Survey closed, now in the process of reading through and adapting them into my plan, thank you to everyone who participated!

I apologize for the long absence and lack of communication. I’ve mainly been in contact (and sporadically at that) with moderators in my Discord, but I know that a lot of people have been either concerned or confused by this recent hiatus period, as I’ve found out links were broken. You can now access the social and business Discord servers through: https://pickledfishfingershub.carrd.co/

This post is to provide basic context, outline my forecasted trajectory, and answer any questions you might have. If you have the time, I would appreciate if you fill out the survey to provide input and direction.

Basic Context
I have a severe clusterfuck of ailments that during bad flare-ups leaves me completely paralysed from head to toe for extended durations. While it’s basically your stock-standard dysautonomia ELCI, it also tends to have profound albeit temporary neurological and cognitive impacts. This, as well as other happenings in my personal life, make it difficult to engage with the platform and community in the quality and quantity I would like.

Being a creator is extremely important to me from a fulfilment, processing, socialization, and security perspective. Moreover, I have ongoing commitments in the form of the TLC bundles. Even in the case of radio silence, please know I would not quit unless I’m at my wit’s end and forced to by exceptional circumstances. It was merely a rough 2025 and early 2026, and my ability to engage nosedived.

I’m happy to say that in the past fortnight I’ve had the best several days streak of my life when it comes to repeatedly meeting personal care targets like hygiene and self-sufficiency, as well as additional bonus tasks like laundry or light exercise/activity. It’s true that because of the nature of chronic illness being a constant mutually exclusive this-or-that dilemma, this means my bandwidth has been occupied, and in the interest of long-term health outcomes I’ve been trying not to sacrifice “upkeep energy” to hobbies like writing or art. It’s tempting, but there’s the potential to slowly introduce those things back if my progress doesn’t plateau.

That all said, if I were to claim I’m eager to return, that’s also a lie. I’ve been avoidant. There are several key concerns I have regarding the sustainability of my being a creator and community figure when it comes to stressors, exertions, and my own social ineptitudes. As always, with these issues identified I’d like to take what I think are reasonable steps at harm reduction, although limited by where I’m currently at physically and mentally.
direction.

Forecasted Trajectory
↳ This section is subject to change, and may be edited as I think of more things or receive feedback from the survey.

• MY OPERATIONAL STRATEGY: Eliminate → Automate → Delegate → Concentrate

• Health-First Work Ethos: Personal health management will take priority. This includes pacing strategies, accessibility improvements at my home, scheduled rest periods, and avoiding high-intensity output patterns such as large release bursts or late-night engagement. I will attempt to accrue content in batches, so that I have a stockpile to continue releasing in the event of medical absence.

• Account Theme Change: The account theme will change from the previous Catholicism motifs to a Summer Camp theme. The overall aesthetic will remain similar. All persona representations will be standardized as male, reflecting the announcement made this time last year.

• Simplification of Bot Bios and Presentation: Elaborate graphic designs for bot biographies will be discontinued. Biography text will be shorter and less stylized to reduce time and cognitive load. Graphics will continue only for TLC bundle releases. I know people will mourn this loss, so I’ll consider feedback from survey on whether to have prohibitively expensive paid commissions for fleshing out a favourite character’s bio if you have the financial freedom, but it feels kind of scummy.

• Reduced Platform Footprint: Presence currently spans JanitorAI, two Discord servers, Ko-Fi, Carrd, WorldAnvil, Spotify, and Google Docs/Forms. Focus will shift primarily to JanitorAI and Ko-Fi/business server. I will take a hiatus from most Carrd development, wiki expansions outside the main hub, additional writing projects, art projects, and other similar external lore-enriching initiatives. Auxiliary platforms will be maintained only at minimal functional levels. For now, a simplified Carrd page will act as the central directory linking to both Discord servers and other resources such as WorldAnvil and Spotify. Bot pages will link to this Carrd so that broken invite links only need updating in one location. This Carrd will eventually be replaced with WorldAnvil.

