🌸🦌Stagshire Island Chronical🦌🌸

[Lythienne]

🏝 Stagshire 🏝
Est. 12/30/2021​

Just joined the forum and an island journal sounds so much fun! This first post is under construction but I plan to have it as an up-to-date introduction/overview/list of goals of my island, with the rest of the thread showing the progression I've been making. Should be fun!

Map:

House:

Areas of Note:
Campsite

Orchard:

Current Villagers:
Sasha
Bangle
Shino
Ione
Julian
Kidd~
Friga~
Tammy*
Kitt*
Monty*

*Villagers I'd like to move out and replace ~Villagers i'm undecided

Former Villagers:
Broccolo
Iggly

Areas Under Construction:
House
Farm around house
Boardwalk
Wrestling Ring

Planned areas:
Fairy Garden
Villager yards
Beach areas
Bamboo Forest
???

 

[Lythienne]

I took a picture of my tent on my first day that I'll post here once I get it off my switch (Edit: I got it!). I had the foresight to date it but I haven't remembered to do that on any of my other pictures. I should fix that.

Bonus: baby's first bell tree. I only knew what to do here because Nero told me when I visited, lol

I've had my island for less than two weeks and I'm really enjoying it so far. This is my first ever Animal Crossing game. I remember being vaguely interested in it growing up but I didn't get to actually play video games until I was older and by that point i guess I just wasn't into it much idk why. Now that I'm a grownup who can buy my own media I have a well established pattern of getting into things way after they were relevant, and that's certainly true here. Not that AC is irrelevant now, but it's certainly not the craze it was when it first came out. I didn't really have much intention or interest in playing at the time, so it was fun watching everything as a bemused outsider, but I picked it up now because I finished Breath of the Wild (see what I mean) and I wanted something to play with my friend Nero (who also encouraged me to join the forum, haha).

This is us! We live far away from each other so it was really fun feeling like we could just hang out together. I have more, I'll have to post them when I can. Edit: I only took the one on the first trip, in this cute little area on their island. I didn't know how to emote yet, lol. I got the sweatshirt from their shop

They've played much, much more than I have, and they are generous enough to share the bounty of their experience which has honestly been a huge help in the early game.

Meanwhile, back at my frozen hellscape:

I do like waterfalls though, and I like how many of them and how they're placed on my map. I actually love my map a lot! I don't know how much I'm going to end up terraforming it once I unlock that ability, but I guess we'll see. I plan for the space the Town Hall is on to have the commercial spaces, plus the orchard behind it (once I figure out.... how I want to design it) I also want to put the boardwalk on the bottom right beach! Hopefully it wont end up feeling too cramped, but it it does I'll come up with a different plan

Later I went to visit Nero again and had made a bit more headway into progressing. I could show emotions now! This time we went on a fun day trip to their museum! This time I took a bunch of pictures, and I've added alt text descriptions for funzies

But then of course I eventually had to return home. I never did take a picture of my house in it's original spot (upper left hand corner of the town hall section) but here it is in it's new spot! Also, an old picture of my house interior. I liked it a lot better before the added doors completely ruined the flow of the thing, hahaha. I still don't know what I'm doing with it so no current pics I'm afraid.

I'll be sure to take more pictures of my island and share progress! I'm going to leave off this post with an absolutely hilarious exchanged I had with a botched snowfolk the other day (is it just me, or are the snowfolk viscerally horrifying?)

Absolutely roasted to death xD

 

[Lythienne]

I updated my previous post and my main post with more pictures and the like! I haven't really been doing much decorating; mostly working on expanding so that I can have more stuff to decorate WITH. My options still feel frustratingly limited, especially when I get so many items and recipes that don't really fit with the vibe I'm going for. Oh well.

With Nero's help I do have SOME stuff to work with though, and I was able to make a cute little area for my campsite! And then I IMMEDIATELY decided I needed to move it and had to reconstruct everything!!!!!! I really like how it turned out though, so it was definitely worth it, and I took some before and after pics!

Before:

After:

It's super cute, I really like how it turned out!

More people have been visiting the island now, which is cool, it makes it feel like more of a living space. Yesterday Redd came to my island so I invited Nero over because I know the art section of their museum is a bit sparse. I showed them around the areas I had built and tormented them by making them do group stretching with me xD. We also had some fun with emotes and I showed them my SEVERELY botched snowboy

I haven't really been taking pictures of island visitors and new characters I've been meeting, BUT I recently met Flick for the first time and not to be dramatic -

But I would ****ing die for him. He's so cute!!! He looks like a little dragon boy, I wish he was a villager. Why can't we have dragon boy villagers?? Nintendo I have some notes.

As for the villagers I do have... well to be perfectly honest, I'm not thrilled with most of them. I've been trying not to look up too much instructional stuff because it kind of gets in the way of my vibes, but that means I didn't quite know how the mystery island tour for villagers worked, so I ended up accidentally running out the clock and getting three completely rando villagers, when i had met a couple villagers I thought were kind of cute but weren't my perfect ones you know? Perfect is truly the enemy of good. That means I've ended up with Kitt, who is truly the oil to my water and is my first priority in encouraging to move out. I'm also not a fan of either of my starters, Tammy and Iggly, either. Broccolo is... fine.

But Bangle! Bangle I ended up completely adoring almost immediately. I really love her! I get that AC Villager personalities aren't exactly unique, but they're all new to me and Bangle is just so cute and sweet and fun. I love her to death she's mine forever.

She's an inspiration

Also, I didn't realize I HAD to take the first visitor to the Campground, so I ended up accidently stalling my progress for a day or two and still having Kidd on my island. It's not a Kitt-level aquisition, but I'm not moved by him and I don't really see myself getting attached. I guess we'll see.

But!!! Today!!! Today I participated in my very first New Neighbor Network exchange and got Shino for my island!!!! Shino has been my top dreamie basically since day one, second only to Sasha. I would have gone for Sasha first but she was nearly in boxes and I had to snatch her up. I'm so excited to have her on my island!

YAAAAAAY!

