Hello Internet!
I hope all of you had a wonderful week! Really quick I just want to acknowledge that it has been awhile since I’ve written a Weekly Blog (not including yesterday’s Special Weekly Blog) and the main reason for that is that I’m kind of struggling to think of subject matter worth writing about in my Weekly Blogs. I usually try to focus on recent events in my life or relative subject matter, but nothing interesting has been coming to be lately. In other words, I want to continue to put out Weekly Blogs each week, but I don’t always have the inspiration to do so, so if I miss a Weekly Blog, that’s probably why.
Anyway because I did not put out a Weekly Blog, last week, I have a lot of published pieces to talk about so let’s quickly go through them now. Two weeks ago, I published a Weekly Blog talking about Valentine’s Day Self-Care and what I did to celebrate Valentine’s Day even though I’m single. That Wednesday, I published a Poem titled “Thoughts Of The Wanderer.” This poem is a bit out there and one I thought up late at night while listening to LoFi music and just thinking about things. I feel like that’s pretty much a staple when it comes to my poetry. A lot of it is written late at night while lost in my thoughts and some LoFi music. Then on that Friday, I published a continuation of my Dungeons and Dragons inspired series, Rendezvous In Xylon [D&D]. I highly recommend this series because it’s one of my longest and incorporates I love about Fantasy series and Dungeons and Dragons. Even if you know nothing about the table top role-playing game, I think you’ll enjoy this series and following these wanna be adventurers making their way through my fantasy world. This past Wednesday, I published a Poem titled “Tapping On The Glass” which is a short poem talking about the feeling of being trapped in a emotional glass box. The claustrophobic feeling related to be trapped or stuck in a place physically or emotionally is something I’m sure everyone can relate to at least on a basic level. Finally, this past Friday, I published a Writing Prompt Piece titled “Fate Of The Drowned.” This is a shorter Fantasy Writing Prompt based off a village sacrificing a young girl to a ocean goddess to bring good fortune to them, but the goddess does not take it well and seeks vengeance instead. There are all of the pieces I’ve published in the past couple of weeks so hopefully you check them out if you haven’t already or just give them another read to show your support. Speaking of which, February was my biggest month in terms of both views and visitors here on WordPress so thank you to all of you wonderful readers that made that happen. I’m so happy you are here reading the stuff I publish and supporting me. It means the world to me!
Sorry for that long introduction, but now it’s time to talk about Animal Crossing! February has ended and March is here so that means we are officially in the month that Animal Crossing New Horizons comes out. I have talked about many times how much I like Animal Crossing as a series and I am very excited that we are only a few weeks away from it’s newest installment coming out. All this hype made me think about my other Animal Crossing games and my fond memories of Animal Crossing. I started out playing Animal Crossing on the Gamecube and instantly fell in love with the idea of starting out in a new town with a bunch of personified animals I could befriend. This is also the first time I got to own a house by paying off a loan to a Raccoon. Well technically Tom Nook is a Tanuki which is a Japanese Raccoon Dog, but I didn’t know that then. He just looks like a Raccoon who is kind enough to give a loan to a complete stranger who doesn’t have a bell to his name and let him pay it back at his own leisure. Tom Nook gets a lot of crap, but really, he is a great guy who really helps you out by giving you a house loan and a part-time job. How many people you know would just set you up with a house and a job if you asked? Probably not many.
