Chronicles of Crayola Island

[MelanieScribbles]

January 30th​

Well, not a long play session again, since I only managed to get in the game around the evening. But boy, was it ever eventful! Let's start this story at the beginning, though.
Things started off a bit dodgy: As son as I started up the game, I had to chase Olaf off of my front lawn!

Yeah, you had better leave, buddy! Creepy stalker... See? I was right about him being a neckbeard!

I've also gotten a bronze HHA plaque in my evaluation this week! I already had a pennant, but an award? This early?

I know I had like a B rating last time, but how the heck did I get to 20k points this fast on only feng shui items? Like, I legit wasn't expecting this yet, but it's a nice surprise. I kind of tend to hang them near my bed like a bunch of posters for some reason.

Next up, it was time to check out the new Able Sisters shop.

I might not be able to use the Custom Design Portal just yet, but it was still worth it to go shopping there: I walked away with a new pair of shoes (will be pictured in a later post), some glasses that look closer to the glasses I wear in real life, and this really cute coat.

I mean, I HAD to wear something nice to the grand opening ceremony...

But that wasn't the only cause for celebration today... So I originally stumbled into the Resident Services to get that number in my ABD higher, and get my daily Nook Miles while I was at it. Then I went up to Isabelle's counter and thought: 'All right, might as well see what's on the to-do list for tomorrow. Bet 'cha it's more flowers? '

...It was NOT more flowers.
I finally did it! I finally got a 3-star rating! I could barely believe it when Tom got out a phone to give K.K. Slider a call. Good thing I wasn't drinking anything at that moment and that I was playing in console mode instead of handheld mode, else I would've ended up looking like a real-life cartoon character once that star rating showed up.

Terraforming, here I come! Goodbye annoying cliffs separated by a river, and hello perfect bamboo forest waterfall! Ooh boy, I'm going to have some work to do... And I can't wait to get started. Crayola is finally going to be the best island it can be.

I'm not planning an all-out island flattening here, but I am going to do a lot of work on this mess of an island. So I guess you can still use that term for it: Rivers are getting diverted, one might even be completely disappearing save for the mouth of it, and the cliffs covering half my island are DEFINITELY getting the boot altogether. No matter what I do with the camera in the back area of those, I can't see anything but the top of my character's head if I have to check there for fossils. And to check if no fossils were buried there, I painstakingly had to go through there, digging a hole at every step. Just because I couldn't see the ground there in any capacity! Those cliffs are also really annoying with ladders in general: There's like 2 areas that are the highest point of my island, but they're not connected: there's a bit of the 2nd level cliff in between them, and it has a river flowing through it that goes into a waterfall. So during a quick check whether Celeste was there this evening, I had to go up both of these areas. And I was switching tools like every 3 seconds. You can understand: I'll be glad to be rid of those!

Well, all of the other preparations are done: I've bought some saplings of both tree types in advance just in case, especially since the cliffs hold some of the only cedar trees left on the island. I'm investing in more saplings tomorrow, because I've used a few in Nook Mile missions. I have 2 pipes from the Mario 30th anniversary items ready to go for time's sake, and a place I don't want to change all that much to temporarily put any flowers and bushes in that I want to keep. As long as they're placed away from any water edges in the southern central area of my island, those plants should be safe.

I even have a big stock of over 30 pears to be able to dig up entire trees and such: I kept putting them into my storage to gift later! There's even some still on the trees of my orchard, so I should have enough fruit on me to last me through the entire ordeal. I can legit max out the meter several times over. I just harvested my orchard today and sold the non-native fruit for a final budget boost, so if I want to move that orchard as it is now, I'm going to need those pears. That makes it a matter of just digging up the trees, picking up the fences, and getting a move on. I also have some produce plants in my front yard that are getting their own area, and I want to move around some flowers. So I had better start crafting some spare shovels: I'm bound to break at least one or two along the way. I should have the materials ready for that, but I frankly wish I had hit just a few more rocks along the way. I still have plenty of storage space left for the furniture I did end up using on the island in my efforts to get ihe rating to 3 starts, though: I didn't actively count, but have like 70 spaces left at the very least. And that might end up being more once I start burning through spare DIY resources.

Yup, wouldn't be doing this partial island flattening if I hadn't done my homework beforehand. So I can finally get those big plans for Crayola started! I would definitely call this a milestone, and boy, is this ever going to be a ride. But the hype is real!

Well, my character definitely needed some fresh air after the shock and awe from that died down! So it was time to do some Nook Mile missions while I was still on cloud nine about this whole thing. Met Pascal today: good thing, because I didn't end up getting any scallops yesterday.

He had a Mermaid Closet and some wise words for me today. And I'm taking an important lesson out of this one: gotta know where you're going. And I luckily, I do know where I'm going with my island. Thanks for the extra support, Pascal!

Along the way on my other missions, I noticed that Spike seems to have a softer side that he's not telling us about.

And we caught it on camera! I'm definitely getting in trouble with him for this later. Also, I hopped by Tiansheng's house to properly welcome him while I was in the neighborhood anyways.

And after catching my breath a little, Rhonda invited me over. I actually got a nice prize out of this game of higher and lower: I guess she really knows my tastes.

Takes a goth to know a goth, I guess? I'm not sure about purple being the main colour here, but it's so darned cute that I can't bring myself to sell it. And it's black enough for me: if I throw on some black tights, I've got myself a look.

We've also got our first villager moving out: sadly, it's not Olaf that decided to leave. It's Paula is going to be in boxes tomorrow.

I'll be posting about her on the New Neighbor Network as well: as long as you're okay with me only being able to use Dodo Codes, I'm happy to pass this villager along to someone else.

Well, I called it a day there: I have some final details to figure out when it comes to that island remodel, after all! Man, I didn't expect this to happen when I booted up the game for a few hours just to do the dailies. The final budget for my grand island remodel is a whopping 310k IGB, and 30k NM (10k NM after the costs of the terraforming tools and the paths I want). I'm glad that I've been saving up all this time, because I was already hoping I'd be ready once I reached this milestone. It's a little faster then expected, but I'm not complaining! The preparations are done, and I guess I'm starting on the baby steps tomorrow. The first step of operation 'make Crayola its best self'... Come up with a better name. But in all seriousness: I have some furniture to retrieve and some flowers near the waterside to rescue. Expect long posts, and lots of work in progress shots from now on! I guess we're ending this week with a bang, and I'm already looking forward to making a post with a full tour of the finished island.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

January 31st​

Well, we've ended last week with a bang, and we're starting this one off with a bang as well! The K.K Slider concert was today, meaning that terraforming is unlocked for me.

I had been keeping at least 12k Nook Miles on me at all times, so I could get the cliff -construction permit and waterscaping permit right off the bat: they were 6k each, so it wasn't hard to calculate how much I'd need for the absolute basics. I've also managed to save extra for 3 new paths that I want: Stone Paths for all around the island, the Dark Dirt Path for my orchard and produce area, and the Brick Path to sort of make my island entrance look similar to the plaza. That would take another 6k, but I told myself that I could basically gather that on the fly if needed. However, because I at least showed a little restraint in the Nook Mile Store right up until now, I can basically get anything new that I want here. Like, I did spend a bit over the course of these two weeks of playing, but I can still just get everything because I didn't go all out. So I treated myself to those two permits, and 4 paths that I wanted. Might buy the rest later.

I do have a map of my island at the first few posts here, but I'll just slap it down in this post so you don't have to page all back to the index to understand what I mean.

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So after getting me those terraforming tools, and dropping by Nook's Cranny for some extra saplings and medicine? First up on the chopping block were those dang cliffs! They've been a thorn in my side for two weeks now: when it comes to fossil hunting, finding land for new plots and tool switching, they were a massive pain in the neck! I desperately needed some land in the northeast of my island, so that area definitely had to go. They did require a specific plan of attack, though: because of the highest point of these cliffs being in basically 2 different areas, these had to be the first to be flattened before I could properly get to the rest of the cliffs. I decided to start in the southern area of the cliffs, as I could pretty much attack the river there as well while I was at it. However, there were still a lot of trees in those two highest areas that had to go first. Along with some stumps...

I pretty much have a specific wood-harvesting axe that leaves the tree itself alone, and a different axe to actually chop the tree down. Tim-buuuurrrr! Good thing I always carry a full stack of medicine on me at all times, because some wasps were bound to happen here... I got stung like 4 times in total at this point: just wasn't fast enough with the net this time. I decided to hop over to the other tree-filled area as well, just to get that part cleared and over with. I also had to fill up a pond on one of these areas.

I've heard that re-doing cliffs is the most tedious part, but by the time I took a break to eat lunch in real life, I was actually about 2/3rds of the way through the entire thing! The entire 2nd layer of cliffs was gone, and I was a good ways along on the base layer.
Also, this is that one annoying area of the original island I was talking about: Look, you couldn't even see me here!

And then fossils could still be buried in this area... You can understand: this had to go. And this may or may not have had something to do with why I started things off with flattening the cliffs... I've actually won a lot of land just by removing them. It basically took me all morning, but I managed. Turns out that if you hit the tile next to a corner on a cliff, it takes out that tile and the corner at the same time: getting those cliffs out of the way two tiles at a time instead of one tile at a time considerably sped things up. The rivers in the original cliffs were filled up as well, just to have a clearer idea of what I want to do with the island's waterways. Diverting the part of the river that I kept is going to take moving Olaf's house, though. It's right in the path that I want that river to go.

Of course, he's in my way again... But nobody dares mess with Tom Nook, and that tanuki knows it. Good thing he's on my side here. I moved Olaf's house into the bamboo forest area, so I got to work! Diverting the rivers to make room for the waterfall in the bamboo forest area gave me some trouble, but I managed to get them going the way I wanted.
I also thought that the river near the museum was a bit derpy, so I decided to mess with that a little as well to give the houses on the north side of the island a little more breathing room. Now MY house is in the way of that river path! Oh well, that can always be fixed tomorrow.
Well, with the island's waterways in as good of a shape as I can get it for now, I set to placing paths around the island. I pretty much started with the area around the plaza: I've made a path to get to the shops, and one that goes past the villager's houses there.

And at the end of that path was my airport, so I made a little island entrance there. It's not much yet, but at least the bare-bones basics of it are there.

The flowers were there to sort of map out where the brock path tiling had to go for this. I kind of wanted it to look similar to the plaza, so I invested in the brick path as well as the 3 other paths that I wanted. I've also put some paths down in the bamboo forest, so there's always a way to get to things.

Speaking of: this is how the waterfall turned out! I'm kind of proud of it.

It actually leads into a fully functional river, spawning fish and all! I'm glad I could make it wide enough to actually spawn fish.
My little park area also looks way better with paths, to be honest.

I felt it just wasn't really a full park without some nice dirt paths going around it. It's lowkey become the Museum's front yard, but the river would be going like right in front of both the park and the Museum entrance. But I think a bridge going towards the museum would actually be nice, though, so I'm not exactly mad at that: I just have to work on where the Museum is placed. Well, here's a map of Crayola as the work-in-progress it is now:

I kind of called it a day here: enough damage done for one day. I hopped by my house real quick to change up my outfit a little before I quit the game for the day, because I got a little bored with the coat and hat combo. I lowkey wanted to do something with that nice sweater that Rhonda gave me, but that needed a good pair of tights for the outfit to really work. And the Able Sisters finally stocked some today!

They also had a cute pair of ankle boots and a long tartan skirt that can look really alternative with the right attitude. I lowkey feel really cute in this: I probably wouldn't wear anything like this in real life, but I feel like my character is really rocking it. I was kind of thinking to make her hair purple as well, but my natural brown just looks better for some reason.

On the agenda for tomorrow:

• Decide where I want to place my character's house​
• Move that house so I can properly connect the river near the museum with the river coming from the bamboo forest​
• Sort out the mess of flowers in front of the current location of my character's house​
• Move my orchard​
• Possibly move my flower breeding area​
• Make an area for my produce plants​
• Replace the only bridge on the island as I had the old one removed​
• Possibly move Biff's house if the game will let me​

Ooh boy, I have an entire to-do list here! But then again, I didn't expect to give my entire island a makeover within one day. I've already gotten the heavy lifting on the island remodel done today, but there's still some work to do. I am looking forward to getting the area around my house just the way I like it, though. Biff's house can always be moved the day after tomorrow if needs be: my character's house kind of needs to have priority right now, because it's actively pausing my other plans for the island.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 1st ​

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NOTE: Sorry, no detailed or long post today, due to technical issues... I've lost most of my screenshots for New Horizons, and I've recently cleaned out my Switch, so some of the screenshots from today are lost. I've actually had to recover most of my Pictures folder to begin with, and these were amongst the files lost due to the sheer size of the folder. Luckily, some files were moved to the Recycling Bin, and I have been able to recover most of my Animal Crossing screenshots and other files through an older backup of the folder. The ACNH screenshots in particular were partially recovered through this island journal saving the day! So good thing that I post here daily, and have started posting ever since the start of my island. So a lot of the potential harm could be undone in the end.

But there have been some losses due to the sheer size of the folder: some of the remaining screenshots that hadn't been added to the post yet were amongst those lost in the fray. So some sections might have only text descriptions of what happened. Luckily, no extremely important screenshots of once-in-a-playthrough events were lost, just a few design turnaround shots that could be easily redone. I still have to check the damage on my other files, but I fear that this has to become apparent over time. Most of my files largely remained unchanged since my last backup, so they could possibly be all be recovered. Sorry for the inconvenience! Please enjoy the rest of the post.

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Ah, the month that I can never spell correctly in English is now upon us! Somehow, I always forget an r when trying to either write or type that word Believe it or not: English is actually not my first language! My Canadian relatives were legit surprised at how good me and my mom were at English, so people often mistake me for a native speaker. If people have to guess where I'm from, they always guess either America or England instead of the Netherlands. My native language is actually Dutch: Kind of funny, since my Canadian relatives had no clue what me and my mom were saying if we spoke it. And one generation there had actually had Dutch parent! If you ask me, then the language usually sounds a bit awkward by default when compared to English, but Dutch legit sounds a bit scary if you start swearing in it.

Well, first up on the agenda for the day: sort out all of those flowers I had to spam in front of my character's house for that 3-star rating in the first place! It has served its purpose, so it's high time I start ditching and redistributing some of these. I actually had to move my character's house to properly get an idea of what to do: I had picked a new location for it, so it was time to design a front yard. I commandeered some lovely red roses for the cause.

This also required moving my orchard: I had harvested the fruit that was still on the trees just to be safe, and I was grateful that I had a solid stock of pears. So with a full stack eaten, I had set to work: I've expanded the orchard a bit, and there's still more space to do so even further.

And I mean that I expanded it QUITE a bit...

There's still even more room left next to it, so all I'd need if I find a new fruit type is craft some new fences. I've also attached a little area for produce next to it: I've invested in the cooking recipes upgrade, so these plants are a little more then just extra Bells now.

I have some sugarcane and potatoes growing here. After that, Phoebe invited me over. I actually lost my first game of higher or lower today! I'm not mad or anything, though: It was bound to happen at some point.

I think that I'm just plain unlucky on the minigames today: this morning, I had to play one game at the Campsite like 4 or 5 times to get the villager visiting to move in. Monique was camping there, and she's not ugly by a long shot, so I really didn't want her to go into the void. Got it to work, though: I eventually won the game to get her to move in, as she somehow kept turning me down on the regular dialogue for that.

After all of the minigame woes, I set to sorting out the rest of the flowers. The Crayola park sure got some biodiversity today...

A few roses went to the front gardens of the houses on the north side of the island, and the stragglers were put in a bit of a forest I've planted around the small northwest cliffs as wildflowers. I'm planning a sort of stargazing area up there: Celeste might not appear there, but it's for aesthetic's sake. I've already put a chair down, and will order a telescope from my catalog to put up there as well: I was already at my 5 order limit today.

Well, I had caught a new bug, so off to the Museum to donate I went. Blathers seemed more lost in thought then usual, though, so my character must've asked what was up.

Turns out: I've unlocked the cafe: The Roost is back, baby! And the hunt for Brewster was on. But first, I had more inventory to empty: Flick was visiting, so I commissioned a model to support a fellow artist further, and made a little extra on selling bugs today.

Caught him near the park somewhere today: he looks like he's not going to admit that he was looking for butterflies there. But after making some room in my inventory, off to Kapp'n I went! It was good to see him after New Leaf.

Oof, your memory must be going, you old kappa... You don't even remember the goth girl who never skips your sea shanties? Hot take here, though: I actually like them. So after enjoying my first two, we had landed at my first gyroid fragment island, and I had dug one up since it was pretty close to the entrance. I knew that Brewster would be there beforehand, since it was my first Kapp'n island. But I still had a bit of a 'Yes, there he is! ' moment when I spotted him.

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Actually looking for a certain coffee-brewing gyroid hunter, Brewster... So my character explains that Blathers sent her, and she got message to pass onto him. He handed her another gyroid fragment, and was kind enough to explain those things to me. I did end up burying them back on Crayola, in my new produce area to be exact. I didn't see much happen at first, but I decided to water them along with my crops, just to see if it would do anything. And then I saw a little cloud emerging from the x's on the ground! I guess I followed Brewster's advice right.