I try to keep time travel to a minimum, I only did it once so I could visit Nero the day I got the game, so she arrives tomorrow! My next goals now are to figure out something with decorating my island and bring Sasha in as well (i just love that empty-headed little bunny boy so much!!!) Until next time!

 

[Lythienne]

I said last time that I try to keep time travel to a minimum and today I felt the consequences of breaking my own rules like But we'll get to that. Shino arrived on Stagshire safe and sound and has settled right in. She's so sweet and cute and I'm so happy to have her here.

The past few days I've been largely focused on inviting new villagers with the help of the lovely people over at the New Neighbor Network forums. Everyone has been so helpful and friendly, and so after Shino got settled in I finally got to get-

HE!!!!!!

Sasha is just the cutest lil bun in the world, he's been my number 1 dreamie ever since I laid eyes on him, and now that he's here he just makes me so happy every time I see him. When he arrived it really started to feel like the rest of my island was starting together as well. I mentioned before being kind of frustrated by my lack of design options, but knowing that I would need that 3 star rating for the KK Slider concert I started to buckle down and try to make more areas on my island presentable That meant starting my first big project, the orchard!

I made the decision to go much more form over function. It's a little annoying to harvest but I like the look of all those fruit trees together, plus a little area in the middle for people to hang out. I love how all those trees behind the stone walls look behind the town center, something about it feels satisfying. I might rearrange the middle some more in the future to make a more photogenic hangout space; Nero was impressed when I showed them, but it was hard getting a nice picture!

Speaking of Nero, there were some photos from their last visit that I forgot to put in my last post, but I really like them! First there's me getting the ridiculously large sunfish on their island:

It is absolutely bananas the fish you can catch just by standing on the shore, hahaha, but it was nice to make some progress for the museum. Another photo I took when I got home, holding the flower umbrella they gave me and a yukata I bought from their store. One of the things I find really fun and impressive about animal crossing is the attention to detail, like with airplanes leaving trails across the sky that slowly dissipate.

Speaking of a surprising attention to detail, I looked like a proper idiot when I went to go meet Sasha. I was told that he was "through the pipe" but it honestly didn't occur to me that yes, you can jump into the pipe just like in Mario and be transported. For some reason that seemed absolutely wild to me. I figured it out eventually, and instantly bought a pair for my island. My house is so far out of the way it's SO nice to be able to fast travel! I do like the spot I picked out for it though, and I'm excited for actually being able to arrange it the way i want.

As I was arranging villagers folks were still coming to the island to hang and chat. The Abel sisters set up shop (I'm VERY excited to be able to put together new outfits) and CJ came to visit! CJ is so cute, and he's such a supportive partner for Flick, it warms my heart. I sold him lots of fish and ordered a fish statue for fun. I'm very much looking forward to seeing more of him

I've also found myself warming to Kidd. He's still not my first choice of villager but I think it'll be nice to have him stick around for a while. Besides, he taught me a VERY useful new emotion

Gulliver is back. Or should I say, Gullivarr? My goodness. The big dummy got drunk and fell off his ship again. I haven't decided if he's Gulliver's twin brother or just Gulliver trying out a new gimmick, hahaha. Either way he's got a TON of pirate puns and a lost phone, so going diving for that will be a real fun time

Someone who wont be sticking around is Broccolo, who asked if he could move out. I liked him fine and there are other's I'd much rather move out over him, but I never really ended up vibing with him so I told him he should. He seemed even more relieved than I was, lol, Should I be insulted? I took a picture with him before I made my goodbyes

Brocollo may have been on his way out, but I headed off to invite Ione IN! She's so pretty and so cute, and she'll be neighbors with Sasha. Fun!

This morning I greeted Ione as she was unpacking and went down to the Town Center to talk to Isabelle, just to see where I was on the island rating front. To my surprise, we had a three star rating and KK said he'd come down for a concert TOMORROW! So, all in all I was very pleased with myself. I had only one my villager that I wanted to invite specially, and I figured I'd fill the rest as they left with folks I met on island tours. I arranged to meet up with Julian later in the day and started thinking about where I'd like him to live. This is where the problems started

So I decided I wanted Julian in the upper right next to Shino. The only problem was that Iggly was already there. I don't like to time travel but waiting until after Julian had moved in to then wait to move Iggly and THEN take another day to move Julian seemed like too much of a pain. But then I figured if I could just do an eensy bit of time traveling, I could have iggly moved and an empty plot for Julian to move in to no problem! But of course, there were a lot of effects that I didn't think through; Broccolo moved out before I could try to find a new home for him, KK Slider came to do the concert which was very nice but it kind of killed the anticipation and the vibe of the whole event. And I just generally wasn't finished doing stuff for the day and it ended up throwing my mood way off. Even worse, when I time traveled *back*, Monty had already bought Broccolo's plot before I could find someone I like and I am EXTREMELY not enthused to have him here. Since Broccolo just moved out it will be a while before i can get anyone else off the island and meet someone new, unless I get lucky with a camper. All in all pretty disappointing stuff, and that's what I get for time traveling.

Bright side, Julian is moving in RIGHT where I want him to and with him I have my complete villager wishlist. My inner ten year old simply cannot resist a unicorn, and I really liked him when we met. Now I'm noticing a distinct bias for blue villagers, haha, so maybe in the future I'll want to bring in characters of other colors. Something to think about!

Another bright side is that with the KK Slider event done I have a TON of new goodies to play with and access to new tools to really get in to designing my island. Hopefully next time I'll have the boardwalk and I just got an invite to visit Harv so hopefully he'll have some starters for me to start planning my farm. Fun!

 

[Lythienne]

It's here!!!!! It's actually here!!!!!

I didn't have any kind of grand vision when I first started my island. I know people have made lots of really impressive stuff but trying to come up with some grand plan was really intimidating, and I decided to just take it a little at a time, as it comes. But as SOON as I learned there was a wrestling ring, I knew I'd be staking out a section dedicated to it. I'm a huge wrestling fan, and I was so excited to bring a little of that into my island. Now I have to figure out exactly what I'm going to do with the space, but we'll get to that.

