stonsthro

[stonsthro]

When we last saw our heroine, she had just paid off her first home expansion to immediately request the first room addition to incur another 300 something thousands bells worth of debt.

Will she pay it off? Will she do it in a day? She honestly doesn’t remember so she’s gonna refer to a calendar and various strings of text messages, google hangout chats, and Instagram DMs to try to retrace the past 8 days of her ACNH life.

25 march 2020

It seems I failed to mention in my last post that my first new neighbor had arrived that day. His name is Boomer, and I met him on my first mystery island trip. We did not interact very much on that fateful first meeting, but I was on a mission (I believe to collect iron nuggets) and he is only an NPC with limited responses to limited interactions anyway.

Boomer is a funny little penguin. I also only found out yesterday that he’s a penguin. I thought he was just a non-descript bird. He likes bugs and snacks. He calls the bugs his friends, so I don’t think he eats them. He also really likes pear furniture and wooden simple beds. He has shared the wooden simple bed recipe with me twice already. If you need one, you know who to go to.

26 march 2020

Thursday. The second neighbor arrived that day. She is a pink panda named Pinky. She likes pink things. I don’t remember very much from this day. Neighbors aren’t worth much time the day that they first arrive to the island. They stay in their homes amidst stacked cardboard boxes sweeping away and never seeming to make any progress no matter how much time has passed from when you last checked in on them. Why is it important at all to greet them on their first day? These are questions I have asked myself. Do I have an answer now? Not really.

I’m pretty sure I mostly focused on paying off my debt this day. One of my friends shared a flower breeding efficiency guide, so this might have been the day that I started organizing my flower beds and got it in my head that I wanted to organize my fruit trees. I might be wrong about which day, but it definitely happened on some day.

AH. Whatsapp has reminded me that I actually didn’t do very much in this 24 hour period, because I spent most of my IRL night drinking. Oh to be human and feel alive.

27 march 2020

Friday. Friday Olive moved in. She is the last of the first 3 new island residents (where I suppose Stinky, Reneigh, and myself are all founding residents?). She’s a sweet little bear. She reminds me of either an older woman friend or an aunt or a best friend’s mom. A few days ago from today, she gave me a gift (I don’t remember now what it was, I probably sold it /: ) but she did say that she thought it was very kind and thoughtful of me to come and say hi to her on her first day on the island. So maybe that is worth something.. Although I’ve said hi to everyone on their first day and Olive was the only one to ever acknowledge it later…

I must have done quite a bit of island work, harvesting wood, crafting, selling fruit and furniture. And island hopping as well. This day I created a Google sheet pulling from multiple resources containing fish/bug information (seasons, times of day, and selling price), and a list of craftable recipes (how to obtain them, raw materials required, selling price). I was very tired of having all these tables that could not be easily sorted. I also made a calculator so you could quickly know how much the items in your pocket would return (not that you can’t trust Timmy and Tommy) or so you could quickly compare the value of say 10 non-native fruit versus a tadpole (spoiler alert, the tadpole isn’t it).

Quick note that might actually be helpful to some who aren’t as into this game as I am: A stack of non-native fruit will return 5000 bells. A stack of coconut, 2500 bells. A stack of your native fruit, only 1000 bells. Most bugs won’t return more than 1k, and fewer than half of the fish species will net you more than 2.5k. So know your valuable species and save your pocket slots for whatever’s gonna reap you the most return.

Spreadsheets are very helpful to me. I would one day like to make a craft recipe database that would let you know, based on what raw material you have on hand, which recipes would yield the highest return for material. I haven’t quite yet wrapped my mind around how I would do this (I think Notion would be the better tool for it, rather than Google Sheets), but I’m also hoping that maybe someone will do it before me. (And it’s exactly this attitude that keeps me from ever becoming an entrepreneur.)

I caught a koi this night! I only am able to remember which night is was because I took a little video! (Oh and I can actually share some images now because I set up a new twitter account exactly for this purpose.. I will be going back through previous posts to add a little imagery).

And I was hoping to find Celeste that night. I thought I saw a few shooting stars, but I didn’t know what to do about them. I had read an article a few days before this about Celeste giving a wand recipe and star fragments and wishing. But I didn’t commit the information to memory and also I hadn’t seen Celeste around anyway.

