never thought i'd be making one of these.

as I write, its currently 1/18/2026, 11:40 PM. It'll likely be 1/19/2026 by the time I am finished.

First and foremost: no, im not quitting/leaving. The situation about the site that has unfolded, while unfortunate, is not surprising to me in least, but i'd like to think i've been building something good here and I don't want to give up on it. I wish all the best of luck to those who have made it their choice to move on, and all the healing in the world to those who need to slow down and rest before they can create again. You can click off now if that's all the info you were looking for.

This is mostly just something I've wanted to bring up for a while and I felt it only fair I make it public to the people who actually have chosen to follow me since it's regarding my mental health and more of my personal circumstances. The chances of me proof-reading this are slim to none, so apologies in advance. I'm also trying to currently recall information whilst in the midst of waiting for some prescribed sleeping medication to kick in, so if details are wrong, I deeply apologize.

Will there be any changes to my uploading schedule? Probably not, to be perfectly honest and realistic. I know I'm slow. I wish I were faster, but I suppose it's better to be thankful that I even have the time to make anything at all.

Please treat yourselves to something well today. Drink some water or tea.

Part 1 - The Ex-Mod Document

At sometime around Friday, January 16th, a now ex-moderator for Janitor.ai's staff came out with a bot doccument detailing issues with the site behind the scenes. Much of it was in regards to unfair working conditions/workload, hidden/unofficial moderation and site policies, how CSAM material uploaded to the site was delt with, and several other mismanagement problems. As of writing this, the site owner, Shep, has responded in the Janitor discord, and the discord has been temporarily locked down and unable to take in new members as of writing. 20+ moderators have stepped down in light of these events, people are upset, and rightly so.

Was this really a shock to me though? ... Ehh... not really? Maybe i've just witnessed too many scummy and unfair practices or changes made to a lot of websites that I've enjoyed throughout the years, but I don't really put a whole lot of faith in any sort of team or org running a site that experiences a lot of user traffic -- especially a team that started small and homegrown but has had to up their team and management or rework major rules and expectations for the site previously in order to set up things like advertising and payment.

Should these mistakes have happened? No. I don't know how anyone thought it was a good idea to have only 3 people trying to deal with the workload they had been given, all while not being compensated for what was and still is the workload of a professional moderation team.
Do I think Shep is the spawn of satan? No. He's not innocent in all of this, but I don't think there's any sort of harrassment or words that will undo what has happened, and this incident has hopefully been a bit of a wakeup call for some larger issues that have been occuring sitewide.

Point being - the writing has been on the wall for Janitor.AI, and its been up for a while.

How will this affect things going forward? Its unclear. Supposedly, we now have a news tab for the site to read official updates, but realistically, all that has been done now is that instead of reading about changes we didn't ask for coming from a discord announcements channel, it's now just gonna be posted to the site's blog.

I'm disappointed, but at the same time, Jan is one of those thing's that feels too good to be true; especially as someone who came from c.ai from before it's big corporate overhaul effectively ruining the experience for most of its users. I can only hope for the best to come of this situation now.

Part 2 - Some Personal Thoughts and Feelings

At the time of document releasing, I had been working a 9 hour shift at insert corporate retail job here, and was getting home to pack up the remaining things I needed for one of my state's ComicCon's this weekend. It was my first time going to a convention with an actual group of friends instead of just trying to wander around alone, my first time going to attend both days of a convention, and my first time participating in a cosplay contest under the Craftsmanship section.

I think it was something I really needed, both for my mental health and as a social experience.

I'm at a very awkward spot in life right now, between working semi-full time for the Christmas season at a job that only pays 1 dollar above my state's minimum wage and trying to pay my portion of the bills, and still trying to divide what free time i have to all of my different creative pursuits

Essentially, most days I'm waking up, getting something small and quick to eat, going to work, working all day, and then coming home and having to figure out how I want to spend my 1-2 hours of free time before I have to pass out and repeat the process all over again. It's been exhausting and very taxing mentally. If you're at all on the autism spectrum like I am, you probably know how this sort of burnout feels.

I'm not the fastest at doing things, physically or mentally. I can't really keep up with people who are somehow able to pump out bots on a weekly or daily basis like a lot of the people I've looked up to. I don't really have a lot of money I can spare to make more sophisticated images or generations for bots like most others do. My two most popular bots are bots that had their images genned by people who I used to regard as friends who have largely not interacted or talked with me, with one of those said bots even being a request that I tried my best to write for while working with very vague suggestions. I'm not very proud of them these days - I will likely have to redo their entire personalities to bring them up to par with proxy standards.

All of this combined with now the newest announcement for Jan.ai's creator statistics has been... damaging, to say the least. I put my heart into my writing. I try to make stories or concepts that I think personally don't get capitalized on enough and use a generation style that I personally enjoy more than the realism you'd get with Midjourney.

And yet, I know that the moment i open up those statistics, It's gonna show me what people click on the most: my two least favorite bots, with Midjourney gens I no longer like, with a writing style I no longer like, with largely smut-only focuses that I don't enjoy making. No amount of people saying "you are worth more than your statistics" or "your art matters" is going to undo the fact that there will be no fanfare waiting for me unless I go back to that way of creating again.

I really tried. I wanted to say i was fine and that it doesn't hurt me and that It's okay to be just one niche creator in a large sea of content -- but I'm not. I'm not okay, and now a part of me feels like I'm back in my youth, being that weird, undiagnosed kid that no one really wanted to talk to; like nothing has ever changed. The chatter stops, the crowds depart, the needle drops, the music starts.

I know realistically I could never quit this place, but I doubt I will have the same fire and energy for it that I used to. The two bots I mentioned before are going to be privated -- I don't know if or when I'll republish them again. I'm sorry. This is the one thing I know I can do to protect at least a little bit of my peace.

If you made it this far down, thank you. I can't offer much else other than the battered hope that maybe this storm too shall pass. To any of the people i consider my friends who are reading this; I love you all dearly. I just needed someplace for this all to go before it rotted my brain like some bitter mold.

This won't be the last story I tell.