My roommate D is the best roommate ever, not least because she's always so nice about listening to my latest hyperfixations, such as wrestling and now, of course, Animal Crossing. All this talk about my island actually inspired her to redownload the game and we spent some time this weekend playing together! Her island is really, really nice, and of course she shared a bunch of DIY recipe's with me and we raided each other's shops. I got a meme shirt that reminds my of one of my favorite wrestlers and she got a ram hat that she was super excited about. It was really fun getting to play on local play and running around on each other's islands. I took a couple pictures to mark the occasion

After I got back I was charged by Blathers to find Brewster so that we could open up a cafe in the museum. I was super excited about it because I loved hanging out in the Cafe with Nero, so I headed out right off to see Kapp'n. I had been wondering if the dock had a function beyond fishing off of, and it turns out it does!

I'm incredibly charmed by Kapp'n. He has this salty sea dog energy and I love the songs he sings as we sail across the sea. It's nice to spend some time on some different kinds of islands. And I discovered gyroids! I saw them on Nero's island and didn't really know what their deal was. I still don't really know what their deal is but they are kind of cute, and I guess they're collectable? So that's fun, and i like that they grow when you bury the fragments.

On the island Kapp'n took me I also saw shrubs for the first time. I don't know what I'll do with shrubs any more than i know what I'am gonna do with my growing collection of flowers, but I took some just to have for when i DO figure it out some day. Also, I made my very first perfect snowboy!!! They are SO hard to get right, which is frustrating because I want the DIY's and the large snowflakes to make them! I saw a method on the internet using paths, now that I've unlocked them I should probably give it a shot, but it is kind of cool that I was able to successfully make one perfect one all on my own.

That was a couple days ago though and I have not managed to repeat my success .

The day after finding Brewster the Museum was closed, which as a bit of a drag, but I also got to visit with more friends! My two friends (Both, L, which is kind of confusing but oh well) invited me over to their island, which was super fun! And L!!! Gave me!!!!!! A wrestling ring!!!!

Wrestling is actually how I met both L and Nero. It was so, so sweet of L to give me one, and she also gave me this wrestler figure and a lucha mask! The lucha mask is pink and so, so cute. I haven't gotten a lot of pink clothes but I gotta get some to get a good outfit together Maybe i should try to find something wacky that looks a bit like pro wrestling gear, or even try my hand at making it. I don't know about that second one though; designing my flag was difficult enough, and it was pretty simple and I had a reference. I'm not much of an artist so i doubt my attempts at design would be very successful. I could give it a shot though i suppose. Anyway, when I was putting together the wrestling ring I i figured out that...

Okay, look. This is my first Animal Crossing game, and if this had been explained I must have missed it but I didn't. Realize. That you could drag furniture items you've placed and turn them to face different directions. I had no idea! This whole time I've been trying to place and face myself in the exact correct position for things to be in the right spot facing the right direction and constantly picking things up and putting them back down when they don't land quite right. I don't know! It seems like I should have realized there was a better way to do things but this is the game that will make you sit through the same unskippable dialogue EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. you want to perform a simple task so I guess it just didn't seem outlandish to me! For a while I thought you would eventually unlock an app that would let you go into a similar design mode outside as in your house, because this game ALSO has basic quality of life mechanics gated, and I'd only just gotten the three-star rating that finished the early game story plot!

Defenses of my breathtaking stupidity aside, i spent twenty minutes trying to arrange myself in a variety of different configurations to get the ring to work, and of course that didn't help. I tried to google how to put it together but of course there was no information on that because my problem was that I didn't know a game mechanic so basic and fundamental that it would occur to no one that it would need to be explained. Even L had trouble understanding what the issue was when I threw in the towel and asked her for advice. It's like that ancient city we definitely know existed but we have no idea where it was because no one bothered to write it down.

Anyway, I'm slow on the uptake but I get there eventually.

I've been enjoying my island and getting to know it's residents. I got invited to Bangle's house for the first time and she sold me her pink vaccuum cleaner. I'll have to see if I can find something to gift her that will fit in her house a little better. I found out recently that people can be very particular about villagers not getting gifts and spoiling the looks of their original houses. It's made me a lot more anxious about giving villagers gifts, but I dunno, maybe that's a little silly. I'll at least refrain from giving physical gifts to villagers I don't plan on keeping, but if I find something that I think looks nice with their aesthetic, I think it would be lots of fun seeing them display or wear things that I've given them! I guess I have to try and let go of the impulse to keep things too pure; I think that's against the spirit of the game. Or at least, the game as I would like to play it.

I love seeing my faves around. Shino called me "cute and functional" which I'm pretty sure was before the Wrestling Ring Incident, but that was sweet of her. And she gave me a jacket that definitely ticks both those boxes!

I like to try to keep things that villagers I like give me, although sometimes I forget if I don't take pictures. Ione also gave me a gift and told me I deserve nice things she is just the sweetest thing. It didn't go with the outfit I had picked for the day so I ran back to my house to change into something that matched it, hahaha. I like wearing gifts villagers give me! Ione also melted my heart when she asked if I liked to read (I really like to read!) and she was so excited when I did!

Speaking of villagers, I greeted Julian as he was unpacking and then spent an extended period of time sweet talking Friga, who was staying at my campsite that day.

So. I have made no secret of the fact that there are some villagers on my island that I really do not care for, and I'd like to replace them with villagers I enjoy more as quickly as possible. Inviting a camper to live on a full island can boot out a villager, but you don't get to choose which one like you can with amiibo cards, which I don't have. The internet told me that you can cycle through which villager the campsite villager will replace by shutting down and restarting the game before the conversation resolves and trying again. It told me that the process is very tedious and can take hours and it wasn't kidding!! What I really wanted to do was get Monty out, but after a while of trying his name didn't come up and I started to worry that it might not if he still counted as the last villager to move in since Julian was still unpacking. I ended up having her replace Iggly, as I liked her a bit better but I'm not overly fond of penguins so I wasn't exactly thrilled to have two on my island. Fortunately, I was able to find a nice home for Iggly to move into, unlike poor Broccolo, lost in the void.

