Animal Crossing: An Epic Story of Heartbreak and Victory

Hey, everyone. We're finally getting some sunshine over by me, and we even hit the 70s (low 20s Celsius). It was nice spending a warm, rainy day scrubbing down my front porch, and enjoying two more sunny days out on it.

How's your week been?

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The nice weather and the ability to hang out - solo - outside really helped perk me up and crank up my productivity a touch. However, that creativity hasn't manifested as any new fictional words-on-page. Doesn't mean I haven't FINALLY started thinking of my stories again.

Namely, the final confrontation in One and the Same. I SERIOUSLY need to weed through that epic of a conclusion. I feel a LOT comes to head, and so I do want them to talk for a while, instead of having most of it "off screen." Especially since the whole two-part story is about Adrien's and Marinette's feelings, confusion, and coming to terms with the new dynamic in their superhero partnership. It feels like a disservice to just hand-wave the most crucial of conversations between these two between the pages or otherwise abridge their much-needed talk. So, I've been thinking a bit more on how to properly balance that.

I also still have akumas to figure out, along with how to defeat the one I DID figure out before I even had Peeping Tomcat fully written. Then there's how I'm going to work through the fluffy Marichat/Adrienette bits with enough drive forward that people want to keep reading. Worse yet, I'm still clueless about which POV I'm telling the finale of my story in. Don't forget about those last two writing prompts for Fluff Week way back in February as well! Let alone any of the other plot bunnies I had hopping away before this whole pandemic hit.

Also, randomly, I started thinking about X-Future, and Trish specifically. I'm itching to write these girls again. I should have utilized this month+ lockdown to transfer the game to the new forums Hubby set up, but there were HUNDREDS - maybe even over a thousand - of posts to try to archive and transfer. As someone who doesn't know coding or anything like that which could help easily shift those posts from one forum to the next, the task was too daunting. So instead I retreat to Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Surprise, surprise.

Anyway, with regards to writing, I have a LOT on my plate. And I'm barely nibbling any of it....


Nope. I apparently prefer melodramas circling around video games.


Buckle in, because this is going to be long....

First, let me set the scene for you folks, because, frankly, this is the closest to creative writing I've done in nearly 2 months.

In the Animal Crossing series - at least, in this game; I've never played the other ones in the franchise - there are hundreds of anthropomorphic villagers you can have live in your town. The trick, though, is that there are only enough spots for 10 per town/island, and each gaming system can only have one island. Which means, as long as Hubby and I keep our pact of not duplicating villagers, we can, at most, have 20 of these characters to interact with daily. We're also trying to not have "clones" - duplicates - of villagers our friends have. We may not visit our friends' islands frequently, but that way we still have some variety when we do interact with our friends' villagers.

To add to everything, there are 8 different personality types; 4 for female characters, and 4 for male characters: Normal, Sisterly, Peppy, Snooty, Cranky, Jock, Lazy, and Smug. From the research Hubby has been doing, it seems that each of the personality types have their own catalog of crafting projects they can teach you, so if you want to learn all of them you'll need at least one villager of each personality. I mean, alternatively, you can wait for sky gifts and message bottles, but it's certainly faster to have one of each personality on the island. Anyway, this narrows down our possibilities further as we try to whittle a list of villagers with the same personality type to just one or two potential favorites.

Now that we have those favorites figured out, there are five different ways to get those villagers.

1. Set up housing plots and wait for random villagers to move in; hoping they're ones you want
2. Wait for random villagers to visit your campsite. If you like them, you can ask them to move in.
3. Hit up the Nook Miles Mystery Tour islands, with a vacant housing plot set up, and invite the random villager you meet on the islands to move in.
4. Visit a friend's island as one of their villagers is packing up to leave, and ask them to move to your island instead.
5. Use an amiibo or amiibo card to invite a specific villager to your campsite. After repeat invites to your campsite, you can ask them to move in.

That #4 option has become so popular that there is a whole online marketing network of players who will purposefully send their high-value (aka high demand/popular) villagers packing in order to auction off the right for another player to visit and and invite said villager to their island.

