Business as Usual in Mabure

As I said in my last post, this update is about Mabure; it's basically a tour of the town. Updates like this aren't going to be very common as they're really boring. In the future, updates will be about funny, heartwarming, or otherwise notable occurrences. But enough rambling; let's get started.

As usual I started out with Avril, my main character. She's not my only character in Mabure; I have two more named Nagako and Rosaline. Today's update is just about Avril; Mabure updates will alternate between the three of them.

Avril's house is effectively complete exterior-wise (at least, I haven't seen anything I'd rather have for her house). As you can see it's a zen castle, with a red stone roof, stone exterior, a wooden mailbox, and a bamboo fence. The stone underneath of it is also changed, but I forgot the name of that pattern.

Her mail today consisted of three letters: one was from Nat for placing third in the Bug Off, one was from Bob thanking her for the gift of a customized kiddie clock, and the final one was from Graham for sending him a bunch of letters containing green emblem blazers (I'll explain this later on).

Avril went back inside to check out the gifts she received and I used the opportunity to snap a picture of the interior of her house. I sadly couldn't fit it all on the screen, but this is a good enough view of everything.

Bob gave her a gray parka, which actually looked rather good on her. 

If you're wondering about what she was wearing before this, her usual outfit consists of a hot spring tee, denim skirt, rainbow tights, and yellow buckled shoes. She will change it depending on her luck if needed, however.

Graham's gift was a game show stand. Not something Avril really has a use for, though it is kind of funny.

You probably noticed all of the corseted shirts in the earlier pictures. Those are to be sent to another one of my villagers, Savannah. There's a trick you can do to get your villagers to change into whatever shirt you like - you'll need to send them six (or five; I don't remember the exact number) of the desired outfit and they'll start wearing it as soon as they get the letters. It's useful for giving your villagers an exact outfit or just getting rid of undesired clothing like the Anytown designs. In my case, I was getting sick of how the twinkle tee was popular among my villagers. 

And here's Avril's basement after she went down there to retrieve paper for letter writing. It's a storage area, as I believe the HHA ignores the basement when calculating your score. Sadly, even with all this room Avril's closet is still almost full. I found there was a limit on how much stuff you can put in a room, so I can't even use all the space.

Anyway....

After writing all those letters, Avril stepped out of her house to find that Graham wanted to talk to her. He apparently wanted to know what color of flower fit him the best. Avril told him closer to, but not exactly, red, and he responded by thinking he was more passionate than that but trusted her judgement all the same.

Graham's one of my personal favorite villagers, though that can be said of nearly everyone in Mabure. I'm really happy with the selection of animals I got.

Afterwards, Avril headed to the post office to drop off some excess bells earned the night before. While she has a lot of money as you can see, I've long since stopped actively trying to earn bells since I don't make a lot of public works projects and there's nothing else worth using them on anymore, at least in Mabure. 

She then went to check on Flo, who was sick the previous couple days. She had recovered well enough, and in thanks gave Avril a water bird for going through all that trouble. I was just happy enough to see she was all right. 

Shortly after checking on Flo, Phineas showed up. Avril doesn't see him that much anymore since she's already accomplished most of the easily obtainable badges. Given that I just got done helping Flo, I figured Avril's new badge was going to be something related to that. 

Not quite. As it turned out it was for going to a lot of K.K. Slider concerts. It's always worth seeing K.K. Slider perform, though; that is some really good music. 

As it was a Sunday in August, Isabelle and Crazy Redd were readying themselves for the fireworks later on in the day. Avril didn't have any custom designs worth turning into fireworks and so she didn't say much to either of them. I probably won't be showing these in Mabure; Avril saw the first show, and she only needs one last item to complete the set from Redd's cookies.

And here's a shot of my town's tree because why not. Just in case you needed proof Mabure's been around for a while (though I do wish I didn't catch Avril in half-blink). 

And here's proof that Mabure is a beautiful town; this massive violet patch has been here for quite a while. I have no idea how it turned into this, and I'm not certain if I'll leave it like this or relocate all the flowers elsewhere. 

This spot is where a past villager, Sheldon, used to live. While I didn't dislike him, I also felt he didn't add anything to the town and so when he asked to move I let him leave. His spot has remained open for the eventual tenth villager, but until then I'm using it to breed orange roses. I do need to empty out the yellow roses, though. 

Checking the campsite proved absolutely fruitless. I almost never get campers these days, which is bad since I have a slot open for one. Of course, during the brief time I did have ten villagers Zucker decided to camp here, and I actually would have invited him in if I had room. What gives?

Is the rococo lamp really that special? I can't help but wonder if these sorts of announcements should have been saved for really special items. Ah well, at least I know what one of the four items there is.

I was lucky enough to get a bamboo shoot from Rocco a while back (albeit not as Avril), and the resulting plant is pretty healthy. This area of Mabure is mostly going to remain wild, although it's also the spot I put the characters I make and delete for plot resetting purposes.

Dig spots have been getting hard to find in Mabure lately. Maybe it's just my eyes getting bad, although I have a feeling that they haven't been showing up as much due to the lack of bare ground. This particular spot proved to be a fossil.