28 march 2020

Saturday Saturday.. I didn’t play as many hours as I was awake on Saturday.

IRL I had some errands to run that day. I got morning announcements and stayed busy while waiting for Nook’s Cranny to open.

Resident Services was closed this day for renovations. I was droppings bags of bells off in my house between trips to Nook’s Cranny. I didn’t do as much island exploring as I thought I might the day that RS wasn’t open for business. I had been wanting to try to land on tarantula island, but I just wasn’t up for flying.

29 march 2020

SUNDAY!

milestones: Resident Services opened in their brand spanking new building with actual walls. Isabelle is here, and from articles I’ve read online other players are very excited about that. I never played New Leaf (and definitely never got onto Pocket Camp), so I don’t know anything about her. But she is a welcome break from Tom Nook. Nothing against him, but you do get tired of certain character’s mannerisms, yes?

I had also read an article that misleadingly used a headline suggesting that Tom Nook is nicer in NH than in previous games. But the game creator said that Tom has always been a nice guy, and that the structure of this game perhaps just allows that to be more apparent now.

Daisy mae was at Stonsthro, and also at every other island that witch. I had not got around to selling my turnips from the week before so when I dug them up from my garden they were of course spoiled. I am not in desperate need to catching ants and flies, so I sneakily sold them to Timmy and Tommy (for probably zero bells, but still – they’re purported to not accept turnips, in any condition I would think, on Sundays).

The HHA gave me a rating of 30something thousand. And I think they also gave me kitchen furniture? In addition to my Nook Shopping packages I had a number of gifts in the mail. One was from Boomer, as a late island-warming gift or something like that. Even though he was the one to move here! (I’m so impressed with how much the game developers put into these characters.)

According to Whatsapp, this morning I still owed 54k to Nook for my 1st addition. I don’t know why I felt that was worthy of reporting to my group chat when 54k could easily be crafted and earned in mere minutes if the raw materials are already in storage.

AHH THIISS was the day that I actually organized my flower beds. I think on Thursday I just planted more flowers in a way that would be conducive to breeding, but I didn’t go full out and arrange the beds. Sunday I did exactly that and moved my outdoor workstation to make way for 3 flower beds – tulips, hyacinths, and windflowers. And I made moves with organizing my trees this day too. A little messy but still. Mostly I just carved a keep clear path to the entrance of Nook’s Cranny.

Sunday was an incredibly productive day on Stonsthro. All of this and with the RS open again, I scouted the area for our first incline (east side of the island, north of Boomer and Pinky’s houses) and paid it off.

I scouted the relocation of Reneigh’s house (FINALLY!) and paid that immediately (I think because I was required to…). She’s actually just north of the river from my house now. When I moved her house I did feel a little bit mean just uprooting her. But she was programmed to be on board with it. Even still, being aware that she likes to sleep in, I moved her to the west side of the island and because she seems to like her space she’s the only inhabitant in that area. Anyone who wants to come bother her will either have to cross a river or take a ladder down.

And the last milestone I covered this day was the placement for the campsite.

I think I did hop around this night hoping to land on tarantulas, but it didn’t happen. I hit a normal and the bell rock island. Normal island was a quick trip. I just knocked all the rocks mostly, fished each spot once, maybe twice, collected all the fruit and went back home. Bell rock island I spent a lot of time on actually. After knocking all the rocks I stayed and fished. The moat around the bell island spawns pond fish, probably because it doesn’t feed into the sea. I caught SO MUCH koi. And my boyfriend caught me on his IG stories absolutely geeking over my spreadsheet. (Koi banks 4000 bells a pop, so fuck all the dabs you might have caught on the beach.)

Oh but Sunday night! I did run into Celeste on Sunday night and I wished on SO MANY stars. More than 30, forsure. When talking to the neighbors that day, they were all going on about the meteor shower so I knew it was happening. Which makes me question why I thought I saw shooting stars on Saturday. Ohhhhhhh. I know. It’s because the game’s not so good with optical flow so when you’re running around the island, really bright stars dart around in the background instead of appearing still. That trips me up pretty often actually. I’ll be running and come to quick stop like a dog who’s just sighted a squirrel.