Anyway, the problem with #1 is that you do just get a random villager, and if you don't like them you're stuck until you can evict them. Hubby has been stuck with his villager Vic for quite some time despite hating him. To be fair, Vic was found on an island tour, and Hubby did invite him because Viking Bull named Vic... only to have nothing but issues between Vic and the other villagers. Still, because Hubby wasn't at full-capacity when he invited Vic, he had to scramble to line up other villagers in order to boot Vic in favor for one he preferred. It's not a very efficient way of filling your town with villagers you prefer, but if you're just winging it - as I was originally - it's a relaxed way to do things.

Problem with #2 is that I have NEVER received a random camper. I had the initial camper generate on-schedule to introduce the concept of campers moving onto the island, and none since. Hubby had... one random camper... I think? So if you're just waiting around for campers, it will take a WHILE for you to fill your town. Again, if you're trying to evict a villager you don't like by hitting capacity, it's not the best option, but it's fine for a slow-build.

Problem with #3 is that it takes 2000 Nook Miles each time you want to hit up a Mystery Tour, so if you don't find someone you want to invite you have to go back out. Not a big issue for someone like me who hoards the Nook Miles anyway, but for someone like Hubby who blows through them the second he gets them, it can be quite tedious. Also, no one will show up on a Mystery island unless you have an available plot at home, and if you don't find someone via touring before the end of the day, there's a chance that plot will be filled by a random character via option #1. This is the main reason those villager market places have sprung up.

Speaking of, the problem with option #4 is that you have to know - or otherwise have access to - another person who has the villager you want, and said villager is leaving the island. You also only have the one day they're packing to get to the other person's island and ask them to move in. So if both of you can't find a time to play together, or you can't find anyone who is giving up the villager you want, or if you don't want to attempt that villager market, you're stuck with just lucking into this option.

Sooooo, the best option might be #5. However, if you don't already have the amiibo cards for the villagers you want, you're back to leaning on luck. The individual cards are currently set at insane prices - easily $100 if not more - because everyone knows how valuable these cards are right now. The other option is blind packs. Each pack has 5 villager cards and 1 NPC card. There are 4 series of these cards, and the closest to knowing which characters you could get is seeing the roster of options in each series.

This didn't stop Hubby, and he's been buying bundles - one pack from each series - with some of the bonus he's been making. Hooray for overtime at a grocery store while also making additional hazard pay, I guess.....

Okay, so enough set-up. Now for the chaos I've been working with for the past two weeks.

To start, I don't know if Biff was embarrassed by me gushing about him a few weeks back (yes, I know that he's not real and can't actually have feelings one way or another, let alone be affected by my blog. Just let me pack-bond with game characters, okay?). Or maybe, in-game, I somehow showed him too much attention? He never had a reaction indicating I was irritating him - I know you can indeed over-interact with characters and annoy them that you're ALWAYS around - and, in truth, I only interacted with him a few times a day. Basically every time I'm on a new screen - or I returned to my island - and I saw him, I would say hi real quick and then get back to it.

I thought you had to interact with your characters a lot like that to keep them happy so they'd enjoy staying in your town. I also thought there were 3 characters that stayed with the island unless you specifically evicted them: your 2 starters and that first camper.

Seems I thought wrong, because on April 19th I had this interaction with Biff.

In case you can't actually read the image, the basics are that Biff felt like he was in a funk and needed a change. He wanted to move off the island to start a gym elsewhere - that bit of dialogue I didn't get a screen grab of - and then he finished off by commenting how excited he was getting about the prospect of moving to a new island.

I then had the options of telling him "No, don't go!" or "I wish you luck."

Now, you probably saw that post about a month ago. Biff is my island bestie. He's my boy! I couldn't do this island life without him! So I told him don't go, and INSTANTLY felt guilty about it because look how happy he was as he thought about moving!

