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demethinkstoomuch · 4 years

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Deme Rates Villagers: Cubs

It’s Bears, but Smaller!

(Why didn’t I lump Bears and Cubs the way I did Cows and Bulls? Because there are a fair number of them, I think.)

I have also realized that, rather than a numerical rating, an emoticon rating might be better. I may do numbers from time to time, and so likely will not go back for the others. There will not be a scale, but a broad expression of my feelings. Or a mimic of their faces. Or a comment. Sometimes.

Disclaimer: Images are from the wiki, all good dogs, my ratings are mainly just there because “Deme gives her abstract thoughts on villagers” is hardly a catchy thing.

Aisle

Another Animal Forest E+ exclusive, another villager that looks like they came out of a Rare game like Banjo-Kazooie or Conker’s Bad Fur Day, even though this one doesn’t feature any exact equivolents. On the whole, I think the high contrast between the blue fur and the tuft of blond hair is a bad look, but the big blue eyes being sort of heavy-lidded and dour’s kind of cute.

Rating: :|

Barold

Barold is great. Like, I don’t entirely know what they’re going for with him -- he vaguely suggests either Fred Flinstone or an IT guy in my head -- but I love it either way. (Fred Flinstone: 5 o’ clock shadow, shirt. IT Guy: Eeyes have kind of a glasses shape, beard). He’s oozing with character, albeit a strange character, and do I detect little white pawsies? I do!

Rating: B’|

Bluebear

She’s a bear! She’s blue! She’s got a little white and a little pink, which gives her a nicely over-all pastel look. I like the darker blue (Fire Emblem Lord Blue, perhaps?) hair on her. She is just cute.

Rating: :)

Cheri

Another colorful bear cub, this one, pink! I like her, she’s sassy. Nice eyebrows that pair with her eyes to give her an impression of moxie that’s still quite cute. Hair is spiky, which adds to that. She’s peppy, which means that by peppy standards, she’s pretty edgy, in a weird, pink little bear way. Either way, she’s rather cute.

Rating: :]

Chester

Man, what do the Animal Crossing devs have against just letting pandas be cute? Chow, Chester... They’re both just sort of weird in a way that I find, funnily enough, more unsettling or dull than charming. Long pupils are not friend-shaped; if they leaned into the creepy, like with a goat, that would be one thing, but it rather spoils Chester. The sad-looking mouth could be cute, but it’s a bit big for that. Almost there, Chester, but just not.

Rating: :(

Cupcake

So, Cupcake is kind of Cheri, but with a half-hearted snootification effort via heavy-lidded eyeshadow eyes. Meh.

Rating: :[ (Like Cheri, but worse.)

Judy

A New Horizons new villager, and Judy is sure an aesthetic! The pastel gradients, the enormous sparkly eyes with the big shojou lashes, she just screams that she belongs in a gothic lolita girl’s arms during a photoshoot. Get this bear a lace-up dress. She could be an extra Hello Kitty collab character or something. I’m not actually a huge fan of Judy, but I cannot possibly deny that she is wonderfully what she is, and so while the agressively UWU quality to her isn’t for me, but I can’t help but applaud it. Dedication! Also, I like the subtler blush. It works.

Rating: (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

June

June is maaaybe my favorite cub, she’s just simple and pleasant-looking, without being a pastel screaming-fest, Her colorscheme and implied heavy fringe has a sort of... Like, it makes her big blue eyes and over-all cuteness read “girl next door,” sort of an ordinary, natural cute. And then you add the cute big hibiscus for a little pop that contrasts with her eyes. It’s just a real cute look. I’d probably, though, if I were to consider adopting her, check to make sure her eyes aren’t super weird when you look at them from other angles. It’s a bad fate to befall a villager.

Rating: (◕‿◕✿) (Babe, hold my flower)

Kody

Hey, look, it’s one of my starter New Leaf villagers! Kody was the last of my first villagers to move out, too, sticking around for quite a while indeed. His departure left a hole that Clyde entered through via someone’s void, and I was not happy about that. As a result, I feel fonder of Kody than I would otherwise, since otherwise, he’s just, you know, a blue bear with a darker blue spot, like many animals that are just like that except not bears. It can be charming with the right face, but there’s nothing particularly noteworthy about his face. It’s just Kody. There he is. Old chum.

Rating: ˅ u ˅ Ah, the memories...