“I’m excited for tmrw! Bigger hours, reneigh will be in her new location instead of stupidly in front the of the museum, new ramp, and star fragments!” An actual text message I sent out to my group chat. Oh right. I paid off that 54k to Tom Nook and, of course, requested my 2nd addition.

30 march 2020

I have no idea what to do with my 2nd room. I don’t have enough items catalogued or recipes discovered to craft a proper bathroom or a proper kitchen. I don’t care to have a second bedroom. I don’t actually want to build a spa. I mean I do, but I kind of want an outdoor one (wah).

With the first infrastructure project done, the next was to build a bridge connecting the founder’s portion of the island to the most central part (which is also were I placed Nook’s Cranny). It’s the most frequently crossed portion of river for me, going back and forth between my house and the store to sell or buy (but mostly sell, amirite?).

Reneigh’s new place.. I love that it isn’t at the old place. The campsite.. is underwhelming. We didn’t have any visitors this day. But we did have Flick. Flick is very weirdly into bugs, but at least he knows that he’s weird about it? I didn’t catch a TON of bugs just because he was there, but also because bugs aren’t worth all that much to begin with so 1.5x on em is like eh. Pretty much I just caught bugs as I normally would and brought them to him instead of to the Cranny. I also gave him the tiger butterfly to create a … model? Statue? I wished it would have been the emperor butterfly instead but.. I just didn’t catch as many. I’d forget to save them and would sell them to him instead.

Well with the 2nd addition comes even more debt. It was 500somethingk this time around. I had absolutely no aspiration to pay this debt off quickly. Partially because I’d rather build more infrastructure on the island. Partially because I wouldn’t even know what to with whatever the next expansion is. Whether it’s more square feet or another room, it all needs more furniture to fill. So for now I’m just gonna buy new things every day so I can have the option to buy them again later. One thing that bums me out is that I wish that once you crafted something you have the option to just buy it for a marked up price later.

I did wood harvesting this day. Chopped and shook down all my trees. “Got stung 5 times, went through 4 axes, and shook 2 pieces of furniture out!” Around 8pm when that message went out. I crafted all that could be crafted and went to bed with my pockets full.

Oh! Worth mentioning: I collected something like 13 or 17 star fragments this day. I don’t even know what to do with all of that. I only have 2 wand recipes and both wands do the same thing -__- I ended up crafting just a bunch of bamboo wands. I wanted to give them away, to Reneigh and to Olive and maybe to Pinky. Reneigh was already asleep. Olive didn’t seem very impressed with the gift, but she did reciprocate and gave me a striped dress (that I really like, actually). But since she didn’t care much for it, I decided to sell the other wands instead of giving them to my neighbors. I think they go for a couple thousand bells, I can’t remember. I don’t regret it because at this point I don’t like Pinky all that much anyway.

31 march 2020

I fucked up this day. Straight up just fucked up.

IRL, I had a project deadline Tuesday morning that I honestly should have spent time working on Monday night to finish but if you’ve been reading you’ll know that I mostly was at Stonsthro catching some bees and chopping some trees, as Wilbur says.

So I didn’t have my usualmorning gameplay. Instead I was up at 6 and having a real work day straight through 3pm (which is honestly nice in these crazy times to have a feeling of things needing to get done). I also had some … let’s call it “exciting” IRL stuff go down, which on top of my work day left me just OVER IT.

I didn’t return to Stonsthro until 11pm. I didn’t realize how I fucked up until I came on and Isabelle started to read me the day’s announcements. THE ANNOUNCEMENTS AT 11PM. Nook’s Cranny, already closed! And my pockets still full from the night before. Not a single bell to be earned this day.

RS at least seems to be open 24 hours a day. I was able to give orders for the next infrastructure project, another incline just west of Olive’s house. I feel like naming the different areas of my island for easier reference.

And the campsite had a visitor. His name was Julian, he seems to be a little too woowoo, even for a unicorn. Maybe it’s ironic. At least I was able to talk to him and get him to stay at Stonsthro permanently, so the day wasn’t a total loss.