Before leaving this island, I commandeered most of the camelia bushes there: I needed more of the red ones for aesthetic's sake, and a few pink ones can't hurt either. And I kind of had to snap a pic next to this lovely waterfall... If I didn't have a majestic one in the bamboo forest already, then I would make one like this.

Actually, might consider giving that bamboo forest waterfall a glowup... Not sure, though.

Once Kapp'n had sailed me back to Crayola, I saw dwindling reserves when it came to the wood resources in my storage, so I had switched out my tree-felling axe for my wood-harvesting axe. I did get stung, and Spike seemed to panic about it a little when it happened. So I decided to talk to him to reassure him that I'm fine. He actually gave me a DIY to make medicine myself!

Yup, I was right: he definitely has a softer side that he's not telling us about. Don't worry, Spike, you secret is safe with us... Don't tell anyone, he has a reputation to uphold.

And this is the section of the post where I lost the screenshots due to technical issues: I had displayed some of my designs in the Able Sisters shop today, including the Gibson Girl dress in all of the variations that the Elegant Hat has: purple, red, green, white and black. I'm also working on a new mermaid-themed design, and it's in a stage where it's getting its final tweaks. So I guess I'm now posting that when it's done. All you're really missing here is some turnarounds for both of these designs: sadly, no backup of them on my Switch either, as I had just cleaned over 200 screenshots out from its memory. Those turnarounds are easily re-shot, though, so please look forward to them in tomorrow's post. A lot of other ACNH screenshots that are now missing from my computer have been recovered thanks to this journal, so little harm done altogether on that area. I would've talked about the designs here for a little bit, but I'm still recovering from the sheer shock of what happened, and the immense amount of damage that could've been done.

But despite it all, I'll be starting up the game with new resolve tomorrow: the Museum should be under construction due to the Café being added, which means that any fossils and new critterpedia entries will go into my storage. Please pray for that poor thing, because I already had to clean it out with all of the island remodeling stuff having to fit in there as well. Might take out another Nook loan tomorrow, because I desperately need more space! I was unable to today, as Tom is already moving my house.

Sorry for the technical issues again: Thanks for reading, and hope you still enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 2nd​

Well, this is the day the technical issues mentioned in the last post actually happened: I usually put the final touches on a post and proofread it in the morning of the next day, as my gaming sessions can be pretty long. I often only get to type part of the post after I turn off my Switch. I also tend to type these little intro sections around the same time I'm proofreading and posting. This is actually posted in the early afternoon, since I had a doctor's appointment this morning. So I'm still in a bit of a shocked and dazed state today, as real life wasn't easy today either: you could very much call it THAT kind of day! So since those technical issues were adding to pre-existing misery, I'm very much playing to at least get some kind of relaxation today. This is why I like casual games like New Horizons from time to time, because there's no way that I could handle a game where you actively have to play well to get anywhere if my autism diagnose already hates me that day. And I just tend to get frustrated if I can't play at my best. My autism in particular just doesn't tend to like a lot of unexpected stuff happening right after one another, and that's exactly how the day went. But gaming definitely still is my form of self-care, so it's nice to still be able to play something with less pressure on what you're actually doing in-game like New Horizons. This and the Sims 4 are good alternatives for me to just wind down for a bit. So I was happy to turn on my console today. Also: 'today does mean the date on the post instead of the date it's actually posted.

Well, the Museum was under construction today to add the Café, so any fossils and such went into storage to donate later. First thing on the agenda today: finish that river now that my character's house is moved.

I mean, look at that gap! Eww. I've also softened a corner on the rivers a little, as it looked a bit too square, and made the whole thing look a little more natural: some parts looked more like some man-made canal in the Netherlands.

I've also dropped by Monique's house to properly welcome her: I think I'm keeping her around for a while to get her photo. The exterior of her house is actually kind of pretty...

...Yup, she's staying for a bit. Apart from clearly sucking up to me here, her wallpaper is already kind of cute. How is it that some Snooty villagers have the best taste? Can't stand the personality type at times, but the actually pretty Snooty villagers just have such cute houses and clothes.

After that, I decided to get to the dailies, and do some Nook Mile missions. Phoebe's yard must have some serious history behind it, because I actually found a fossil in there.

Kind of funny to imagine dinosaurs having stomped their way through where her yard is now.

Also, one of the lost screenshots was about a new bridge I built to replace an old log one on my island. The celebration for it was today, so there's at least documentation of it now.

​

I'm going for Stone Bridges on most of the island, as the Stone Paths are sort of its main roads. The bamboo forest is going to be connected by a Zen Bridge, is going to have at least one in the forest itself, and some stepping stones to cover any river too thin for a bridge.

Also, I had turned my secret island into a bit of a smuggler's landing yesterday, and turns out that my nemesis had arrived on the island yet again today...

He yet again didn't manage to scam me, though: the only real thing in the collection was the Basic Painting. Its real-life equivalent is 'The Boy in Blue' by Thomas Gainsborough. I've actually seen this particular painting in my art history book before: I remember being too surprised at the artist having been English to listen to whatever pretentious stuff my art teacher was spouting about it, as the style of it is very similar to that of a few ancient Dutch masterpieces. Rembrandt to be exact: like, put the famous 'Night Watch' next to this, and tell me the styles don't share any similarities! I guess that's art from around the 1600's for you: things really didn't get that varied until the surrealists started getting sick of the same old thing, so most classical art all looks similar to me. Anyhow, the only real art piece in Redd's shop today is on its way to safely be transported to the Museum. Another masterpiece rescued from this scammer! Never underestimate us artists, Redd...
Also, if you're wondering what the fake version of the 'Girl with the Pearl Earring' by Johannes Vermeer looks like...

...Really, Redd, think an artist wouldn't notice? It's the girl with the PEARL earring, not the STAR earring!

Also, I had noticed that Spike wasn't really wandering around today. He worried about me before, so I decided to go check whether he needed medicine or not. Turns out he was cooking: he has as much of a sweet tooth as I do.

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He taught me the recipe: the ingredients aren't easy to get, but it's nice of him nonetheless. Peanut also taught me a new reaction today, Questioning.

Also a very convenient emote for an autistic girl: in real life, I often find animals easier to read then people, if that makes sense? I just instinctively have an easier time knowing how a cat, dog or rabbit must feel then knowing how a person is feeling. I mean, I can tell if someone is faking an emotion really well, and I can often read the more simple social situations (e.g. I can openly express how I feel bad for someone having to go to the hospital, but also express to be happy for them if it was to have a baby). To some people, it's sometimes like I can read an animal's mind. Also, cats tend to absolutely love me: even if a cat has never met me before, they'll just come to sit with me. Like, they'll do the kneading thing on my lap. And I've heard a lot of times from their owners before that they usually don't like people. And when I say either hello or goodbye to the cat, they always meow back as if to respond, even if they don't usually make any sounds. I dunno, I guess I'm some kind of cat whisperer.

After the dailies and some tweaks to the paths on the island, I went past the Able Sisters to see what was in stock. They had some cute boots yet again, and a lot of other cute stuff (like a black denim jacket and matching black jeans). And while I was there, I've decided to re-shoot a screenshot of all of my designs hanging there.

Well, I guess I have another one to make, as there's only ONE default one still hanging there. Most of the slots are taken by the different variants of the Gibson Girl dress, made to match the variants of the Elegant Hat. And my first design is hanging there as well: it was made to replace that horrid blue shirt and white pants combo that the game put on me by default, and you might've seen me wearing it in other screenshots. Also, to the left of the default hat is a work-in-progress of that mermaid design I was talking about: I've since worked on it.

Speaking of that dress: I've pretty much finished it since then. And since the screenshots of its turnaround were lost, I decided to do some nice inspirational shots along with some extra pretty turnarounds for it. So I gave myself a quick temporary makeover, and headed over to Photopia. The thing is: I had completely forgot that Harvey sent me a letter about an update to his island! So I was pretty surprised when Wilbur said he was missing in action, and asked me to find him.
Well, it didn't take me long to find Harvey's new plaza.... Harriet, is that you? I kind of remember her as the hairdresser from New Leaf, but she sure had a hippie makeover since then.

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Turns out that her and Harvey go WAY back. I did a quick runtrough of what shops you could donate to, saw that the Lloids here are far more relaxed in their movements and way of talking, and then went inside to do some quick photo's. I like to do sort of a glamour/ inspirational shot first, just to make the design look cool, and then a turnaround. But I like posting the turnaround first, and then the glamour shot, so people can see the details of the design properly.

The idea is sort of 'party on the beach' sort of vibes: ice cream, lemonade, and all those good summery feels. I dunno, it seemed appropriate for the theme, and we're all waiting for better weather. I actually didn't have any good sand floors in my catalog, so I made one myself.

And after a quick hair and wardrobe switch back at Crayola, I did the same for the Gibson Girl dress. The lighting from the window was not making things any easier, though.

The idea behind this was 'Constance from the women's suffragette protest' sort of vibes. Lord knows that if I had lived back in the Victorian days, I would've been right there in the protests. Some Dutch suffragettes even ended up clobbering policemen with umbrella's to avoid getting arrested! Kind of makes me want to do a matching parasol to this dress, but the design mechanics of custom umbrella's were way easier back in New Leaf. I kind of want to do some pretty boning on the outside of it, but I'm still struggling a bit to trace over the actual metal boning of the umbrella model in-game. That already wasn't that simple in New Leaf, but they made it even more of a challenge. I'm going to keep trying, though!

After all of that costume switching, was nice to get back into my usual getup, and I went back to clean up the photo rooms for future photo's like this. I've taken a quick photo of Monique and O'Hare to unlock some posters, and called it a day after that.

Well, up on the agenda for tomorrow: check out the new Café at the Museum! I only drink decaf in real life, and for the coffee preference record: mocha with some cream and plenty of sugar. I've only drunk caffeinated coffee once as a teenager, and I found out that it does not vibe well with my autism. Like, someone could say something to me about 5 times, and I just wouldn't register it. I was still undiagnosed back in the day, but now, what happened 100% makes sense. Caffeine very much of messes with the way I process information, plain and simple. I didn't mind the flavor, though, so I permanently switched to decaf after that one time. Decaf doesn't have that negative effect on me, so that way, I can still drink coffee. I kind of prefer tea to begin with, black tea to be exact. But on coffee, it's either decaf for me or none at all.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 3rd​

Well, today was the grand opening of the Roost! And since the double Nook Mile missions for the day had one where I had to drink some coffee there, you know I had to hop by the place to see how Brewster was doing. I had already seen the new and improved Roost in a few videos on Youtube, but I wanted to see it on my own island for a change.

No problem, man, glad to see you back on that grind (coffee grinds to be exact ). The villagers must've missed your amazing coffee since New Leaf. And judging by my character's reaction, he did remember my coffee preference!

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After that, I threw the ceremony for this grand opening. I felt I was a little late on screenshotting it, but I somehow still managed to catch the party poppers going off.

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I always try to just capture that moment, and one day, I might be just that bit too late. But that'll be okay: as long as I manage to get the shot of everyone cheering, I'm happy.
Also, turns out that Brewster was right about those gyroids! I had buried them near my produce, but they didn't end up being in that exact spot: on my way through the bamboo forest during a fossil hunt, after finding my last one for the day, I noticed some extra digging spots...

I sure felt a twang of excitement for this one: my first two gyroids ever! They're currently in my storage since I don't know what to do with them yet, but I definitely want them out of that storage in some capacity. After dropping them off, I set to fixing a path now that Biff's house was out of the way of where I wanted it.

This is about when I noticed that Monique wasn't exactly out and about yet, so I went to check on her. Turns out: she was making a drink involving one of my favorite fruits: cherries! And she was making a smoothie, one of my favorite drinks in the spring and summer. She shared the recipe with me.

Okay, so me and my dad both love cherry-flavored stuff. We often eat flavored custard for dessert in the Netherlands, it's really a classic dessert here: if you live here and you're not lactose intolerant, then you've probably eaten it at least once in your life. My mom sometimes slices a few cherries up and mixes them through some cream-flavored custard: it's absolutely delicious. The relatively neutral flavor of that custard basically complements most fruits: it's also amazing with pieces of mango in it.

Also, Tom Nook actually had more to say while I was over at the Resident Services for the opening ceremony of the Roost: I can now finally customize my house!

Don't need to tell me twice, Nook, I'm sick of that white exterior. I know that some goths only wear all white instead of all black, but I'm not one of them! They're really a rare sight in the subculture, but they just look so ethereal and pretty. I could never feel comfortable wearing that, though. I've only changed my mailbox for now, since most of my desired customization options weren't actually available yet.

After that, I moved my flower breeding area, as I felt that the area of the river around it needed some tweaks. It's now right next to my character's house for easy watering access.

I've also decided to go on another Kapp'n island trip today: I'm starting to find new and exciting stuff on those islands, and I was feeling adventurous today.

There was weirdly enough actual green grass on that island: he must've sailed me all the way to the southern hemisphere! I lowkey was a bit too baffled to take any screenshots, as I've frankly seen nothing but snow since I've started my island. There was some weird glowing moss growing there, and I remember that there were some DIY recipes that used that as a material, so I picked all of those plants. I was originally digging them up, and then decided to try picking what was growing there instead: I sort of assumed they worked like flowers, with the plant itself staying behind and a new, unplantable item ending up in your inventory. But turns out that I was pretty much needlessly wearing out my shovel: you can just scoop them off the ground. There were also some vines that Kapp'n told me I could pick up once we arrived: They were growing on the side of some cliffs and I had a ladder with me, so I could take all of them home. There were also some plumeria bushes that I didn't have on Crayola yet, and which I decided to bring back home, and got one of the glowing moss recipes from a message in a bottle: a wallpaper. Not to mention there was a bell rock on that island... I didn't know Kapp'n islands had those as well! Here's all of the loot from that island:

Not a bad haul: I've buried the gyroid next to the other two in the produce area, and planted the bushes around the island. I'm not sure what season the latter will bloom in, but I'm aiming to have some varying bushes around Crayola, so both me and visitors to the island will have something pretty to see every season. Both those and the camelia's that I already have will just serve as set dressing for the island's nature if they're not in bloom.

And with those vines: no more ugly ladders on my cliffs! I frankly think they're a more aesthetic way to get to higher areas of my island then those wooden ladders I've been crafting.

I mean, my little stargazing area now looks so pretty! Like, they look like they're some overgrown roots of the camelia nearby. I've later planted a plumeria of that same colour on that 1st step of the cliff as well, just for aesthetic's sake. I dunno, plants just make a cliff more believable, if that makes sense? They just make it look like it's always been there. I've also plopped down a few vines on the bamboo forest's waterfall, since it just seemed too appropriate. The rest of the plumeria's are spread across the island, and the remaining vines are in my storage, along with the moss.

C.J also visited my island today.

I don't know why he was so surprised about me beating his challenge again. Oh well, at least I made some extra Bells on fish today. Sorry, C.J., but Flick is still my favorite out of the two of you. I swear, this guy is about every annoying influencer stereotype in the book.

Also, posted an extremely important announcement on the plaza's bulletin board after that...

​

Gotta warn your female villagers, right? I know I hate on Olaf a lot, but I legit can't wait until he moves out. I mean, he's arrogant, always in my way somehow, and he's taken to ruining my screenshots with his presence lately. Like, I know it's going to take two weeks since the last villager moved out, so are those two weeks after Paula moved out over yet...? I'm thinking of manipulating the thought bubble process once one shows up on a villager again: like resetting without saving until it finally lands on Olaf. But we'll see.

Also, I forgot to mention this in the last post, but this little sand castle furniture item fell out of a balloon recently, and I thought it would make a perfect beach decoration.

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I dunno, it just looks so darned cute near that little beach lounge area that I'm planning. And after some Nook Mile missions and Phoebe inviting me over, it was sort of becoming evening already. I still had some plumeria's left after setting some down in the little forest area around my stargazing cliff, and I had this empty sort of space near Tiansheng's and O'Hare's houses. So I decided to start making a little park there.

It's supposed to look a little like the plaza and my island entrance: there's one open grass tile here because I'm going to put a bit of a windflower border around it (with one sort of path tile to get to the fountain, of course, for the sake of aesthetics). I dunno, the general shape of windflowers are probably going to look nice with the shape of the plumeria's flowers once the shrubs start blooming. Preferably orange windflowers, to match the warm colour tone of the brick. And they'll possibly be alternating with another colour, but not sure yet. I'm urging towards white windflowers for that, but these plumeria's also have white flowers, so I'd have to make sure that there's only orange flowers directly next to the bushes for that idea to work. Might keep it at just orange because else things visually might look a little too busy, though. Also, I think Leif would be proud of me for all of this flora-related planning...

After that, I went bug-hunting for a little bit, since there were a few active around this time that I didn't have in my critterpedia yet. But when I shook a tree, a spider dangled out from under the leaves instead of the usual bagworm! It was a new critterpedia entry, so I caught it anyways, but yikes...

