Inktober + Vaguely Unnerving Screenshots

Hey Jammers! I'm really tired tonight so I'm gonna hold off on the AJ content for this post, but this morning I did do an Inktober drawing I'm happy with for once:

While it's not perfect, and the Earth looks too much like Minecraft, I'm still proud of it because I drew the panda from imagination without any reference images. 

I wanted to emulate the style of the spinning AJ globe from the older loading screens:

It didn't work out that way, but oh well. I was at school and couldn't look up the AJ globe for reference.

Ok, I lied. Here's a little sprinkle of AJ content before I go to sleep:

I noticed that they changed the homepage logo temporarily for Night of the Phantoms. It's actually weird to see– I don't think they've ever "decorated" the logo before for an event. 0-0

Another homepage thing:

This is supposed to be a snow leopard, but all it looks like is a snow leopard's disembodied floating head in a box. It's honestly unnerving, but I'll let this blunder slide for now. After all, October is the month where it is encouraged that you be unnerved... 

IN OTHER VAGUELY UNNERVING NEWS...

A while ago I found this Masterpiece made by the user Anonymous. I tried clicking the nametag, but it didn't open up a player card. I guess that means they actually are anonymous, but I don't remember ever hearing about that feature before. Can you actually anonymously make Masterpieces??? What's going on here??? 

*flips through screenshot folder to find one last cool image to close the post with*

*finds the coolest image in the universe*

*sweats nervously, unsure that the public is ready for this image*

*takes a deep breath*

See you in Jamaa!

~DoomyPanda

The Creepy Den of Flyace

Hey Jammers! It's Monday! 

Because of Indigenous People's Day, I don't have school, so it's way easier for me to post.

Here's the Rare Item Monday on the 12th(?) page of Jam Mart Clothing:

I never really talk about Rare Item Mondays unless they're nonmember and nice-looking, which is a bias I need to get over.

Of course, this one might be special...

*775 gems deducted from account*

In other news, here's my third Inktober drawing:

I don't have anything to say about this one. It's hard coming up with something to draw every day :P

My goal is to keep doing Inktober and post them every day, but school always gets in the way of stuff I wanna do. I'll still try this week, though. 

Moving on, I stumbled upon a spooky cool den today:

The den of flyace!

This den celebrates all things creepy and Halloween-y, including Jamaa's squishiest enemies– the phantoms.

Phantom-themed art is aplenty here. Here are some of my favorites:

Go to flyace's den to see all these and hundreds more!

Yes, I mean hundreds. There are some portals to flyace's alternate dens and...

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

Wow. 

Awesome job, flyace!

And before I go... no, I still haven't beat the Phantom Vortex game yet, and it seems no one else has either. >_<

But I'm trying... slowly but surely... I'll beat it eventually.

See you (hopefully) tomorrow! I'll try my best to post!

Codes and Clans

Hey Jammers, I'm back again with more content!!! ^-^

Yesterday evening I accomplished something I've been meaning to do with this blog for a long time: update the blogroll so it makes more sense!

Because there aren't enough blogs to merit organization by alphabet, I reorganized the blogs by posting frequency.

I also added some new blogs, so go check that out! :D

Before we begin with the AJ content, here's my second Inktober drawing:

Ink is hard.

Moving on, there is a weird new code!

I learned about it yesterday on the Animal Jam World, but decided to hold off talking about it until today, and now all the other blogs have beat me to it!

The code is PENGUINS, and it gives you... a penguin.

Apparently, penguins have been traveling for a long time, so this kinda brings them back.

Unfortunately, if you're a nonmember with two animal slots filled, you cannot be a penguin:

Mister Wonkybuddy... that name sounds so familiar, but I don't know where it's from. Hmm.

You also get a nonmember pet penguin!

Sometimes I find it weird that you can both be a certain animal and have that certain animal as a pet. o_o

This code also gives you some AJPW prizes– I think an igloo den is one of them.

Moving on...

Have any of you noticed that a lot more people have been online these past couple months? This all started during the Autumn Small House update.

Either more people are physically online, or AJ changed the server capacity so it looks like more people are online. I think the fact is that more people have been playing!

A lot of people seem to think that AJ is in decline, probably because a lot of AJ YouTubers have been way less active. However, I don't think it's a steady decline. We've had a lull in updates since the summer, and we'll continue to have sub-par updates every so often, but I think the Autumn Small House update turned a lot of things around for the better.

Moving on... (I've been typing that a lot)

Even in Sarepia Forest, the owl is feeling the Night of the Phantoms energy in the air. Nice hat!

In other news... (yes! I remembered something else to say XD)

In the past, there used to be clan role-play activity in Sarepia in every single server, but now role-play is mostly confined to Aldan. 

Yesterday in Sarepia on Aldan, I witnessed modern clan warfare:

Two different groups sat in "battle lines" facing each other and aggressively advertised their groups. The group with the first new recruit wins. XD

This got me curious. Generally, people think that clans on AJ have been "over" since 2014, but I'm skeptical about that. 

In the advertising battle, some groups used the fact that they have a Wiki-page as a positive thing about their group. So I did some research:

It seems that AJ clans are in no way over– they've just taken different forms. 

Nowadays clans are usually server-specific, and I'm guessing that role-play might partially take place over non-AJ platforms like Discord– but then again I'm not sure.

I chose a random clan (ShadowClan) on the Wiki and it seems the most recent activity on it was a day ago! There you go, clans are still a big part of AJ.

What if I started a clan? XD

Before I go, just wanted to let you know that I have no new information about the Phantom Vortex game. It seems like most everyone has only reached level 5. 

I'll try to beat the game on my own throughout this weekend, and I'll let you know when I do.