Because I’m not sure when this fits in, I’ll just drop this here: “My annoying neighbor horse is actually growing on me like she’s still a bitch but when’s all uhh I already talked to you today I’m like bye bitch and then she’s all :greetings: smize and I’m like okay grrl see you tmrw” And excuse my stupid texting, but it is true that I’m warming up to Reneigh. She doesn’t want me all up in her air, and she lets me know, and I respect that.

This one time I gave Reneigh this ugly ass pink Sherpa skirt because I didn’t want it and she has pink hair so idk. She said it isn’t really her thing, and gave me something in return. It was a basketball tank. Also not really my thing. I felt like we understood each other a little better after that.

1 april 2020

CHERRY BLOSSOMS!

This morning the island was undeniably PINK. What I love most about this is that I can now very very easily tell which trees are fruit bearing and which are not. Thank you, spring (:

Since I somewhat had organized my fruit trees already, the only ones that are unsorted are the native pears which just.. exist everywhere alongside the hardwood.

There are new bugs out too! Common bluebottle, peacock butterfly (am concurrently learning that this is not new to April, just new to the fact that I bred some blue hyacinths), locusts, water bugs. It was exciting to be in a new season because I was getting tired of the tiger butterflies and the paper kites. They’re still around but it’s nice to see something new.

I do have more to share about yesterday and about today. But it is 11:49pm right now and I think I’ve been at this since 8:30. Whyyyyyy?!??!?! Literally nobody is asking me to do this!

I don’t know I think it helps to feel like I have some kind of a grasp on where my days have been going.

#acnh animalcrossingnewhorizons animalcrossing newhorizons

[stonsthro]

this post editor sucks.

okay so i haven’t been back on tumblr in a really long time before starting this blog and i have to tell you guys i’m really fucking annoyed that the create post is a pop up module because if i hit escape or click elsewhere out of this text box, i lose fucking everything. 

this has happened twice already. literally 3 minutes ago i had sat down with fresh motivation to restart a very lengthy post that i had lost this morning. and then i snap a reference window and come back to here to find my optimistic 2nd draft just GONE.  ughhhhhhh. so let me just save this draft now just in case [okay. check. edit draft. type type type. test click anywhere else] yeah so.. when i snap this window somewhere else the draft just closes.  annoying. okay i’m gonna write this in word and i’ll be back later.

[stonsthro]

24 mar 2020, continued.

i had a pretty long workday yesterday so i didn’t return to my island until much later in the evening.

i gathered all the branches and wood i had littering the island, it took a lot of trips because i kept having to go home to drop stuff off in storage. i tried my best to stay on task and i didn’t explore the upper levels of the island until i needed to gather more resources (iron nuggets and wildflowers). i was able to craft ALMOST everything for the new residents except for the furniture that required iron (which for me was a wooden stereo, an iron table, iron stool, and a waterpump).

i used a Nook Miles ticket to visit a (very beautiful) island where i was able to collect more than enough iron needed (skip out on fruit, and BRACE. and bonus! i got nook miles as a reward for depleting the rock!). i also did some fishing while i was there and caught 2 football fish, making up for the one i had lost yesterday. i also caught a string fish!

a friend had shared in our group chat a list of bugs and fish that are ending their season at the end of march:

i’ve caught them all now!

there are some species of fish that i haven’t caught yet but i’m excited for when i do. the oarfish just looks so crazy. someone shared a clip of someone catching a shark! not sure if that’s real or not, but how wild!

i took some pictures on the island, and mostly just fished. i gathered wood (only wood, i have plenty enough hardwood and softwood.. anyone know why the game made wood more scarce?) and coral and coconuts, even though i don’t have a lot of space for planting trees anymore. i think i ended up just eating them..

i had purchased 3 nook miles tickets in case i didn’t get everything i needed in one go, and i ended up not needing them which is nice. a friend gave us the heads up this morning that after 3 residents move in, the resident services tent will be upgraded so we’ll be without the Nook Stop for a day. he advised that we stock up on nook miles tickets in preparation. i’ve got a good head start.

