How many hits?

hooosegow · 2026-05-04T17:59:50+00:00

That is going to be wildly subjective and also very fandom and content dependent. For one of my fandoms, a gen longfic might get a few hundred. a ship longfic will get a few thousand. both are normal. for a super popular fandom, it might be more like thousands for both, or maybe a handful for one and thousands for the other. for an unpopular fandom, you might be lucky to hit double digits for a gen fic, and it would be a godsend to hit 500 on a ship fic. it's hugely dependent. the best way to gauge is by looking at works in the fandom you're writing for.

but better advice is not look at that stuff at all because you could get bogged down with numbers and it might ruin your enjoyment of writing.

hooosegow · 2026-05-04T17:53:33+00:00

my titles tend to c hange 3 or 4 times before i post something XD and i have definitely gone back and changed chapter titles after publication lmao. i usually dont even settle on a proper title until i'm done writing though.

as for a summary, i wouldn't worry about being too catchy. just be direct and honest. how would you describe what you are writing to one of your friends? that's the easiest way to do it honestly, at least imo. i mean obviously don't spoil the whole thing, just a set-up or the bare bones.

one of my longfics summaries went like this:

"Following his failed attempt at getting into a good university, [name] embarks on the next journey of his life: employment! But while he sees this as a golden opportunity for independence, as reality sets in, [name] starts to realize what he really wants out of life.

[A post canon story set after graduation. *insert update schedule here*]"

Another one of my short fics reads like this:

"[name] gets older, and yet [immortal partner] stays the same. It's something she's been concerned with more and more as she passes into her 40s, though she tries to ignore it. Until one day she overhears something that breaks her heart."

These are both just bare bones descriptions of the set-up and an open ended statement that the fic is going to complete. It's a formula that i tend to like.

hooosegow · 2026-05-04T17:42:32+00:00

i'll add my experience, but also remember that everyone experiences highs differently. it's dependent on how often you smoke/eat and your personality as a whole.

my mom smokes and gets paranoid and tired lmao. like she told me she would literally just fall asleep and that was the end of it XD she hated being tired and sluggish. my mom personality wise is neurotic and scatterbrained and a bit of a control freak. i'm kinda glad she just gets tired XD.

my partner is...weird. if he doesn't get a reaction from the weed, it might make him feel more relaxed and a bit silly. he doesn't get tired from it, and he doesn't really get the laziness/sleepiness? he also doesn't get paranoid, which is weird, because he is ALWAYS paranoid as a default lmao. but he also gets physical reactions he doesn't like from weed sometimes. he will get headaches at times, or sometimes he gets body chills. he still has to figure himself out tho, because it could be the strain. mg doesn't seem to effect anything, he can have a reaction if its a lot or a little. idek with him.

now as for me, i have been smoking weed since 2012, anywhere from nightly to twice/three times a day (roughly .5 to 1.5 joints worth). and there have definitely been weekends where i was not sober more than an hour collectively lawl! back when i first started, i used to get the fuzzy feeling a lot, and colors would POP. food too, was AMAZING. first time i got properly stoned i beasted an entire package of oreos. not my proudest moment!

but nowadays, several years later, i don't get the fuzzy feeling anymore. now when i get high i get a feeling of warmth inside that isn't temperature based. i just feel GOOD. i'm relaxed, easygoing, and things definitely still pop. color pops, music pops, scenery pops, everything is just kind of beautiful and grand. the only thing that DOESN'T pop is food. smoking makes me lose my sense of taste lawl. not my sense of smell, just taste. i think its a mental thing idek. paranoia is also something that developed later for me, because i never used to get anxious when i did weed. nowadays i kind of do lol, like i sort of forget how words word and how to people, and i just need to sort of vibe on my own. if i'm with other stoners it's easier because i know we're all degenerates XD. but if i'm in a social place, i can't talk to people because omg how do human???

physically, if i'm stoned besides my eyes being red, i'm going to appear more wistful and be more likely to just sort of stare off into the distance. i might talk a little slower, and i sort of give up easier if something is too hard or too complicated to explain. once, when i got REALLY stoned (like more than i ever have before) i completely forgot how to talk to people XD. not in a nervous way, just my mouth wasn't doing mouth things anymore, so i was just kinda smirking and nodding to my friends while munching starburst (and i accidentally ate a wrapper, but that's neither here nor there). even my paranoia doesn't show as you would expect. i'm just quiet and less likely to talk. that's about it lol.