Maple

Awwww, look at her! She’s just precious, very simple, with implied floofy bangs and bright little dot eyes. Even the pink sticker blush works better with her colors than I see in a lot of places. If June didn’t have her flowers, maybe I’d be here saying Maple’s my favorite. Maybe Maple is my favorite, I don’t know. She feels like angelfood cake, you, know? Light, pleasant, sweet...Though, admittedly, not especially flavorful. She’s just cute as she is.

Rating: ‘ ◕ w ◕ ‘

Marty

Ah, a Sanrio villager! ...Not one of the cuter ones, really. Looks sort of like a honey jar bear to me, which is, I suppose, something. His eyebrows have an unassuming quality, like he’s just a normal guy.

Rating: Normal Guy / Guys

Murphy

Remember everything I said about Kody? Yeah, still true about Murphy. His coloring is just sort of “spotted bear,” now in green. But! He does have big square eyebrows and big square eyes, which give him a bit of extra character, reliably and kinda sleepy. A good face.

Rating = w = (A good thing, I promise.)

Olive

Olive is a villager I’ve heard compared to Maple a lot -- it’s the shirt, I suppose, but really, more than that. Her color scheme is also pretty naturalistic and grounded, she has a cute bang outline. She doesn’t push the cute as hard, but that might make her more comfortable, less out-and-out cutesy to folks. That said, her eyes just have that quality I found with the birds, where something about them, paired with the surprised eyebrows, that feels kinda blank, like they reveal nothing. Staring. These eyes have seen too much. But she’s still pretty cute, won’t lie.

Rating: O-O

Pekoe

Aww, isn’t she cute? This screenshot makes her look more cream-colored than I’m used to thinking of her as, a dramatic bonus to her over-all level of adorable. Pekoe’s use of ears to suggest little covered hair-buns is pretty flavorful; it makes me wonder if they almost wanted to make a cute, very on-theme panda, and then decided “No, let’s just make her a white bear, good enough.” Still, her face is cute, too, with a distinct set of eyes carrying through the same sort of design sensibilities as her hair and ears/buns, intensely stylized. It’s a nice look.

Rating: :)

Poko

What is with the shape of his head? You all see that, right, where his head is a totally different, longer, shape? Why? What does it mean? Is it meant to be like a mask? If it were meant to be a long mask, that’d be cool. I don’t think it is? It’s a mystery that he would need another appearance to solve, and that’s not happening.

Rating: ? :/

Poncho

Poncho’s cute. He’s basically just blue Olive, though the bangs are less fwooshy. Still, I find him a bit cuter than Olive, because the oval eyes sort of soften the effect of round on round on round that looks strange and staring; this is a bit more cartoony and cute. That’s about it from me. Pretty cute.

Rating: 0 ˅ 0

Pudge

Oh, Pudge looks so sad and alone! I want to hug and protect him! I’ve checked other screenshots, that’s just how Pudge’s face is, and it’s so precious! I do not get the freen on the ears and tip of tail, though. I do not understand why this is a thing, and I cannot say I approve of it. It’s kind of a distracting negative among this otherwise adorable design of a baby I just want to protect!

Rating: (> ‘ . ’)> Come here and let me hug you!

Stitches

OK, so, maybe if it’s not June or Maple, maybe Stitches is best cub. Certainly, he’s the most thematically strong, with this adorable patchwork teddybear design! His eyes evoke a really cute version of his name, little stitches. Just adorable and aesthetically on-point and I’m really happy to see him. I could see him with a place on my island, if I only didn’t have too many villagers I could see with a place.

Rating :D or, alternatively, XwX just for him.

Tammy

Oh, it’s almost all the things I dislike in a villager design. Random colors without real cohesion or purpose, just “well, this is a colorful animal” that clash with other randomly-selected colors (orange blush, deep rose eyeshadow, pale pink inner ears, white muzzle/paws, brown bangs) with eyeshadowed eyes to say “Hey this is a snooty” without going all-in for glamor-comedy? I think we’ve hit bingo. Funnily enough, I think this might be my least-favorite cub.

Rating: :(

Vladimir

Vladimir is ugly with dedication. Vladimir is ugly with a passion. Vladimir is ugly with soul and purpose. Buck teeth and that flatly furrowed, thin, no-brow-unibrow! Those awful bangs! Truly, Vladimir is an artist’s study in ugly-cute. I can’t say that it works to vaunt him into a villager I’d really love to have around, but I can profoundly respect him.