Tom Nook thanked me for the help with prepping for the new residents and gave me some fencing. i used it to border my “yard.” i’ve granted myself a very generous amount of space around the outside of my home. it includes small flower beds on either side of my house, a workstation for crafting (though currently i have my workstation in my house since i keep most of my resources in storage.. i wonder when i’ll be able to get a nice table type option like Tom Nook and my neighbors have), and a small orchard south of the house. I also claimed a little peninsula of land just south and west of my house. i set up a bonfire and an inflatable bed there, as well as a cooler (which also functions as a wardrobe?!? i guess so you can change into a bathing suit or something, idk?!)

but after all that, i was a little at a loss of what to do. so i decided that i would focused on paying off my debt to Tom Nook. at the end of last night i think i need 30k bells still. it was already 12am, so i finally went to bed.

25 march 2020

in this morning’s announcements, Tom Nook shared that he would host a workshop in customizing crafts. sign me up! so then i spent some time getting all my crafted wood furniture the same color, and also rearrange everything in my house. i’m trying to remember when the HRA does judging and sends letters..  i know i can look this up but i’m not that invested. even when i know the information, i’ll still have to wait.. i decided to use up all the branches, bamboo, and wood i had to craft whatever else could be crafted. i set up some more campfires across the island and on the higher tiers i set up a lone camp spot with my old camp cot, camp cook stove, and lantern, and another spot with a bonfire and some log stools. on the highest tier there’s a small bonfire with a tire toy for a seat.

knowing i still owed Tom Nook money for my home expansion, i sold just about everything else. i crafted around 20somethingK  bells worth of stuff, so then i spent time chasing butterflies and fishing. i shook the odd tree every now and again, but nothing worthwhile fell out.

i did come across buried treasure so i planted another 10k tree. i’m excited for when those trees come up! i believe i have 3 of them on the island now. i’ve started marking my money rocks and money trees with a custom $ design on the ground. which i hope will help myself and visitors stay mindful to not overexhaust resources. 

a few friends dropped by my island this morning.  i gave one of them a hyacinth crown as a gift (: she liked it. she brought me cherries (: 

there was also a camel named Sahara on the island today. she sells rugs, flooring and wallpaper. i bought 2 rugs from her. one was a blue vinyl something that sounded hideous but is actually cute, and the other was an avocado rug which is not shaped like an avocado, but is square and colored like the outside of an avocado. NOT EVEN LIKE THE RIPE GREEN MEAT COLOR, like UGLY avocado. like old guacamole avocado.  i resold the rug at Nook’s Cranny.

i probably should not have even bought rugs at all. at that point i had still owed 9k bells to Tom Nook. i went back home and picked up all the log stakes i had in my storage to sell. caught some more fish and paper kit butterflies. paid off my loan, and then OF COURSE requested another expansion. i’m trying to have a proper kitchen and bedroom and living area all separated out, and my current square footage is just not having it. apparently the next expansion adds a room, not just more square feet. so i’m excited to see what that will look like tomorrow. 

#animalcrossing newhorizons animalcrossingnewhorizons acnh

[stonsthro]

nook’s cranny is open for business

i didn’t mention that yesterday i finally gathered enough iron ore to open a shop on the island! the opening was part of the morning announcements and we had the opening ceremony, i grabbed a screenshot (i should really just post these to twitter or something so i can at least grab them and paste them here...).

Tom Nook is in prep for the arrival of 3 new residents, so i’m making it my mission today to get everything ready for them. i took my sweet ass time choosing their plots, because i do not want to just go at it willie nillie like i did with reneigh’s plot (i am going to excommunicate her at some point in the game, unless i figure out how to move her home).

i tried to be smart about marking the new resident plots. i scoped it out, harvested all the branches, fruit and wood i had shaken and axed out yesterday, and removed the trees for replanting elsewhere.  i feel like that was the right move. otherwise i’d be out trees and resources and i need that shit to build these fools some furnishings.  Tom Nook hooked it up with a bunch of great recipes. you bet your sweet ass i’m building a bed for myself first. i wonder if i can get away with giving one of the new residents my cot instead (evil smirk).

good thing i took the time to hack at and shake down all my trees yesterday! i have a plethora of branches but i still fear i won’t have as much wood as i’ll need for all my crafting.

