not sure.

Next up, a new and unexpected showcase den is here: Greely's Hideout.

Yep, it's new, but what makes it unexpected is that you'd associate barely anything in this den with Greely:

There's cutesy music playing, plushies, and more. There's a slight phantom-y theme going on, as expected, but it's second to all of the random bursts of cutesy-ness:

"what up mtv this is greely and welcome to my crib, where I have a framed picture of my own face over a full display of cupcakes. fear me."

Greely's Hideout. I guess this is where Greely goes to hide out and be himself when he's not pretending to be edgy. 

That's all for now, Jammers. See you in Jamaa and have a wonderful day/night!

Harp

Hey Jammers! The new item of today is sold in Jam Mart Furniture. It seems the cafe theme has drawn to a close:

...Or has it? I dunno if cafes have harps or not. I pretty much never go out to eat. Fun fact! XD

This has been an embarrassingly short post, but I hope this good news makes up for it: this weekend, I'm planning to pick Berry the Koala back up with part 2 of Lostfairy's story prompt: Berry explores the unknown part of the map!

For those who aren't familiar with Berry, he is a blue koala plushie. He's the center of a fictional "journal" that "he" writes. It sounds weird, but for a while it was really popular for AJ bloggers to have separate blogs where they make up a story for one of their plushies. Maybe it still is popular? I don't really know, actually. XD

If you're interested in reading Berry the Koala's journal, click the scroll on the top of the right sidebar of this blog. I've been writing it since, oh... summer of 2012? Regardless, I'd appreciate it if you'd check it out. c:

That's all for now, Jammers. See you in Jamaa! <3

~ DoomyPanda