Besides villager shuffling, I put a lot of effort into getting the co-op, and most importantly Leif's shop, up and running. I want to make the farm part of my farm house! I've been focusing MUCH more on design recently so next time I'll go into that a bit. I meant to go into that more this update, but I've been playing much faster than I've been typing, so I'll just leave with a little sneak peak for now

 

[Lythienne]

My roommate D told me that when she first got a hold of terraforming tools for her island she leveled the whole thing and built it up from scratch. From what I've seen that actually seems to be a pretty common place for people to start; that and chopping down trees. My philosophy has been a little different; I really like the map I chose for my island, so I've been making design choices based on the existing terrain, rather than changing the terrain to fit my vision. As I've mentioned before, I don't really have a sold vision, so I've been taking inspiration from the items and DIY recipes I've acquired, trying to piece together designs based on what I have access to.

Keeping that in mind, one of the first things I was inspired to make was a boardwalk. I mentioned it before when I talked about having to move my campsite. When I saw the plaza rides the first thing I thought of was the rides on the boardwalks I would go to as a kid, and they were one of the things that really stood out to me on Nero's island. The default color scheme for them in my Nook Miles Shop was black and I really liked it so I decided to stick with it even though I prioritized unlocking the furniture repair in the co-op rather quickly. So, that decision made and the placement all picked out, I just had to find a good boardwalk design.

I ended up just googling "boardwalk design animal crossing" and found one that looked pretty close to my vision. I think it works well! It seems like it's designed to match best on grass, so if you look too closely at it on the snow it does have a bit of a painted on feel as the shadows don't match quite right, but oh well. I wish I could do something about how footsteps sound on it too, make it closer to walking on a more solid path like stone, and I'm annoyed that I can't build it out from the land reaching on to the beach like an actual boardwalk would do. I could put it on the beach proper, but there's not really enough room to do what I want and it doesn't fit with the vibe i was going for at all. It's frustrating that I can't even build it out to the edge, or even change the beach so that I can arrange things to more closely match my vision. Space was an issue too, I couldn't make it as long as I thought to, and while I thought about making that whole bottom portion where the airport is up to that river part of it, I decided to just leave it to one side anyway, space issues or no.

All of that is just minor annoyances though, and once I put all those aside and started actually designing the thing I got really excited and started really enjoying how it was turning out. The idea was to fit the whole Plaza set in, but I had trouble finding a place for the train and the inflatable toy thing, and some of the things I DID fit in make the space a little difficult to navigate (you cant walk between the front bench and the teacup ride, for example.). Maybe I'll end up expanding the space a bit to accommodate those things but I really love how it turned out. I like that i managed to avoid making it look like just a big square full of stuff, and everything is so colorful and fun.

Eventually I want to expand the boardwalk so that it's more... boardwalk-y. Have stands with food and clothes and toys and the like, something that looks like a beach hang out spot. After a couple of days fiddling with the plaza stuff I decided that I was gonna have my cake and eat it too and build out the boardwalk on the actual beach as well, have vending machines and benches and such there. I enjoy having a more rustic feel on my island but that doesn't mean I want to do away entirely with modern tech; we have a windmill and solar panels after all! So I like the idea of adding stuff like vending machines. For now though, I'm pleased with what I have, and a lot of times for me when it comes to creative projects its good for me to leave them alone for a while while I consider ideas and options, so I've focused on other areas since I got it to a place I'm happy with.

Areas such as the space by the wrestling ring! Shino lives right on the other side of the river/waterfall from it and I thought it would look nice with a nice red zen bridge going over it. Unfortunately, the space was too narrow for it! So for the first time I had to bring out some terraforming tools! First I had the widen the waterfall, and then AC didn't want me to put it there because being too close to the cliff would make it "hard to use". Nonsense. So, I had to build out the cliff so I could place the bridge and then cut it back to where it was once the kit was placed. In the days since the bridge was built I have not had the least trouble using it. I even added a little hop point at the foot of the waterfall so that area is double transversable! It's a good place for Yoga as well

Oh, and remember what I said about leaving things for a few days if I was stumped, design-wise? Well, I knew I wanted the ring area to be part of a bamboo forest, but space wise it just didn't seem super viable with that river cutting through the middle of the space. I struggled with this because I didn't necessarily want to get rid of the river, I really like how my rivers are laid out in my original map. But.... I did want a two-tiered waterfall somewhere on my island, so I think if I turn the river by the zen bridge into more of a lake and move it's source to the other side of that third tier on the upper right of my map, I can have a lot more room for activities and make something really nice. I took some before pictures, and I think it'll be fun to document my progress on that!

In the mean time, I've started work on my little farm up by my house! I've been adding plots as I get the starters from Lief, and now the only thing I'm missing is potatoes! After that I might add more plots, I'm not sure, and do some more stuff to make it more "farmlike", but it's been fun to cook with produce I've grown! I even started building a little overlook observation point so I can watch the wrestling in style! (assuming I wouldn't rather sit ringside and be in the line of fire for suicide dives of course xD) On the other outcropping is where I'm breeding roses and mums; I've decided that breeding blue roses and green mums myself are the only flower related projects I'll take on. The rest I'm taking from friends' islands because otherwise I will drive myself absolutely crazy. I haven't focused a lot on actually decorating in and around my house, so while there's a good amount of function going in this space, the form is not where I'd like it to be quite yet. All in good time though

Speaking of flowers, I really needed to get my flower situation under control. I will be real with y'all, I have no idea what I want to do with flowers. I've been nicking them from Nero's island but I've been taking absolutely no stock of what I do or don't have and I've honestly just been dropping them random places while I figure out what to do with them. That's a problem because then they just keep growing and my issue of not knowing which ones I have or what do to with them is only going to get worse over time. What I really needed to do was put them all in one spot where I could take stock of what I have and make decisions on what to store or clone or cull from there. So that's exactly what I did; I plunked most of my flowers down in the space between Sasha and Ione's houses and marked out edges so they couldn't grow too far past them. Then, visually, it was much easier to make decisions about them.

