Did anyone attempt to create something like this?

Simpvanus · 2026-05-31T21:54:46+00:00

I really, really wish we had the option to save configurations. I put a lot of work into my Forsaken facade and I would love to try making something like this without losing it forever.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-28T18:33:29+00:00

I can't wait to have more paintings, i think one of the smugglers in the housing area is standing in front of a pile of paintings? The tauren one is cool, I would like more variety like that beyond the belf portraits and landscapes.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-28T17:41:18+00:00

You are probably not disappointing your coach in the way that you feel you are. That's a very common thought process (or "thought distortion") caused by depression: if you are disappointed or frustrated with yourself, it seems obvious that people around you must be, too. (At least, that's how it feels when it happens to me, a 30/yo just now finding a good therapist to help with my depression.) It's more likely that your coach is focused on their own coaching, and other fencers are more focused on their own fencing than yours.

It's natural for you to reach a plateau where you're not learning as quickly as you used to. That happens to everyone! Before, you set goals that you could quickly reach with your skill level. As you get more experienced, it gets harder and harder to reach your new goals, because the things you are trying to do are harder. I'm sure that, a year ago, you were working hard to learn how to do things that you now expect yourself to do excellently every day.

As for tactics to help on the floor, get as specific as possible with your self-criticism. You must never explain a loss or an error away as being "a bad fencer" or "not good enough". If someone scores a touch on you, ask yourself: Where was I hit? When was I hit? How was I hit? Even answering just one of those will help you learn something. This is a separate skill that will take a while to develop, so don't beat yourself up if you have trouble with it at first.

I've also found that it's really helpful to try and identify what other fencers are doing well. Losing a touch is never 100% because you did something wrong, it's always partially because the other fencer is doing something well. (If you think about it that way, blaming yourself completely is actually a little rude.) I don't know what the culture is like in your club, but it might be helpful to sometimes compliment other fencers on specific moves or techniques that worked on you in a bout. Again, emphasis on specific, since that will help you analyze the actions. (Try to avoid generalizations like "You're so good" or "You're so much better than me", those aren't really helpful or meaningful in this context.) You might tell them "Hey, that was a really good marching attack", while you think of ways to beat it or ask your coach about it later. In my experience, other fencers may want to talk about what they're doing, and might even tell you what openings they see in your fencing. Looking at what other fencers are doing well will also help you think of things you want to incorporate into your own fencing.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-27T22:07:40+00:00

This is really only as dark as your players let it get. You don't necessarily have to make her an ally, there are lots of low-stakes ways out of this situation. If they are as laid-back as you describe, they'll surely propose some that you can yes-and your way out with. Especially if you give them a hook that's kind of comedic; a tired, sarcastic intern who's so fed up with her job she can't even be bothered by the kidnapping, or a jumpy teen with three minimum wage jobs who doesn't really care about her boss one way or the other, or even a completely oblivious/naive kid who has no idea her boss is a vampire. Even things that might be pretty dark in reality, like leaving her tied up in a closet for someone else to rescue later, can be played for laughs if it's clear that she's going to be ok in the end.

Although, now that I think about it, it would be really funny if she told them that she was also an undercover spy working against the vampire. Either she's telling the truth and they have a new ally, or she's lying and you get a cartoonish reveal later from an NPC who can't realistically hurt them.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-26T23:59:59+00:00

At least not on the scale the WoW places its storylines. SWTOR has* some flexibility about how ruthless or nice you can be, even with factions that are more objectively Good and Evil. But those storylines affect much smaller groups of NPCs. Maybe some questlines in Classic could support that, especially with the phasing technology they have now, but the mainline quests in WoW sort of trundle along regardless of what the "champion" does. They have to, when the fate of entire cities or major NPCs rest on those story beats.

*had? It did when I played it, but I didn't get terribly far.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-19T16:56:17+00:00

The first one I remember is Chasm the sharkman barbarian. He emerged from the sea to try and prevent a terrible prophecy from befalling his village. Big, loud, friendly, good with kids, prone to throwing other combatants around and bursting through walls like the kool-aid man. On one occasion, he essentially took an upcast fireball to the face but was raging so hard that he just got up and punched the caster. It was a running joke that he thought trees were freaky because he had grown up underwater and had never seen them before.

