Please Cohost, I am begging you to add a "hey I saw your comment and I think it's neat but I just don't know how to respond please I don't hate you I think you're neat I'm not being an asshole I'm just stupid"... button

About seven years ago, I found myself in the same place as a lot of those in the tech industry: facing burnout. Honestly, it was a real difficult thing to deal with. My life outside of work was going in a great direction, I wasn't working too many hours, and I was getting paid a great salary to work a cushy office job. By all measures, I had lucked out big. I'd been into computers since elementary school, and it just so happened that my hobby aligned with a lucrative field that was rapidly changing society. I wasn't even working one of those jobs that was changing it for the worse.

But I felt unfulfilled. The products I worked on were important to their users, but not to me personally. I'd get home from work tired, pull up a personal project, and just zone out, unable to summon the energy to write any more code. I could no longer use computers for the things I enjoy, because I was spending my energy making computers work for businesses. I had to ask myself, would I ever enjoy computers again?

I would, eventually, but at the time, I came to the conclusion that what was once my hobby had become my profession. I need to make peace with that and choose a new hobby.

I had dabbled with creative writing a couple times in high school and university, but I had never been very good at it, and that made it a great hobby candidate. I could improve slowly, at my own pace, and I wouldn't stress about holding my personal projects to the same high standards as my professional work.

I started writing stories for my husband. (Same-sex marriage was still about a year away from being legalized by the Supreme Court, but we were already registered domestic partners in our state.) He's still the main person I write for, but in the back of my mind, I was always thinking about who else might enjoy them.

Confession time: I spent a lot of time on 4chan in the early 2000s. Discussing anime and video games, not politics, and I didn't dare touch /b/ with a 10-foot pole. During that time, I noticed a common theme popping up in a lot of posts. People wished that their lives were more like anime X, or video game Y.

Although I get being in a living situation you can't stand but also can't get away from, it always struck me as an odd choice to want to trade in the real world for a fictional one. Lots of scary and depressing things happen in fiction. Stories wouldn't be exciting otherwise. I'd rather imagine myself in a better position in the real world.

That idea, plus an in-joke with my husband, led me to write a trio of novels titled Neo Akihabara Meipouchou. It's a story about a bunch of anime fans who set out to make the world more anime, and succeed, with deleterious results.

In many ways, it's a flawed work. I often hear that I didn't do a good enough job explaining why some situations are horrific and disgusting, because I assumed readers would be able to make that inference themselves. The result is, at times, to some readers, it seems like I'm encouraging certain kinds of behaviors, or approving of certain anime tropes, when I'm intending the opposite.

Still, there's a lot I personally like about it, and I posted it on the web a couple years ago at https://meipouchou.com

Of course, I quickly learned what every aspiring writer already knows: Building an audience is difficult. There's lots of things on the internet that are competition for attention, and long-form fiction is at a disadvantage over shorter, more visual media.

I don't keep detailed analytics of people who browse the site. It's kinda creepy, but I estimate a couple dozen people read at least most of Meipouchou, and I count that as a success.

But still, I wanted to keep improving, and keep searching for an audience that might appreciate my work. Despite my description of Meipouchou above, I really do like anime, possibly way too much, and I know there are at least some people out there who would enjoy mature, middle-brow fiction inspired by, and ruminating on, anime.

Getting people to visit your site is hard, so I figured maybe there are people on writing sites who would appreciate what I'm going for. I tried a couple of the bigger sites, and it was a bust. They were aimed too much at general audiences. I eventually settled on HoneyFeed, which, being affiliated with MyAnimeList, seemed to be a good place to start. HoneyFeed isn't very big. There aren't many readers, but I think it's been a good place for me to be over the last half year as I continue to improve my writing skills. I will probably branch out to other sites in the future as well.

Over the last month, there's been a small, friendly writing event going on in the HoneyFeed Discord. I participated in this event, writing three short stories. One by myself, and two in collaboration with other writers.

Although it didn't win any prizes, I'm especially happy with my final entry. It's a parody of the kind of toyetic anime where the whole world revolves around a single hobby. Think Pokémon, Gundam Build Fighters, Beyblade, etc., but for pogs.

I tried to add a lot of details not just to evoke a specific time when pogs were big, but also the area I lived in at the time. It ended up being more of a parody of Yu-Gi-Oh than any other property.

I'm happy with this story because it made people laugh, and I'd be happy if it brought you laughter as well. It's not too long, and I'll link it at the end of the post. One of the more interesting parts of writing this were the restrictions. We were going for an action story without violence, featuring a protagonist with no special powers, all without any dialogue.

Participating in this event was a lot of fun, but it did get tricky to schedule. I hope to participate in more cool events like this in the future, if time allows.

my toppings are now sidings!!!!

they call me Dr. Queso. whatever man idk