The other side I'll use for cloning flowers I want more of. The holding side can basically do what it wants; I don't care about genetics because the only breeding projects I care about are the aforementioned green mums and blue roses, which I'm keeping elsewhere, and since they're confined to one space if they're getting unruly I can cull them at will. And then, someday when I figure out what I want to do with flowers from my island, I can just take them from here! I also had an idea to turn the peak at the top right of my map into some kind of flower nursery, with two of each type and color of flower I have so I could take one to clone whenever I wanted. I don't quite have enough room though, and part of that may be that I started with cosmos (my native flower). So I think I'll put cosmos and maybe another kind of flower (windflowers or roses maybe) somewhere else and then redesign the nursery with the rest. That whole area is going to need to be redone anyway, since it's also the spot where I want to make that waterfall I mentioned earlier.

If it seems like I've had any kind of focus and direction for what I want to do with my island as I've been progressing, nothing could be further from the truth. A lot of time has been spent aimlessly running around doing Nook+ quests while I try to decide what I want to do; it's taken me days to come up with some of these decisions. All the while my island has been hovering at around a 4 star rating and there are tons of spaces that I have no idea what to do with and somehow still not enough items and DIYs to inspire me in any particular direction. It's been frustrating. The only ideas I have seem to be centered around fiddling with spaces that have already been a bit developed, but I'm pretty sure it matters if I have big spaces without much in them. I've done a couple of little spots, like a little playground or some... bar area I guess with the frozen furniture I've been able to get so far, but I was pretty stumped. So I spent some time taking stock of what kind of item options I have available for me and decided to try and build a little labyrinth using one of the empty spaces between villager houses.

I do not know if this is going to work. It's still a small space, I don't know the first thing about designing mazes, and the cute little pergola hang out spot in the middle seems way too big in proportion to the area I've allotted for this project. But I've noticed that space is always an issue for me in this game; I always seem to have too much space or too little space, or sometimes even both at once. So I'll give it a good college try, and even if it doesn't match with my vision maybe I can still make it look nice, eh? And maybe by trying I can nudge myself into that five star rating and start worrying a little less about progression and unlocking things and taking more time to do stuff like decorate my effing house.

But it hasn't all been fretting about landscaping and design over on Stagshire! I've had a lot of fun spending time with the residents of the island and getting to know some of them better. I wanted to get more into the community goings-on in this update, but alas I have run out of space to add photos in this post, so that will have to be the next entry! Hopefully I can get that out soon, everyone has been TOO cute lately

 

[Lythienne]

Bangle's got the right idea, so here's some stuff that's been going on with the denizens of Stagshire!

I simply cannot stop taking pictures of Sasha, he is just so fricken' cute all of the time. Every time I see him do anything in brings me joy an I simply have to save the moment, it's a compulsion. He's such a sweet, simple little soul. The other night I saw him playing with glowsticks in the town center along with Julian and Tammy and it was so nice to see everyone playing together and having a good time. It really feels like I'm building this lovely place for people to live.

It looks like Sasha is making friends, too!. Ione loves to cook, and Sasha loves to eat snacks, so it's no surprise that those two get along. They do have a bit of an ideological difference when it comes to food presentation, however.

(shino? uhh... u ok babe?)

Poor Ione! I appreciate your artistic flair! It doesn't seem like there was any hard feelings though, because right after that conversation the three of us did some Yoga on the beach. A lovely little moment of morning calm with two of my favorite villagers, who could ask for anything more?

Sasha's conversation with Kitt later was less nice

WTH Kitt??? That was uncalled for! I already didn't like you, you didn't need to be mean to Sasha and give me MORE reasons, grrr. At least Sasha didn't seem to be offended, sweet precious empty-headed bunny boy that he is.

Maybe that conversation about food stuck with him, because at one point when I visited him at his house he was cooking! Fish and chips seems like a very Sasha kind of food; simple, tasty, and not much concerned about looking pretty. I'm super excited to share fish and chips with you too Sasha! Just as soon as Leif sells me some potato starts. Also, here are some pictures of Sasha reading. Take that, Kitt.

Did I already hit my picture limit JUST with pictures of Sasha? Sure did!! Do I have regrets? Sure don't!!

 

[Lythienne]

Okay, Sasha gushing out of my system. Mostly.

Recently I've started giving more thought towards actively cultivating friendship with my villagers. I'll admit I haven't been overly worried about it so far; I'm not terribly interested in collecting photos and once I get the villagers I dislike off my island I don't plan on having much turn around so I don't mind that I'm raising friendship at a much slower pace than I could be. I have time! Especially when it comes to my absolute favorites, who are never leaving my island, hahaha. That being said, they say wrapping giant clams is one of the more efficient ways of raising friendship levels without worrying about messing with a villager's aesthetic, so I figure why not, I can hand them out to my favorites. So far Sasha, Ione, Shino, Julian, Bangle and, after some thought, Kidd are getting clams. The day I decided this I ended up looking all over the island for Bangle, but she was no where to be found. Resolving to find her later I got myself to Kidd's house and lo and behold-

There she was! I hadn't realized that villagers would visit each other sometimes, so this was a pleasant surprise! It was sweet to see them getting along. Bangle is quite the social butterfly! She's invited me over twice since the last time, and I haven't bought any more of her furniture but I HAVE lost a few card games, hahaha. It's interesting that she's the only one who has invited me over so far; I guess our friendship progression is the furthest along just by virtue of her having been here the longest. Also, she left me this note in my mailbox out of nowhere that really tickled me.

As for Kidd, I've warmed to him significantly and I've decided that I'd like to keep him around for a while. He's cute, we got a cup of coffee together, and he's been real sweet to me. I'm also pretty chuffed by his new nickname for me: maestro. I'm not generally a fan of nicknames but I guess he can be an exception .

The other resident smug has also been a darling. I thought he might be a bit stuck up but it's been nice to see that he's not above being a little silly and playing around with glowsticks with some folks. He's been a real charmer, and lately I've even seen him singing in the town center! So cute. There's a dark side to his charm though; in less than a week he's gotten into prank wars so bad he's had to ask me to make amends TWICE! Kitt and Friga were pretty quick to forgive my jesus, my dude. Still, I'm easily flattered and even knowing better his charms still work on me.

