The TL;DR, been picking away at bots pretty steadily, but been having some motivation issues.

Where to even begin with this one?

Well I guess the update part makes sense to start with. I know it's been a while since I posted, doubly for posting anything regularly, and I apologize for that. I know as someone who does this for fun I don't owe anyone regular updates but I also know the feeling of seeing a series or idea that looks cool and then waiting and waiting for it to come out.

I've been bouncing around a bunch of bots in my backlog, and made some really good progress overall, just not on one bot so none of them are ready to release. So hopefully I'll be able to release a bunch in quick succession soon.

If I release them.

Tbh I've been really out of it. I don't know if it's burnout or depression, but I've had some really mixed feelings about continuing making bots lately. I haven't come to any decision yet, this isn't an announcement it's more just yelling my thoughts out onto paper.

I enjoy character creation. I always have, and bot making was an extension of that. A way to tell stories and characters and share them with people. And amazingly, for the first time in my life, people actually like and talk about the stuff I make. For the first time I feel like people are actually appreciating the stuff I make. In the almost three years of making bots I've improved as a writer, used my characters to explore and discover new parts about myself, and even made friends, something I never would have expected when I published a bot on a whim three years ago.

But lately I feel like I have more and more anxiety about making bots, and I haven't identified why yet. There's a voice deep down telling me to quit. To move on. And I don't know if it's just my self doubt or something real that I haven't figured out yet.

I keep flip flopping from loving making bots to hating that I ever made them in the first place. And I don't know what to do with those feelings.

So where do I go from here?

I don't know, to be honest. Not quitting. Not yet. But I think I need to take a break. A real break, not just a week without working on bots but a full month completely away from Janitor. Not working on bots, not using bots, not even checking comments (so y'all better behave).

I'll see how I feel. If I feel relief of not having to worry about making bots or if I'm ready to go when I get back.

I'll probably focus on some non-bot writing and my YouTube channel.

If I do decide to quit, it won't be out of the blue. I'll make an official post and plan to keep my stuff up so people can still interact with my bots. I'll probably do a big post going over everything I haven't released, talking about what I planned to do. Assuming I decided to quit though, which like I've tried to stress I might not do.

So yeah.

Like I said, this post has been very ramble and more about getting stuff out of my brain then making sense.