On that Outside Xtra AC:NH stream I watch, the player Luke Westaway had a similar situation: his favorite character Bluebear wanted to move to pursue her dream of becoming a pop star. On the stream, Luke cried out that she wasn't allowed to leave, and had his character ask her to stay. Much like Biff, Bluebear gladly agreed and went on with her day, but Luke instantly felt guilty about "crushing her dreams."

And then over a week later I did the same to Biff.... I just felt so betrayed that HE would not only want to leave, but he was also the FIRST of my villagers that wanted to go! I still felt bad about asking him to stay though.

Only to fetch the mail a few hours later, after picking up Hubby from work, so we could open the amiibo card bundle together, and then finding this card....

I know it's a game, and they are AI with no actual dreams or emotions, but I still felt doubly guilty about telling Biff no, now knowing I had a way of bringing him back anyway. Worse still, those amiibo cards were already sitting in the mailbox when Biff had talked to me, I just hadn't brought the mail in yet.

Whoops. Sorry, Biff.

Meanwhile, Hubby had no problem sending his Lazy Horse Elmer packing. Elmer wasn't a terrible character, but Hubby also had Stitches the Stuffed Bear as a Lazy villager, and he didn't need both.

And Stitches is our precious son who is never allowed to leave our sight!

Stitches talking about Hubby's in-game title, and what Stitches would like his own title to be.

WHY CAN'T I HAVE MY CHARACTER HUG OTHERS!?!?!?! I JUST NEED TO GLOMP THIS PRECIOUS CINNAMON ROLL!

So.... yeah... Elmer ended up getting the boot. And I almost ended up with him because it was a touch hard to see him go after interacting with him nearly daily. Our first villager actually leaving.

I then had the option to tell him to move to my island, but, as much as it pained me,
I sent him on his way as well. I already had Ozzie as my Lazy character.

While Luke and I were agonizing over possessively keeping our villagers, Hubby was fine shooing his out the door....

Anyway, the week or so after Bluebear talked with Luke - according to Luke's tweets updating his viewers on Bluebear - she went into a bit of a depressive spiral: catching fleas frequently and playing more melancholy music when the Peppy characters tend to play up-beat Pop-y music. Meanwhile, Biff seemed more-or-less fine at first, so I thought nothing of it. Just funny coincidence that Luke's character randomed into game mechanics that would appear depressive.

Then I started to notice a dip in seeing Biff wandering the isle; staying inside his house more frequently. He also didn't have as perky dialogue, focusing instead on how much harder he had to push his exercising. I'm guessing telling a villager they can't move drops their player-affection level to zero? Because the "both characters seemed to have been depressed" AI programming was perfect to further guilt trip both me and Luke.

Figuring I just needed to interact with Biff a bunch, and gift him things daily, to get him back to where he was, I returned to my pursuit for more villagers in my attempt to reach a 3-star rating and get K.K. Slider to visit my island; the game's plot goal.

Again, at this point I still only had my initial 6 villagers:

• The 2 that moved onto the deserted island with me at the start of the game: Biff the Jock Hippo and Fuchsia the Sisterly Deer
• The 3 that I invited to the island via Mystery Tours when Tom Nook first wanted to expand the island by 3 housing plots: Aurora the Normal Penguin (aka Penguin ChibiSunnie), Maddie the Peppy Dog, and Ozzie the Lazy Koala
• The initial camper that auto-moves in: Chops the Smug Pig that I desperately want to boot off my island.

The first amiibo card I used to recruit a camper was Mitzi the Normal Cat, simply because I wanted a cat on my island, and she was one of the few whose design actually looked cute to me. I mean, I love cats and all, but the design in this game makes them look kind of alien. Just my opinion. Hubby and a couple of my friends would gladly scoop up any and all cat characters.

As Hubby debated buying more bundles - spoiler alert: he bought them - I began doing research on the personality types and different villagers available for the game. I started ranking them based on appearance and catch phrases. I also tried figuring out who were my top pick in each of the personality types, but avoiding having duplicate animal types, since there's also 35 species options! The list still isn't complete - I kind of neglected it lately - but I do have preferred options in each animal and personality types starred.