For once, I agree with you, Blathers! I'm sort of scared of little spiders: I can handle the big ones, because too many giant spiders in videogames kind of desensitizes you to them. But the little ones? NOPE, my light arachnophobia won't have any of that! I can deal with most bugs just fine: in a room full of other women, I'm somehow usually the designated bug-squasher. I dunno, a lot of ladies I knew already freaked out over something harmless like a ladybug, while I'd already be reaching for a glass, and asking for a card so I can catch it to set it free outside. I mean, not like it's some venomous spider that could actually kill me or something... So I guess I'm just brave when it comes to bugs in general? But small spiders: Dear god, save me! I'm supposed to love spiders, since I'm allergic to mosquito bites and thus hate mosquitoes with a passion to begin with. But like, can those spiders please hunt those outside, not in my house!? Also, bigger spiders at least have the common decency to die after swatting them with a heavy object once: you can swat those small spiders with a good and heavy book like 5 times over, and they're somehow still alive! And then they disappear on you... only to sneak up on you later.

So I thought that some exposure therapy might make me a little less grossed out with this spider, so I went to check where it was: on the big tree in the Museum's bug area.
...Needless to say, I was hiding in the butterfly garden of the Museum for a short while after that.

I'll probably get used to its presence eventually... Like, the tarantula's in-game tend to scare me less then this small little arachnid: I'm only slightly worried about those sneaking up on me, since they have a clear sound que to warn me about them, and I'm usually fast enough with a net if I can originally outrun it and activate my tool ring. I just need to lure it just so it's at my side while it's chasing me, and swat that net at the right time. They're kind of like ground-bound wasps: even if they do get me, I'll live. Not like they're not some instant game over or something either, so meh. But this tree spider legit spooked me a little, since I simply didn't fully expect it to be present. Like, it knew from the wiki that it was found in trees, and I WAS looking for it. But it sort of jumpscared me regardless.

I've also hopped past the Able Sisters for the day, and noticed Spike admiring my designs. He's secretly such a softie, and I love it!

Don't worry, Spike, I won't tell anyone: It's like you were never even here.
I ended the day on dropping by Harvey's island real quick: I'm trying to unlock Kicks' trailer there. I mean: I need nice purses to go with my outfits...

I'm currently donating about 20k IGB a day to this cause, since I've already started a new Nook debt: I'm at 335k / 548k IGB on that so far. I've also started construction on a Zen Bridge which needs donations up to 228k IGB, but I'm setting the villagers loose on that financial goal first to reduce the amount of Bells I'll end up having to donate to that. My funds are starting to sort of get spread thin at the moment with all of the stuff I want to do, so something's gotta give... at least, for now. I'll eventually get all of these things done, it's just going to take some more diving and fruit selling then I've been doing lately.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 4th​

Well, it was just another day on Crayola today: nothing much going on, and just some more trucking towards my next few goals: unlocking Kicks' trailer at Harvey's island, paying off my current debt to Tom Nook, and building a Zen bridge that goes towards the bamboo forest.

The dailies did give me a bit of trouble today, though: ONE fossil had me combing the entire island about 4 times over! I was looking behind trees, bushes, cliffs, second cliff layers buildings, looking behind Snowpeople, the whole nine yards. No spot on the island missed, and somehow, still no dice... I was just thinking 'it can't just have disappeared!' while going to do something else, since that sometimes helps in situations like this. If I've been searching like forever with no results, then I'll probably end up accidentally tripping over that ONE fossil while I'm doing something stupid like a Nook Mile mission. But that's right when I found this fossil that had wasted like half my morning: it ended up being in the most stupid place that I checked like 3 times...

In Rhonda's front yard, hidden in the space right behind her garden table... I might be a hardcore gamer through and through, but don't think I never struggle when playing casual games, folks! Like, not for a moment, it's somehow always the stupid stuff in games that'll do me in. The visibility of the mark on the ground was like blink-and-you'll-miss-it kinds of tiny in that spot, so I'm not even mad at myself for not noticing it for a while. I was just happy to find it at all!

So after that, I decided to take things a bit slower for a while, and harvest my orchard, since some trees had fruit on it.

I sold the cherries off at Nook's Cranny, and I kind of keep the pears around for if I need to either move trees or break rocks in the way of an area on the island I want to work on. I also keep them in my storage for villager gifts: wrapping two fruits together a safe gift, as it won't mess up either their house or outfit. You do have to wrap them together, though, else it won't work! It bumps the gift value up to a certain point that nets you the maximum friendship points for it. So if you want to suck up to your dream villager: give them your native fruit, because it'll sell for less at Nook's Cranny anyways.

Also ran into Rhonda near here: decided to cross off my daily chat with her for the day.

I mean: she's not wrong... I do have big plans! Crayola might've come a long way since I've started working on it, but not like it's almost done. I'm already in that phase where it's going to take some final touches and some rare furniture, though, so I'm kind of proud of myself for already getting that far along.

She also taught me a new Reaction later today: Pleased.

Well, that does fit my mood! Like, no big events or milestones happening today, but I'm still happy about how the island is coming together. Also, the villagers that I want to keep must love me, because Monique has been praising my sense of style since yesterday, and even brought a gift: a Bunny Hood that at least matched my outfit in colour. Not in theme, but at least it didn't completely clash when I tried it on.

Well, Monique, don't sell your own good taste short! You should see Biff's gifts, absolutely gaudy and pure Nook's Cranny fodder. She also taught me a DIY recipe today.

Hmm, a cat crafting a lucky cat... There's a joke in here somewhere.
Saharah was also visiting today: I like to buy a rug from her every time she visits, and I was like one Saharah ticket short of a mystery floor. So to replenish my tickets after investing in that, I ended up buying a rug of every size.

​

I like to picture her as either somewhere from the Middle East, or from somewhere around Egypt. I dunno, if I were to ever draw a gijinka of her, then I'd definitely give her that kind of skintone. I know she says that she's from far, but Morocco isn't actually that far from the Netherlands. On a plane, it's like a hop-skip away: a non-stop flight takes 3 hours. And by comparison: my non-stop flight to Canada on a family visit took about 8 hours. And someone I knew flew like 16 hours to Thailand! By comparison, I'd say a flight to Morocco is not that long. Maybe Egypt or Turkey would count as sort of far-ish from Europe, but I'm not going to dig too deep in flight times to there.

Had to chase Olaf out of my produce area today, though: he had a basket out any everything, he was clearly stealing my homegrown potatoes!

Produce thieves deserve getting swatted with a net! He also snuck into my front yard again today, the creeper! He's starting to really become the local island menace: when was this one moving out again? Suddenly regretting taking down that PSA about him...

I have the Museum in the background there since I want to move it to a place near where it used to stand, and I kind of got an idea for what I want to do with an area around it. So after Olaf made his way out of my produce area, I decided to go and work on that: I want this little museum sort of plaza with a fountain in front of it.

Like, you'd go north from Resident Services plaza through the star pond park area, and then there's stepping stones to cross the river after that for now, but there's going to be a bridge there someday. Cross that, and then you'll reach the Museum and this little area. I'm going to place some pretty white azalea bushes in those little gaps, a Park Fountain in the middle of it, some topiaries at the edges of the plaza's corners, and a nice little windflower border around it: red windflowers, to match the red banners on the Museum. I dunno, those flowers just go so well with certain bushes: they're pretty with plumeria's as well. Anyhow, it's really going to look amazing once I'm done with it.

Since that really didn't take me that long and I had to wait until tomorrow for the topiaries and fountain, I decided to hop by the Museum to have my fossils assessed. Blathers said that I had completed the ankylosaurus, so I decided to go and check it out: I actually ran into Spike along the way!

Guess that he's not only a massive softie, but also smarter then he looks. He tried to play it off like he thought the exhibit was boring, and joked about practically being a fossil himself. Come on Spike, you're not that old! Also, don't worry, your secret is still safe with us. I dunno, I wasn't that into this villager at first, I could've done without the blue accents in his character design, it's really a complementary colour contrast gone wrong. And I still can't help but kind of cringe at that mop of hair at the top of his head: things would've looked so much better without it. But the scar and gold details are really cool, the shape of his eyes really fit him, and personality-wise, he's really grown on me over time. Kind of an 'Dude, I love this arsehole' kind of vibe.

Also, I've been seeing a lot of Rhonda today: she invited me over, and visited my character's house. So I guess I've been hanging out with a dream villager of mine today?

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I've also changed up the shell partitions at the little beach lounge area, and she wandered over to enjoy the ocean view with me.

She kind of stuck around for a while here, and actually commented on both them and the sofa! She seemed to approve of what I had going on here so far. Thanks for your support, Rhonda, hope to get the rest of this idea together soon. I still need two Mermaid Chairs (preferably, Pascal will give me the DIY recipe), an Anchor Statue in the white variation, a Cancer Table, a Sea Globe, some Garden Lanterns in the white variation, and possibly 2 Beach Towels. I'm not sure if I could actually place them, but if the game really won't let me place rugs outside, then I can always do some nice custom beach towel designs and just place those on the floor. Maybe I'll do something cute with sea stars or something...

And speaking of Pascal: I hadn't seen him today yet, and I could use some extra Bells, so I ended my day on some diving. I tend to just do a full lap around the island, and that usually fills up most of my inventory and nets me at least one Scallop. I tend to have a full inventory once I reach the area around Nook's Cranny, so I swim back to a beach and I stop by there to cash in my Bell, learn any DIY recipes that Pascal might've handed to me. I also hop by the Nook Stop for the ABD once the Bells start ending up in my pocket, check if I didn't forget to sell anything because I sometimes skip one or two items before I head over to the Resident Services for that, and repeat that process until I feel sick of diving for the day. Any second and third Scallops just get sold off, as Pascal only appears on your first Scallop of the day. Any new critterpedia entries for the month go straight to Blathers at the Museum.

I did run into our favorite philosopher on my first lap: he had a Mermaid Rug DIY Recipe for me, and some worldly wisdoms, of course.

Stick that in your noodle and let it simmer, I guess? Judging by the thumbnail for the rug, it's not ugly, though: the 3 Pearls I have at the moment are kind of reserved for the Mermaid Chairs needed for my beach lounge, which would take 1 Pearl each. And not sure if I'm going to need the spare at some point, but might craft that rug just to get it into my catalog if I won't end up using the spare.

I kind of ended up doing like 2 laps around the island, and made a cozy profit. I'm currently on 450k / 548k IGB on my Nook debt, and I'm at 60k / 100k IGB on building Kicks' trailer on Harvey's island. The Zen Bridge that I'm building back on Crayola is at 2k / 228k IGB, so the villagers really need to start pulling their weight around here.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 5th​

Well, today marks going to my first K.K. Slider show in the evening! And for the record: my favorite song in the game is actually the DJ K.K mix of K.K Dirge, it kind of has goth club vibes. Now if only we could get a record of that, right? But in the end, I did want to make an audience request: the original K.K. Dirge is okay, but has too slow of a rhythm for me. So if I'd have to pick something to play in my character's house, then I'd prefer playing K.K. Rock over that, since it's a close second place for me. So I ended up requesting that one.

And he pretty much played K.K. Metal, my third favorite, on his own, without a second request! So I kind of hung out after the show a little bit for that one.
Well, a goth girl could go on about music forever here, but there were dailies to do this morning! The fossils didn't give me that much trouble today: they were actually not far apart, and in very visible places.

I've also decided to hit the Kapp'n islands again today: saw some familiar ground again... Snow and pears.

I've decided to commandeer some of the bushes here: I already have a lot of camelia's, but I was short a few red ones for certain areas of my island. I've also picked up two pink ones for the bamboo forest: I've already spread a few of those around the area, but the cliffs around the waterfall still looked a little bare. It looks way better with some more greenery on it, though. I'm planning some Lilies serve as wildflowers in this forest area, but I'm horrifically short on those flowers in particular. And not sure which colour yet. I'm urging towards plain white.

I've also dug up some hyacinths while on the island, as I had a few of thsoe being wildflowers around that little stargazing area to the northwest border of the bamboo forest.

Even with a few bushes already on that cliff , it was still looking a bit... too man-made instead of naturally formed. The island also had those hyacinths in the colours I already used around there, so I had to steal a few to decorate with.

I've also decided to hop by the Museum's new plaza to drop off the topiaries I've ordered yesterday: it's really starting to come together.

​

I'm not sure about their placement, though, might end up moving them a slight bit. I still have two spare topiaries after this, though, since I've sort of overshot how many I'd need. But I'll find a use for those.

And since one of the double Nook Mile missions for the day was drinking coffee at the Roost, I decided to drop by while I was there. Turns out that Wilbur was on his break. I did talk to him for a bit: seems like flying is truly his dream job.

According to Brewster, I can also now order coffee to go. I kind of prefer to sit down and hang out with him for a little bit, though. He might be a bird of few words, but he's still good company. In real life, I'm also one of those people who really dislikes eating or drinking on the go. I dunno, I just generally can't. I feel like I can't actually enjoy the flavor of whatever I'm consuming if I'm walking around with it: I really need to sit down and take my time. Like, I can just eat a little snack while moving, but I legit have to sit down for a drink to avoid spilling the fluid I'm drinking. And I can't walk and eat when it comes to a full meal sort of thing like a sandwich or something. Whether it's just a park bench, a couch or a dining chair at a fancy restaurant: I'm just not someone who can just chuff down their food real quick and multitask at the same time. I really need to take a break to eat.

After that, one of the missions was to talk to villagers. I had already done my first conversations with Rhonda an Phoebe. But O'Hare and Tiansheng were both home, so I decided to drop by. Tiansheng actually taught me a new recipe today.

Kind of appropriate, since his house lowkey looks like the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant. Also, remember how I was curious about O'Hare's house? Turns out that the guy is WAY too into island life.. I met him on a mystery island, he decided to come live here, and just look at his house...

Umm, 'My Strange Addiction' much? Like, there's a difference between a hobby, and things just getting out of hand... We're just worried about you, O'Hare!
Also, I saw Rhonda wearing one of my custom designs today! She was also wearing it on the start screen, and it just looks so darned good on her.

I 100% support this outfit change, as it just looks lovely on her and she seemed to switch between her original dress and this one during the day. I'm actually glad to see that the shading and highlighting on the skirt works on even the villagers! The belt of the dress looks a lot better on people's avatars, though. Also, if you're curious: Rhonda is wearing 'Gothic Dress', my first design ever, and it's currently available at my Able Sisters. Please feel free to shoot me a PM on here if you want a Dodo Code to come pick this one up. I'm usually available between 11:00 and 18:30 (GMT+1), save for meal breaks, and the Able Sisters is only a short walk to the east of my island entrance. Rhonda is actually standing next to the path to it in this screenshot.

I also hopped by my ABD a little later, and this is the point where I noticed that I was VERY close to paying off my debt to Tom Nook today... Like, it was under a 7k IGB difference. So I decided to clean out my storage a little bit, and it still fell barely short. I could almost smell the finish line, though: I still had some fish and bugs on me, and that was the final push I needed.

My finances were absolutely drained after this, though. Like, I only had about 1k or 2k IGB left in my ABD, and that's an all-time low amount for me. And I still wanted to make a donation to the 'open up Kicks' trailer' goal on Harvey's island. So it was time to dust off the ol' wetsuit, and go diving. And boy, was it ever a lucky run today! On my first go, I was actually lucky enough to net myself a Pearl.

And after cashing in that full inventory at Nook's Cranny, I went in for a second go. Pascal actually dropped me a second Pearl in return for my scallop!

Well, I basically have enough to craft like 1/6th of the Mermaid series now. I'm still waiting on the DIY recipe for the Mermaid Chair from Pascal, but I've been casting out a few nets for it on Nookazon as well. So fingers crossed! Would be nice to complete the Mermaid series someday, but we'll see.

After that, I hopped by K.K. Silder to make that request, and that's about where my day ended. Also, diving earned me enough to actually build Kicks' trailer at Harvey's island! It should be built tomorrow: another big goal crossed off my to-do list.

I have no ongoing Nook Debts at the moment, I have 10k IGB in my ABD, and I'm still stuck at 2k / 228k IGB on the Zen Bridge back at Crayola. My ABD is at an all-time low, but at least I'm free to focus on that last financial goal now. Next up on the list for Harvey's island: Katrina's trailer. I've heard from multiple sources over on Youtube that it's going to be a good investment, with the reasons as to why it should be a priority. I am taking it slow for a little bit before going after Katrina's trailer, though, just to give my ABD a break. But after my funds have recovered a bit, that's going to be my next stop.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 6th​

Well, first things first... The good news: I made my first trade on Nookazon today! I bought a new bag. Thank you to the seller for being so patient with me, and for a good review. I've left them a good review as well.

The bad news: I had to crack and start the free 7-day trial on that online subscription to get it done. Now you might remember me saying that I wasn't about to start it if I wouldn't end up going for the paid subscription after it ended, and that hasn't changed. And if I want to play this game right, I guess I'm forced to pay for Nintendo's crappy business practices in the end. I'm not happy about it, so for the sake of as much value for money I can get out of this, I thoroughly crunched some numbers on the 1-person membership. And while you pay all in one go... When it comes to per-month costs, the year subscription for online is truly the cheapest out of all the options available at 1,66 euros per month. The 1-month subscription is a clear 3,99 euros a month, and the 3 month is 2,99 euros a month. So those numbers don't lie: a year subscription is definitely the subscription that's going to happen.

