u/Hubert_Malbec

My computer has a hard time running when lots of people are in the same place, so for a month or so, I changed my AJ language. The servers are mostly empty except for the few people that show up online (and time zones might contribute to the emptiness as well). I would try my best to avoid any other players I saw, so I wouldn't be an interruption (in other words, I didn't want to be an annoying tourist).

To avoid lag and rude players, I've considered switching to a different language again, but I've realized that it might seem rude to hide in my den once I see another person. Does anybody have experience with this?

If switching to a different country's server isn't a respectful thing to do, is there any advice you have about reducing lag? Thank you!

I've become mildly obsessed with the Backrooms and the Rolling Giant, but I absolutely cannot use the paint tool to save my life. There are a few shops I found that have Backrooms art and I think the price was 10 diamonds, is that the standard? When it comes to custom masterpieces, is there a generally accepted price in diamonds/rares or does it depend on the artist?

Also, has anybody done art trades where one person creates a masterpiece on animal jam, and another creates a drawing for a person outside of the game (using a regular art program)? I would be willing to draw something far more complex/detailed for somebody if they can draw the Rolling Giant since I know how hard it is to use the AJ paint tool.

Lastly, I noticed that some people have collections of art for specific characters, and I was wondering how they're able to find so many pieces by different artists. What's your secret???

Anyways thank you for reading my long post <3

This was on Monday 8, 2026 (relevant, I promise; I only logged on to get the RIM for that day, but got distracted by my old art). I just remembered that whole Lost Jammer story because I was going through some old .AJART saves I had in the paint tool, and many of them had creepypasta characters from back in the day (mostly the Eyeless Fox and LostJammer). It’s hard to believe (and accept) that a significant portion of my drawing ability exists because I was a little too obsessed with scary stories on the Internet, lol.

The only masterpiece that wasn’t of some creepypasta was simply named “Masterpiece”, and it stood out to me because of its 55 megabyte file size. For comparison, all my other .AJART files are 200 to 600 kilobytes. This masterpiece was, if I remember how to do math correctly, about 137 times the size of a normal save file (though I heavily doubt I got this correct). My AJ Classic folder  is 203 MB, meaning that this masterpiece is a quarter of the game’s entire size. For a little while, I stared at this file and wondered what I could’ve possibly drawn, eventually coming to the conclusion that .AJART files must’ve been different at the time I saved that particular piece (it was saved in 2016; all my other art was from 2018 and after).

At last, curiosity got the best of me. My laptop’s fans screamed when I double-clicked it, and under my hand I felt the keyboard heat up in a matter of seconds. After a minute of staring at my frozen laptop screen, then another minute of trying to forcefully turn my computer off by holding the power button, and then moving my mouse uselessly when that didn’t work, I got up to get some water while I waited; I came back five or so minutes later to an entirely black canvas. Nothing else was painted on, and there were no stray marks to indicate that another drawing had been painted over with a black layer. No patterns, no hidden text, no anything, except that one shade of black, like somebody used the paint bucket and saved the masterpiece before giving up. 

Normally, I’d ignore this (there were many other unfinished and mostly-blank WIPs saved to my computer), but the unusual file size made me wonder what it would be like as a den item, or if it was possible for a piece this big to become one; would AJHQ notice the size and reject it? Would it still be the same size once it’s approved? I went to turn it into a den item and chose the “Black Frame” for it, since it was obviously the best choice available. All I had to do now was wait a bit for it to be approved, then I could test it out in my den. 

Well, at least, I thought I had to wait for a bit.

Five and a half minutes. It took only five and a half minutes for that approval JAG from AJHQ to arrive, and I could hardly believe it. Confused but grateful, I went to place it in my den, but just like loading the .AJART file into the paint tool, I had to wait a while for it to actually load in. When it finally did, the speed I moved it along my den’s walls could be measured in seconds per frame; that’s how powerfully it slowed my game. My den at the time was the Friendship Palace, so its immense size didn’t help either; after a few minutes, I gave up trying to place it somewhere fancy, and just left it where players’ animals spawn in. I left my den and tried to come back, only to have a five-and-a-half-minute wait. The most interesting part was that the “Log Out” button didn’t work until after the wait was over, so immediately after my personal test of the item, I went to Jamaa Township and advertised an all-gem spiked collar shop (complete lie). Though people disappeared from the land fast, I didn’t hear a sudden spamming of the doorbell sound effect until a little while later. 