I then set up a new housing plot in an attempt to get a random camper. Nothing. So I decided to chew through a bunch of my Nook Miles. I bought like a dozen tickets and started hitting up islands trying to find someone I wanted to recruit. In truth, I was hoping for Fang the Cranky Gray Wolf. I mean, I was nervous about having a cranky character. Doesn't sound like a fun time. However, when I first got the game and casually scrolled through the villager options I saw him in his blue and white snowflake sweater, and he just looks so adorable! I instantly wanted him on my island, and if I'm going to have a cranky villager on my island anyway, might as well be him, right?

Anyway, I began hitting up islands. I found a few villagers I'd be okay with, but they were either Peppy - which would have been a duplicate personality since Maddie is already Peppy - or they were Normal, and I didn't need a third Normal when I already had Aurora and Mitzi. I then found Kyle the "Wolf"; he has the coloring and patterns of a hyena, so I'm convinced that's what he actually is despite being lumped in with wolves. I was tempted.

He would have been a second Smug personality, but I was planning on eventually booting Chops anyway. HOWEVER, he'd also be a duplicate wolf, and I was determined to either get Fang or, alternatively, the Snooty wolf Whitney. Whichever one I found first. It was hard to say goodbye to Kyle, because he looked awesome in his rocker outfit, and was pleasant enough to talk to, but I was also sitting on about 7 more Nook Miles Tickets, so I rolled the dice and kept searching for one of my Top Tier villagers.

I also found another wolf: old man Dobie, but my heart was set for Fang to be my Cranky Wolf, I didn't need another one. Side note though, Dobie certainly didn't seem cranky, so I'm not sure where that personality kicks in. Dobie seemed like a lovely Grandfather figure.

I had randomed into Raddle the doctor-gear Lazy Frog twice; once when I was playing and once more when Hubby took over so I could participate in my telecommuting Zumba class. Honestly, the islands could have waited, but Hubby was bored with his island at the time, and enjoyed the search for one of my favorites. So I let him at it. Anyway, we said I'd recruit Raddle if we met him once more, but I was trying to avoid doing so because that would give me a duplicate Lazy, and I already had a duplicate in mind. However, I could easily boot Raddle if/when I found that other option.

Thankfully, I didn't meet up with Raddle that third time, but unfortunately I also didn't meet up with anyone on my list. With something like 3 tickets remaining around 11pm I met Tiffany the Snooty White Rabbit who looks like she's supposed to be dressed up like a Playboy Bunny....

Meh, I needed a Snooty character anyway, even if she is a placeholder until I could find any of my Top 5 Snooty characters. It was also late, and I didn't want to random into a character like Chops that I wasn't a fan of but would be stuck with for a little while. Granted, it isn't guaranteed that the plot I had set up would be filled by the next morning, but it happened multiple times to Hubby, so I didn't want to take the chance. I pulled the trigger and invited Tiffany.

The next day we got the last set of amiibo cards Hubby purchased. We each opened up packs, and literally the last one Hubby flipped to - and I had already gone through all of mine, so this was the last card we saw - he refused to let me see. He simply laughed, scooped up my Switch, and invited the character to my vacant campsite.

I was dumbfounded, but he reminded me that I still had to request for them to move in, so it was all in good fun. Okay. Fine. Let's see who he....

OH MY GOODNESS IT WAS FANG! WE ACTUALLY LUCKED INTO FANG! IT'S THE VILLAGER I WANTED FROM THE MOMENT I SAW THE FULL LINE-UP OF OPTIONS AND WE HAVE HIM!

EEEEE, excited!

I instantly started chatting him up, still nervous about his Cranky personality status. I mean, I did meet Dobie the night before, and Hubby had told me the kangaroo Walt is supposed to give off Mr. Miyagi vibes - we got his card too and he moved onto Hubby's island this morning - and ChibiSunnie said the cat Tom - another card we have - has very Carl from Pixar's Up vibes in his crankiness.

Vic is also Cranky, though, and he has been a nightmare on Hubby's island so.... cross fingers.