OH! i also got the ladder recipe from Tom Nook, which i don’t need really since my brother had already shared it with me. should be exciting to explore the upper level later today or tonight depending on work and depending on how much i get done when i play on my lunch break. 

more later,

#animalcrossing newhorizons animalcrossingnewhorizons acnh

[stonsthro]

i’m relearning things!  and also grabbing hints from links that my friends and family are sharing in our group texts.

the rest of yesterday (22 march 2020): my cousin and her husband took advantage of the duplication glitch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT1tP8oJJjc) and sent over 99,000 bells so I could pay off my house (: so I did that and then requested an expansion.

i visited 2 other islands using nook tickets and I wasn’t able to get enough ore to open the nook’s cranny.  after using up all my nook tickets, I remembered that you can brace yourself when striking rocks to get more resources out of them. i was so frustrated with myself, I wasted so many boulders by not doing this. for anyone reading who has no clue what i’m talking about -- you pretty much create some kind of blockade behind where you would stand to strike a rock, usually by digging a hole. then when you strike, you don’t get pushed back and you can go in for strikes 2-8.

i also remembered to shake trees. i hadn’t shaken a single tree since i had started playing, but i was trying to catch a bagworm and shook the tree so many times and branches just kept falling! so i took to shaking more trees, and i got bells and sometimes furniture too. and of course wasp stings as well.

23 march 2020

i got on before work this morning determined to shake up every single tree on my island (or at least start).

my house had been expanded, and i received a bunch of items i had purchased from the nook stop - some garden lanterns, clothes, a backpack. i already don’t remember the things. i’m just buying all the things that look nice, none of them are actually useful. oh my goodness, this is actually consumerism. UGH BUT IT’S SO FUN. and at least in this game my debts aren’t real.

yeah i think before work this morning all i did was shake a bunch of trees. and really all of today i just shook every single tree on my island to its limit. i did shake out some cool stuff. i shook out this chemistry lab set that i put on display in my bigass house (but wait, because in just a few days it won’t be big enough). 

after i shook all the trees, i chopped wood from all the trees.  for the most part, i didn’t gather anything that i shook or chopped. so right now my island is just scattered with tree branches and wood and some pears and coconuts.  idk, i just don’t need all that stuff. and i figure i don’t have a lot to offer to my visitors, so if they come by and they need or want wood and branches, all they have to do is pick them up. 

my brother came to visit my island today. it was actually a lot of fun playing with him. he grabbed up a bunch of stuff until his pockets were full. we weren’t best friends yet since it was the first visit. but it was funny because since i haven’t opened the nook’s cranny yet i don’t have a ladder. so he was able to access the next tier on my island without me, but he couldn't do anything up there. 

then i went to visit him on his island. he sent the best friend request, and to be annoying i started to dig random holes. YOU CAN JUST KICK HOLES AWAY TO FILL THEM. i’m sure i knew about this in the first game, but it’s another thing that i’ve just forgotten.  i asked him how he was kicking and he said, “why.” and i said, because i don’’t know how to do it, and he said “PRESS Y.”  so that was a funny moment. 

my brother gave me a party popper and a ladder recipe. we went fishing together, i caught an angler fish!! i forget what it’s called in the game.  but then his girlfriend had finished cooking dinner so he had to leave. i took my sweet time continuing to wander his island, and i got kicked off before i could formally depart. i ended up losing my angler fish ): i’ll catch one again though! it’s only a matter of time and determination.

today was an enjoyable day on the island. 

reneigh still gets on my nerves honestly and i’m wondering if there will come a time that some residents will move on. i’ve already invited others to come live on the island and i kind of regret it. i’m pretty sure i won’t like them either. 

i do like stinky though. probably because i can’t smell him (ha ha). but he’s friendly enough and has given me medicine when my face was all fucked up from wasp stings. he asked me once for ... a certain fish.. and was so excited to get it. today i gave him an emperor butterfly because i had just caught it and he had been hanging around my hyacinths, and i’d already sold 2 in the past 24 hours so why not share?

mmm. i am tired of writing now. 

until next time!