Also, the first thing I did after starting the trial was turn of the automatic renewal that it dumps on you without warning, because nobody's sneaking money out of my pocket because I forgot to turn this subscription off. I'm still looking into maybe getting Happy Home Paradise with the year subscription while I'm at it: I already see a 10 euro difference if I'd get the subscription separately from the DLC instead of in a package deal. So I'm just digging into whether the DLC is worth an extra 20 euro's by watching some unsponsored gameplay of it on Youtube, done by different people for a clearer picture of how the gameplay works. I'm not buying anything until the free trial expires, though.

Anyhow, without further ado: let's get into the journal!

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Today, Kicks' trailer opened up on Harvey's island. I felt like checking it out, and I felt that it was best to already start developing a habit of starting my day off by visiting his island before I unlock Katrina's. I've heard some advice to visit her before you do anything else, so I might as well start making Harvey's island my new start of the day early. So I packed up some Bells, and went to go introduce myself to Kicks.

Well, he's indeed dapper as ever: the Lloid wasn't wrong. He didn't have anything cuter then my new bag, though, so I only ended up buying one pair of shoes that could possibly match it. I also dropped by Harriet while I was there: I don't know why she gave me a really short and sleek haircut that looked horrible on my character, so I had her revert it. She taught me the style anyways, though.

This current hairstyle of mine in the game is actually the closest that New Horizons has to my real-life hairstyle: it's similar to this, only waist-length and without the waves at the bottom. I've been told that those waves look good on me in real life, though, and I really like how that looks on me as well. So I didn't mind having my character's hair like this in the game.

After that, I got to the dailies.

Another money tree was added to the lineup, but the Bell Rock gave me a tiny bit of trouble on trying to find it in the first place. After that, I headed over to the bamboo forest, as I'm not checking for new shoots regularly. And I had more yet again: there were like 6 shoots today, and the trees are starting to reach the path now.

That makes me so happy: this little bamboo nursery is truly growing into a mighty forest. I can't even get all the trees in one screenshot anymore! The day that it's a full forest is drawing closer and closer: it's a matter of time before they'll actually be standing around a villager's house. I've also gotten some screenshots of how the waterfall looks now: the bushes near it did help it look more naturally formed.

Just wait until I put some wildflowers on this thing: all it needs is some Lilies spread across it, and it'll be good to go. And it's going to especially look nice once spring rolls around! I'm still considering to expand the pond at the top a little so fish can actually spawn in it, though. I like me some function and fashion: who said you had to choose between the two in the first place?

Tiansheng also had a little task for me to do today... He asked me to deliver something to Olaf of all people! Oh Tiansheng, if any villager that I didn't want to keep around for longer had asked me, I would've turned them down...

Eww, I feel gross for having to walk into his house in the first place... Let alone actually scoring even one friendship point with him over this quest! If it wasn't scoring me points with Tiansheng, then I would've said no thanks! Might have to swat him with a net later... Tiansheng did decide to drop me some important info before I told him about what happened, though.

I knew this kind of quest could happen, so I always have some medicine on me. Mainly in case of me not being fast enough to catch the wasps that day, but also because of those illness quests. Also: not one of my two besties, not on my watch! So I sprinted to her house ASAP: Tiansheng wasn't that far from her place, so it actually wasn't that much of a sprint.

You know it's bad if her temperature is high, even for phoenix standards... She was feeling better after the medicine, though.
Rhonda also taught me a new Reaction today: Fearful.

I'm a pretty brave person to begin with, but that sure is a useful one next time I see that spider at the Museum's bug exhibit. Biff was also cooking today, and taught me the recipe for Veggie Cookies.

Hey, it's more believable for a Jock villager then the Apple Jelly that Tiansheng was making recently... I already had Biff pinned for a bit of a health nut, though. There's a difference between wanting to be healthy, and taking things a little too far, and I like to think he goes bit overboard at times.

And I got my silver HHA plaque today: I scored an A rank this time.

I'll be going for the gold next, folks. Onwards, to that coveted S rank! And speaking of furniture: I moved the Campsite, and I put a bit of an area around it that needed to be rebuilt as well.

After that, I did some Nook Mile tasks and called it a day. One was diving, and a scallop happened. So Pascal happened as well! This piece pf philosophy was a bit easier for me to understand then the last one.

He actually left me a new piece of the Mermaid series to the game: the dress. It's definitely cute and goes well with my new bag, but I'm not quite ready for a full-on mermaid aesthetic for a longer period of time, though.

​

To go with this dress, I'd personally recommend this hairstyle, a light blue hair colour, the Dreamy Pochette I'm wearing, and the tiara. Also, I'd match my glasses up to it better if I wasn't just trying it on.

Well, that's where I called it a day: I still have no ongoing Nook debts at the moment, my ABD ended up around 60k IGB, the Zen Bridge is stuck on the edge of 3k / 228k IGB, and I'm pausing the donations to Harvey's island for a minute.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 7th​

Well, today was a story of both incredible luck, and incredible loss. Got an aurora borealis for the first time today, sadly missed my wish on it, and might've missed out on a Celeste visit. But I'm getting ahead of myself: let's start the story of the day at its beginning.

So I hadn't been playing much today: But this day does mark two weeks passing since Paula moved, so I was hoping to catch a moving out thought bubble on someone in-game, and cheese the mechanics to move it to Olaf. And thus, finally get him off my island. I was mistaken a day, though: I'll have to wait until tomorrow to finally rid Crayola of its island menace.

This was a good practice run, though: I tend not to move around my island at full running speed due to grass deterioration, so that kind of movement speed took some getting used to. So it takes the game 3 minutes to autosave, so you need to find the villager with a potential move out thought bubble within that timeframe. Because if it's on a villager that you don't want moving out, then you need to exit the game without saving to try and switch it to another villager. So I timed myself with alarms to know when to exit before the autosave kicked in. Like, if the alarm would go off, I'd instantly hit the home button on my Switch, and would go to close the game.

And on all 3 of my tries in vain to find any kind of thought bubble, I could find Olaf to check him for those with time to spare on each try. At my fastest, I had a good 50 seconds left! I frankly didn't know whether I could even do that within the time limit. You might remember that I stress out over beating timers, but 3 minutes seems to be all I need to run across my entire island if my character runs at full speed. It took me some focus, but this time limit is actually very manageable if I get just a bit more serious then usual. Like, I didn't even have to go full beast mode here! So while nobody was moving out: my efforts still weren't completely wasted, because this was still a good dry run for tomorrow to see if I could actually do it. So I'll be repeating this process then, with renewed confidence.

So after realizing this, I decided to go and get to the dailies. Redd was visiting today, so I decided to see what real art this art thief had going on today: two real pieces in his store today.

I scammed him out of Japanese piece of art today: 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa' by Hokusai.
Also, en-route to finding the daily fossils, Peanut had a ping: she decided to teach me a new reaction: Sleepy.

Well, sort of appropriate, Peanut, since this all was a little tiring... She's next to be cycled out after Olaf. I have this spreadsheet to keep track of everything I want to do with my island: it keeps track of furniture that I still need, friendship levels with any dream villagers I have obtained, clothing that I want, items for my the exterior of my character's house that I want, what I spent on Turnips so I can sell them at a profit, etc. Basically, there's so much to do in this game, that everything I do is written down on this spreadsheet so I won't forget. And I think it's about time that I add a tab when it comes to cycling villagers.

This might help me keep track of when the next villager could be moving out, since I only time travel in special circumstances. And since it'll take two weeks after the next move-out for that thought bubble to appear again and I hate skipping days in-game, I'll definitely forget about which date that should happen at, since I'll be busy with other stuff in-game. I'm really one of those people who can easily forget something if it's not written down, so I tend to just quickly jot down anything I want to actively remember, and expand on the basic information I've written down a little later.

After that little Reaction lesson, I decided to hit a Kapp'n island: I needed some spare Pink Camelia bushes for something I'm designing around my character's house. It also will include some custom designs by me later, so please stay tuned for that!

I got the vegetable island today, so I scooped up most of the Sugarcane plants there as well. I have no use for that much Sugarcane yet, and the 5 I already have frankly already produce more then I know what to do with. I honestly don't have enough Recipes that use the two sugar types that you can craft out of them in a Kitchen! Well, no Recipes that don't also incorporate rare and hard to get items at this stage, at least... So I would just sell these plants off later, and they sure fetched a pretty penny at Nook's Cranny.

Here's all of the loot from that island:

After this, I decided to swing by Rhonda's house, as I hadn't seen her walk around all day. Turns out she was cooking, and gave me a recipe that really helped: I had potatoes sort of stacking up in my storage, and she gave me a recipe for french fries.

Now me and my parents had a bit of a running joke about fries going for the past few days, so this, of course got a hearty laugh out of both of them. The fact that my character actually made some today only made things worse.

Also, protip: cooking actually makes the produce plants worth it, even if your character doesn't eat all the meals they made. And they definitely come in handy on trying to move trees and break rocks: a piece of fruit gives the meter for that one point, while a crafted meal gives 5 of those points. Also, they sell for more then just selling the produce outright: One stack of potatoes goes for 350 IGB, but the French Fries go for 1260 IGB, and only use up 3 potatoes. So a stack will produce 3 of those fries, and thus, that's like an easy 3780 IGB per harvest if you take like 3 seconds extra after harvesting your produce. Also, it very much ups the value of your native fruit, as you can just make smoothies out of them. Not to mention that it's cottagecore as heck to be cooking with homegrown produce like that, right? I dunno, it lowkey makes me feel like a farmer selling fresh products from her little market stall, and I love it.

Hmm, that gives me an idea: might make a cute little market right near Nook's Cranny and the Able Sisters... I still have some space around the two shops on the island, and Isabelle has been nagging me for the past few days about placing more furniture on the island anyways. So a little market area might be cute! I was lowkey looking for an excuse to get the DIY recipe and customize one with a custom design to begin with. Yeah, have myself a little fish stall going to give the 5th Sea Bass of the day at least some kind of use, have a little fruit stall and a veggie stall going on there, it's going to be nice. All I'd need for it is the veggie basket item, the fruit basket item, some time with my custom designs, and I'd be good to go.

Anyhow, my ideas for my island aside, I noticed something new on my island today: an aurora borealis!

Man, it's absolutely gorgeous. I looked it up to see if that meant something, and turns out it did: this aurora borealis means that there's a chance of a Celeste visit! From what I hear, those are pretty rare, and can only happen on clear winter nights.

So I ended up looking for her, only to realize mid-search that Redd was already visiting that day! Well, Redd, you've always been a nemesis of mine, but you realize: cheating me out of a meteor shower means war! Well, he should be darned grateful that the game won't let me sink his boat... Or worse: turn him in at Tom Nook's.
Weirdly enough, the aurora borealis was actually gone after a bit. Oh well, I might've missed my wish here looking back, but this probably won't be my last meteor shower.

Also, actual photographic evidence of Olaf trying to steal my fish I had just cast my rod when he started fishing as well.

Good luck beating the reigning Fishing Tourney champion of New Leaf, though! 10 wins there, and hopefully counting on in this game once my first Fishing Tourney in New Horizons rolls around. But tomorrow, I might finally be rid of him: it's going to be exactly two weeks since Paula moved. And I'm planning to manipulate the thought bubble mechanics until it lands on Olaf. Like, I have been looking to get rid of this villager ever since the game forced me to invite him: he's rude, I don't like his aesthetics, and according to his wiki entry: turns out he has a twin brother. Well, he's definitely the more annoying twin... so I'll be glad to be rid of him. Now I might hate him, but someone else might not. So I'll be starting a giveaway thread for him once he says he'll want to move out. Once he does decide to leave: Please take him off of my hands!

I had only started playing in the afternoon today, so this is about where I called it a day. I have no ongoing Nook debts, donations to Harvey's island are still paused for the moment, my ABD is recovering nicely at at 150k IGB, and the Zen Bridge is at 3k / 228k IGB.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 8th​

Huzzah, I finally did it today! Olaf is moving out! Crayola is finally rid of its local island menace. Crack open the champagne and put up the streamers, because I've been stuck with this guy for way too long. It sure took me a while: I've been at it all morning, since ended up happening through the Campsite instead of a thought bubble today. But I did it!

Caroline showed up this time: quite the ugly villager in my book, but anything is better then being stuck with Olaf for any longer then absolutely necessary.

The dialogue to kick an existing villager kept landing on villagers I wanted to keep: Phoebe, Monique, and even Rhonda! Don't flatter yourself Caroline, there's no way you can replace my dreamie. It also landed on Peanut, who I want to cycle out later, but eyes on the prize, right? And after resetting a few times, Olaf's name finally came up. You can understand: I practically jumped on this when it did happen, and this called for a victory screenshot!

I mean, this required a silly victory dance. Olaf is leaving, Olaf is leaving this is not a drill! Ah, now this is a sight for sore eyes...

Caroline might be an eyesore, but she still has a similar colour scheme to Phoebe and her personality is at least manageable. I'm a little tired of her talking about her poetry, but I can imagine that people feel the same way about me once I start about my art! My point is: I can deal with her better then with Olaf.

Also, it's not even the fact that he's a Smug villager: so is a dream villager of mine, Eugene. And so is O'Hare, but he's way friendlier and still enjoyable to talk to. O'Hare is just always happy to see you, and comes off as if he actually enjoys talking to you, even at lower friendship levels. Olaf always treats you like it's a pain to even be around you, even at around friendship level 4. And he just tended to get in the way of things: legit photobombing my screenshots and flat-out standing in front of my character a few times, interrupting me putting down furniture or otherwise trying to improve island aesthetics, constantly standing in my way while trying to walk somewhere, etc. And I mean that he's legit just walk to get in my way on-screen or something. And contrary to my other villagers: zero attempts to actually move or generally avoid being a nuisance. None of my other villagers, including O'Hare and Monique with her Snooty personality, ever acted like that. And while Olaf's house doesn't quite look luxury to me and I'm seriously questioning some choices in there, I frankly didn't even have any problem with either that or his personal aesthetics. This was 100% a problem with his sheer rudeness. Nothing more, nothing less.

I did post about him in New Neighbor Network to see if anyone still wanted this jerk around, but unsurprisingly, no takers. And I frankly don't blame people for not wanting Olaf anywhere near their islands...

So after a little celebrating, Kicks was visiting today. I decided to go and treat myself after all that hard work, and see wht he had in stock.

​

Turns out that he had the black version of some shoes I had bought earlier to match my Dream Pochette. Those shoes are darned cute, so I had to go for them.
After that, I did some Nook Mile tasks to land from cloud nine again. One was to catch 5 fish, and I needed some for my market stall area: It's going to involve a stall selling fish. So you can understand: this as an opportunity.

I did some testing after completing the task and collecting my Nook Miles, and it looks best to just have fish models standing on the stall itself instead of just simply placing the fish themselves. So I set to catching a few more fish then just 5. I did end up catching everything that I needed, so now all I have to do is wait for C.J to visit a few times, since he can only make one model at a time. I had already cutsomized the stall itself, so that's almost done.

I also want a vegetable stall that's going to require the Veggie Basket item, which requires you to buy something from Leif on 3 different days. I've already bought some stuff from Leif twice if I'm not mistaken, so getting my hands on that shouldn't take me long once he does visit. That's really a matter of time, plain and simple. All I need after that for a fruit stall is a Fruit Basket (the item, not the anime ), but that's a matter of time. Both those stalls are getting their own custom design on them, by the way. So all those need is some time and patience. And well, with both the dream villager hunt still being ongoing and a few areas of the island not being complete yet, I think that I'll have enough to do in the meantime.

Heck, I'll already be quite busy with only trying to empty my move-in queue first! Before I actively go hunting for my dream villagers on Mystery Islands, I'm first and foremost trying to make sure that none of my dreamies are in that queue to begin with. Because if they're already in that queue, they won't appear on Mystery Islands, and I'll just end up wasting Nook Mile Tickets on trying to find them. And since I don't really time travel for villager cycling, I think I'll have enough to do while waiting with this alone.
Then there's still some stuff needed for the beach lounge area with the Mermaid Sofa and Shell Partitions, and some stuff still needed for the onsen area in the bamboo forest.
Enough C.J. visits, the Veggie Basket, and the Fruit Basket sure will take a while, but there's enough to work on while I do.

Shortly after I was done, I stopped to chat to Spike, who was hanging around nearby. Turns out: our big 'ol softie has a good sense of style!

He actually gifted me something to go with my outfit that might not have been the same aesthetic, but didn't end up clashing in terms of colour. Who would've thought, right?

I also dropped by Monique's, and she taught me a recipe.

Yup, that's very her... I dunno, I can just picture her eating that for a snack while she's on a diet or something. Fruit salad can be delicious if you slice up some seasonal fruits, though, so I frankly don't blame her.

After that, I decided to go decorate the island a bit. If you remember, Isabelle was nagging me about this for a while now. did have a few ideas for little areas around the island floating around: a few beach chairs and tables for drinks on the beach, a little camping-ish area near my secret beach to make it seem like some smugglers actually met up there, I've sort of wanted a Directions Sign and a little bench at some crossroads in the bamboo forest, just small stuff like that. So I decided to put some of those plans into action.

First off was the bamboo crossroads: I had a DIY recipe for a Bamboo Bench: not the final plan, but I thought that it might be cute to make it look like it's made from materials found in the forest.