Aww, check out that charming smile, and he seems friendly enough. The catchphrase of "Cha-chomp" probably has to go, but.... EEEEEE he's just as much of a cuddly fluffball as I would have wanted! I love him!

I excitedly made him the project he asked for, and asked him to move onto the island. It was only Day 1 of Amiibo Camping, so he declined. I had to wait for Day 2. I went about the rest of my day, greeting Tiffany as she began cleaning and unpacking. Then on the 29th I invited Fang back.

How is this cuddly boy "Cranky"!? Well, according to the Animal Crossing Wiki, "The name is a direct reference to the meaning of cranky; someone who is irritated or annoyed easily.... The cranky characters can seem quite bitter and out-of-touch with social trends, making them generally unpopular with the peppy villagers." So, I guess I have to watch out for fights between Fang and Maddie like there were between Vic and Hubby's Peppy villagers Penelope and Merry. I hope it works out, because Fang is awesome, and I want to keep a Peppy character on my island.

Still, no invitation acceptance. I needed that third day to bring him aboard. I checked out Tiffany's house now that it was unpacked, and the place is set up like a bar!

Neat.

She is certainly a unique character among my Jock, Sisterly - who is basically Female Jock - Peppy, Lazy, and shunned Smug characters. Although, I did see Tiffany and Chops chatting the other day. I may have ruined Tiffany's big break when I snidely told Chops he should play a background character in the play he was starring Tiffany in, and he decided that the play should instead be told from the POV of the background characters.... which meant Tiffany was no longer starring.

My bad, girl!

Anyway, back when Hubby and I still hosted weekly Anime Night, Goob got us into watching Beastars on Netflix. Alongside a murder mystery, the plot revolves around Grey Wolf Legoshi and his growing, and confusing, feelings towards the White Dwarf Rabbit Haru. Now that I was going to have both a Grey Wolf and White Rabbit on my island, Hubby started teasingly calling them Legoshi and Haru instead of Fang and Tiffany.

April 30th: the third day to invite Fang to my island and recruit him as a resident. I was all geared up to do so after my morning routine of harvesting my stones and finding/assessing fossils. Except, I ran into Biff again and....

Once again, he said he wanted to leave the island: "I've just been in a slump lately.... Maybe working out in a new place would change my mood....."

BIFF, NOOOOOOOOOOO.

Tanuki Facebook sticker
by Yanare Ku

After the guilt I felt last time, and the fact that this was the second time in 11 days that he's thought about leaving, and add in the extra punch of "I've been in a slump lately".... like... I know, dude... I know. How could I tell him to stay again? Especially knowing I had the card to replace him with Camper Biff. He'd be the same programming, I can start from scratch, and added bonus: since he wouldn't be one of my starter villagers anymore he'd get to have his personalized house.

See, the starter Jock and Sisterly villagers have a house designed specifically for those personalities. Same with the three plots you set up before upgrading to have a campsite. The villagers live in houses that just designate their personality type, not their individual personality "flavor", as Chibi puts it.

Getting a Happy Biff back, and getting to see what his personalized house looks like? Add in I won't feel guilt about denying a bunch of 1s and 0s happiness? Sure. It broke my heart, but I sent Biff on his way.

Insult to injury, that dumbbell tank I gave Biff, along with the golden
exercise ball that was one of my first gifts to him, were in the recycling bin when he left.
FINE! Leave them behind! I'll just give them to New Biff instead!

Hubby helped ease the pain by joking that Biff isn't the brightest bulb in the box, and we could headcanon that the amiibo card Biff is My Starter Biff, back from a quick journey abroad and unknowing that he "moved" to the same island 2x. He needed a change of scenery and would return.

It did help. I was still nervous, however, that the game somehow would note that I already had Biff, and that he moved away, and so I couldn't invite him back. Hubby then eased THAT fear by offering up his equally endearing jock Tank the Rhino. He'd boot Tank, I'd scoop him up, and then Hubby would use the card to get Biff.