Speaking of prank wars, what on earth are you up to Shino???

Questionable mentions of lasers and pitfall traps aside, Shino has been a doll. I'm always seeing her outside and reading in various places, which i find very relatable, or inspecting flowers with a magnifying glass. And she's always giving me presents! She doesn't seem to be as social as Bangle is, but that's okay. Either she needs tome time to warm up or she just likes to sort of chill out and do her own thing, and both are 100% fine by me. Far be it from me to try to take her away from her TV dramas about trains in love (I have no idea).

Ione has just all around been a sweetheart. She always seems so happy to see me and she's always thoughtful and considerate of others. She wanted to bake gingerbread for Tom and Isabelle for all the hard work they do (I don't see THEM running hither and yon all around the island trying to make it nicer but that's neither here nor there) and she's always asking about the friends who have visited Stagshire, especially L. She's the calm one in this island of big personalities and I really appreciate that about her. She also taught me the Glee reaction! Which just feels so perfect coming from her, because that's what she makes me feel when I run into her on my island .

Either I need to make more frequent updates or take fewer pictures because this is absurd.

 

[Lythienne]

It's not just villagers I've been enjoying getting to know! Visiters and other residents all do their part to make Stagshire a lovely and vibrant place to be. I've been by the Cafe nearly every day since Brewster came to stay and he showed his appreciation with a brand new recipe! All I had to do was wait for Leif to get some sugarcane starters in stock to give it a whirl.

Speaking of, Leif left his co-op stall for a day to visit my island in person! No sugarcane still, but he had wheat and tomatoes in addition to the pumpkins and carrots I'd already gotten from him, and I was more than happy to host this complete sweetheart on Stagshire.

Celeste also came to visit on a heavy meteor shower day. She was so kind as to share a recipe with me and then we watched the shooting stars together on the tallest part of the island for the rest of the night.

Flick came back for another visit and not a MOMENT too soon. Of course I enjoy having him over just to have him over, he's one of my favs, but also I have been saving up every bug I caught since his last visit and my storage situation was getting dire. It was nice to finally be able to get him all those bugs though (and get a little closer to paying for my house, haha. I also got a first-time visit from Kicks. I haven't yet had the opportunity to build his stall at the co-op: I've been focusing on repaying my house loan lately, but he had some nice stuff on him and it was nice to meet him.

Most of all I have really had the lovliest time getting to know Sable. As much as I've had way too many screencaps to share, sometimes I wish I were better at capturing some of the more fun conversations I've had on Stagshire, and that goes double for Sable. D tipped me off to talking to her every day and I'm really glad she did. Talking to people can be really hard and stressful, especially people you don't know very well and who are customers to boot. But just because someone is introverted or just finds it hard to talk to people for whatever reason doesn't mean they don't want to make friends, or that they don't notice the people who show them care and check up on them despite their apparent prickliness (i beg your pardon for the pun). The Abel sisters are so lovely!.

Also, Sabel and Mabel talk a lot about their sister Label. Its pretty clear that they miss her but are also REALLY proud of her, and they talk about her all the time. Well, we got a visit from Label this morning! She seem like a real sweetie and like she suffers a bit from imposter syndrome. She had a little fashion challenge for me, which was pretty simply done for all the clothing I've been hoarding, but I was surprised that she didn't go to the shop to see her sisters! They're right down there Label, they're not far!

But yeah, that's how things are on Stagshire currently! Beyond that I've managed to make a few new perfect snowboys for those frozen recipes and large snowflakes. The path trick works! Well it helps, at least. I still have far from a 100% hit rate with perfect snowboys, but at least I've been able to get one or two new recipes and stock up on large snowflakes.

Over the next little while I'm going to be doing much more building, and terraforming and the like so before I go I want to drop a current-ish island map! This map screenshot is from before I laid some paths and started planning for some bigger changes, but I think it shows a good progress point. All the houses a are where I want them, and it'll be fun to see how things change from here!

Speaking of houses, I still need to take a good current picture of my house for the post. I actually changed it aaaaages ago, I just haven't remembered to take one yet. That's okay, I don't plan to change a whole lot of the outside of my house. Parts of Stagshire are going to look pretty different next update though! Ta for now!

 

[Lythienne]

Guess who's got five stars!!!

[it's a wrestling meme iykyk]

Finally, finally I got that five star rating. Well, I got it like a week ago I meant to get it out earlier but these entries are surprisingly time consuming (probably they would be less time consuming if stopped procrastinating and posted smaller updates more often but shhhhhh). Seriously though, getting that five star island rating felt SO good. It just felt like the one goal I needed to hit before I could slow down and start doing things at my own pace. I suppose I could have just played at my own pace this whole time, but being just short of this last bit of progression was really bugging me. And besides, I wanted the golden watering can for my black roses and I wanted my island to have lilies of the valley! And lo and behold, my first one spawned today, right by Ione's house! I went to look up a little bit more about them and apparently they're officially called Jacob's Ladders? But I've only seen people refer to them as lilies of the valley so I think I'll stick with that.

Even better though, my first five star review was given by none other than my best melodramatic bug-obsessed dragon boy Flick! It was such a relief and so satisfying to finally hit this milestone.

Last time I said I was going to do some more terraforming, and I did indeed (wow, it seems so long ago that I did these now)! I filled in the river that ran between the wrestling ring and Shino and Julian's houses so that I'd have more room for my eventual bamboo forest and I moved the waterfall that was there so I could make an even bigger one.

It took a lot of trial and error to get it to look the way I wanted it to, and it still looks kind of funky on the map but I'm REALLY pleased with how it turned out! I love having the little stepping stones you can hop across; they look cool AND they're functional! At some point I want to get a nice pattern to put at that spot; with the Five Star goal hovering over my head I've been kind of too restless to settle in and dedicate the time to all the customization/pattern options that there are available, so I'm looking forward to doing that soon. Although, I haven't done it yet, so maybe its less a progression thing and more a me thing, hahaha

Changing the waterfall also meant changing my little seed bank/flower nursery. I ended up taking the cosmos and windflowers and planting them by twos around the town square separated by shrubs, which I think ended up looking cute! I'm also going to keep my black roses near here for now because naturally I want to clone them and get golden roses from them, and they'll be easily accessible here. (My single gold rose plant is up by my house; hopefully there will be much more of them soon!) That left more room on the top of the cliff for the rest of the flowers, but I still ended up having to put some hyacinths on the level below. That's no biggie though; I've separated the pairs with a nice discrete snow pattern and they should function just as well.