See you in Jamaa!

October-y Stuff

Hey Jammers! Once again, it's been two weeks since my last post, for the same exact reasons: I am both busy and lazy at the same time. While I do the stuff I need to do for school, I cut corners by ignoring stuff that I should do or want to do. 

That doesn't mean I'm not trying to snap out of my lazy spell, though– yesterday I realized that I might have posted more frequently in the past because I went to sleep earlier. I had more energy to do stuff. So starting today, I'll be trying that out, no matter how much I wanna stay up late watching movies!

Anyway, guys... It's October. >:)

October is one of my favorite months. It's a whole month leading up to my favorite holiday, and it's one of the only months that my brother goes on AJ to decorate his den and play mini games with me.

Speaking of which, our favorite mini game to play together is double gems:

And right below that double gems banner is the entrance to the Phantom Vortex, the mysterious plane that houses a game too anxiety-inducing to be available any longer than the month of October.

Phantoms! has been a Night of the Phantoms tradition since the dawn of Animal Jam, but I can't find much online about its history aside from the prizes over the years. (Scarecrow, Tall Phantom Statue, Phantom Fountain, Heavy Phantom Statue, Phantom Scarecrow, Phantom Archway, Spooky Trapdoor, and Phantom Bones Archway).

I believe it originally had 10 levels, and once you completed those 10, you got a prize, but in recent years the prize comes at the completion of level 5. 

At level 5 this year, here's the prize:

...the same prize as last year. What's up with that?

While I was playing the game, I got up to level 12 before phantoms got my candy. I wonder how many levels there are in total...

TIME TO FIND OUT!!!

*30 minutes passes*



*1 hour passes*





*2 hours pass*

I can't get beyond level 12, but I know that there are at least 13 levels.

But no one in Jamaa knows how many levels there are total because they all stopped playing after they got the prize.

What if... there's a second secret prize once you finish the whole Phantoms! game?!?!?!

I challenge you to be the first one to reach the very last level of Phantoms!. In the meantime, I'll ask AJHQ through Instagram and I'll post this question on the Chicken Smoothie Animal Jam thread. I'll update you ASAP.

In other October-y news...

Shout-out to Sarahkey8 for reminding me to do Inktober!!!

I'm late as heck, but here's my first:

As you can see by how gross this drawing looks, ink is not my favorite medium, but I'm willing to try it for the month. I'm trying to plan out my Jack-o-Lantern Halloween costume, but I feel like I don't have enough costume parts for it to look ok.

The reason for that one dark scribble below the word "Inktober" is because I wanted to write the date as 10/6/18 but I forgot that October is not the 8th month lol

If I manage to follow through with Inktober from today forward, I'll have more frequent content for this blog! Yay!

It's just hard to know what to draw... but I'll try anyway. :)

I am really really really excited about Halloween, and I don't even like candy. I just like the tradition. 

Though it's hard to decorate if you care about the environment– most Halloween decorations are just cheap plastic that will pollute the Earth for a billion years once you're done with them.

My favorite decorations (aside from actual Jack-o-Lanterns) are probably just pumpkin/skull/spider-patterned fabric. They cover a bigger surface area than typical decorations, and if they're made of a natural material like cotton, they don't pollute as much and they break down naturally! ^-^

Should I decorate my blog for Halloween? I love being festive, but I also really love my leafy green background.

Here's a very Halloween-y instrumental song that would sound really good in a haunted house:

In other news...

I have a lot more content to go through, but I think I'll keep some for now so I have something to post about tomorrow and the next day!

See you in Jamaa, and stay spooky~

Alphas and Shamans

Hey Jammers! I know yesterday's post was a bit more serious than what you might normally be used to with this blog, but I think it's important to take a step back from your virtual fantasy world and understand what's going on. 

Animal Jam is an online fantasy interpretation of the real natural world– wouldn't it be sad if one day all we had left of the world's plants and animals was just an online fantasy?

That being said, the fantasy elements of Animal Jam are still enjoyable, and this post is all about them! Yup, today we talk about AJ lore... and how it's changed over the years.

Introducing the Alphas... or should I say... Shamans!

This is Liza's original appearance. Some people say she looked weird during beta testing... all I can say is that I was very disappointed when the new design made her skinny. I get that Liza by definition is unrealistic because she walks on two legs, but a skinny panda makes no sense lol

And if you haven't guessed already, Alphas were originally called Shamans!

[Insert image that I've been searching for for 30 minutes but can't find. It's a screenshot of the Jamaa Journal or something that says "The Shamans now wish to be known as the Alphas, so we will respect that"]

...because I can't find that image, here is a related one:

This was in the Jamaa Journal in mid-August of 2012. Prior to this, there had been no mention of the Alphas for at least a year. This was a big deal!

So the Alphas began "arriving" in the form of Daily Explorer articles linked in the Jamaa Journal. These articles were rewrites of the Alphas' original backstories– yes, the Alphas you know today are not quite the same as they always were!

Here's Liza's original story:

(Click to enlarge)

Here's the current story:

The second one is alright, but a little generic...

I could go through all the differences between the beta and current Alphas, but it's late and I'm sleepy XD

The most dramatic difference is with Cosmo, who aged backwards from an old man into "one of the youngest Alphas". I actually talked about that before in this post.

Now that I think of it, I have made this exact post multiple times throughout the history of my blog, mostly to accommodate the newer Jammers who keep joining every day who might not be as familiar with the lore.

The post I linked above actually has way more information than this one... ^_^;

Here is that same exact link, except bigger:

> LONGER LORE POST HERE <

I'm just gonna quietly back out of here right now, cuz I have school tomorrow and it's late.

More posts coming soon!