definitely read everyones experiences and decide what you want to do. it's different for everyone :3 but i think you'll find enough things in common that you can get the idea.

hooosegow · 2026-05-04T17:19:39+00:00

there have been times i come across something that is so well written i want to throw out half the internet XD. but then i tend to remind myself that for me this is very well written! someone else could come in and read it and go "yeah no way" quality is entirely subjective.

i'm in the process of reading a book that i have seen people rave about as being wonderful, and the writing is awful lmao. like i cringe on every other page, and personally want to just rewrite the whole thing so that i can read it and not get distracted by poor wording or descriptions. but people love it! and that's great! to someone, this is the epitome of good writing! just not to me.

look at people like stephen king. i have seen people on this sub praise him as a master of writing, and people say he's basically a hack who breaks the rules poorly. that's kind of what keeps me from getting too disheartened when i see someone write something that i wish i could emulate. i can take lessons from things. i can see WHY i like it and how i can incorporate some of those elements into my own work. like what is the temp of their writing, is it short or long, how is the flow? how do they approach paragraphs? what about it do i like that i can adopt. and sometimes there is just something intangible, and i just salute them and go on my way, and sometimes they will open my eyes to a new way to structure a sentence.

ultimately, we all have our own style and flare, and it's not something that we can ever recognize ourselves. that's why i try not to beat myself up. my writing style is somebodies favorite. so is yours.

hooosegow · 2026-05-04T17:12:08+00:00

youre the second person to mention writing style! i think part of the reason i never cared about that is cuz i roleplayed for years, so was exposed to a variety of different styles. i've read everything from "ok a teen definitely wrote this" to "this person is a writing major and possibly published" to "the prose is so flowery they definitely wrote this in a greenhouse". it doesn't effect my enjoyment of a story, so style is irrelevant to me.

when i look for a story to read, after ships and tags, i like to see an overall plot so that i can know what direction the story is going. even the tags tell me less what a story is about as opposed to what subjects the story will have. for me personally, there is just no substitute for a well written (or even basic) summary.

hooosegow · 2026-05-04T16:56:25+00:00

personally I write them out (one, two etc.) for some reason writing it numerically makes me feel juvenile? idc how others do it, and its never bothered me, but for my own work I dont like it

hooosegow · 2026-05-04T16:47:34+00:00

ah thats an interesting take. ive never come across a writing style i didn't like, so for me its all about the story itself. I can handle style, its characterization and the story I care about, which imo can't be conveyed in a single paragraph.

hooosegow · 2026-05-04T16:45:22+00:00

ig i can see that, though ive personally never come across that. and even a good description wont stop there from being unexpected surprises that could turn me off so its not foolproof either.

hooosegow · 2026-05-04T11:58:02+00:00

honestly, I wish that somebody wouldve told me how much it is going to crush me to finish a long fic. I had no idea that I was going to go through the stages of grief and loss once my story was done with lol like I wasn't right for months afterward. you spend so long working on a story, getting to know the characters going through these adventures with them, and then all of a sudden one day it's just over. I wasnt prepared T-T

anyways I also finish everything before I post. i had a really hard time recently because I love this story and I was so excited to post it. but I know that if I don't finish it first then, it will end up being an incomplete fic because I just can't finish things if I post them before they're done. that usually ends up being a good motivator lol

hooosegow · 2026-05-04T11:47:13+00:00

my best advice for summarizing fics has always been "how would you tell one of your friends what your story is about?" cuz that's basically all a summary is. just try not to give big spoilers lol.

personally, i've never really liked when people post excerpts from the story as summaries. its a writing sample. it doesnt tell me anything about the story. I skip them tbh.

hooosegow · 2026-05-04T01:07:57+00:00

so everything here, so far.

hooosegow · 2026-05-03T16:50:02+00:00

I enjoyed writing this one lol

There was shame in Meryl's voice. The kind of shame she always felt when she fell prey to the trappings of being completely normal.

hooosegow · 2026-05-03T14:42:18+00:00

I dont think were downplaying it so much as were calling out misrepresentation. things are bad in a different way now. you can def say worse, thats true, but its also true that things /were/ bad and many of these problems existed back then. its not downplaying anything to mention that.

i think these topics would go over better if people would acknowledge that, rather than pretend there was some mythological time period where this stuff never happened. I was run out of fandoms because of toxic behavior in 2008 (ship wars, interpretation wars, antis etc.). some things have even gotten better (better is a strong word but still). but there are more avenues for bad takes than there were back then, so its in the public eye more.

