The following journal is intended towards those who knew me as “Ganren” and I was close to, to some degree. To anyone else, feel free to ignore this journal as it’s not going to make any sense to you or have any relevance either.



This is incredibly difficult for me to write. But it’s clear to me now that no matter what I do, this is going to cause damage one way or the other. This decision was so difficult for me that’s its now physically destroying my health from the ulcers tearing up my stomach, because while I’ve accepted whatever repercussions would happen to me, I’m genuinely afraid of the damage this is going to do to you. So I’m just going to explain the whole thing, and then put my head on the chopping block and hand you the axe. I’m not going to fight back or defend myself – I’ll leave this decision of whatever you need to do, up to you. But this is the whole story:

I did what I did as “Ganren” for the 8 years I was active (DA at first, then here FA), because I was trying to set an example for others to follow. In the beginning, a lot of people complained that no one left “good comments” but when I looked around, there was no one trying to teach others what a “good comment” was, nor was there anyone that I saw that was setting a good example. Because of this, I took up the role you knew me as “Ganren” and I tried to make the community better through my actions.

But there were things that I didn’t reveal that were bothering me, and they only got worse with time. I didn’t lie to anyone, and any of the comments I left were sincere and honest – if I liked something you did, or said you did well on something, I did mean it. But certain things I just didn’t bring up and kept to myself because I felt it was for the best and I was trying to be selfless. There were 2 seeds of destruction that I tried to ignore, but eventually became so powerful that I couldn’t ignore them anymore.

1) I took the role of a “pristine” example-setter. In the beginning, a lot of people expressed dislike, and even hatred, towards those in this fandom who enjoy porn/fetish stuff and seemed to look down on them. In addition, a lot of people also complained about getting very little attention on their clean works, whereas the fandom favored porn/fetish stuff. Because of this, I felt the only way I could do any good for this fandom was to pretend I was “pristine” and to focus my efforts on commenting on the clean stuff. I took up this role because I felt it needed to be filled, but the reality is that I had to hide that I enjoyed and favored porn/fetish stuff (more than clean art). Anytime I did comment on this stuff towards the end, I played it off as “simply supporting my friends” and tried to maintain the image I felt needed to be kept. But it always sucked that I had to hide in the closest while everyone else got to indulge and have fun enjoying what they enjoy. Over time, this slowly destroyed me on the inside and continued to make me more and more unhappy.

2) The method in which I tried to do all this was flawed. Not leaving good comments itself, but how I went about doing it for others. One example being that I tried to keep the amount of comments even amongst everyone I watched. But this doesn’t work because it involved me forcing myself to comment which only led me to sit there wasting significant amounts of time trying to make myself comment. Commenting only works when something about the piece inspires you to do such. My basis was telling artists what I enjoyed about it, and what I felt they did well on. But trying to keep the number of comments even, and trying to keep the length of each comment even was immensely flawed as it just doesn’t work. But because that was what I was known for, I felt I had to keep doing it be fair, even though it was only wearing me down over time. Again, I never lied to anyone and all of my comments were truthful when I said you did well on anything or I liked anything, but the method itself was what was impractical, not the comments I left.

Despite these problems, I ignored them and continued trying to be selfless. Because of all the people thanking me for what I did, I felt it was more important to keep at this than to address my own problems. Had you all not replied as much as you did, I never would have lasted as long as I did (and if I heard nothing in response at all, I would have gave up VERY QUICKLY and just went back to being a lurker). I lasted 8 years because of the sheer amount of thank you replies I received for leaving the nice comments I did for others, but in the end, the problems eventually grew so big that I couldn’t ignore them anymore.

I got silent, and for 9 months I tried writing a journal to explain my problem. But each time I tried writing something up I kept thinking people would read this and go “YOU’RE JUST DOING THIS FOR ATTENTION!” or “YOU’RE BEING OVERDRAMATIC” or any other negative assumption. At first, this did make me hesitant to talk about my problems, but I eventually reasoned that I need to say something or I won’t be able to continue. But what stopped me dead in my tracks was the realization that all the good I did may be destroyed by revealing all this. This created such an absolute powerful psychological block, that I was not able to address this issue because I was genuinely terrified of all the good I did going up in flames. Everything I did for 8 years, gone. And the damage this would do to others only magnified it even more.