I also used "patterns" of solid colors to mark out the flowers I still needed(...to steal from Nero's Island). I was missing quite a few so I used different pathways just to make it easier for me to tell visually the different types of flowers I need. Once I've filled the nursery out more I'll stick to just one path color.

In fact, I got the opportunity to steal some more flowers right after I reorganized my nursery! D, Nero and I all got together and visited each other's Islands. I've talked a lot about D and Nero to each other but they'd never spoken to each other before, so it was really fun for all three of us to get together an hang out for the first time! We had a lot of fun but were unfortunately in a bit of a scheduling crunch, so I unfortunately didn't get to take as many pictures as I would have liked, but I definitely will next time (because there WILL be a next time). I got to show them my waterfall, as I had finished it by the time they came over, and the bare beginnings of my hedge maze. Nero, who has a large empty space on their island they're not sure what to do with was very inspired by this Idea, so I can't wait to see what they do!

I did spend some time procrastinating getting my Labyrinth/ hedge maze together. That happens to me sometimes with bigger projects, especially ones I'm unsure about, and like I mentioned last update I was a little worried about how it would turn out. But yesterday(at time of writing, I think it was last sunday actually?) I decided to really dig in and get it laid out properly. I think it came out really cute! The maze is not exactly challenging but it definitely gets the idea I was going for and I think it looks nice. I like that it has a couple of little areas tucked in it for relaxation and quite contemplation. It was really satisfying finally putting it all together and while I definitely think I can do more in the future to make it fancier/more visually interesting I'm happy getting this basic idea down.

Something about completing something I had low key been struggling with for a little while inspired me to go through my island and MAKE that five star rating come through. I went through my storage and DIYs and grabbed/made anything that looked like it might remotely work in various little areas in my island. Thus armed, I went on an absolute decorating rampage. Any spot that looked like it could use a little more decoration was given something, and any items that seemed like the might kind of sort of worked together was plunked down without sweating the details so much.

And that's twenty images folks so you know what that means: Another multi-parter!

 

[Lythienne]

None of those little areas really followed a particular vision I had, and I confess that I wasn't worried about decorating or making a cohesive space or anything else besides making number go up, so there are a bunch of little areas that are a bit random looking and will almost certainly be replaced when I get a better Idea and more resources down the line, but they're cute enough that I won't hate looking at them as I go about my dailies, so I think that's a win!

That wasn't my only win though; KITT ASKED TO MOVE OUT! I saw here with the little thinking bubble and I felt like it had been a while since Broccolo moved out so I crossed my fingers when I spoke to her and yes!! Victory!!!!

Until Monty moved in, Kitt was my very least favorite Villager, so I was so excited to get her out and cycle someone I liked more in. Because I have my dreamies locked in and there's no one else I'm really dying to have personally, I decided that instead of visiting one of our lovely resident cycle shops (even though I love and appreciate cycle shop runners a LOT) I would do it the old fashioned way and go one some mystery island tours!

I had lofty goals for these mystery Island tours. I think I underestimated how many trips it would take to find someone I could tolerate on my island, let alone actively want to bring them in. I put a lot of thought into what kind of villagers I wanted to add to my island. I do want to have variety; I'd like to have a good mix of different species, personalities, colors, ect. Stagshire doesn't currently have a Cranky, a Jock, or a Sisterly (at least, none whom I'm interested in having stay a while). I figured wouldn't necessarily say no to another smug if the right one came along even though Stagshire already has two (put a pin in that), but I think two Peppys are plenty for one island. Don't get me wrong, I love my girls Bangle and Shino, but I think adding more of their type would be a tad overwhelming for me.

(both delighted and terrified to seeing them getting along. If they band together against me I am Doomed)

Other than that, I kind of wanted to roll the dice! There are one or two specific villagers I'm sort of interested in, like Fang for example; a cranky white wolf who'd definitely add some variety! I'm not dead set on getting him though, and because I've gotten so attached to a couple of villagers I wouldn't have sought out in the first place, I'm not necessarily ready to commit to getting him at a cycle shop.

So, I went on Mystery island tours. At first I was stripping each island I visited for materials (and contemplating the colonial/capitalist implications of that because I am a Laugh at parties), but that takes time and Kitt's plot was empty on a Wednesday, so I didn't have much of that. After a few duds I started to get impatient, and after twenty or so trips my lofty goal of finding the perfect cranky/sisterly/jock for my island started to fade away like so much mist and as my supply of nook miles dwindled I began to despair. The only villager I had even somewhat considered was the first one I met, what if I couldn't find another even remotely acceptable and I ended up with someone worse? At one point!!! I even met!!! KITT!!!!!! THE VERY VILLAGER I WANTED TO REPLACE I about lost my mind.

She didn't even recognize me! Stay tuned for my upcoming treatise on the Multiverse Theory Of Animal Crossing. Anyway, here are two villagers I low key regret not taking when I had the chance.

Eventually though, I met Lopez on a Bamboo Island and I snapped him up without a second thought. Sure, he would be my third smug and my second deer when I said I wanted variety but whatever, my island is named Stagshire for christsake I can have more than one deer! And I think smug is one of my more favored male personality types (surprisingly) so its fine. It's Fine!!!!! Welcome to Stagshire Lopez!!

I do really like him, and I love his house design; it's very similar to my own personal tastes, lots of woods and natural colors with a few modern aspects here and there. I've really enjoyed having him on my Island and to be sure he's a huge improvement over Kitt. I tried to find her a home but the poor thing is in the void now rip I did at least get a nice picture of her before she left tho!