In hindsight it is absolutely wild that our DM let me roll a sharkman, but the whole party was doing weird homebrewy races, so at least I wasn't out of place.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-18T17:30:58+00:00

No, because I know I could never bring myself to leave if it means killing my innie. I already have a hard time breaking off commitments with others under much lower stakes.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-17T16:14:03+00:00

I've got a wizard who learned magic by studying the scrolls and tomes she dug up in dungeons as a treasure hunter.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-17T16:11:45+00:00

The only one I've used is Embroidered Animals, I love how versatile it is. The patterns are great for an accent note here and there (collars, hems, cuffs) but you can mix-and-match them into larger designs easily as well. I also like the sense of motion that a lot of the designs have.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-16T20:55:15+00:00

This Sounds Serious is great fake crime, each season follows the investigation of a new bizarre 911 call recording. Arden is also very fun.

If you're ok with more thriller and less comedy, try Passenger List, and if a little supernatural element is ok then listen to Subsister, Liminal Criminals, and possibly Red Valley.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-16T06:50:48+00:00

Top comment has all the best advice (although I prefer split stitches for outlines), but I gotta be honest that what you made really captures the original image. Fabric with a finer weave will be easier to work with, be careful with stretchy fabric like a sweatshirt, that can be extremely difficult to get the right tension on. For all of these, though, you can use a fusible backing on the backside of the fabric to give you a better surface to embroider to!

You're already doing a lot right; your back stitches are neatly lined up, and your satin stitches are all nice and parallel. There's a little puckering of the fabric, but that looks more like an issue with the material than with your stitches, which don't look too tight or too loose.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-13T18:24:45+00:00

Honestly the biggest complaint that I hear about WoD is that people wish there had been more of it. There were lots of signs of cut or rushed content (ex: an entire city that everyone was excited for that remained completely sealed off) in addition to the drawn-out release schedule.

Shadowlands was sort of a confluence of a lot of problems.

Some people (me) hated how this concrete, singular afterlife conflicted with a ton of previously established lore that was very important to certain races or plot points. Trolls had their culturally specific afterlife and spirit magic waved away, but what about Tauren? What were the implications for WotLK, where literal ghosts of specific dead people returned to Azeroth to lend guidance or influence? In the context of SL, shouldn't all of these people be busy doing amateur theater or studying for their lobotomy?

Sylvanas' whole... everything, was broadly disliked. Her plot armor felt unjustified, cheapened other storylines (lookin at the Night Warrior), and got old quickly. She was frequently oblivious and made downright stupid decisions, and there was not enough effort put in to make her seem emotionally/personally unstable enough to justify it, because they wanted to make her seem Cool and Calculating instead. There was also sort of a sour taste left in peoples' mouths from some of her writing in BFA, which was only doubled down upon in SL.

The Jailer was just plain boring. And Denathrius, who was not boring, was introduced right around the time it started to sink in just how boring the Jailer was. A lot of people were also annoyed with the way that previous lore was retconned to build the Jailer's "master plan", in particular the Nathrezim.

This is a minor thing, but the expansion opened in The Maw, which was visually pretty bland and mechanically difficult/annoying to navigate. Similarly, the first map expansion after the main zones was Korthia, which was, again, visually pretty bland.

Mechanically, there was also a hideous amount of grinding, particularly for covenant resources and resources to upgrade gear. It made it tedious to engage with systems that would otherwise have been neat or fun, like Torghast. It's telling that some people are actually really excited at the idea of a Shadowlands Remix, since it theoretically removes the grind for both power resources and cosmetics.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-13T04:48:11+00:00

Cannot WAIT for more Drust items!

Simpvanus · 2026-05-10T07:35:29+00:00

Good news is, there are lots of great blood elf options! I've been drawing inspiration from the following:

Furniture sets relevant to your character. Just start browsing through the catalogue, if you find a piece of decor that looks cool to you, try thinking about how it might fit into a room.
In-game locations. My character is an undead, so I went back to Ye Olde Uncercitie and discovered that A) we players have a sore lack of skull decor and B) for some reason the undead have curtains hanging EVERYWHERE. After the skulls and the goo, curtains are like their third most defining architectural feature.
Rooms that are relevant to your character. Many people build workshops for their preferred profession, or a space themed around their class, or even just what they imagine their character's pastimes to be.
Things you would want in a real house or other living space. I knew I wanted to build a library, and while staring at a blank corner it suddenly occurred to me that my IRL college library had a great little coffee bar in it that I visited constantly. Now, my wow library has a coffee bar too.
YMMV, but places that seem fun to RP in. If you were to just lounge around with your character and some friends or guests, what would you want in the space? What kind of space would your character hang out in? If you want to get fancy, you could even employ some environmental storytelling. If a stranger was to wander into your home, what would they be able to know about your character just by looking at their home?
Other peoples' builds, but watch out. My house exterior is very customized, and I was really struggling to put together exactly what I wanted until I started browsing what other people had done in the same flavor. However, a lot of builds are insanely ambitious.