So I left. I said nothing to anyone and just disappeared. I reasoned that I would be out-of-sight, out-of-mind and people would forget about me and move on. I reasoned that it was better for “Ganren” to die and fade away rather than talk about my problems, because I didn’t want to cause any damage towards others. While some people did seem to abandon “Ganren”, it surprised me that some people still tried to contact me even years later and it only racked me with guilt. At some point (I think a year ago) I did try to reconnect with some people on twitter, but it didn’t last long before the guilt overwhelmed me, and I disappeared again.



Here’s the part that’s going to do a lot of damage though. The thing is, I never left the fandom – I just became active on another account. Around the time when I was trying to figure out what was causing my psychological block to get worse, I experimented on my observation account by trying to leave comments for others there, because I thought that leaving comments was the problem. What I found was that it definitely wasn’t that (instead the 2 problems above which I realized later), and it just felt so good to be able to leave nice comments for others again, and NOT have to hide my interests. I felt free (not from you all, but specifically from having to hide in the closet) and it just made me happy to be open about my interests and indulge freely. I didn’t intend to become active there, but after commissioning something fetishy, I got more and more sucked into becoming this new “me”. I figured I could still do good for this fandom (which did make me happy) while enjoying myself freely now, but I still felt guilt from time to time about disappearing like I did.

It wasn’t my intention to abandon you all, but I wasn’t able to get around the powerful psychological block from the problems putting me in what seemed to be checkmate to me, and it only became more difficult to address once I became active as the new “me”. But I still stumble upon messages from time to time wondering where I went, and one person even stumbled upon my new account and offered gift art of my character there (I ended up telling them who I was, because I couldn’t except them doing something so nice for me when I was hiding who I was. They are the only person who knows my other identity).

As time went on, it kept tearing me apart more and more from not knowing what the right answer was or what would be best. If I revealed everything, I risk seriously hurting the people I cared about, but by saying nothing I’m hurting them by leaving them wonder. This was moral dilemma for me that ate away at me more and more because I was terrified of hurting you all and I didn’t know what to do or how to handle this. But in the end I still abandoned you all (regardless of my intentions or problems) and while I didn’t know what would do less damage, I realized in the end that “fairness” would be the tie-breaker and telling you all why I left is the only just thing to do.

I don’t expect you all to believe me when I say that I genuinely cared about you all and that I was truly terrified of all the good I did being destroyed. I don’t expect any mercy or forgiveness, and I accept whatever repercussions would become of this. I just wish there was some way that this wouldn’t hurt you, but there is no avoiding it one way or the other.




I don’t intend on returning as “Ganren” as this part of my life is over. But assuming there is anyone that doesn’t hate my guts and actually does wish to reconnect and know my “other identity”, you’re free to send an email to:


Ganrenk64 (domain = gmail.com - I’m purposely separating this avoid spam).


If interested (and I know you), I’ll tell you my new FA account and twitter. But the thing is, you may not like what you see (I’m not into anything illegal, so nothing that bad, but still…) and I’ve been having trouble keeping up with everything, so I can’t promise I’ll be active all the time either. But the option is there if anyone that I was close to, to some degree would like to reconnect (please note, I’m not going to be revealing this for people I don’t know, so if you have brand new usernames I wouldn’t be familiar with, please let me know who you were so that I know who you are).


Again, I don’t expect you to believe me when I say that I’m genuinely sorry and that I really didn’t know what to do or what was best given the circumstances. I feared hurting you no matter what I did, and I didn’t know how to get around the psychological block until now. I don’t expect forgiveness, but I wanted to be fair. The axe is yours and my head’s on the block. Do whatever you got to do.