• Contemporary Australian Character Narratives: Future writing will primarily remain within contemporary Australian settings and character-driven narratives. This focus is intended to prevent large worldbuilding burdens and reduce cognitive overhead. Character arcs may be developed across multiple alternate versions (ALTs) of bots. This approach allows character and narrative enrichment while conserving development energy after the base character definition is written. Standalone releases will function as audience testing. If reception is strong, they may later be expanded into full series, which are more efficient.

• Server Structure and Reduced Direct Access: Direct access to me as an author in the social Discord server has proven overwhelming. Participation in casual server conversations will largely cease. Engagement will occur mainly through scheduled streams or releases. Moderation responsibilities will shift more heavily to moderators. A formal moderator handbook will be created to standardize moderation practices and decision-making guidelines. Moderators will function as the primary social authorities within the server despite me remaining owner.

• Reduced NSFW Focus: Pending survey feedback, pornographic elements may be significantly reduced. Sexual content may remain where contextually appropriate but will shift toward realism rather than explicit pornographic framing. If explicit content continues to exist, it will be separated from SFW material where possible, particularly graphics within bundles. This aims to reduce interpretations of minimization, cheapening, fetishization, or endorsement given the platform I post on, because I’d like to write more complex characters and themes. I’d like to write more Indigenous Australian characters but have been hesitant due to the possibility they mightn’t be taken seriously.

• Bundle Monetization Model Overhaul: The bundle monetization model would work if I was well enough to maintain it, but I’m not. Constantly updating prices, contents, and access permissions is hard when the bundles are done through shop. Instead, after TLC is done, I’ll be switching to monetization through subscription access. The problem with this, however, is that due to my long absences the subscription is less supporter-friendly than the loyalty bundle. Despite needing the money, I really dislike predatory or parasitic transactions.

• Workflow Systemization: The bot creation process will be standardized through templates and repeatable workflows. Documentation explaining writing methods and character construction will be either made available on Google Docs or eventually published on the WorldAnvil Main Hub wiki.

• Delegation and Outsourcing: Tasks that can be delegated will be delegated. A public outsourcing page will be created on the WorldAnvil Main Hub wiki listing roles where assistance is needed (moderation, technical tasks, documentation, etc.). When feasible, tasks such as profile CSS, lorebooks, or other technical/artistic work may be outsourced through commissioning. I will consult for appropriate price points and save up to pay people what they’re worth.

Survey Feedback

↳ This section is after I've read through responses to the survey and updated my considerations.

• Summary Of JAI Technical Updates During Hiatus: During my hiatus, JanitorAI introduced several platform and infrastructure updates. The site now has a dedicated mobile app for Android and iOS, a news page for official announcements, a new notification system, improved comment filtering, expanded proxy configuration, updated CSS options, advanced generation settings, and the ability to queue or schedule bot releases or restrict bots to followers. New creator tools were added, including bot analytics (beta), multiple introductions/starter messages for bots and pronoun macros (e.g., {{poss}}, {{obj}}) that automatically adapt to a user’s persona pronouns. Lorebooks and message enhancement features were also expanded. Development communication has become more formalized with clearer changelogs and updates.

• How Technical Updates Effect Me: Of these changes, the most relevant to me are the bot analytics, multiple introductions/starter messages, and pronoun macros. Lorebooks are important, but I will have to commission them. Queuing/scheduling bot releases could see some use if I do batch releases for better pacing.

• Old Bots Made Public Again: By far the most common request I've seen, though I think people might be misremembering just how good they were. I privated them with the intent of remastering them, but that obviously never happened, so I agree I might as well just make them public again. Most of them were made when I was testing things out and farming engagement with tropey scenarios. Besides the shitty TensorAI pics, a lot of them speak/act for your persona in the initial message, use 'you/your/you're', are very unimaginatively cookie-cutter, are written in a rush with no care or attention etc.

Q&A

If you have any questions about the above points, about me, or about my creative processes etc., feel free to ask either in the comments or in the Google Docs survey’s last question if you’d rather be anonymous. This will be the first real general Q&A I do, I think. I will answer to the absolute best of my ability, though please acknowledge it’s inevitable I’ll be working within my limited perspective as an individual.