I'm still going to dot this area with wildflowers for a bit: I'm going to put some lilies next to or around the bench, and about 2 near the sign for pretty's sake. So I've pretty much decided on the flower colours for this area of the island: white and pink Lilies to match the pink Camelia bushes dotted around the forest. I know the colour symbolism in Japan of pink in particular, as it can symbolize death. And it lowkey has sakura-ish vibes, and I l think that cherry blossom-themes stuff in general is really pretty. So I thought that might be a very pretty, slightly spooky little nod for people who know. Like, maybe some fights happened at this crossroads once upon a time, right? I kind of like the sneaky implication that the forest may or may not be slightly haunted.

Not sure if all the lilies here are going to be pink or that there's going to be both pink and white flowers here, and I might customize the bench to look more like dried bamboo and match the sign better. But I'll have to see that once spring rolls around: I'm going to need green bamboo to see if the shades of green between the actual bamboo trees and the bench match. But we'll cross both those bridges when we get there: this will definitely do for now.

Next up was an idea for a little camp area near the secret beach: I made that look like a sort of smuggler's beach. I saw that ide elsewhere, and I thought it was pretty nice, so I decided to put my own spin on it. And from there, I thought it would be nice to have a place where they might have met up to either make the actual trade, or hang out for a bit while waiting for their trade partner to arrive.

So I finished off the smuggler's beach by slapping down a palm tree there. Hope it'll grow, since there's not a lot of space there.

After that, I set to crafting the stuff for the camping area. I'm planning to later turn the log stools into Mush Logs to make things look more natural.

It took some colour changing to make the logs look like some trees here actually got cut down to make these fake stumps, and I also customized the water pump to fot everything better. I really preferred the hay bed as it was, so that could just stay the way it was when it rolled off the DIY table. I had to cut down about two trees here, as there sort of already ended up being sort of a clearing here, but one would actively block the view of this area. I probably had an overabundance of trees anyways, so no love lost, I guess?

After that, even the Nook Mile tasks agreed that it was high time for a coffee break. So I decided to hop by the Roost: Brewster was in a generally more talkative mood then usual, so I guess he's slowly starting to warm up to me.

Also, when I asked Isabelle about island evaluations today, she was actually more content with the island's furniture this time! She suggested bridges and inclines in this one. Well, that was already the plan, so I took this as a que to truly focus on that! I do want about two Zen Bridges leading to the bamboo forest, and one leading to the Museum. So I guess those are next on the to-do list. I already have a few stepping stones leading to the forest, so that's aesthetically appropriate for the area. But those two Zen Bridges might be the biggest pain. Stone Bridges are frankly cheaper, and they've sort of become the main bridges on the island because the stone path sort of forms the main roads of Crayola. But I just like stuff to be pretty, so Zen Bridges to the bamboo forest it is.

After that, I just ended up wandering around while waiting on late replies to the Olaf forum thread, and noticed some generally cool villager stuff while I did. Phoebe sitting around a cute bonfire with her friends, was pretty adorable.

Couldn't help but join them for a bit: I mean, Spike's good company, and Peanut is okay to hang out with as well. I was on my way to drop of some Bells at the ABD and get my orders on Nook Shopping in anyways, so I decided to just stop for this screenshot. Darned camera opening ruined my sitting down emote, but it still looks cute if you ask me. And when I did go inside, turns out that I've finally unlocked the shopping app!

Well, that's much more convenient then dropping by Resident Services every day. I just wish we could order more then 5 items, but the game mechanics are the game mechanics. And in case of an aesthetic emergency or items just not being available via Nook Shopping to begin with, there's always still Nookazon to turn to. Beware of scammers, but most people there are cool: the Animal Crossing community is generally just a breath of fresh air to begin with if you see certain parts of the internet: you guys are frankly even more chill then the Sims community, yet just as unafraid to call a business out on their BS. They don't fear and/or revere EA, and you don't just mindlessly stan Nintendo either. That just warms my heart: never change, AC community, because that 'do no harm but take no crap' philosophy that you've got going on is very much a good place for a community to be at.

Well, this is where I called it a day. I have no ongoing Nook debts, donations to Harvey's island have resumed with 20k IGB a day towards Katrina's trailer, which is currently at 22k / 100k IGB, partially thanks to villager contributions. The first Zen Bridge back at Crayola is at 4k / 228k IGB, and my ABD is at a way healthier 230k IGB.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 9th​

Ah, the first Olaf-free day on Crayola after finishing the main storyline... Boy, did I ever start up the game with a sense of relief today! Hope we all got through the forum maintenance today: I pretty much was in game all day and dealing with a particularly nasty bug on Nookazon, so I didn't notice it all too much.

First things first: I headed over to Harvey’s island to drop off my daily 20k donation to Katrina’s trailer. I heard that you frankly need to visit her before doing anything else, so I had best start building the habit to drop by there first thing once I start my gaming session.

After that, it was time to head back to Crayola for the dailies. And while I could just afford to finish up the first Zen Bridge to the bamboo forest in one go with just what’s in my ABD alone, I wanted to at least have some in-game Bells left after clearing that goal. So I set to getting to the dailies: I’ve started to get into the territory where I can start selling fossils that I already have in my Museum, so those were first on the list. Those can net you an easy 5k to 20k, depending on how many doubles you find.

After authenticating those fossils and donating whatever was new, I usually harvest any money trees which have produced Bell bags. And I start diving for a little bit once I get the task for it. It’ll happen at some point during the day, as I sometimes complete some tasks on accident.

I’ve usually tripped over the digging spot for a money tree at least a few times by then during my fossil hunt, and if I don’t have at least 10k on me at that point? Then I’ve made a mental note of where it is the first time I see it. I often do have at least 10k IGB on me by the time I pass by it a 2nd or 3rd time. So then I’ll go back to the digging spot, dig the Bells inside up, and bury the 10k to make maximum profits off of the tree later. Any number over that, and a profit isn't assured, so I tend to limit myself to a safe 10k buried.

I’ll then dig the sapling back up, and plant it with the rest of the money trees still growing: that doesn't affect your profits, so it's safe to just move it. I usually place all my money trees next to each other with proper spacing, is so I won’t have to end up running around my island once they're fully grown, and I don't have to go across the entire island just to check on them.

This method often nets me a good 50k IGB a day at the very least, 75k IGB if things really went well. And I do spend a bit of that on Nook Shopping on a daily basis (if there’s anything interesting in there, it’s mostly spent on limited items like event and promotion items).

Also, Saharah was visiting today, so some of those Bells went to buying some rugs from her. There's one medium rug that I really want: I haven't found it yet and I know I could get it off Nookazon, but I prefer to fill out my catalog a little while trying for it.

​

I cleared out her entire inventory again, and had enough tickets for either a mystery wallpaper or flooring: I went for the flooring this time around, since last time, I went for the wallpaper.
And en-route to my dailies, I found a lost item. It turned out to be Spike's: when he asked me to find the item I already on me, it was his journal! Good that our favorite 'ol softie has an emotional outlet.

Don't worry, Spike, I actually didn't read it. And your secret of keeping one in the first place is safe with me. I know you have a reputation to uphold here. I frankly didn't even know you could read villager journals I guess it's pretty telling that I didn't even think to try?

I also didn't really see Rhonda walking around much, so I dropped by her house: turns out that she was DIY'ing, and she taught me a recipe for a bamboo floor lamp.

Well, Rhonda, I could indeed use all of the bamboo DIY's that I can get, because I'll have that to spare once my bamboo forest becomes an actual full forest. Somehow, the one dream villlager that I was lucky enough to meet during the main storyline has developed a habit of being one of the few villagers who just consistently gives me useful items. I know that the item a villager gives you is completely random, and that it's simply me being plain lucky when it comes to the the RNG. But it's becoming a pattern here, and I love it.

Phoebe also invited me over somewhere today: I won a new catalog entry from her.

I'm frankly not even going to try and pronounce the name of the item, because I'm sure to absolutely butcher this word I dunno, on a new word like this, I usually listen to someone pronouncing it correctly while they explain to me what it is, try to imitate that pronunciation from there, and then ask them if I got it right. Usually, I get it in like 2 or 3 tries or so, and people tend to be really patient with me because I actually want to try to get it right.

Also, turns out that when googling this item, it's based on a traditional winter robe from Uzbekistan, and the word bekasab refers to the fabric it's made of. The actual robe is called a chapan. Kind of cool to learn, actually! And then there's people who say you don't learn anything from videogames... Well, I had no clue what a chapan was before this, I rest my case.

After that, I decided to work on that little market stall area that I wanted near the two shops on the island. I decided on the brick path again, to make it look similar to the plaza as well.

Since I only have one customized stall at the moment, I decided to leave it be in my storage for a minute. And speaking of storage: mine has been consistently full for the past few days! So against my better judgement, I started a new Nook debt to expand my house, and thus get more storage space: I desperately needed it, since I had pretty much been walking around with spare items that I wanted to keep in my inventory up until this point. Something had to give. So since I was near the Resident Services anyways, I decided to put in the order for more storage.

Oof, Tom... This is going to take me a while! Please have mercy on my poor ABD. I know that the late-game Nook loans tend get especially painful in any Animal Crossing title, but we're slowly heading towards million-Bell loans here!

After this, I decided to hop by a Kapp'n island for tsome extra in-game bells. I had way too much Nook Miles on me, so I pretty much dropped my spare items at my island entrance since my gates were closed due to some issues with a bug on Nookazon. And I set out to for adventure.

​

I'm going to be hitting these islands pretty often once my new storage space kicks in, as it can be pretty profitable to hop Kapp'n islands if you know what to take home. Also, a bit of an addendum to my cooking advice: non-native fruits always go for more if you don't use them for a recipe, so they're sort of an exception to the rule that making products out of your raw materials is the best way to go. Always compare the price of the material to the product you want to make, because that's how I found out. Good thing I didn't have to learn the hard way!

I was hoping for some exclusive fish from here, but sadly, no dice: only the usual fish from back home on Crayola were showing up. The highlight was an oarfish: I'm hoping to catch enough of them for a model of it, since I was so proud of catching my first one.

​

I went diving after that in the hopes for any exclusive creatures, but no dice there either. It did end up boosting my profits by a good few in-game bells, though.

​

And, of course, there was a gyroid fragment, which I buried in my produce area as per usual. I really only left it at one Kapp'n island due to storage issues today, so I'll be tackling more tomorrow. Here's all of the loot from this island:

​

After emptying out my inventory at Nook's Cranny, changing out of my wetsuit and and burying the gyroid fragment, I had a task to go drink coffee at the Roost, so I headed over. I actually ran into Spike there again: turns out that just like me, he isn't really about obsessively minding the clock either.

​

Same, man: time flies when you're having fun. I dunno, I just generally don't mind the clock all that much: I just tend to do what feels right at any given time. Save for meal times, I usually eat around the same timeframe every day. And I really have to remind myself to be on time every time I have something planned. Whether it's an appointment or meeting up with a friend, I just need to actively try and make it in time.

Also, when I was leaving after my coffee, Brewster actually had something for me! It turns out he did warm up to me a little, as he had a recipe for the Roost's signature sable cookies.

No, thank you, Brewster! This is frankly a way better use of my sugar, and thus, sugarcane then just making sugar out of it.

After this, I was bored enough to try and make the pond at the top of the bamboo forest's waterfall functional. It did require expanding the cliffs around it a good bit, on both ends of the river stemming from it. Which means that I had to move quite a lot of bamboo trees... Good thing I had some food handy in my storage, so I ate up until the meter was largely full, and went to work.

And with these bamboo trees in my pocket, I got to mucking about with this a little. I'm not sure if I like how things turned out, and not sure if the pond is even functional now. But I can always restore the waterfall back to its original form and leave the production of pond-specific fish to my pre-existing star pond.

​

Well, this is about where I called it a day. Nook debts have started up again, but I'm not quite working towards paying the 758k IGB off just yet. Katrina's trailer on Harvey's island is at 42 / 100k IGB, and the Zen Bridge is at 5k / 288k IGB.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 10th​

Well, today wasn't that eventful in the game... And I've learned today that you can only do one Kapp'n Island a day. Not too horrible, as there was still a way to turn those into Bells anyways, but some good info to note for the future.

So I started things off with decorating the new room of my house: I'm making it a kitchen, but I definitely need a few counters: I do have some stuff to make it look more nice sitting in my storage, but I need a surface to put those things on.

​

After that, I got to the dailies: I'm not that good at this whole 'visit Harv's island for Katrina before doing anything else' habit yet. That's not a disaster as her trailer isn't built there yet, so I have plenty of time to get used to that change of rhythm. Anyhow, I kind of tripped over the Bell tree digging spot while doing some Nook Mile missions first and foremost, and good thing I had harvested a fully grown money tree right before that! So I set to planting a new one, and as always, put it with the rest. After that, the fossil hunt was on! Most of them were around the bamboo forest for some reason, so I got that done pretty quickly.

I did notice a special visitor on the plaza while scouring my island for those fossils, though...

...Label! I was already wondering where the 3rd Able sister had snuck off to this time... I do remember her from New Leaf, but she's pretty much doing what Gracie did in that game. Meaning that she had a style challenge for me: the theme was everyday. So I quickly slipped on a Chesterfield Coat and a good pair of black pants, and got back to her: it must've fit the theme, because I won the challenge! I frankly didn't even look up items on the wiki or anything: I 100% went off the sweater vest she gave me as an example. She gave me a pretty nice Labelle Coat as a reward.

I honestly prefer the black one, but this was frankly my second favorite. And it's goth enough in context. I actually have a winter coat similar to this in real life, only it's this classic alternative plaid and has a black fur trim at the hood. So it sort of reminds me of that. Good thing that Label ditched the whole pretentious 'Labelle' thing, because it frankly works way better as a fashion label. This kind of attitude very much seems more like the real Label, and I'm living for it. Yaaas, queen, slay! You just be you.

And the last fossil of the day being right next to Caroline's house reminded me to both go welcome her, and profusely thank her for saving Crayola from Olaf. So I decided to go cross that off the to-do list for today as well.

Well, the exterior of her house isn't ugly...
And when I went inside: holy crap, that's a lot of poetry on those walls, girl!

Like, geez, did she write all of that herself? Caroline over here like 'Writer's block? Never heard of her.' She was happy to be here, though, and I'm just as happy to cycle her in for a while. I mean, she's clearly not going to be a permanent resident, but she's not really at the top of the list of villagers I want to cycle out. Either Biff, Peanut, or Rex is up next. But I still have two weeks to decide which of those three gets voted off the island, so to speak. So that's plenty of time to make a decision.

After visiting Caroline, I decided to finally go to Harv's island for my daily donation to Katrina's trailer, and take the opportunity to get a picture of Crayola's latest addition for poster reasons over at Photopia while I was there.

And back at Crayola, Monique had a task for me that would score me friendship points with two villagers that I want to keep around for longer.

....And she wanted me to deliver a peace offering to him. Well, a lightly gifted Tiansheng it is: I'm not sure if items given by other villagers count towards the receiving villager being gifted or not, but I don't think I could exactly mark Tiansheng as ungifted now as she gave him a clothing item. But it was just too tempting to possibly gain another friendship level with both, as I sort of want both of his photo and Monique's photo's now. Spoiler alert: he forgave her, and I told her about it.

Also noticed a cool villager moment today of some villagers just casually doing yoga at the plaza.

Now Biff and Phoebe doing yoga, I could understand. Like, maybe that's Phoebe's way of relaxing, and Biff's cooldown exercise. But how the heck did Biff sucker O'Hare of all people into this little yoga class? I know that he's all about that chill island life, but this seems a little unlike his usual MO to me. Maybe he's just trying something new for the sake of it?

Also, today, the Able Sisters had an item in stock that had been on my wishlist for a while: the black variant of the Vampire Costume! I couldn't help but snap a quick shot of it.

Guess I've unintentionally found my look for Halloween! Also, I really only changed my character's eyes for the picture, but I'd lowkey be a believable vampire, even without the classic black hair. Like, might legit look better without.

Anyhow, I kind of kept the Labelle Coat on all day. After this I did go for a bit of diving, though, since my ABD was not as ready for a new Nook loan in advance as it usually is. I was actually really lucky today: I found a Pearl, and Pascal actually gave me a second one today.

Well, having more Pearls around never hurt... Also, Pascal reminding us to sleep until we feel rested, like a boss.
And while I was doing some nautical activities anyways, I decided to drop by a Kapp'n island as well.

No loot pictures today, as there were really no exclusive fish here, and I pretty much went diving to fill out my inventory as in terms of plants, there was not really much I wanted. I mean: I get plenty of Pears to gift to my villagers from my orchard already. Like, I haven't gifted away the backlog yet, or there's another Pear harvest: I frankly have more of my island's native fruit then I know what to do with already! My stargazing area also has enough hyacinths around it, and the only bushes available were camelia's. And I frankly already have too many of those littered around the island anyways.

The gyroid fragment was really the highlight here, and that just got buried in my produce area like usual. One actually washed up on the beach yesterday, so I guess that one got a new neighbor.
I was still willing to lose a budget of 20k Nook Miles today, so I blew 10k on Bell vouchers for that necessary cash injection to my ABD, and 10k on Nook Mile Tickets both for later villager hunting, and possibly for buying stuff off of Nookazon. You never know when you might find a dream villager on there, right?

But before that, Tom Nook had something to say: I can now change the door on my character's house.

I do have one planned for that house, but I'll sort that tomorrow. After spending my Nook Miles, I sort of called it a day.