Rating: ಠ ῳ ಠ

The cubs are good, in conclusion. A good mix of aesthetics, and at least 3 I rather like, which is a good number. Also, I got to whip out some Japanese emoticons, and isn’t that important?

#Deme Rates Villagers #Animal Crossing #Cubs #stitches animal crossing

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2peasinapodme-blog · 7 years

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If you want to hit the road this summer, here’s your destination…

Honestly, I never had any intention of going to Niagara Falls. It was one of those out-of-the-way places that seemed intriguing but a little too remote to make the top of my travel bucket list. And, let’s be honest, it’s just a down-sized Vegas or, better yet, Atlantic City, right? Well, yes, sort of…BUT don’t be discouraged by the flashy casinos and tacky tourist attractions because the Falls themselves are what you’re coming to see. One of the world’s greatest and most awe-inspiring natural formations, Niagara Falls is definitely worth the trek.

Looking for an alternate route back from New York to Chicago, Mike decided to take us north through New York State and into Canada instead of the typical east/west route through Pennsylvania and Ohio. And the surprise element for me was an unexpected stopover at Niagara Falls. Located just 17 miles northwest of Buffalo, NY and 75 miles southeast of Toronto, it’s actually easier to get to than I realized.

Grilled Faroe Island salmon with grilled avocado at Savor, Niagara Falls Culinary Institute

We arrived in time for a lovely lunch on the outdoor terrace of Savor, the public face of the Niagara Falls Culinary Institute (http://nfculinary.org). A sparkling gem among fool’s gold (i.e. Planet Hollywood, Hard Rock Cafe, etc.), Savor offers one of the only fine-dining options in the area. The lunch menu, while concise, was well-prepared and very enjoyable. The Salade Maison — their take on a Ceasar featuring a soft egg and toasted breadcrumbs — was truly outstanding; the Pizza Bianco with garlic confit, whipped ricotta and arugula was flavorful and featured a nice, chewy crust; and the grilled local salmon salad with grilled avocado (above) was very tasty, although not quite as rare as I ordered (and would have preferred) and also a bit under-dressed. But one must keep in mind that it is a teaching institute and far superior to anything else in the area. So, after being sated with fine food and a nice bottle of wine produced by the school’s viticulture students, it was time to tackle the Falls.

The Niagara River flows from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario and straddles the New York/Ontario border. The boundary line, originally set in 1819, has been a much-debated point of contention for many years. Little did I know that Niagara Falls is actually made up of three waterfalls which dump 85,000 to 225,000 cubic feet of water per second (depending on the season) into the glacially formed gorge. The largest and most iconic (and most photographed) of the falls is Horseshoe Falls, so named because of it’s distinctive 180-degree horseshoe shape (below). At 2,600 feet wide and with a vertical drop of 188 feet, Horseshoe Falls is truly mind-blowing.

Located half in Canada and half in the US, Horseshoe Falls flies two flags. The American Falls (below) lie on the east side of the gorge on the American side, as the name implies, as does the relatively smaller Bridal Veil Falls.

Below you can see the distance between Horseshoe Falls on the right and the other two falls on the left — about a rainbow’s distance, I would estimate.

The American side is easily reachable from the town of Niagara Falls, NY by following the signs for Goat Island. Per our research, we were prepared for hordes of crowds and long waits to work our way up to the viewing railings, but somehow our dumb luck prevailed and we happened to be there on the day following Memorial Day, when everyone seemed to have returned from whence they came. We parked in the closest lot, casually walked into the half-deserted park grounds and right up to the falls. Boom!

Before you actually reach the Falls, your nose detects the distinct smell of water, and as you get closer, you begin to feel the mist. We wandered over to the top of the falls (above) to see the vigorously flowing upper Niagara River tripping over rocks, completely unaware of what dangers lie ahead. As it reaches the crest, it plummets at such a powerful rate of speed that it’s hard to comprehend. The sheer force of the water is astounding and intimidating.

