Fun Times in Camazotz

If your definition of "fun" consists of getting loads upon loads of dud prize tickets, anyway. But more on that later.

To start with, I did play a little more in Camazotz last night. Nothing overly major happened, though - it was mostly watering flowers and catching some bugs for the museum (getting a giant stag took almost all night). Which leads into today's update....

As I mentioned in the first Camazotz update, Danielle finished paying off the down payment last night. Today her house was finished, and looks rather nice if I do say so myself. I don't have a distinct plan for it just yet; we'll see where it goes from there.

And here's what it looks like on the inside (after Isabelle came in with the gift of paw-print wallpaper). A bit cramped, don't you think? That's why Danielle took pains to upgrade it again today.

In case you're wondering, the insect is a mosquito. I don't really know why I decided to keep it, but it's really not hurting anything.

Afterwards, Danielle took a run around Camazotz watering flowers, digging up stuff, and other things that would soon be routine. In the meantime, she would find that the tree planted certainly grew fast. Such rapid growth won't be common in the future, however.

As with Mabure Isabelle and Redd were in the plaza long before the fireworks show was ready to start. To Danielle's annoyance this meant she couldn't use the town hall and therefore change the town tune. Why isn't the mayor allowed to work on holidays, anyway? I'm the mayor! I should be able to work if I dang well want to! Moving on.

Knowing that someone would be staking out a plot today I strongly considered plot resetting for a good spot, but decided against it. Besides the fact that I'm not quite used to Camazotz enough to know exactly where everything is going to go, it'd be more natural to let the initial four move-ins choose their own positions. It's not like I have anything valuable growing around at this point, anyway.

I'm glad I didn't, as it turns out Camazotz's next resident is to be Shari. I actually know who that is - she's one of the villagers in Palette, and quite possibly my favorite villager from that town at that. So I'm very happy to see she'll be living in Camazotz.

Danielle also got to visit a few of the other villager's houses. Clay's got something of a desert theme for his home. My initial thought was "Wild West," but looking at it now it's more a generic desert theme. If nothing else there's no cacti (not all deserts have cacti, believe it or not - in fact, I believe only American deserts do).

Freckles apparently lives in a bathroom. I know ducks like water, but I'd imagine they'd choose something...less likely to be decidedly unsanitary. But if Freckles is fine with it then whatever.

After doing the daily shopping and selling some items she had gathered last night, Danielle got enough money to pay off the second loan. Shortly afterwards she made arrangements for the next expansion of her house.

Soon after that, she got the animals out of tutorial mode and a few animals wanted to talk to her on their own accord. Merengue, for example, wanted Danielle to come up with a greeting. The greeting chosen was "sugarcane," mostly because I couldn't come up with anything better. T-Bone also came up with the name "Youngin" for her, but Danielle decided she preferred being called "Danielle."

Sometime later Danielle made another trip to Mabure to pick up some things Avril wanted to give her. Unlike last time, I remembered to take a picture this time:

The items were bamboo flooring and wallpaper, a yellow ribbon, a pair of mary janes, the songs Forest Life and K.K. Dirge, and most notably a garbage can. Since I don't want to make Camazotz a beautiful town like Mabure and also don't want to pay Re-tail a fee every time Danielle fishes up garbage she needed a trash can, and after it took a Streetpass hit for Avril to finally obtain one I wasn't in the mood to wait for the Nooklings to obtain one.

Besides this, she bought the rococo lamp I mentioned last post and got her hair styled one more time since I thought her current hair color was a little too bright.

Before she departed back to Camazotz, Danielle had her picture taken with Avril. This is also a good time to show off her new hair color; while it's not quite what I was aiming for, I really like how it turned out and am happy with it for now.

Before I decided to take a break, Freckles decided she wanted a new greeting too. Again I ran out of ideas and went with the pictured phrase. It's going to be a bit odd if Eugune moves in the future (which I wouldn't mind; I'll happily have him in Mabure if I can't get Marina).

When I turned the game on again, it was time for the Fireworks Show.

Before doing anything related to the fireworks festival I thought about how the animals would eventually start wearing the Anytown designs. While Merengue and Shari would probably look good in the "shirt" design, I decided I'd rather not have the Anytown designs catch on and replaced them with umbrellas that the animals wouldn't try to use. Unlike when I did this in Mabure, I had Danielle save the Anytown designs among her patterns. If I need those slots later on they'll be given to Mabel for storage.

Once that was done with, it was time to take a look at the fireworks, and they were certainly very pretty. 

And one more shot with Isabelle and Redd because why not. If only Danielle could dance....

She got no time to rest before mosquitoes came in and tried ruining the fun. I really, really, really hate mosquitoes, both in Animal Crossing and in real life. In Animal Crossing you can't do a dang thing at night without them baying for your blood. They don't even try and bite your villagers; apparently only human blood will do for them. They interrupt your fishing, they get in the way when you try and talk to your villagers, and they aren't worth much to boot. And I'll have to put up with them until November. Joy of joys. 

Mosquitoes aside, there was still some fun to be had. Isabelle presented Danielle with some bulb boppers (that Danielle didn't wear since she liked her ribbon better) and a fountain firework. 

After setting that one off, Danielle pulled out and set off another one, having bought one during the earlier visit to Mabure. Come to think of it I probably should have tried to set both of them off at the same time for the sake of taking a better picture. 

That trash can she got from Mabure got put to use for chucking the used fireworks, then she finally spoke to Redd.

Today he was selling Redd's cookies with the potential for some wonderful prizes. Danielle decided to try them out and bought one. It would be the first of many. 

That first cookie got her a pow prize ticket. When she turned it in....

She got a device called a "love tester." Since that one got her something, she decided to try again....

...only to find that not all cookies were winners. It wouldn't be Redd without the chance of getting something worthless, now wouldn't it? Just look at his usual shtick (I get into that when it comes up...). 

She got a roman candle out of the deal, however, so it wasn't all bad. 

So began a long night of gorging on Redd's cookies and trying to get all the prizes she could. She managed to succeed...but it took a long while and many, many, many dud and repeats. She finally obtained one of every prize two hours later, which felt like two hours too long. 

I meant to take a picture of every prize ticket and their corresponding item, but I got too carried away with the B-button and wound up skipping a few of the prompts before I could take a picture, and by the end of the whole deal my 3DS XL was running low on battery and I just wanted to get it over with. So here's the most notable item: the lovely phone, which I covered in today's Mabure update. 

 Why the lovely phone is given out here when it doesn't fit with the other seven prizes thematically is beyond me, but whatever. It could have been more annoying to obtain, but this way is fine with me.

Despite the fact that all those cookies gave her a bad stomachache, Danielle still had it in her to take one final look at the fireworks and talk to everyone outside about them.

T-Bone felt the need to tell Danielle she should probably take a break, which considering what she had just been doing was sound advice, but she wanted his comment about the fireworks. 

Merengue and Freckles both had roughly the same opinion about the fireworks show, but phrased it differently. Clay and Goose, meanwhile, decided to stay indoors (I wouldn't be surprised if Clay was sleeping at this point, actually).

She watched the fireworks show for a little longer before turning in. Despite the frustration (and stomachache) getting all those prizes caused, it was still a worthy first event and a nice welcome to life as Camazotz's mayor.

Before ending things off, here's one final look at Danielle's house after some rearranging:

Until the next one, folks.

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.