Well, my Nook debt of 758k IGB is still paused for now, we're at 64k / 100k IGB for Katrina's trailer on Harvey's island, and at 9k / 228k IGB for the Zen Bridge back at Crayola. Once I get Katrina's trailer built, I might resume trying to pay off that Nook debt. But bridges might become a priority instead for island rating purposes. I mean, getting a 5-star island rating is not really a priority for me at all, but it would be a nice achievement to be at that rating at least once. So we'll see where things go after getting Katrina's trailer.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 11th​

Well, let's start this post off with some good news: Once my free trial of the Switch online subscription ends, I am going to splurge on Happy Home Designer! So in a few posts, you can look forward to my misadventures on trying to decorate both my villager's houses, and the vacation homes of some poor sods- I mean lucky clients! Please pray for that poor archipelago, because Hurricane Melanie is reaching land there around the 15th!

I've done some last bit of research, and turns out that the rest of the stuff in the same pack as HHP is basically free downloads if the trial is still active. After watching some basic gameplay previously, I can safely say that HHP is worth the extra amount of money spent in terms of content added to the basegame: it's about what I estimated the worth of the amount of content added to be (my guess was that solely on its own merits, it was worth 15 to 20 euros). So Nintendo's pricing is actually surprisingly fair for a change.

Now without further ado, let's get into the post!

So Leif was visiting today: after doing the dailies, I dropped by to see what he had in stock. And lucky me, he had some Lilies! I need those for the bamboo forest, and he had the white ones I needed, plus some holly bushes and a new flower to my island: the cosmos. I had a lot of those back in New Leaf, so I'm glad to see it again. Also, Leif gave me a DIY recipe after that for buying stuff from him a few times:

After that, I also hopped past the Able Sisters, and in addition to stocking the black Labelle Coat today, they had yet another wishlist item of mine in stock...
Winklepickers!

These are very popular in the real-life goth subculture: they're expensive, but considered an essential on any goth's shoe rack. They're an absolute must for the goth who wants an actually sensible pair of shoes, but also a durable and pretty pair of shoes. I honestly wish I had a pair in real life, but I only have a pair of ankle boots with similar pointy toe parts, and those aren't the same as actual winklepickers. You can understand: my inner spooky person squee'd with joy when I saw these in the Able Sisters dressing room, and I had to buy every variant of them. Very much a 'shut up and take my money' moment. I did have those two tailor's tickets arrive in the mail in this morning, so I got two pairs of winklepickers for free today!

Of course, Monique couldn't help but suck up to me about my new shoes. I think she's caught wind of me making custom designs or something, because she's always on about how good my character looks.

Monique, if you want to actually commission something, then just ask already!

Also, Phoebe can't catch a break on her catchphrase, it seems: this is the second time she told my character about people complaining about it.

Phoebe, I'm going to need names next time, because my bestie's catchphrase 'sparky' is perfect! You're a Sisterly, so you're always helping us in whatever we're doing: now let us help you for a change! I have some connections at Nook Inc. , just saying...

Also, Spike really needs to look after his things a little better, because he lost something... Again. I found this thing in the orchard, and I usually go talk to the nearest villager about it to get a sense of who might have lost the item. Spike was the nearest village, and it turned out to be his: I thought he lost his journal again, but it was a book that he misplaced this time.

I guess he was keeping a reading journal.
I also hadn't seen O'Hare around, so I dropped by: he was cooking, and taught me a recipe for mushroom pizza.

Well, that sure sounds like a good dish to make! How has Crayola even lasted this long without pizza? My mother actually makes pizza from scratch sometimes: like, she makes the dough and pizza sauce and all. And long story short: my grandmother didn't like Italian food until she tried that pizza. I rest my case. Everyone else who tried it said that it was to die for as well: You couldn't tell that the pizza base was made out of spelt instead of wheat. My mom can't eat anything made out of wheat due to an allergy, but it still has the same texture as a normal wheat pizza base and everything.

Rhonda also asked me to come over, and how could I say no to a dream villager?

​

And I finally got tired of that eyesore of a shirt that Peanut was wearing, so I splurged a little extra in the Able Sisters for a new sweater for her. Just because she's getting cycled out does not mean I have to suffer under her aesthetics for 2 weeks...

I dunno, I just wanted some kind of blue top for her, and that retro sweater seemed like it would match the blue stripe on her head really nicely. I'm also planning to gift the everliving crap out of both Rhonda and Phoebe, because the interior of their houses are still looking like they did in the beginning. I'm still sort of planning things out on exact furniture pieces there, but once I get Happy Home Paradise, I'm going to need something to work with! I already lowkey like customizing yards for villagers, so customizing their houses is going to be amazing! And while the furniture often fits them well: sometimes, where they've placed stuff in their house just doesn't make any sense.

I'm planning to leave the exteriors of both Phoebe and Rhonda's houses alone, and both the exterior and interior of the homes belonging to rare villagers like Tiansheng are of course completely remaining untouched.

I did check the DIY recipe for those hedges that Leif gave me, and turns out that I had everything to craft a few stacks just lying about in my storage! So I got to work, and gave the Crayola park area behind the Resident service a little upgrade.

I had to temporarily move two trees for it to my inventory, because the river in front of the Museum prevented me from placing some fence pieces along the corners there in any other way. But it was worth it!

I also decided to finally make some progress on the Museum plaza area: I had two more topiares I needed to place there, and I was debating on shrinking the yard of the villager next to it by one square, because else they just wouldn't line up right. I eventually ended up going for it: now all I need is some azalea bushes for the gaps in the pathing.

I still need to properly line out that one topiary near the villager house, and might end up moving that plot a bit anyways. But I haven't fully planned that yet, and I usually don't move villager houses around without a plan. Also, I'll definitely be busy with other stuff in the upcoming days, with HHP about to hit my game, trying to pay off my current Nook debt, and just generally tweaking small stuff around the island.

But on the bright side: I managed to fully fund Katrina's trailer today! She'll be setting up on Harvey's island tomorrow.

Okay, so turns out that this only needed 35k IGB more, and while I know that I usually only donate 20k IGB a day... I had a little under that already on me in sheer earnings. I had like 33k or 34k IGB on me at the time, this difference was just ridiculously tiny. It would've been just plain stupid not to close the distance at that moment, right?

Well, that seemed like a good stopping point for the day: I still had some planning to do in preparation for Happy Home Paradise, after all. Which villagers do I want on my archipelago, how does that whole 'multiple villagers per vacation house' thing over there work, etc. Also, then there's Rhonda's house back on Crayola, which I'm probably not going to be actively working on until I actually get the mechanics that the DLC unlocks back on your actual island. Long story short on both of these things: I still have a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff to do here, so I called it a day pretty early on.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 12th​

Well, today marks my visit to Katrina, but I was dumb enough to do at least some dailies before going over to Harvey's island first. I did get some good luck from her, on an area where I desperately needed it. So Harvey introduces me:

And after that, I got my first reading in this game ever. I've heard that it can influence our entire day, so her saying that little spell thingy was a pretty tense moment. But I must have had some kind of good karma saved up...

Good luck on money? Thank you, Katrina! That was exactly what I needed, as I have my eye on some pretty expensive longer-term goals at the moment. So a little boost to the financials for the day was deeply appreciated. Katrina, something tells me that we're going to get along just fine...

I quickly stopped by Harriet after this, and the results were yet again... interesting.

What's it with me and hairdressers wanting to give me short, Karen-ish haircuts? Something like this actually happened to me in real-life as a kid, you know. A hairdresser actually forced a short haircut on me, I was like 5 years old or something. My request was to only cut off the split ends, and my mother explicitly forbade cutting my hair short. I took great pride in my waist-length hair, and it was basically the only thing I was actually proud of as a shy, heavily bullied kid. And mind you, this hairdresser repeated this back to my mom as she confirmed that she wouldn't give me a short hairstyle.
She actually kept pushing me on it when my mom was doing some grocery shopping in the meantime. And still tried sneaking one on me despite me repeatedly refusing about 50 times over. She ended up messing it up partway through, tells me, and almost gave me a buzz cut to still make it look half-decent.

Needless to say, when my mom is not happy when sees child me full-on ugly crying in the chair about this once she returns. The hairdresser nearly drops her scissors when she sees the look on Mama Scribbles' face, and first thing this hairdresser does is to try to fully blame this on little 5-yearold me. To my mom's face. Not a good idea. She sushes this woman mid-rant on how I 'actually asked for this', though, and asks little me what happened, while assuring me that I'm not the one who'll get in trouble. And in between sobs, I tell her the real story.
Now the fact that this hairdresser both did this to me and had the gall to lie to my mother's face did not help calm her already rising anger about messing with her child... She spent like 10 minutes actively chewing this hairdresser out. Like, I even remember part of what exactly she told this hair-butcher, but couldn't post it here without breaking guidelines. Let's just say that some choice words were uttered, and things ended on 'why don't you get a goshdarned life instead of lord your power over children like that'... And that's the clean version of it!

You can understand: We did not return to that hair salon, and my mother ended up badmouthing the place to any playground mom who wanted to hear it in an attempt to spare other children the same fate. I actually had a legit fear of hairdressers until I was a teenager due to this. And as an adult, I still won't walk into any hair salon without at least 10 pictures of how I want my hair to look.

Umm, Harriet, you might want to cool it on the short hairstyles here... Good thing she can actually undo it.

So with Katrina's blessing, I set out for the rest of my day. And as she predicted... Everything I sold today ended up bringing in just a little bit more Bells then usual. I did need storage space, though, so I went through there to see if there was anything I could gift my dream villager Rhonda to spruce up her house once I get Happy Home Paradise. I thought that the purple Heart-shaped Bouquet would look good in her house.

I still had one lying around because I wanted to get all of the variants, and I ordered a spare to maybe sell off later. I really like this one and the black one, so might end up using it my character's house as well. Well, I'll cross that bridge when I get there, I guess.
She also taught me a recipe later today.

Spike also dropped by today right as I was about to leave for Rhonda's house this morning: well, it's definitely better then someone like Biff visiting me.

I got a gift from him, and beat him at Higher or Lower.

After that, I dropped by the Able Sisters, and they actually had a mask in stock! Please be sure to wear one, folks.

I've also ordered one off Nookazon: I know that the corona virus is not a thing in Animal Crossing, but in real life, I don't ever go out without a mask. They tend to fog up my glasses whenever I breathe, but I'll take that over the virus any day! Like, at least I can still breathe on my own, that virus put people on rebreathers!

Over in the Netherlands, we're dealing with the omicron-variant right now: people say it's milder, but I had the worst fever out of all my vaccinations once I got my shot for it. I had a bout of fever after my second shot before, but this one hit in the middle of the night, and got so bad that I couldn't sleep. Like, my heart was racing and everything sue to the stress it caused in my body. Things actually got so bad, I got worried that I would have to ask my mom to drive me to the hospital. Like, I was still conscious and I could still move and talk properly, so I wasn't worried enough to wake anyone. Luckily, things didn't get hospital kinds of bad, and I spent the next day recovering. But it did get more worrisome then the last vaccine-related fever I had: that was over in a day, I had no trouble sitting up in any way, and the cold sweats only lasted like 2 hours. This one lasted like 4 to 5 hours, and I struggled to even get in a remotely vertical position: I'm still not sure if I even slept at all that night. All I know is that morning came, and I felt like I got hit by a truck. So you can understand: if my body is already responding to what's essentially the training dummy for this virus this badly, then I don't want the real thing anywhere near me!

I've also been keeping quite the routine to keep this virus: no going outside with masks, as I know that people often try to walk right through me! Also, when I get back, I wash my hands first, disinfect the outside of my purse, and disinfect my phone if I had it out at any time. After that, I sanitize my hands, and then I'm done. I usually hold on to the shoulder strap of my purse, as it sometimes slips off my shoulder if my hair is between the strap and my shoulder, and I won't always have sanitized while on the go. Same deal with my phone: I won't always have put on hand sanitizer before holding it. And the thing can survive up to at least 9 days on surfaces, which people seemto have forgotten, so I'm taking absolutely no risks there either.

Everyone around me is quite careful as well: my mom does something similar whenever she's done unpacking groceries, and my dad is even more paranoid about sanitizing stuff then I am! He's an essential worker, though, so I frankly don't blame him. And we've all been avoiding crowds and busy places like the plague. An my grandma, who comes over every week, might not be able to wear a mask due to an aneurysm influencing her motor skills, but she still turns her mobility scooter the heck around if she sees a crowded place! Not even she is taking any risk. It might all seem a little extreme, but what we've been doing is working: none of us got infected yet. We've basically been going full zombie apocalypse on this thing: We've been keeping our cool, our resources are still in a good state, and no infected in the household yet. We're also all doing well mentally, so I'd say we're handling things.

After that, I went to a Kapp'n Island.

It was a vine sort of island again, but one can never have enough. And it's going to be nice having a bit of a stock of glowing moss for future DIY purposes.

Here's the loot, with a different wetsuit to look at, since I got a bit tired of staring at that same old Nook inc. one the entire time myself.

I'm lowkey getting either Pugsley or Uncle Fester from the Addams Family vibes from this, and I love it. I also found a new DIY for a Glowing Moss Dress while there. To continue the nautical adventures, I went diving for a little bit after emptying out my inventory. I've actually changed up my wetsuit for a bit: Pascal dropped me another Pearl today.

After that, I decided to spruce up some parts of the island a little. So since Tiansheng is staying at least until I get his photo, he got his own custom fence until he eventually leaves.

I had some spare materials lying around that I needed get rid of for storage space reasons, so why not? I like to limit the materials in my storage at like 2 full stacks, and a 3rd started to pile up while I was grinding for more softwood to make a different fence.
You see, I was kind of tired of the basic fence around my orchard, and I was sort of reorganizing it anyways: I had placed the trees kind of randomly when moving it to where it is now, so I placed all of the fruit trees of one kind together. You know, all of the orange trees together, all of the pear trees, etc. I kind of had to stop midway through because I ran out of food, and I didn't have enough to put all of the trees in my inventory. But now that I;ve gotten that out of the way, it turns out that I actually have more space left in there to plant new fruit types then I thought!

Yup, once I find the remaining two fruit types, I'll be good. I could easily fit 3 trees in the upper-left corner, and both the lower left and lower right could still fit like 4 each. Turns out that I have a pretty equal division of each type going on for the trees I've already planted in here as well: I have about 4 pear trees, 4 orange trees, and 4 cherry trees. I think that's a good spot to be in. I am trying to get them to produce fruit at the same time, though: they're now all on a different schedule for when fruit actually appears on them, so I'm harvesting them too often. I actually want to only have to harvest on one day, so now, I'm actually holding off on that until all trees have fruit on them as a bit of a reset here.

And since it's Saturday today, K.K. Slider was playing. I actually requested K.K. Metal this time.

And after a few Nook Mile missions, the last thing on the agenda was a cup of coffee at the Roost. Ah, Brewster, you're always a sight for sore eyes at the end of the day.

Wish we could still work at the Roost in this game, so sad that Nintendo scrapped that feature in New Horizons. I can basically delete entire columns in my Animal Crossing spreadsheet now, as I've recorded the coffee preference of any villager I'm remotely interested in, just in case. Whether I want a villager on my island or archipelago, I know how they like their coffee. iu guess Brewster would lowkey be proud of me. I still did some house customizing over at the Resident Services after this, but I only really got my door changed. I sort of called it a day after that.

Well, I've decided that I'm getting Happy Home Paradise on the 14th, so wish me luck! I guess that counts as me celebrating Valentine's Day? I'm still in preparation for it in-game, but I often don't celebrate it as intensely in real life: I'm a single pringle. But I don't mind, because at least Pringles are delicious! But in all seriousness, I'm not exactly salty about having been single for about my entire life. I mean, it would be nice to share the highs and lows of my life with someone, but being single definitely has its perks.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 13th​

Sorry, short post today, with little screenshots. There was a lot to do to prepare for both Valentine's Day in-game and the arrival of Happy Home Paradise, but not a lot of interesting stuff to do. It mostly involved ordering a few last-minute items that were already in my catalog off of Nook Shopping. For example: I want Rhonda's house to have a Blue delicate-blooms Wall and Rosewood Flooring in her house. I had ordered those today, so they're ready to go when the mechanics unlock. The rest of my Nook Shopping was dedicated to extra chocolate hearts for tomorrow, and anything else I had to do was about as interesting as the dailies.

So the day started off with an announcement worth reading...

There was a Campsite villager today! This meant that with a little luck, someone new would be moving in, and a villager would be cycled out. Good thing Katrina's prediction for the day said that I'd have good luck when it came to friendships... Thank you, Katrina, for giving me exactly the blessings I'll need for the day.

Guess me having visited her tent in New Leaf frequently paid off, huh?

I had different villagers I wanted to cycle out, but I hadn't really planned who would move out yet. So I thought I'd let the game decide who would be voted off the island, so to speak. As always, I reset by standard is the name of a villager that I want to keep around for longer comes up. Next time that this kind of thing happens, I might just let a wheel with villager names on it decide who goes. I have this site for it, so might be a way to make villager cycling just that bit more interesting.

So with that in mind, I decided to go look who was actually in that Campsite. Turns out it that it was Angus today.