All of that settled, I continued with my day.... working on more masks for me and Hubby because I was too bummed over Biff to keep playing much Animal Crossing.

Also, I ended up not inviting Fang back for his third day in a row, afraid that his agreeing to move in would kick Biff off my island a day sooner.

May 1st, and Biff was packing up. After Isabelle rubbed salt in the wound by announcing Biff's departure, I wore black in mourning of his leaving, and went to say goodbye.

*Sniffle* He's... wearing... the MVP shirt... I... gave... him....
YOU'RE STILL MY MVP, BIFF!

He left me with a few parting words and sage advice.... well.... as sage as Biff gets, at least....

I have to say goodbye to this precious boy!? Seriously? But... but... but....

While I was tempted to try to invite Biff to my campsite to see what would happen, I also didn't want to chance glitching the game, so I waited to try to recruit Biff back, and instead returned to inviting Fang. "At least he can move in tomorrow to tide me over until Biff's return," I thought.

YES! STAAAAAAAAAAAAY.

Except, I don't know if it's not a guaranteed 3 days of chatting before they'll move in, or if I had to start over since I missed/skipped a day, but I didn't even get the dialogue option to invite him! Not even after the above-pictured dialogue where he is thinking of moving in! I talked over and over and over and OVER with Fang, but I just had the same 3 bits of dialogue repeated in a circle.

I thought that maybe it was because I didn't have an available plot, and I didn't have enough residents to have him replace them. So I set out to find a spot to put Fang's house. Thinking back to Hubby's joking about Fang and Tiffany being shipped together like Legoshi and Haru, I went ahead and placed Fang's plot next to Tiffany's on the beach. I then went back to Fang and tried again.

Stillllll nothing.

Haruhi Suzumiya
from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
created by Nagaru Tanigawa 

I popped into The Able Sisters - the island clothes store - and saw a Stage Hand Mask for sale. How appropriate. Now I could wear a mask in mourning when I gave Biff his final send-off that night.

Farewell, friend. I will see you soon.

The next morning, May 2nd, I didn't bother with Fang. He had his chance! I needed to make sure I didn't go a day on my island without Biff and Fuchsia there with me! So I used the amiibo card and got Biff's butt back to Ghetta Way.

Amiibo Biff seems much happier! YAY! He truly did need to just step away from the island for a bit to refresh. He's like a brand new hippo.

We chatted. I made him a cherry blossom tree standee. I got on with my day knowing I could still chat with my buddy, even if it was only 3 bits of dialogue cycled through. Still, I would have hugged him if my character could emote like that. I was so happy the card worked and I didn't lose him for good.

NOW NO MORE WANTING TO LEAVE! GOT IT, BIFF!?

Contented, my new concern was that Biff would be the one moving into the plot next to Tiffany, instead of back to his original one. I brushed it off with "Meh, I'm going to need to re-arrange my whole neighborhood anyway once I have a few million bells. I'll fix it then." I then went on my merry way.... until I walked past the plot next to Tiffany's house....

There was a Sold sign on the plot. Sold to Elmer. Well then.... Whatever. I'm getting Biff back, and then I'll get Fang on the island, and then I'll deal with Elmer. Same as before; I'll just put Fang and Tiffany next to each other when I rearrange my neighborhood.

I then took the May Day trip to the maze, and closed out the day with a K.K. Slider concert.

Sunday, May 3rd, I brought Biff back a second time, and then went to check in on my new villager... only to be quite stunned with what I found.

My shirt was custom made by Luke Westaway for his stream,
and shared through Twitter

Um.... That purple apron is NOT Elmer's default outfit. That is specifically the one piece of clothing Hubby gave Elmer, and what Elmer was wearing when he packed up on April 20th. That's.... that's Hubby's Elmer instead of just a randomly generated one! If I needed more proof, I had this bit of dialogue.

He remembered my character, and that I used to visit him on Hubby's island. I guess this is what I get for feeling bad about not inviting him to my island. He must have sensed it and moved there after all... I mean, he CLAIMS he didn't realize this was my island, and that I was a pleasant surprise because it helps him feel more at home already, but I don't know if I believe him.