Anyway, I have fond memory of Animal Crossing because it was such an unique game to me. It’s such a simple concept. You just run around and collect bugs or fish while talking to neighbors and doing simple tasks for them. You can dig up fossils, send letters, or collect fruit. All of this so you can expand your house and fill it with your choice of furniture. Games like The Sims let you build a house and furnish it, but Animal Crossing had this simple, child-like charm to it that made me wanting to come back day after day to talk to my animal neighbors and play around in my town. I always felt amazing when I saved up enough bells to pay off my loan and was able to expand my house either by making the ground floor larger or by adding a basement and second floor to the house. This expansion meant I could add more furniture to my home. Starting out I just added whatever I could which I thought looked cool, but eventually I came to understand that there was a cohesion between certain types of furniture. For example there is a group of furniture that all look like fruit which can give your house a sweet and fruitful feel. I remember that the two big groups of furniture I was most interested in were The Chess Pieces and Space Theme. Once your house was as large as it could go, you had enough room to make your house into a chess board. I had a chess board carpet and several chess pieces set up so you could play chess by moving around pieces of furniture. Unfortunately, I never had enough pieces for an actual game of Chess, but I just set them up like it was mid-game between two unseen players. The other big theme I enjoyed was The Space Theme. You could set up your house to look like the surface of the moon complete with lunar lander, small asteroid, and a space suit. I loved space as a kid (and still do) so making my house look like a moon base was really awesome.
Another thing I loved about Animal Crossing is your relationships with all your animal neighbors. Even though the original Animal Crossing game only had a handful of personality types like Lazy, Jock, or Peppy, the combination with a type of animals really made them feel like real friends and neighbors. I always had a fun time doing tasks for my animal friends or visiting their homes. Now relationships and dating have never been a part of Animal Crossing, but most people who’s played the games will tell you that they developed a crush on one or more of their villagers. I was no different. I had a major crush on my neighbor Coco who was a Rabbit with dead, hollow eyes.
You might judge me for 1) Having a crush on a video game rabbit and 2) Picking the girl with the hollow eyes, but for me, Coco was a sweet villager that I thought was part cookie part rabbit; two things that I loved. Now looking up information about Coco I wasn’t actually able to confirm that she is a cookie rabbit and may actually be closely related to the in-game item, Gyroid, or a coconut, but in my eyes she was a gingerbread cookie rabbit without eyes or an expression. Anyway I had a huge crush on her, until one day she moved away and went to my brother’s Animal Crossing Town. If you didn’t know, your animal neighbors can sometimes move away and make room for new animals to move in. Well unfortunately Coco moved from my town and moved to the town my older brother had started on a different memory card. I was very sad when she moved and broke my heart. I mean I wasn’t that heavily invested so I quickly got over it, but I just hope that she never shared any of the letters I wrote to her. They were quite sappy for a young kid writing to a cookie bunny and would be quite embarrassing if they ever resurfaced. Maybe Coco will show up to live on my island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. We could possibly rekindle this love and make my younger self proud. Did I mention earlier that I’m single? No reason I’m bringing it up now or anything. But uh… Anyway. Animal Crossing was a great game and I really enjoyed playing it. I have so much more to say about the series. Here I really only touched on my play through of the Gamecube version but I also played a ton of the 3DS version, Animal Crossing New Leaf, which I will probably talk about in a later Weekly Blog.
Thank you so much for reading that Weekly Blog. Hopefully you enjoyed walking down memory lane of the Gamecube Animal Crossing Game. If you played this game, many of the things I mentioned probably bring up fond memories of your own town. Let me know what you loved about that original game and if you had any major crushes on animals living in your town. Please, I know I’m not a crazy person! Let me know it was normal to crush on your animal neighbors. Feel free to leave all those comments down below. Also feel free to give this Weekly Blog a like and Follow me here on WordPress if you haven’t already. We are quickly approaching 500 Followers and I would be honored if you would be a part of this small, positive community I’m growing here on WordPress. All of your support from old readers and new readers really mean the world to me and I’m absolutely blown away that people actually like the stuff I publish. It really warms my heart.
Again thank you for all the support and I hope you have a wonderful week! Animal Crossing: New Horizons is almost here!
-Allen_The_Writer
Header Photo Credit to Nintendo UK
https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch/Animal-Crossing-New-Horizons-1438623.html#
Photo of Coco from Animal Crossing
https://nookipedia.com/wiki/Coco
Allen The Writer 