My mom saw him, and she thinks he's adorable. Well, Angus, I guess that's your ticket to staying for longer: Mama Scribbles isn't that into Animal Crossing, but she's warmed up to it a bit. She doesn't really have any favorite villagers, but she's ended up liking a few. I got Angus to move in after a few resets, and was actually lucky enough to win a wishlist item from him in a game: a Sea Globe! I wanted that item for my beach lounge: I put it next to the Mermaid Sofa for now, but it's planned to be standing on a Cancer Table once I get that table.

Rex did teach me a new Reaction before I had him in boxes, though: Mistaken.

Well, that is sure another useful one for an autistic girl! I'm definitely going to need this someday for when I misread a social situation.

Also, I think I'm starting to learn how to cheese these move-in minigames: We all hate them, so let me explain how to more easily win them and get them over with quicker. Grab a notepad beforehand if you need to, because this method can still take you a while.
So to preface this: I've seen that it's likely that the same card won't appear twice in all minigames you play with a Campsiter. After tons of these little minigames, I've never seen that happen before, And I must've played at least 30 or so by now. If it were likely, then it would've probably happened by now. So we can safely say that the chances of the card being the same twice in a row are extremely low at the very least.

Okay, so first, play a game for an item with the Campsiter: go for one you actually want, because over the course of trying to get them to talk about moving, they'll offer up many different items you can win. Whether you win or lose, be sure take note of what the correct card was! For example: on black and red, note which one the card was., whether you won or lost. Because in the next game, it's likely to be the opposite: If the last card was red, then there's a good chance that the next will be black.

Now the game where you have to guess one of 4 card types is a little trickier, but operates on a similar principle. If you have to guess either spade, club, diamond or heart, then also note which of the 4 was the correct card. That narrows your odds to 1 out of 3 instead of 1 out of 4 for the next round of it, increasing the chance that you'll guess right exponentially. You're likely to reset a few times anyways, and you'll probably lose the first minigame of this category, so no love lost on second tries here. Anyhow, the 'never the same card twice' rule also applies to this one, so you'll want to cross at least one of these 4 off your list so you have greater chances of winning the next round.
Well, hope that helps some of you out there. Good luck on those darned move-in minigames, now go show them who's boss!

I also bought some Turnips from Daisy-Mae today: I missed her last week, and I usually just spend whatever will round my Bells off to a round number on stuff like this. For example: I had like 7k to spend this time.

And I got my golden HHA plaque today! I broke 50k points this week, and my character's house isn't even fully upgraded yet. I actually had to open up the room decoration function and rearrange stuff on the walls to properly make room for it.

Well, with that golden plaque in the bag, I might start actually decorating my character's house if there's no place left to go from here. That's not the final wallpaper or flooring for this room, I just chose what matched my sort of makeshift furniture best.

Also, speaking of furniture: I was on my way to Nook's Cranny to sell off some stuff before I called it a day, and Tiansheng had a ping. He actually gave me an item that I had my eye on for a while: a Fireplace.

Well, someone must appreciate his fancy new fencing... I kind of called it a day after dropping by Nook's Cranny and doing some daily Nook Mile missions, and after buying some stuff off of Nook Shopping for tomorrow. I definitely have enough items to gift the villagers that I want to keep around for longer, so everything is set for then.

Well, tomorrow, it's time for the first impressions on Happy Home Paradise. I'm honestly already hyped for it: Hurricane Melanie is about to approach land! I've heard that you can even customize your uniform. My dream villagers for my island like Rhonda are probably getting vacation homes first via souvenir chocolates, and possibly some villagers that I want photo's of like Tiansheng are either getting one, or are shacking up with the dreamies once I unlock roommates. And once I do unlock that: there's some dream villagers for the archipelago that I have lined up, so those can also shack up with my dreamies if I end up running out of plots by then. There's around 30 plots, and I've heard that there can be up to 2 villagers per house, so that should check out, though.

Also, while I was filling in the basic info about the archipelago dreamies, it turns out that one of them has a dream of becoming a doctor. Well, guess who's going to be assigned to the Hospital once I unlock it? Follow your dreams, friend! I also have some special characters on the list, so I guess I'm going be buying amiibo card packs at some point. Also, not sure whether I'm just going to pay extra for being guaranteed the cards for the special characters, or that I just buy a pack and hope for the best. But I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Sorry again for the short post: I'm sure I'll have plenty to say and do in the next.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 14th​

Well, happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Or Singles Awareness Day, whichever you prefer. I know that I'm spending it with my one true love: food! Specifically, chocolate, as I had just a bit left on trying to finish a chocolate bar that I got way before today. It's still my favorite candy, and what better day to actually finish that chocolate, right? My mom also made some incredibly delicious lasagna and baked some of her famous cookies. My mom is known for baking and cooking, so you can imagine how deeply appreciated it was in a household where good food is important. My dad did buy her flowers, but my parents usually don't really do a gift exchange beyond that, as they are on the same page on that, and aren't into the whole Hallmark interpretation of the holiday. They show their soulmate kind of love for each other all year, so they don't see why they would need to even bother going all out on that for one day. And hey, they've been together for over 30 years, while most other relatives beyond my grandmother's generation have had at least one divorce already. So it's definitely working.

I easily took over 50 screenshots today, and while I often don't end up using them all... I can only attach 20 to each post. So you're in for a multiparter today, people! Consider this a way of making up for the short post yesterday, I guess? This is actually my first multi-part post ever, so please bear with me. And please stay tuned for part 2!

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All right, my free online trial on my Switch has been turned into a paid subscription, which means that Happy Home Paradise has arrived! Hurricane Melanie had landed, so let's design some houses for some poor sods- I mean lucky clients!

So once my character steps out of her house, Tom Nook gives me a call...

Well, Tom, I was already to my way there to go to Harvey's island and get a reading from Katrina anyways, so why not? So when I enter, there's a character here that I've never seen before...

Well, I never played Happy Home Designer, so nice to meet you, Lottie. She actually had a job offer to me: Oh no, here we go again... Are you sure that you want me anywhere near your business, though? Ask Tom Nook, might not be the best plan.

But before I headed off to work, I decided to hop by Harv's island real quick to visit Katrina.

Well, a little extra boost to their health never hurt anyone while they're working. I'm really not sure what this one means, as 'health' in the game sounds sort of vague to me. Well, I'll look it up later, I guess. I was too hyped for my first looks at the archipelago, so with a little layover in Crayola itself, I headed off.

I had seen a bit of what awaited me on my way there, but frankly speaking: that cutscene was even more amazing in person. Yeah, Wilbur, I can see why people would want to stay here for a while...

I have other plans for my island's beaches, but this definitely screams 'vacation dreamhouse'.

Also, I'm frankly not that good at making cliffs on my own island, but tell me this isn't both inspiration and island goals.

I'd frankly put down less vines and more flowers and bushes to make it look more realistic, but the trees on top look so good! Ik wish I had more room for that on the cliffs I currently have on Crayola.

Also, I have no clue what to do with cedar trees on my island, and I have like too many saplings for those just sitting in my storage. Maybe I'll take some inspiration from this part of the archipelago?

The terrain in this one frankly not my favorite, as it looks a little too man-made: more like someone actively dug them out instead of them having formed naturally. But just look at those old ruins! My little stargazing area is nice, but if I would end up expanding the cliffs it's on, then I'd definitely do something like this in its surroundings to dress it up more.

And with that, we were about to arrive.

So it was time to fasten our seatbelts, put our seats back to an upright position, and get into the meat and potatoes of...

So after Wilbur got me back on solid land safe and sound as usual, it turned out that there was a welcoming party. Hi Niko, nice to meet you!

Hmm, welcomed by a monkey while being here for business... There's a joke in here somewhere. Anyhow, he leads me over to the main office, And I both see where I'm going to work and meet my new coworkers.

From left to right: Niko, who basically sails me to the job site. I'm usually not into overly energetic people like him, but he somehow manages to be that, only not annoying. I know those people really just want to help get you hyped for whatever you're about to do, but they often get a bit too forceful with me in particular on that area, because I'm naturally more laid back. Nike doesn't do that: he still has a bit of laid back-ness about him despite being so energetic, so I just tend to vibe with people like him better.

Then there's Wardell, the shopkeep and frankly my favorite character here. I dunno, I just like quiet characters: there's always so much more going on. Maybe I relate to them because I'm sort of described as a generally quiet person myself. Hey, I just don't tend to say anything if I don't have anything to say! I mean, that's not exactly weird, right? Not like neurotypical people just talk for the sake of talking. And small talk is just generally not my thing: nobody's actually interested in something dumb like whether I drank water that afternoon or not, full stop. And hey, at least I actually listen to what people have to say. Anyhow, now Wardell is one of the characters that I'd actually stop to talk to before I set out to do what I want / need to do. He just has these good Brewster kind of vibes going on: not much of a talker, but a cool dude once you get to know him. And there's just an unspoken bond of awesome once you do.

And then there's Lottie, who I sort of see as a poor man's Isabelle. I dunno, she's probably more interesting in Happy Home Designer, but she just has zero personality here. She's just a walking game menu, full stop. I would've frankly liked to see more of who she actually is in her dialogue, but so far, she's just seems like she's here to infodump, and that's it.

Well, with everyone introduced, I got my company uniform, and set to customizing it.

Well, I feel like I'm looking sharp and ready to go. They had one of the bags off of my wishlist in the customization options: the Mini Pleather Bag. My outfit frankly needed an accessory to be complete, so you can understand: I had to go for it. Darned shame that one of these goes into your catalog.

And right on time too, as our first client walked in! It was Eliose, and I knew she was basically the tutorial villager that showed up for everyone if you didn't have her on your island. The tutorial had started.

Now I've been taking notes on what other people missed here, and they usually don't notice that they can actually customize the furniture they place here. So they like end up placing a bright red couch in a room with green wallpaper! There's complementary contrast, and then there's colours just fglat-outr clashing... So if you're considering buying this DLC yourself: please remember, people... You can match the colours of something up to the rest of the room, just press X.

So after a little bit, i was done. And I think I did well on my first room.

Like, Eloise has several places to both store her books and sit to read them, a way to fix herself a nice drink, she can put on some music while she reads: I think she's all set. And she seemed pretty happy with it, so I'd say that's a good start to my career as a designer.

Well, I did end up failing on the second house a little: I guess I may have burned myself out a little on this one, and maybe I should've taken a little break after Eloise's place. But before I got to that second vacation home, Lottie actually paid me for this! I mean, she's more fair then Tom Nook...

Well, not a bad day's pay. Since I'm almost at the screenshot limit for the post, I guess this is a good stopping point for part 1. Hurricane Melanie has hit the archipelago, and the devastation was big! And she's not quite done ravaging the place: I actually ended up doing more houses then this one, and I did unlock some stuff right off the bat. Well, onwards to more misadventures.

Thank you for reading, and please stay tuned for part 2!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 14th, part 2​

Last time, we saw me exploring the Happy Home Paradise for the first time, and saw how I decorated my first vacation home. But Hurricane Melanie wasn't exactly dying down yet: I ended up doing a grand total of 5 rooms, and thus, unlocking some stuff right off the bat. I actually ended up being on the cusp of a raise, but 5 is about where the villagers that I actually wanted around on the archipelago for now ran out. So that's where I called it a day, and headed back to Crayola for the dailies. But I'm getting ahead of myself: let's start where we left off last time... That disaster of a second room I did. It's really the first I want to remodel later with more options at my disposal.

So after getting my first payday, I got to actively pick who would be getting vacation homes here from the villagers already on the beach. I had a good set of pretty villagers there, amongst which was none other then Petri. She's quite popular, so darned shame that you can't invite anyone here to come live on your island.

I could also start doing the exterior of homes from here on out: I might go back and do that for Eloise's house as well. But here's what I went for on Petri's vacation home: It's supposed to look like this cozy little research facility. You know, like she's here to learn more about the flora and fauna here

I feel like I did fail a little on the indoors a little here, though: I found it really hard to make the Rattan furniture that she wanted match the idea of a cozy little laboratory that I was going for. The title of her request also wasn't exactly helping. I tried to go for a mix of classic and modern, but it just ended up looking messy.

She seemed to be happy though, so I just decided to remodel this hot mess later. Never think that this comes naturally and that I never make mistakes, folks. Luckily, this game is very forgiving when it comes to stuff like this.

I actually got the Happy Home app after this: It's nice to actually see the photo's you take while you're busy taking them, and just have some memories of the rooms that you decorated for future reference.

I tend to think I'm at least okay with taking screenshots, so I think that this shouldn't be a problem for me.
I think that I did a lot better on the next home: this time I went for Pecan, and good thing that she was a little more clear on what she wanted.

I kind of want her back home on my island at least for a while, so I was happy to see her. I don't know her all that well, though, so I just ended up basing the exterior of her house on her colour scheme a little.

I think it looks fancy: I went for a classic, upper middle class, white picket fence sort of look. Kind of 'I want to yell at a service worker, but I have a reputation of being classy and graceful to uphold' kind of vibes.
And I sort of just went for 'Ikea, but make it fancy' for the indoors.

She really seemed to love the clothing I hung above her bed, and the wig that I placed on the dresser. So I'm guessing that her hobby is fashion... Duely noted for if I ever end up meeting her on a Mystery Island.

I like to think that I found my groove again here, and actually ended up mixing modern and classic up well this time. I'm pretty okay with how this turned out.

After this, I unlocked the ability to clean furniture and make it sparkle.

Also Lottie was standing outside of a building later, looking quite deep in thought...

I ended up startling her little and apologized, and turns out that I can unlock a few facilities on my way to the Legendary Designer rank! Turns out that someone had been developing these islands before Paradise Planning set up shop here, and she was thinking about what to do with them. They were intended for a certain purpose, but it didn't pan out: for example, this was supposed to be a school. Designing something else then vacation homes does sound fun, so I definitely decided to do so later.

After this, I kept on trucking: Lucy appeared, and gosh, she's just adorable!

The dolls in Animal Crossing kind of creep me out, though, because it's like their eyes re just following you... I'm usually okay with real-life dolls, as long as they're not in the uncanny valley like these. The Animal Crossing ones just look like they belong in a horror movie! Or maybe I just watch too many Evil Imp videos. I dunno, the specific doll she asked for in this game just looks like it's about to go either Annabelle or Chucky on me: like they'll move when I'm not looking. I frankly don't blame him for using them in his videos! And I just really wouldn't want to be alone in a room with one (or after those videos: not alone in a room with Dom either! ). So given that context, trying to make those dolls look actually cute actually seemed like a fun challenge to me.

I kind of went for a Barbie's Dreamhouse sort of idea for the exterior of her house, and I think I managed.

And when it came to the indoors... They really shouldn't have given me that moon chair as an option to decorate with. I pretty much went whole hog on this one, pun very much intended.

...You can understand: this new sparkle function plus giving me a unicorn to decorate with was just giving me way too much power here. What's a unicorn without sparkles, after all?

Also, the moon chair had to sparkle. No, really, whose bright idea was giving me that function, and then telling me to make the kawaii-est room that I could? That clearly was incredibly irresponsible, and I'm pretty sure that Niko got chewed out by the boss lady for the grave mistake of not stopping me midway. For everyone's sake, never let me near the Sanrio amiibo card packs. Especially keep me away from the Etoile amiibo.

I mean, just look at this mess, how am I not fired yet? Oh Lottie, you're too forgiving for your own good... Just you wait until I unlock even cuter wallpaper, because a blue accent wall near the entrance was the worst I could do here with the resources given. Hey, at least Niko tried, right?

The last house I did today was Cleo's: she was basically the last cute villager on the beach today.

Now I've seen some people struggle with bathroom sort of rooms and spa sort of rooms in videos, but accent walls and partitions are going to save your butt when it comes to a request like this. I hadn't unlocked the partitions option here yet, so good thing the game gave me some furniture partitions to work with here.

You'll also see that I used a mirror as a semi-partition here: partitions like this just make it clear what kind of space you have left to work with for the rest of the necessities. Really, don't try doing anything else beyond those: just focus on making the bathroom part of the house the focal point, and match everything else up to whatever you did with that. The partitions also function like a sort of privacy screens, bringing the room to life.

Also, accent walls will really help bring a sectioned-off bathroom to life here: just press X in the Order Menu whenever you have your cursor on a wallpaper of your choosing. I just wish we could place it like one wall part per time like the Sims does. But hey, this works as well.

After this one, I just called it a day. Given how Japanese work culture tends to er... work, it's nice how your coworkers actually worry about you overworking yourself. In Dutch culture, overworking yourself to the point of health issues is sort of problem too, but not to the degree of actually working yourself to death. Like, employers will actually empathize with you once you end up in the hospital, so they're a little more forgiving. Still, I wish that a little more importance was placed on health. And if there's any changes for the sake of good left to be found in the current crisis, then I hope that it will at least lead to people's health being more in the picture in society once this apocalypse is over.

Well, I'm actually at my screenshot limit here, so I fear that you'll have to hear about how I flew back to Crayola after the 5th vacation home in part 3! I was hoping to leave it at 2 parts here, but I guess I'll have to resort to a 3rd post.

Thank you for reading, and please stay tuned!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 14th, part 3​

The last part, I swear! So after decorating Cleo's house over at the archipelago, I called it a day at Paradise planning, as there were no more cute villagers at the beach. But before I left, I checked out the back beach, where our current archipelago villagers hang out.