But now I feel bad about wanting to kick Elmer out simply because he's a second Lazy character. Okay, Elmer, you can stick around for a little bit, but I have the amiibo card for the coveted Erik the Lazy Deer, and he looks as sweet and precious as Stitches... So.... Elmer... you might have to mosey on along sooner than later, buddy.

Now, with all of this craziness of trying to get Biff back, figuring out the Fang situation, becoming re-united with Elmer, and just general island renovations now that I could terraform, I missed Hubby replacing his Smug Hamster Graham, a personal favorite of mine simply because he's such a glorious computer/anime nerd. I was able to say goodbye to Elmer when he was leaving An Island, and I was able to do the same to Hubby's other evicted tenants: Norma the Normal Cow and Penelope the Peppy Mouse. I'm a bit bummed I missed out on Graham, but knowing my luck, and Elmer now being on my island, if I have an open plot available over night Graham may show up....

Anyway, I was nervous about Biff's original plot filling up while I was convincing him to move back, but thankfully it stayed vacant. So, yesterday, I was able to convince him to move in again!

Welcome back, you glorious lunk-head!

 He even securely bought his old plot back! He's once more nestled between Fuchsia and Mitzi.

Biff's coming home, Aurora!

This morning I went to check out his personalized home, and while the exterior is the same as it originally was, the interior is a lot more urban looking than I expected when he was in a classic wooden home before.

Welcome back, buddy!

I know I haven't taken the time to talk about it yet, but I've been shipping the Gentle Giant Biff with Meek Artist Aurora. Now that I see he has the Paintball Flooring and Graffiti Walls, I think he's a bit of an artist himself. Shipping them harder now.

The Biff Saga now concluded - although, I can't wait to see what his personalized furniture is; turns out Elmer's personalized furniture includes a hay-bail bed - I returned to trying to woo Fang. Which, was easier than I thought. I was prepared for today to be Day 1 of 3; having to start over from when I skipped a day and then again when I switched over to Biff. Instead, Fang didn't even ask for a crafted souvenir today. He simply commented about how much he loves the island and was glad I asked for him to come back. I then asked him if he wanted to move in. If he bumps out Chops or poor just-unpacked Elmer, oh well.

He couldn't bump anyone yet. Instead he said he couldn't move because Tom Nook said there was no space. Bull! I raced to Resident Services, grabbed a plot marker from Tom, cleared the area in front of Fuchsia's house and kind of kitty-corner to Tiffany's, set up Fang's plot, and tried again.

Fun side note, seems there was a silver lining to Elmer swiping the plot next to Tiffany. I had her on the beach, which meant Fang would have had a beach house as well... and then I got this dialogue today when Fang commented about there not being space for him on the island:

Ha... ha ha... ha... yup! No beach-livin' for you! No sir.... I wasn't planning on putting you on the beach! Nope!

....

So, there you have it. I hit the Animal Crossing fandom milestone of losing a villager I liked, I managed to get him back, I unintentionally scooped up a former-villager from Hubby, and I recruited my number-one desired character! I've even started to warm up to Chops, who has been finding his way off of his mountain-top isolation I put him in. Clever swine.

I just hope everyone now gets along.

(Also, right after Biff first wanted to leave, Ozzie, my tied-for-second-fave villager, also wanted to move away, but that was because he had watched a travel show and thought the food on other islands looked tasty. I felt less guilty crushing that dream, and he hasn't seemed the sadder for it. No leaving on a whim for my villagers!)

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Whew! That was a bit more epic than I thought when I first started this post. I hope reading about me pack-bonding with video game characters and emotionally investing way too much was at least entertaining. Is there any wonder why I don't actually tell more of these stories despite me wanting to tell them? Honestly, if I knew how to, and had the equipment to do so, I'd probably join everyone else in streaming this chaos, or at least record me playing and then edit it down to entertaining stories like this one.

Well, I'll let you get back to whatever else you have entertaining you and keeping you sane during lockdown.

Until next week.

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