And here's the other bamboo shoot I planted to mark this area as a mostly wild area. This one was an offspring of the initial shoot.

 While walking around Wendy wanted to talk to Avril, but in attempting to position her better for the picture she lost interest. I can only hope that she wasn't thinking of moving. I talked to her anyway, though I can't remember what it was we spoke about.

The premium item today is the freshwater goby. It's an uncommon fish that's not worth a lot, so I don't think I'll be taking advantage of this.

The results of the Bug-Off. Just to see what happened, I got all three of my characters to participate in the Bug-Off and place first, second, and third. As it turns out, if you do this only the character you're playing as shows up for the awards ceremony and your villagers berate the characters you weren't for not showing up even though they got a trophy.

The fossil Avril dug up was an ichthyo torso, which incidentally was the last fossil she needed to complete the museum. Emphasis on "was," as all the fossils were submitted well before this.

Finally, after all of that, I got around to doing the daily shopping. The rococo lamp is sitting in the background here, but the main event was the new K.K. song T.I.Y. had. It was the only thing Avril wanted to buy that day. Sadly the fireworks items prevented fortune cookies from showing up today.

Avril visited the gardening shop shortly afterwards, although she didn't buy anything. She already has the silver watering can and golden axe, and I don't know just where I want to place bushes just yet.

The Able Sisters didn't have anything worth buying today, but Sable had this to say. Needless to say, Avril's been friends with Sable for a long time now, although that sewing machine has been unused for quite a while by all of my characters.

This was one of the items available from Labelle's accessory shop today. Avril didn't buy it, but I thought it was amusing and so I snapped a picture of it.

Another dig spot, and this one's actually fairly visible. Maybe I should have looked a little harder, but in my defense I was feeling rather drowsy and not in the mood to hunt them all down. This was a fern fossil that went to live with Graham later on in the day.

In case you were wondering what that water bird Flo gave Avril looked like, here you go. Also present was one last shirt (which reminded me that I needed to grab more paper since I ran out earlier). Also worth pointing out is Palette's town flag, which I took as a souvenir when I visited Palette's dream a while back. If Chugga ever updates the dream again and I get the chance to use the Dream Suite again (I only rarely get the chance to use my 3DS's internet as usually I don't have access to 3DS-friendly WiFi) I'll post about the second visit. 

 While Avril wasn't particularly unlucky today, I consulted the lovely phone nevertheless. She didn't have any huge shades and wasn't in the mood to go grab some, so I ignored it.

One more dig spot revealed a pitfall seed. I really don't like using pitfalls; they have no use other than to grief your villagers or your friends. I'd rather not mess with my friends, and I like my villagers too much to prank them (although if they get on my nerves all bets are off).

 After finally writing that last letter and attaching the shirt to it, I sent it off to Savannah. While I didn't know it at the time, it worked and Savannah now wears a corseted shirt instead of the twinkle shirt she was wearing.

With no other obligations, I went around and spoke with all of my animals, starting with Rocco the resident cranky villager. Just out of irony I made him sound as sweet as possible. Coincidentally, the catchphrase I gave him was the same as Merengue's default (as I found out a bit later when making Camazotz's update).

The ichthyo torso I dug up earlier caught Flo's attention. She wanted to buy it, but since I had no need for it and was feeling nice today I just let her have it for free. 

Her reaction afterwards was to skip around whistling. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

Coach was nearby, so I talked to him next. He's the resident jock of Mabure with a greeting and catchphrase heavily inspired by the Massif Bros. of Mario and Luigi: Dream Team.

He just so happened to ask Avril about her birthday wish. Now, remember in my last post when I said I don't have any "dreamies?" I kind of lied about that; I really do want Marina to come live in Mabure someday. She was my favorite villager back in the days I played Wild World, and I'd love to meet her once again now that I have New Leaf. 

Bluebear was the first camper I got that I actually was comfortable with having in Mabure, and I certainly don't regret inviting her in (though it was mostly because I needed to have someone new move in for Sheldon to leave). I didn't take a picture of it, but she talked about Danielle's visit to Mabure yesterday.

Before signing off to let one of the other two characters take over, Avril took the time to visit a few animals who happened to be home, starting with Eloise. I meant to take a picture of the conversation, but sadly couldn't get one of her with her eyes open. 

I do like Eloise quite a bit (she is the only animal Avril has a picture of if nothing else), but out of all the animals in Mabure she's the one most likely to start getting on my nerves. 

Finally, she visited Savannah, who spoke of a person called "Kez" from "Qwert" who was something of a stump maker. Savannah is one of those animals who deserves to be more popular than she is; at any rate, she's easily one of my favorites. 

If you're wondering who "Kez" is, that's a person from a non-AC forum I get along with rather well (though I wouldn't really call her a friend). This visit took place a LONG time ago (as in, close to when I first started Mabure), but apparently those who spoke to her haven't forgotten her. 

Phew, that was a lot to write. Future posts won't be this long, honest. I just had to show everything off. The Camazotz update will be later today, and I will be covering the fireworks there. 

With that, I'll leave you with this:

Blathers's "proud" face is really frickin' hilarious. Anyway, until the next one, folks.