It was at that point that Mike recounted the story of a woman who went over the falls in a barrel in 1901 and survived. A 63-year-old schoolteacher, Annie Edson Taylor (below left) braved the stunt for fame and fortune. Short-lived fame she got, fortune she did not. Astonishingly, between 1829 and 1995, seventeen people actually made the daunting fall over the Falls and a miraculous 10 of them survived. And that doesn’t include Nik Wallenda (below right) and other daredevils who have attempted the unthinkable feat of crossing the falls in one form or another.

Annie Edson Taylor signs autograhs in 1901

Nik Wallenda crosses the Niagara River on tightrope in 2012

From the upper level, you get close-up views of all three falls, but if you crave even more adventure, you can opt for the “Cave of the Winds” tour 175 feet down into the Gorge (shown in the bottom right of the photo below) or the Maid of the Mist boat ride right up to the base of Horseshoe Falls (bottom photo below).* The intense force of the water produces a constant heavy mist which combined with a sunny day often creates a vibrant rainbow for the lucky visitors. It also makes for a pretty hairy boat ride! (No, I didn’t enhance that photo, that’s the real deal.)

Cave of the Winds Tour (lower right) to the bottom of the American Falls.

Gold at the end of the rainbow — “Maid of the Mist” boat tour takes you right up to the base of Horseshoe Falls.

Short of time, we were content remaining fairly dry up top and admiring the view from above. I snapped dozens of amazing photos, not realizing that the views from across the river just might be even more impressive.

If you decide to make the trek to Niagara, the most important thing to remember is: don’t forget your passport! Viewing the falls from both sides is a must. Every angle offers a different perspective of these incredible water formations.

After we completed our exploration of the US side, we grabbed our passports and crossed over the Canadian border which is located immediately on the other side of the bridge spanning the Niagara River. Again, we happened to be there on a relatively quiet day which allowed for quick passage, but I’ve heard that the lines at customs can back up quite a bit, so plan to leave plenty of time to make the crossing.

Bridal Veil Falls and American Falls in the right foreground; Canadian Immigration point in the upper left.

To my surprise, the Canadian side hit me as even more flashy and touristy than the American side…but the views from there are unmistakably astounding and shouldn’t be missed. From across the river, you get an awe-inspiring panorama of the three Falls and their vast enormity and astounding beauty. Watch in amazement as one-fifth of the world’s freshwater crashes down to the basin below.

Unlike the New York side, there isn’t designated park land on the Canadian side to create a natural buffer between the parking areas and the viewing areas, only a busy boulevard and a wide promenade along the river which admittedly provides massive views. But like the U.S. side, if you want to get closer, you can opt for a variety of interactive experiences.* You can don a poncho and feel the mist of Horseshoe Falls from 13 stories below at the “Journey Behind the Falls,” you can ride an antique cable car across the Niagara River and/or you can take the Hornblower Cruise up to the Falls.

Parking was a little tricky, but we fortuitously stumbled upon an hourly parking spot on the street near the police station. It seems luck was on our side that day, as a stunning double rainbow appeared over the Falls just as we crossed the street to the viewing area — an undeniable illustration of just how astonishing Mother Nature’s handiwork can be. We walked the length of the promenade, from the awe-inspiring crest of Horseshoe Falls to the American Falls vista — me frantically snapping pictures of the Falls wrapped in a rainbow hug and Mike encouraging me to get out from behind the camera and experience it in real time. He was right, it warrants undivided attention and complete respect. But, to my defense, seeing as though I will likely never get back to Niagara, at least I have the photos to remind me of it’s wonder!

Having the opportunity to view the Falls from two countries is truly a unique experience and reminds us of just how close we are to our friendly neighbors to the north. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the benefit of time to allow for an overnight stay in Canadian Niagara, as we were moving on to our final destination of London, Ontario for the night, but I’m sure it would have been an entertaining experience. And what a way to wake up in the morning – with a view of one of the world’s greatest natural creations right outside your window!

But if the thought of staying amongst the glitz and glitter of Niagara for the night doesn’t appeal, I hear that the quaint town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, located on the south shore of Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Niagara River, is a charming place to visit. Either way, whether you pop in for a few hours or stay overnight, you will be very glad you stopped to take in what is surely a candidate for one of the great natural wonders of the world.

*Both sides offer package deals — called Discovery Pass on the NY side and Adventure Pass on the Ontario side — that include the major attractions and up-close-and-personal experiences.

Niagara Falls Rocks! If you want to hit the road this summer, here's your destination... Honestly, I never had any intention of going to Niagara Falls.

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