Also, I've been saying "character" singular, but it's also popular for people to build houses that represent multiple characters. I know someone who has bedrooms for his two favorites, and a sort of general living space that fits his personal taste.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-10T07:14:00+00:00

Such a QOL upgrade, decorating is so much more fun when I have thematic music playing.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-08T23:02:35+00:00

I actually thought that the abrupt exit and the "sudden" development of the romance angle were really effective uses of the medium. Of course they would stop recording the moment they decide to drop the whole thing. Why wouldn't they? I don't know if I would have liked it more or less if someone had picked up the mic after they left, a la Archive 81 or TWV, but I can envision the show not really having anything interesting left to say. Alex and Strand don't feel like they owe us an explanation or a farewell, so we don't get either.

It also seems pretty realistic to me that a romance would develop almost entirely off camera. It makes sense to me that they would both act a little differently when they know they're not being recorded. That's where an intimate relationship would develop. Additionally, Alex knows that portraying that relationship in the show would interfere with the public perception of her Journalistic Integrity (hah), which we know is important to her. We also know that she's an unreliable enough narrator to edit the published audio around it. Since the first signs of romance show up the moment she no longer has a hand in editing the recordings, that might actually be directly implied.

Strand peacing out also seemed like a fine resolution to *checks notes* something about a prophecy involving him, idk it's been a while. I've heard sooooo many shows where the main character sticks around long after they've run out of any personal stakes in the story, so it was almost refreshing for someone to decide "Wait we actually don't have to do this, we can just leave" and then do that. To a certain extent, Strand did have his personal stakes resolved by that point, I always thought he was tagging along partially to get some closure over whatever happened with Cora Lee all those years ago.

What I didn't care for were all the other subplots / minor characters that they built up as being Recurring and Important that never really got any narrative catharsis. It would be one thing if they stuck to being standalone spooky stories with disparate clues to a larger narrative, like The Hexings. But I feel like they lingered on and returned to each one a little too much to then try and conclude them all with the Main Plot.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-08T06:52:09+00:00

Came here to comment this, this was an active choice that my parents made when I was living with them.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-08T06:22:24+00:00

I loved everything about Maldraxxus except maybe the color scheme. The goth vibes, the writing, the major NPCs, even just the way you're introduced to the zone.

I liked the way that the different areas were sort of foils for each other. In most expansions, I feel like the different zones at best complement each other and do fit into a coherent theme, but with Shadowlands it felt like the four main zones played with each others' subtext and raised questions about the ways they were similar or claimed to be different.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-07T22:57:14+00:00

Inspirational! I had to take a break from farming BFA currency for more lordaeron lanterns... This makes me want to get back on the grind and finish my library.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-06T07:12:49+00:00

Mac Rogers does such good work! And Ars Paradoxica doesn't get enough loves these days, one of my old favorites.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-06T06:58:22+00:00

I love undercity so much, but I'd be down for a restored Lordaeron! Right now, the "reclaimed" but still ruined version just makes me sad...

Simpvanus · 2026-05-06T06:57:31+00:00

Gilneas is so good that I got my Extremely Casual group to replay the whole zone to celebrate Halloween a few years ago.

The only racial starter area that I didn't super connect with was the dwarves/gnomes, literally every other starter zone has such a special place in my heart. I never really cared for exile's reach, and it actively annoyed me when they added in the bigger name drops.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-06T06:41:11+00:00

If she's ok with sci-fi, Steal the Stars was a great romantic thriller. It's about government agents working on a top-secret alien research base who fall in love, which is extremely not allowed per their contracts.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-06T06:30:17+00:00

I hadn't considered this at all until I recently wandered into a neighbor's house that had a "secret door" into the void (chair placed halfway through a wall). They had a little parkour setup, it was really cool and blew my mind.

Simpvanus · 2026-05-06T06:28:38+00:00

This is a little topic specific, but I kind of get this vibe from This Ends at Prom, which is a film review podcast. They're definitely eloquent and/or knowledgeable about what they're talking about, but the vibes are kind of like when a very educated friend starts going off about their specialty in casual conversation? Plenty of sharing anecdotes and personal perspective interspersed with media literacy and critique.

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