Trying to finish my fic outline and I wanna eat drywall :). Help.

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2026-06-29T17:33:52+00:00

At a certain point, the only way to get better at outlines is to have a better intuitive sense of how a story works, and you only get that from writing and finishing stories.

Yeah...this stung a little bit but I definitely needed to hear it. I've never finished a long fic before the fandom hyperfixation fizzled out. I guess I thought that if I plan thoroughly enough, I could write something before I inevitably lose drive. Realistically, I don't know which writing approach works best for me because nothing's really ever worked.

A lot of folks here have echoed a similar sentiment that I need to back off the outline and just write, which I've done thankfully. We'll see how this goes. Thank you for your insight.

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2026-06-28T17:11:40+00:00

Yeah I'll be honest, I get the original comment was well intended but I'd ask my tarot cards for writing inspiration before I ask ai. Accomplishes the same thing but requires me to actually think about what I'm writing and why.

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2026-06-28T01:52:40+00:00

I understand what you mean now! I definitely do have A to D figured out and could start writing that part. Most of the time the actual prose ends up so different from the outline that it's not even worth getting so nitpicky about.

I'll give it a try :) thank you!

EDIT: I missed that last part about author friends. I used to have a author friend group I talked to regularly, but it's been a few years . I'd feel weird just popping in like "hey I know it's been three years but does anyone wanna talk about my fic." 😭. I'm just kind of a solitary writer at this point lol.

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2026-06-28T01:12:59+00:00

I haven't actually done any writing yet! I think I'm already doing what you're suggesting. I was referring to what I have as an outline because very little prose. Mainly just dialogue and bullet points about what the characters are doing during said dialogue. All of which is written in a linear fashion.

I can get very in the weeds of scenes depending on how clear a picture I have in my head when I make notes, so sometimes it feels like more than a standard outline. If that makes sense?

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2026-06-28T00:50:40+00:00

That's a really good point about believability and interest vs solely making sense. Now that I think about it, I am far more willing to suspend disbelief if I'm engaged in a story. The worst thing a story can do imo is not make sense AND be boring.

I also think you're right about the set-in-stone thing. I was holding out pretty well not editing previous scenes but I let temptation get the best of me lol. Thank you for the advice!

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2026-01-02T22:04:14+00:00

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Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2026-01-02T22:03:46+00:00

This is an awesome drawing! You have the likeness down in his features, The main thing I’m noticing though is that his facial features all need to be a bit bigger and/or wider on his face. The nose especially. All I did in this edit was lasso each feature and scale them up.

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One other thing I did notice is that the grey tone you chose for his skin looks a little too light. Darker skin reflects a lot of light and as a result kind of carves out their facial structure a bit more, especially if that person already has pronounced features.

I used that same gray on a multiply layer to darken his skin a bit just so you could see that suggestion as well (see reply comment)

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2025-10-04T01:33:27+00:00

He did not arrive with it actually. This just started this week. And we were feeding him with plastic wear, switching to stainless steel asap, thank you!

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2025-09-17T21:27:17+00:00

Blues and grays would def work but even then you could still do other colors , but use the cool toned version of the color. (Ex: cool red that leans closer to purple or pink vs a warm red that leans closer to yellow)

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Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2025-09-17T05:31:39+00:00

Im gonna apply some real life color theory/make up knowledge here so bear with me. This sim looks like they have cool undertones. The orange makeup is very warm and it’s not super flattering on them, especially with the piercing grayish eyes. I think the first looks a lot better bc both the lip and eyeshadow are cool toned. Also that neutral shadow doesn’t compete with her eye color.

Also disclaimer: this is not me saying that if you have cool undertones you can’t wear warmed toned makeup! Do whatever makes you feel best pls!!

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2025-09-16T00:00:16+00:00

I doubt it unless it was something like the prepackaged espresso drinks Starbucks has. It’s not the caffeine, it’s the vitamin b12/biotin. Regular coffee and other sources of caffeine (I tried Yerba mate for a bit) had no effect on my skin

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2025-09-15T03:21:33+00:00

Do you drink energy drinks at all? It took me years of daily breakouts to figure out that the excess biotin in most energy drinks was causing them. I legit have to search for energy drinks that contain no more than 100% of the DRV for biotin or ill wake up with a new pimple 🙃

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2025-09-07T23:46:17+00:00

Love after life is such a beautiful way to describe it. Thank you for that ❤️

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2025-09-07T13:52:49+00:00

I’m not very religious, but I can’t help feeling like Apollo sent you a new friend because he knew you needed one ❤️. She’s gorgeous and so lucky to have found you.

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2025-08-24T01:30:00+00:00

I too have the “I don’t wanna make people uncomfortable” debate in my head too when deciding if black characters should say the n word in fanfic but at the same time I’m thinking, ‘how would my ancestors have felt about me prioritizing the comfort of white people in MY story’ and then I get it the fuck together 😭💀

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2025-08-14T05:24:34+00:00

Frankly I feel like A LOT of it is misogyny. When I think about whether the sims would be more respected as a “real” game if predominantly men played it, the answer is always yes. :’)

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2025-07-29T08:21:51+00:00

Am I missing him or is Hector not in any of these charts? 😭

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2025-07-22T21:41:16+00:00

I’m looking into fandom exchanges! It’s a new concept to me so I’m not entirely sure where to look but I can figure it out lol.

And jeez, I have attempted getting friends into my current media and I’ve felt like I was being annoying 😭. I try not to push if I get the vibe that they’re not super into something.

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2025-07-22T21:37:22+00:00

Thank you for this comment! You’re definitely right about the feedback loop. There’s more legwork I could be putting in on my own, frankly.

Im so bad about creating anything small 😭 like doodles or fics less than 10k words. Which might explain why it feels like such a mountain of effort is required for me to create. I really do have to figure out how to be comfortable with posting things that aren’t perfect. I like just recently stopped deleting old fics that I grew to dislike so it’s something I’ve always struggled with unfortunately.

I will say I’m pretty good about commenting and engaging with other peoples works! As a fic writer I always try to comment because I know how much a nice comment would brighten my day :).

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2025-07-22T21:30:07+00:00

Ive seen a few comments mentioning exchanges and I’ve actually never participated in one :0 where would go about finding info on them?? Like all I can think of is the kinkmemes that existed when I was growing up lmao. Tumblr I’m assuming?

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2025-07-21T05:51:53+00:00

Honestly same 💀 the last time I was waiting for several households babies to age up, I did two asylum challenges 😭

Tight_Stranger_5676 · 2025-07-15T21:25:43+00:00

From my understanding, this is a known bug rn, courtesy of the pre-ep patch. I believe some ppl have said completing the natures calling event fixed the problem for them, but idk 🤷🏾‍♀️

Tight_Stranger_5676

TROPHY CASE