After my little power trip, I went back to my den to see if anyone cared about the masterpiece, though everybody was gone by the time I finally got in. I clicked on the painting and took another, closer look at it; interestingly, there was no username on the masterpiece’s frame. Not even a place for a username to be, either. Along with this, I noticed something peculiar about the masterpiece’s shade that I hadn’t seen before; in disbelief, I changed my screen’s brightness to its lowest setting and waved my hand in front of the image, but I didn’t see my reflection in the painting, even though black should be the color that reflects best. I leaned towards the masterpiece to get a better look at it, just in case I’d somehow missed my reflection, but this inspection proved that it definitely wasn’t there. 

A few seconds later, I realized that I was probably looking at my laptop too closely and would probably bump into it. My hair brushed against something when I leaned back, and though I looked around, there was nothing above me and my desk space was totally clear except for my laptop, my mouse, and a few books. I reached my hand out to the masterpiece. My stomach churned when the screen didn’t stop it from reaching even further forward, even though it was supposed to. When I moved my hand up, the screen acted as it normally should’ve at the borders of the painting, and it pressed lightly into my arm until I pulled my hand back. Turning to the stack of books on my desk, I chose the one that was least important: a pink, flowery journal I don’t think I ever used. I picked it up and dropped it into the masterpiece’s gaping chasm and leaned my ear close to the opening, listening for any noise that might indicate it hit the bottom. For a full five and a half minutes, I stayed there, waiting, but there wasn’t any sound. That book may still be falling, even now. 

Maybe I’d spent a little too long obsessing over this painting. After all, I logged on specifically to get the RIM, and had been online for almost an hour without getting anything. I closed it out, and went to Jamaa Township to find the RIM for today, since it may get my mind off the bizarre discovery I made. Jam Mart Clothing didn’t have it, and neither did the shop in the Hot Cocoa Hut, which did get me excited enough to no longer have the masterpiece swirling in my thoughts. This RIM would definitely be a special one if it was hidden. I searched all over Jamaa but couldn’t find it, not even underwater or in the Diamond Shop; out of desperation, I went to random buildings, even if I didn’t remember them having a shop at all.

In one case, my memory must’ve been wrong. On the bottom floor of the Chamber of Knowledge, they sold the animal books they had available, and to my surprise they were clothing items. Wouldn’t they work better as den decorations or something, sold in the shop on the top floor? Despite my confusion, I searched through this shop anyway, once again excited for the RIM. Well, I was excited until I actually saw it. My heart sank to my stomach, and I impulsively leaned away from my computer screen as if doing so would protect me from some unseen danger. 

The RIM was a pink book, decorated on the spine and corners with pretty flowers. It was named, “Rare Journal”, and after I bought it there was a magnifying glass on the corner of the item’s icon, just like masterpieces have. When I clicked on it, my screen displayed something that looked like an e-book, but with my own sloppy handwriting, which read:

December 25, 2024

My grandma got me this journal for Christmas. Thank you, grandma! I’ll try to use it everyday.

The cursor that appears when typing blinked at me, as if waiting for me to say something.

“Can you read me?” I typed, to no response. Hopefully, it was just another item, some kind of normal… thing for the game to have. No secrets or anything, other than where it came from. 

All the other pages were blank. Unfortunately, I found out the next day that the real RIM was the rare accordion hat. If anybody has one and wants to deal with this masterpiece for me, I’ll gladly trade it to you for that RIM. I really, really don’t want it anymore, and the game won’t let me take it out of my den.

Anyway, if any of you have AJC creepypastas please show me in the comments!! I'm going through a bit of a cringe creepypasta phase again lol