I don't regret doing the mystery island tour thing but to be SURE I am taking pains to stock up on NMT before the next one (hopefully monty ) gets the hint and heads out for greener pastures. I know I could probably buy some on this forum with TBT but I dunno, I'm hesitant to buy my way into too much progression and spoil my experience of the game. These journal entries have given me a pretty nice chunk of TBT, but I think I prefer to keep it on hand for when a friend or newbie wants to get a dreamie, y'know?

And speaking of dreamies, lets see what the residents of Stagshire are getting up to!

Awwww Shino, babe! Gotta make sure to spend some more quality time with her. For all of her outgoing nature, Shino seems to like best to settle in with a good book. It's hard to balance wanting to be a part of a community but being tired by social situations easily, and sometimes you can feel lonely even when there's nothing stopping you from participating, which is something I totally relate to! And even if she sometimes like to hang back, I still love to have her around, and It's nice that that feeling seems to be mutual

Even if she definitely can be, as Kidd says.... a lot

 

[Lythienne]

Speaking of Kidd, I've really done a complete 180 on him. From resenting the fact that I HAD to invite him from my campsite to progress to completely adoring him. I love him! A couple of other villagers have asken me if they can call me maestro but nope, that's exclusive for him. I feel bad making the other's sad about it (including sasha!) but that's just the way it is!

He invited me over for the first time this week! And this was only a day or two after he got sick, poor thing. Fortunately a couple of other villagers alerted me to the problem and I was able to come in well armed

He also taught me the heartbreak emoji

What a King

Man, there's just so much that's happened since the last update. Part of me wants to note down every single little thing, because the Villagers are so cute and there's been so much progress made! Like, Nook's Cranny FINALLY upgraded, and Sable has been sharing her beautiful patterns with me!

I wish I could go into depth with all of it, but I think I'll drive myself crazy if I try! So I think I'll post some pictures in one more post without comment and leave it at that until next time (hopefully much sooner!)

 

[Lythienne]

 

[Lythienne]

Until next time!

 

[Lythienne]

Oh wait I lied one more thing: This art on Twitter of Shino is just sheer perfection, I am in AWE

https://twitter.com/x/status/1462910430716710913

 

[Lythienne]

A quick update without pictures today I think. I have of course still been taking a *lot* of pictures, but its so time consuming getting them off my switch and uploading that I tend to procrastinate on them, and then once I finally get myself to update its such a huge undertaking, so I continue to procrastinate because posting to this journal takes so much time and- you don't care xD I think what I'm going to do is post more regular, smaller updates and then add some pictures later, so look out for that, I guess.

I found another Jacobs Ladder growing right outside my house this morning! I was surprised, because I didn't think it had been a whole week yet, but my sense of time is pretty wack so who knows. It was nice to see though! I really like jacob's ladders, even though I have no earthly idea about what I'm going to do with the flowers I *already* have (and the little buggers just keep growning).

Speaking of flowers, my Blue Roses and Green Mums project is going... slowly. They take up a lot of space and because I don't have friends who can visit my island and water them every day they don't seem to breed very often. Also, my hybrid yellow mums that are the second step on the path to green according to the flower guide I'm using keep throwing pink, which is not listed as an option. So, I'm very confused, since I know I started from store bought seeds just like I'm supposed to. And the roses just seem like they take forever to grow.

It's double annoying since the flower project is taking about half of my farm space, so my neat plots have degraded into a weird sprawl. On the bright side, Leif visited my house this morning and he finally, finally had seed potatoes in stock! So at least I now have all available crops and can make all the recipe's I have.

I've been doing a little experimenting with the recipes. A while back I looked up the price lists for crafted items, just to see if it was time/cost effective to do as a way to make money. I learned that generally, crafting an item doubles the sale value of the material going in. So, using a material to craft means you can get twice as many bells than if you had just sold to material on its own. The exceptions for this seem to be ironwood furniture items and items using non-native fruit; selling those crafted items gets you basically the same amount of bells as just selling the fruit and materials on their own. Otherwise, the increase in value is consistently two, which makes it more time/space efficient to craft things to sell that require more materials than those that require fewer. Generally I don't use crafting as my main source of income, but if I've accumulated an overabundance of a certain material or one of the daily hot items is expensive and doesn't take materials I'm saving, this is all useful information to know.

I looked for similar information about cooked foods, but I guess that since the ability to cook hasn't been out very long I couldn't find much. So, I started collecting a little data myself. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vuK-HtIgiK3aA5aV6oo1ujzKij6CV7emzj9EGKSYhHw/edit?usp=sharing The spreadsheet is VERY incomplete but a few useful patterns emerged. First, cooking foods from starts increases their value by a factor of 1.5 rather than 2. Second, the recipes that use fish only increase the value of the input ingredients by 1.2. So, while it's still marginally profitable to cook the fish that you have recipes for, when it comes to time and space efficiency I've decided by and large not to go out of my way to cook them. I will if I'm already cooking, but otherwise I'll sell them to the cranny as is. Also bear in mind that this is just calculations based on the base prices. If CJ is around you're probably better off just selling to him.

Probably everyone else already knows all that, but who knows, maybe someone will stumble on this info and it'll be a help! I still haven't collected data on the profitability of cooking with fruits, whether native or none native, so I'll probably get around to doing that soon too.

Anyway, I've been thinking of some projects I want to build on my island. I think I'd like to build a cute little fruit stand between the Orchard and the Museum, make that less of a weird empty space. I'd also like to see if I can make a little farmers market on the one arm of my little clifftop that I'm currently using for my flower project. I don't know if I could fit my vision, but I think that could be a fun little thing to try to do.

Mostly though, lately I've just been trying to figure out a daily loop that I can get done efficiently. I've played a *lot* of animal crossing lately, but I do want to leave time for other things and I don't want to burn myself out. I tend to get easily distracted and double back and wander around when I forget what I'm doing, which happens a lot. A regular schedule will help with that. I've also taken the past couple of days to start staggering my fruits so they grow on different days, so collecting fruit becomes a smaller task every day rather than a big annoying undertaking every few.

Once I have more items to work with I'll start thinking about really going in and decorating again but for now I'm going to focus on raising friendship with my favorite villagers and hoarding Nook Miles Tickets for when the next villager moves out.