They were actually so grateful for my work, that I got some new catalog entries out of it! Well, who am I to say no to that, right?

Niko also asked about me, so I decided to just chat to him a bit before I headed on home. Turns out he's also into DIY, but had never seen a recipe before! This means I've unlocked the ability to DIY while on the archipelago.

He actually gave me the recipe as a reward. And while talking to Wilbur about going back to Crayola, I found out that I can just head to Harvey's island from here. Well, that seems convenient!

5 homes done is not a bad score for one day, so I decided to leave the rank-up for tomorrow.

Now let's rewind a bit, as I've sort of been doing some stuff on Crayola in between vacation homes on the archipelago. This morning, I've already gifted my villagers some valentines: I still had some leftover after this, so I'll just use those to boost friend levels with the villages I want to keep around for longer.

So after the dailies, I noticed I was once again juuuust under a financial goal of mine: paying off my Nook Debt. The gap was small enough to close today, so I decided to go diving to take care of this debt! Pascal actually gave me a DIY for a Mermaid Fence this time, plus one of his signature wisdoms.

Also, I ended up finding two Pearls today! Talk about being lucky today...

It took a bit of storage cleaning after that, but I did manage to pay off the debt!

...but since I desperately needed storage space again, I directly had to get myself into another one. And saadly, we're in million-Bell territory now...

Tom, you're killing me here!

Luckily, diving got me enough mney to drop by the Able Sisters to cheer myself up. They once again had a wishlist item that I wanted: the Butterfly-visiting Kimono!

I've been kind of looking for a nice, formal-ish looking kimono in black tom wear to celebrations and grand openings and such, and then I saw this on the wiki. It did save me struggling with putting a custom design on the Pro Design's robe model. Also, speaking of that: Isabelle was talking about more storefronts on the island, but I think that I've already unlocked every shop in the game! Like, is there more out there then just Nook's Cranny and the Able Sisters? I should look that up.

After that, I decided to work on my little marketplace area a little more, just in case. So I set to customizing some Stalls that I had DIY'd prior, and placed them.

I've had to extend the area a little bit, but it was worth it! I really had no clue what to do with the 4th stall, but then it came to me: a flower stall! The green one is going to be the vegetable stall, and the red-ish one is going to be the fruit stall.

The one with the waves is going to be the fish stall, and luck would have it that C.J. was visiting today! I needed fish models for that stall, as aquariums you get from just displaying the fish themselves looked weird when I tried it. So I decided to take this opportunity to commission a model from him.

I also finished his challenge while I was at it. You'd think he stops being surprised after a certain point, but I keepshocking him with the speed at which I knock those things out every time.

And when I finished a quick shopping trip back to the archipelago, I decided to work on a new clothing design: a leather jacket, and preferably, a better one then the default one the game has.

I was going to do an asymmetrical zipper on this jacket, but that made it look like an army uniform in the bad kind of way... And it frankly didn't work with where the dress shirt model closed. So I went for a plain zipper on it. Its current version does lowkey look nice with these chain pants, though: I'm pretty happy how things turned out so far, especially the colours. It looks like appropriately black leather, but not too dark to make out any details. I'm especially happy about the studs on the little belt, but I am lowering where exactly that belt is a little. I dunno, it just seems like it's not actually on the waist, if that makes sense? That belt is near where that waist should be, but not quite where it needs to be yet.

Well, this is where I called it a day. I'll be playtesting that design on and off tomorrow, and hopefully uploading it to the design portal. I've also started posting in my design-specific thread recently: it's still catching up to all of my present-day designs, and I don't post there as often as I do here. There's only one design there right now, but if you're interested in the actual download codes for my designs, here's the gallery thread. Links will be posted to the posts with full turnarounds of them as they arrive, to please stay tuned there for designs that you've already seen in this island journal.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 15th​

Oof, the hangover kind of feeling after yesterday is real... And I don't even drink alcohol! No, really, I already handle caffeine badly, I'm not even trying alcohol! On principle, I don't really have anything against it, and I've even enjoyed the flavor of some drinks before that horribly bitter alcohol aftertaste ruined it for me. But if my autistic brain already can't handle caffeine properly, then logic dictates that alcohol must be an even bigger no-no for it. Also, sorry for the late post: that multi-parter must've taken more out of me then I wanted to admit.

So the day started with a reading from Katrina: I got good health luck again this morning.

I decided to look up what this actually meant in terms of gameplay effects on the wiki, but it left me hanging on that one. However, I found the answer somewhere else: turns out that this means that food will give double the usual amount of stamina, and that you'll see different text when using a toilet. Duely noted for next time: if I either need to break some rocks or move some fully grown trees around, then a day with good health luck would be the day to do it.

Well, after this, it was time to start the dailies. The first thing on the agenda was to properly welcome Angus, who moved in today.

Well, I'm going to have to slightly tweak that path in his front yard later, but the exterior of his house isn't exactly ugly...

My mom really likes this villager: she's not that into Animal Crossing, but if she had a favorite, then it would be Angus. So while I'm not particularly fond of him, I'm going to keep him around for longer. Hey, if Mama Scribbles herself gives you a pass, right?

Also dropped by the Able Sisters: They had the Elegant Hat in stock. Now if you remember, I made the Gibson Girl Dress custom design to match this better then that really plain-looking Elegant Dress that the game has. So you can understand: I had to try it on with this design, just to see if the design was achieving what I made it for. I did end up buying the black version of the hat, though.

I feel like a proper Victorian lady in this, and that's exactly what I was going for when I made this dress. Well, I'd say: mission accomplished! You can find the download codes for every colour that the hat is available in my gallery thread, under 'long dresses'. The screenshots are coming soon, and might include this one just for fun.

Also, I've managed to get my entire orchard to bear fruit at the same time, so it was time to harvest it now that the schedules of the trees doing this has lined up.

After this, I decided that my dream villagers are going to get absolutely spoiled rotten: they're getting both a house on my island, and vacation homes on the archipelago. I'm also putting some villagers that I want to keep around for photo's on there, but the dreamies get first dibs on all the prettiest plots on the archipelago. And I had some Souvenir Chocolates in my storage, so Rhonda was going to be the trailblazer here.

For the sake of the screenshot limit, I'm only going to be posting the highlights from the vacation homes I made in Happy Home Paradise from now on. With multiple screenshots, they tend to eat up a lot of space in these posts. Now you'll remember that I usually post these little entries the next day instead of on the day itself. And well, spoiler alert: I unlocked the Happy Home Network upgrade on the 16th!
So to see more of the chaos I've caused on the archipelago, I fear that you'll have to follow me on there: My ID is RA-4073-0316-7483 .

Well, with all of the shameless plugs out of the way: I went absolutely ham on Rhonda's vacation home. And by that, I mean that I went whole hog on this: Nothing but the best for my dreamies No, really, I tend to pull out all of the stops for villagers that I actually like: no expenses or time spared. I don't care if I have to grind for years: they'll get what they want.

And Rhonda in particular deserves nice things, as I haven't unlocked the option to reset her starter-phase looking house to its unique state yet. If she's going to be stuck in that barren mess until I finish 30 vacation homes, then she at least deserves to be comfortable while on vacation.

And I mean, she's always gifting me useful items, so she deserves nice things, dammit! lso, the humidifier was a mandatory item: I didn't know that she needed one: I imagine she needs it to sleep or something. But if she needs one, then it had better match the room.

Also, while this blue wallpaper is pretty, the lack of windows in it disturbed me: good thing I had this black wallpaper with windows all over just hanging around in the decoration options, so all it took was an accent wall with that. It looks a bit weird to have all the windows on one side of the room, but it's frankly better for the lighting then none at all.

I might come back to this one, as I hadn't really unlocked different room sizes or partition walls yet. And my dreamies deserve a palace. I might wait with the remodel until I unlock multiple floors, though.

I did actually end up hanging out with Rhonda a lot today: she taught me a new Reaction once I got back home to Crayola: Daydreaming.

Well, I'm going to need something to express that I'm thinking of the rest of my plans for the island. I also saw her talking with Monique: she can be a bit of a handful, so I had to make sure she wasn't exactly bothering my dreamie here. Happy to see those two getting along, though. I think that Normal personality type villagers get along with most other villager personality types, though. I would have to look it up on the wiki to be sure, but I think that literally no character hates Normal villagers.

So how Rhonda got into a falling out with O'Hare today is frankly beyond me: he must've started it in the first place. Oh well, it's going to be nice to score a few extra friendship points with my dreamie: We might be at the max friendship level already, but better safe then sorry on that area, right?

He was DIY'ing when I went over to his house to deliver Rhonda's apology present, so it was nice to get a new recipe out of this as well.

I've seen that table before in Happy Home Paradise, and it is quite cute in the right context in a room. So happy to be able to craft it now. So I finished this little quest: delivered the thing, and told Rhonda how it went. I always end up running into the villager giving the quest again, so I often bother to take a few seconds to talk to them, and choose the option to tell them how it went.

I also ended up running into Rhonda at my little beach lounge area in progress: I mainly made it for visitors, but it's always nice to see villagers actually use it to enjoy the view.

I still need a Cancer Table for it to put that Sea Globe on, and either one or two Mermaid Chairs. I also need an Anchor Statue to further pretty things up here. I do have the idea that the nautical theme is working here, and glad that I decided to customize those Shell Partitions: I was originally going to keep them their default colour, but I feel that they match the Mermaid Couch a little better this way.

So after this, I hopped back to the archipelago after a few Nook Mile missions, and did some vacation homes. I've also unlocked the School: since Petri was on my archipelago, I made her the teacher, just for giggles.

Well, I expected no less from Rhonda to be at the front of the class. Que me passing a note to her like 'This math class is boring, let's fake being sick and hit the mall'. I ironically named the place New Hope High, because I thought that 'Abandon All Hope' was a bit too on the nose. Man, school can kill anyone's love for learning... They can make the coolest subjects and most awesome facts seem boring! No, really, my Geography teacher somehow made volcanoes look boring with the way he told us about them!

Funny story: people tend to generally like my art nowadays whenever I post some, but I barely passed art class back in adult education. Believe it or not, my final grade was only a barely passing one. I also had to do an essay to even graduate, and yu could choose which class. I went for art class, and BS'ed my way through that entire essay. As long as it sounded pretentious enough, I figured that I'd get a passing grade. And I somehow got best grade I had gotten for that class all year. I had one of those art teachers who only saw anything remotely looking like an anime art style as a crutch, she wasn't allowed by the school to be clear in what she wanted to see from me, and I needed that clarity as a freshly diagnosed autistic person. I rest my case: that's a recipe for disaster.

I've also unlocked partition walls in the DLC today, plus the DIY recipe to make them back on Crayola. Well, with the highlights for HHP out of the way, I made my way back to my island. With that million-Bell Nook debt, was in dire need of Bells. And I had a ton of Nook Miles on me, so I decided to go cash about 10k of those miles in to at least let my ABD recover for a bit.

I figured that some Nook Mile Tickets for the future dreamie hunt couldn't hurt either, so I spend 10k on those as well. Near the end of it, I still had like 10k left for emergencies, and here's the haul:

The Tickets went straight in my storage for now, so I wouldn't be tempted to spend them over at Nookazon. The Bell Vouchers cashed in for like 45k IGB, so that's a healthy addition to my ABD.

When I went back o the archipelago to give the beach the once-over for cute villagers and give the shop inside a last check for cool items as I usually do... The day sort of ended with Lottie throwing a party for 10 homes decorated so far.

I tend to not really keep count on that one: I'm just trying to unlock stuff in the DLC at this point. So it kind of caught me off guard, but it sure made for nice screenshots. And hey, Wardell was there, and I've lowkey kind of grown more fond of Niko over the course of gameplay. So there was good company, and at least there was pizza... Say what you want about Lottie, but she knows good food when she sees it.

Well, I called it a day here. Sorry, folks, I kind of lost count as to where I was exactly on all of my goals. For now, donations to Harvey's island are paused, and we already know that the Nook debts are starting to get out of hand. I'm pretty much behind on both this and posting after that multiparter to begin with, so I'm hoping to have this little ending section back up soon.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

February 16th​

Well, we're slowly catching up to the present in this journal again! Frankly speaking: taking the screenshots in the moment isn't that hard, it's almost second nature at this point. I kind of like looking back on memorable stuff in a game later, so it sort of came naturally to begin with.

So at the start of the day, Katrina had a new fortune this time: good friendship luck.

Well, I saw this as a sign to make a decision for myself: you know how I keep some villagers around until I get their photo? I only do that for villagers that I actually like, so I decided to give some of these photo villagers a vacation home as well. They might eventually leave the island, but this way, I can still keep them around in some capacity. So Tiansheng would be the first to get this privilege. I furgured that him and Genji could be roomies once I find the latter, so I kind of decorated the house based on that to begin with.

There's some Chinese vibes for Tiansheng, and some Japanese ones for Genji. I also unlocked polishing effects here, and lowkey went a little ham on it. The Zen Chairs have a custom design of mine on it, as the basic custimization options lacked a good pink pillow to match the peach chairs. And I decided on this little sakura pattern for them. It's not quite where I want it yet, but it only needs a few more tweaks.

The red of the screen, the couch and the gong is a reference to red being a lucky colour in Chinese culture, and I felt that it matched the warm undertones in the Imperial and Dried Bamboo furniture well.

I really didn't know what to do with the bathroom yet, but I'm going to need to remodel this place once I unlock multiple floors in a house anyways. So I'll just tweak this bathroom to perfection then.

I've also decorated a Restaurant today: to be honest, it was good to have Tiansheng around here for this. I figured that since his entire house looks like a kitchen, so he must be good at cooking. So he was assigned to be the chef. The game assigned Zell as his apprentice, and I wasn't even mad at that, so I just changed some outfits on those two.

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I'm especially proud of the dining room, though: my family has high standards when it comes to restaurant food, and we often watch Kitchen Nightmares. So since I had plenty of time to take notes here, I hope I did both my mother and Gordon Ramsey proud. Well, the former sure said she'd dine here..

I did get to decorating the café later, and I went for a bit of a café latte sort of colour scheme here. But I still need to work on who's on staff here... I dunno, might end up remodeling this whole thing once I have cuter furniture and more decorating functions at my disposal. I couldn't help but plop down that little mat saying 'café' at the entrance, though. I've had that thing around for ages, and never found a use for it up until now. But it was frankly perfect for this.

I really only had non-favorites left to choose from for staff as well, so I decided to at least get the cutest out of the villagers that I did houses for just to unlock stuff. Like, if the dreamies are the A-listers and the photo villagers are the B-listers, then villagers like Eloise and Willow (who are only around because I needed to unlock something) are C-listers at best. So I definitely need some cuter staff around. Oh well, at least I can now check out both the restaurant and this for new arrivals now. I did recruit Chadder from here, and Patty from the restaurant. I wasn't too fond of Patty back in New Leaf, but she's just so cute in this game!

Also, I ranked up to Breakout Designer today: another milestone achieved. After this all, I went back to HQ to check out the shop.
And while I know that it sometimes stocks really rare items, you'll never believe what I found in there...

Froggy chair!

...You can understand, this thing had to be in my catalog. But in all seriousness: With how much of a meme this thing has become in the community, I just had to take it with. It might not be the green one that originally started the meme, but a froggy chair is a froggy chair. Especially if you have it in your catalog after buying. I mean: infinite froggy chairs!

Well, since I was also busy with both these two facilities and the vacation homes of these two villagers in addition to Tiansheng's, I only made some small aesthetic changes to Crayola. I started off with fixing the path to Angus' house. I'm still yet to do the yard: different neighborhoods ended up having different flowers in the front yard: Tiansheng and O-Hare have Lilies, and Phoebe and Rhonda both have Mums at the moment. This house is basicallly at the crossroads of both, so I'm not sure what I'll plant here.

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I do need more Lilies to serve as wildflowers for the bamboo forest, but i am urging towards Mums for this. Also, speaking of the bamboo forest: The bamboo trees there also had shoots again today. So as usual, I dug those up, and planted them where they could actually grow.

I saved one bamboo shoot for on the waterfall, though: while it's already looking better, I feel that it was still not looking its best, so I wanted to try growing a tree on there for a more natural-looking effect.

Well, we'll see how that goes. If it fails to become a full bamboo tree here, then I can always move it to somewhere it will grow, since this side of the river dividing the forest is almost complete when it comes to actual trees. Hey, every little shoot helps, right? And if push comes to shove, I can always just plop down a flower where this shoot is now if I feel that this particular little area is a bit too plain-looking. I'll eventually end up selling off the shoots, but for now, they'll serve to expand the forest to where I actually want it to be.

I ended my day on a visit to the Roost. I ran into Rhonda there, so it was nice to grab some coffee with a dreamie.

You're still Crayola royalty, girl. If you need anything, then say the word, and I'll make it happen.

Well, I called it a day there. I still forgot to screenshot where I was on my current goals, so please bear with me for one post longer. I still can't believe I got froggy chair-ed by the game today, though. Like, holy crap, that sure was a find over in the store! I still can barely believe it, these things sell for way too much within the community. And I now have that thing in my catalog. Goodbye Nook debt, I guess?

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!