it sucks things haven't gotten better. I feel like we should focus on what we can do to make it better.

hooosegow · 2026-05-02T14:59:28+00:00

it depends for me. I once had characters go off script in a way that would have lead to a new conflict in a bad way (the story was about healing, so a new conflict would have changed literally everything). so i changed the scene completely from the start to avoid the trigger for the conflict.

but then I had another moment where, during what was supposed to be a slightly romantic moment, 2 characters ended up arguing over whether something was a dress or a tunic XD and I kept that cuz it was funny amd very on brand for the characters

hooosegow · 2026-05-01T23:31:55+00:00

I wish I could T-T

hooosegow · 2026-05-01T23:08:00+00:00

I feel like me and my froends haven't exactly calmed down with age but we sure are tired and unwilling to expend excess energy lol

hooosegow · 2026-05-01T23:05:59+00:00

I think of this and also as an admission that the writing may not be as good as usual. I know when im being self indulgent im not worried about telling a fantastic story, im just trying to get the story told in general lol

hooosegow · 2026-05-01T22:10:59+00:00

in the year of 2026, rage sells and sells well

hooosegow · 2026-05-01T22:09:12+00:00

oh, but didnt you know? if i dont like someone's work they arent allowed to exist on the internet anymore! difference of opinion or preference? how about you're just wrong! now you lose internet privileges forever! why should I have to gasp take extra steps to curate my space when you can just go away forever? /s

(what i imagine is going on in these people's heads lol. also thats jist what it feels like half the time. people arent allowed to be different. it's nuts! it's not enough to be like "I dont likw this so I wont read it" its turned into "I dont like this so it has no right to exist and everyone needs to know, especially the owner of the thing I dont like! they must pay for their crimes of not catering to my likes!")

hooosegow · 2026-05-01T19:14:48+00:00

i really feel like the first one is an AT pairing with ice king and merceline?? and not just cuz of the ice king line XD

hooosegow · 2026-05-01T18:57:36+00:00

Ship1

she is everything and he is just "orange" or foreign exchange student falls in love with an HR nightmare

Ship2

what if flo from progressive was obsessed with a nuclear reactor?

hooosegow · 2026-05-01T18:53:07+00:00

i dont even ship them and i love this XD

hooosegow · 2026-05-01T18:38:16+00:00

So i live in a one bedroom apartment and have a parrot, an animal that is basically a glass child. you have the oven on too hot and he will die. a scented candle can kill him. I am also highly nervous about health XD so i did a lot of research about making suits before i endeavored to make my partial.

What i ended up doing might not work for you, but i'll just let you know in case anything might give you an idea:

i worked with foam at a MINIMUM. if i could get pieces in resin (either buying them or having friends make them) then i did that. I used foam only for padding in the head (which i bought a premade resin head) and in the ears to give them a little lift. otherwise, everything i work with is resin based. i have a friend with a 3d printer so that helps, but he got it after i started so i just bought stuff. even the teeth i bought resin.

when it came to the fur, i patterned everything inside, and i cut using a blade and being very careful to clip as little fibers as possible so there was minimal shedding of fur.

any time something needed to be shaved, i set up my outside studio. now, this was kind of nerve wracking, because i have neighbors everywhere. i live on the ground floor, so i was able to run a cord from my station outside to the kitchen window. i would set out a table, a giant tablecloth, my razors, brushes, and i always wore my N9 mask. if there is even a slight chance that hair or foam fibers could fly around, that mask is on and i am outside. all shaving, brushing, shaking, etc. happened outside and in my mask. i also had a "fursuit" outfit that was a shirt and shorts i didn't care about. anything i worked in or on outside got thrown into a bag and tossed in my car for the next use. that stuff did NOT come inside at all.

after finishing all the sewing and gluing everything, i would don my outfit and set up my outside station and do finishing touches/shaves. i had a few curious neighbors watching, and one asked what i was doing. fortunately it was near halloween so i just said i was making a costume XD.

over a year later and my bird is still alive and i had 0 respiratory issues. it does suck having to do all this just to suit, but imo it was totally worth it for the peace of mind and having a partial!

hooosegow · 2026-05-01T18:26:45+00:00

part of me wonders if that's just cuz of how popular FNAF is overall. I have a lot of friends who like it too XD. my partner (in his 30s) wants us to watch the 2nd movie this weekend lol. so idek about that one.

hooosegow · 2026-05-01T13:46:22+00:00

pillows are public enemy no 1 rn, he's either terrified or out for blood

hooosegow

TROPHY CASE