#acnh animalcrossingnewhorizons animalcrossing newhorizons

[stonsthro]

21 march 2020 day 3 (yesterday) wasn’t too eventful. my house was built! while it’s got more sq ftage, the best part is that i can put items in storage. they don’t need to be on display in my home, and i don’t need to carry it in my pockets. NICE.

the museum had started construction, which meant that blathers was unavailable to take any donations. any newly discovered species i stowed away in storage so that i wouldn’t accidentally sell them off to the Nooks.

i tried to have a productive day. i spent the morning harvesting wood. i got stung by wasps multiple times, and learned a DIY recipe for medicine. i harvested more wood than i need. i know that i can just craft away and sell items for bells, but it seems needless and greedy. yes, it will feel good to pay off my debt.. but this isn’t real debt, this is just a game! that in mind, i shouldn’t feel guilty if i deplete resources. i can always plant more trees, right? but also, idk. if people come and visit it’ll be pretty sucky for them if my land has nothing to offer because i’ve sucked it dry.

speaking of having nothing to offer... i spent some time playing with friends yesterday. they shared fruits with me! they already had my island’s fruits on hand, so i wish i had something of more value. it is very fun seeing other people’s islands. even if they’ve chosen the same layout, everyone does something different. they’ve built their homes in different locations, they plant their trees in different areas, they place indoor and outdoor furniture differently. it’s fun to get inspiration from others and then change up what i’m doing on my island.

have i mentioned what i decided to name my island? i don’t think it’s particularly clever so i don’t brag about it. i went with “Stōnsthrō” only because Stonesthrow was too long, as was Stonsthorough (which I thought looked like it could be the name of an actual place.. and maybe it is, I haven’t actually checked). as the game release was drawing ever nearer, i was growing anxious about what i would name my island. what if it’s unoriginal? what if i don’t give it enough thought, and i immediately hate and regret it? i stopped trying to think of something “unique” or “clever” or “me” and i just tried to think of something logical. well a supposedly deserted island, but not difficult to get to... and the colloquialism of only being “a stone’s throw away” came to mind, so i rolled with it as much as i could within the game’s character count limitations. i’m pleased with the name.

right, so yesterday. harvested more wood than necessary. crafted more log spikes, end tables, a mirror... spent some time collecting shellfish, and then catching insects. crafted some fish bait, went fishing, didn’t really use the fishbait (although it is very effective).

oh, gulliver washed up on the island. i remember the first time he washed up in animal crossing. ahh, nostalgia. i was explaining to my IRL boyfriend that gulliver’s this sailor seagull who frequently falls overboard and has to be retrieved by my shipmates, and that i’m pretty sure he’s a drunk. funny guy, tho. always with the puns.

so i helped gulliver collect the missing pieces of his communicator and he was able to call for retrieval.

mm.. i don’t think there was very much else exciting yesterday. i think i called it quits for the day around the afternoon. p.s. i did end up figuring out the voice chat thing. more convenient than the keyboard chat, but overall seems silly. especially since i mostly play with people i actually know, i feel like a conf call would be easier. probably most useful if playing with strangers...

22 march 2020

today i have been committed to finding more iron ore to upgrade the resident services tent to a shop. gathering the wood was easy, the iron ore is difficult. i broke all of my rocks yesterday in the process, and afterward i learned that only one will regenerate per day. i also broke that rock today. it only had one hit in it! and it didn’t even have any iron ore ):

i played with some friends on one of their islands, and they graciously shared some iron with me. i shared some flowers that they don’t have (i didn’t even think about the availability of flowers!) yesterday i found a message in a bottle that shared a DIY hyacinth flower crown recipe. after my hyacinths have grown, i think making some of these crowns would be good gifts to share! (:

one thing that i’m discovering about myself is that i’m very prone to feeling unhelpful. feeling unhelpful comes much easier because a lot of my friends seem to be advancing much more quickly than i am in the game. they are all very nice though and mostly just want to come visit my island to fish and catch bugs.

yesterday i planted a few coconuts, and today i planted some cherries as well. my friends planted mature trees when they visited, and one allowed me to take mature cherry trees for me to plant when i returned home. my in-game mom had sent me peaches as soon as my home was constructed. with all that, and my home fruit being pears, i believe the only fruit i am missing now are apples?

friends informed me that the best way to get more resources is to visit other islands. aside from my 2 friends that i’ve played with yesterday and today, it hasn’t been the easiest being online the same times as my other friends. so my 2 friends advised me to redeem nook miles for .. oh what are they called.. nook tickets? i’ve visited two islands today. their rocks mostly returned stones and clay. i only got 1 iron ore, and i think i need 6 more. maybe i should have used more of my miles for tickets, but i also splurged and purchased clothes and accessories and hairstyles because i thought, why not? i work hard and i deserve it (this is true for both in-game and IRL).

oh the museum was open today! so i visited blathers and turned in everything i had captured since yesterday, and then i toured the museum. it’s MASSIVE and i enjoyed walking around just the layout of it all. it isn’t very full yet (i have only been playing for 2 and a half days), but it was still nice to peruse. i took a couple of pictures, and i WISH i could post them to share here but i’m realizing that the nintendo switch does not really make sharing album photos easy.. i have a memory card sitting in my amazon cart, and i will checkout eventually. is it just me? everytime i checkout, i remember that there were like 2 other things that i also needed. with free shipping, i shouldn’t be bothered, but still.

it is still only the early evening now, and i’m sure i’ve got more hours of play left in me. it can all wait until the next post.

until then!

#animalcrossing newhorizons animalcrossingnewhorizons acnh

[stonsthro]

animal crossing: new horizons. i’m journaling like this is real life.

mostly i’m here because after day 2 of animal crossing I really felt like chronicling my day. not my IRL day, my animal crossing day.

the line between last night and today is a little blurred because I stayed up playing until my eyes started to betray me.

i had my heart set on showing up at target this morning at the crack of opening to get a hard copy ( + ACNH journal bundle, though I didn’t care about the journal) and a power a controller. but yesterday the state of California ordered everyone to isolate at home and only leave for essentials. as much as I love animal crossing, i understand that it’s not a living essential. and i also didn’t want to be one of those assholes disregarding all caution. for all i know, i’m carrying covid-19 and not showing symptoms and spreading that shit around. so no, i didn’t go to target and i didn’t get my controller (which are now sold out, by the way. but i mostly just cared about getting the console, so i’m fine). and also - digital downloads got access at 12am ET, that means 9pm California time, so i caved.

i played until i paid off my debt to Tom Nook. and then i played some more. here’s what i jotted down on my island’s bulletin board earlier this evening: “dear diary, day 2 on stonsthro and i wish i had more hours in the day. i was able to explore the land across the rivers, caught some new fish, found a few fossils, and even buried treasure. i was hoping to help blathers open the museum, but it didn’t happen. o well. i guess there’s always tmrw. i did pull the trigger on a home tho so look fwd to that! hopefully i can pay back tom nook quickly. I'm also just now realizing that the journal from the target bundle would have been cool...”

it was at this point that i decided i wanted to actually record my life on this new island. i was regretting not getting the hard copy bundle. because the journal and because when my boyfriend wants to play something on the switch, i get pretty resentful and am very close to buying him a switch(lite) of his own. ... and this is why i’m here now. not to chronicle my regret, but my ACNH island life. let’s get into it:

after posting on the bulletin board, i was going to call it a night. i’d pulled all the weeds, i’d made several rounds of shell collecting and moth collecting, and collected wood and stones until i’d worn out 3 sets of axes. i’d crafted all i could of my pocket’s stash.

but then.

i went to the airport. i had friends online. i went to chi.chi (my cousin’s island). we exchanged items. we chased each other around. i admired her campsite. we chatted. for the life of me i could not figure out voice chat with the Nintendo switch online app. i still haven’t figured it out. i gave up. i went back home. i ate more fruits. i bought new tools. i shook more trees. i collected more wood. i earned more miles. i bought a tool ring and i expanded my pockets. i met a cowardly phantom named wisp. i collected his spirits and returned them to him. i caught more fish. i collected enough specimens for blathers to open the museum. i’m hopeful that tomorrow i’ll have a yellow roofed house to live in, and a museum to visit.

i want to keep my animal crossing journals like it’s life. i want to come here and talk shit about reneigh like she’s a real person. she acts like i’m trying to be her best friend. bitch i talked to you three times in the span of 6 hours, calm down. but maybe she’s right. maybe this island ISN’T big enough for the both of us. (but honestly, i think i’m mostly mad that i didn’t give more of a shit about where she set up her tent because, logistically, it’s annoying.)

and that was my day. well, last night and today. it’s now 12:50am so i suppose it’s now tomorrow.

#animalcrossing newhorizons animalcrossingnewhorizons acnh