FINALLY finished my acnh island and set up my dream address so i drew my map to celebrate!! it's an urban/city theme and took me over 2 years to fully finish :)

bonus screenshots of some of my fav areas/builds:

Stuff to appreciate:

* the pokemon theme remix sounding like football/rugby/otehr sports tourney music! we’ve seen it confirmed that there’s poke-football here so i hope they do reference rugby too and maybe some hockey? we’re honestly a really sports mad nation, tho not as much as america perhaps

* All the lil touches of random normal british stuff that i just TOTALLY MISSED the first time watching cos well its fuckin normal for me lol! im just realizing this is the first time ive seen a house have a wheelbarrow out front in a pokemon game. do other countries just not have as many wheelbarrows or do you like to hide them or somethin?? HOW DO YOU GARDEN! we like wheelbarrows so much there’s several characters in old kids shows thatre just a wheelbarrow, and lots of grandmas like to keep broken wheelbarrows and turn them into plantpots just for the aesthetic of wheelbarrows. Also welly boots!! what do people even call them in other countries cos wellingtons is a very british thing right?

* other nice touches: route signs being like our traffic signs LOL IM CONSTANTLY GONNA MISTAKE THEM FOR A SPEED LIMIT, a lot of those nice pastry crust lookin turf-roof cottages even tho sadly they arent super common anymore nowadays, generally showing a LOT of different british housing architecture like even got the old london double chimney stack things!

* oh man they even got those ground staircase things what is even the name of those actually? i always like the aesthetic of country villages that are more in harmony with nature and it sucks that so much of britain is more industrialized instead nowadays

* BIG BAGS like lol i was going OMG IM SO GLAD THE PROTAGONIST FINALLY HAS A BIG BAG even before i realized it was britain like wow is that a stereotype about us that we carry giant bags everywhere cos thats fuckin true. ‘tardis purses’ are really common amoung anyone who doesnt use backpacks, like everything has to be hybridized with a backpack somehow or else u wear a cardigan just cos stupid modern clothes aint got good pockets FUCKIN HELL I COULD FIT A WHOLE HOUSE IN A CARDIGAN i still remember how in high school i cut a hole in the bottom of my pockets so i could stuff things into the entire lining of the jacket and basically wear a bag like OH i just realized this stereotype must be really old and maybe thats legit where the tardis/mary poppins/d&d’s bag of holding actually came from? you ask for literally goddamn anything on a train in britain and someone’s gonna pull it out of apparantly nowhere, being prepared is just a Thing here

* lol they cant really show how much Pub Culture we have over here in a kids game probably? like we’re one of the world’s biggest consumers of alcohol and HOO BOY, drunken riots are a frequent occurance along with the sports obsession. also over here we straight up dont have non alcoholic cider and i was REALLY CONFUSED that america ONLY has non alcoholic version like i DIDNT KNOW IT EXISTED so i just thought they gave their kids beer?? cider festivals over here are real fun, its part of how ‘pub culture’ is kinda an all ages thing even if the kids cant drink the stuff. like there’s all fun farm events and kids rides and bbq and stuff at a cider or ale brewing town festival thing. and basically the difference between pubs and more american style bars is that pubs are..like.. homey? they really are just the ‘jrpg tavern’ thats a thing of old history in america. its more of a hangout spot thats open all day and is more spacious with comfy seating and they do food and gardens and stuff. its common to bring kids to a pub during the day and its only in the evening that its adults only, which is kinda arbitrary cos i mean they still sell booze in the mornings its just that its ONLY booze in the evenings and the family meal kitchens close. also in the mornings they still have all the gambling machines turned on and lol as a kid my dad used to plonk me down on them so i could ‘play games’ while he talked with his friends. it was extra funny how the european gambling laws made them take the game corner out of pokemon cos i knew what a slot machine was even before i played pokemon and i was like 4 when it came out XD

* yay for big fancy libraries and museums!! i hope maybe they also show buses and trains? its generally a thing that we have more extensive and well funded public transport and buildings than america. like no offense but i was fuckin FLOORED when i learned that there’s whole states that have no trains! like over here buses and trains are used even more than cars! having even one single place unreachable by bus is enough to cause protests! also maybe have some hospital themed gym leader to symbolise good healthcare but honestly they could have put that in ANY of the regions so far except for unova. srsly im always so scared for my american friends cos of that...

* IS THAT A FUCKIN REUSEABLE CARRIER BAG?? like what a weirdly specific thing to reference! do other countries have the carrier bag tax too?

* also LOL putting stickers on the back of the wardrobe!! thats such a brit kid thing, whenever u move to a new place and it has furniture included you’ll always turn something around and see a bunch of stickers someone left from years ago. it was alwyas funny as a kid to see which ones got wrecked in the move, i dunno why a headless bugs bunny was the height of my afternoon at age 9

* Weird notice: this house looks a lot like the Old Chateau from sinnoh? except obviously its more modern and not abandoned and all. makes me think that the dub kinda hecked up by calling the place french and it might have been intentionally meant to be british? its just called a ‘foreign style house’ in japanese, not a chateau.

* ALSO SINNOH FEELS! please bring the minigame back! i always felt an odd kinship with oreburgh town as a kid cos the town i grew up in was also a former mining town that turned from a capitol city port into absolute disrepair after the industrial boom ended. struggling to find a new identity and mostly getting by on tourism value of the mines and all. so makes me think this is actually legit a wales town and maybe even cardiff in particular? or other former mining towns of britain. cos having an extensive cave network thats completely unused and youre just allowed to walk around in it like its no big deal = honestly 100% accurate, the underground minigame would completely fit us. i wonder if japan really does have a similar case of the mines all being 100% abandoned and only repurposed into history museums and travel routes?

* this npc is cute and also i appreciate the accuracy to school uniforms over here! this is usually what its like for primary school (i think thats elementary in america?) and itd be in different colours for different schools and have the school badge on the left side there. and summer uniform is often just taking the jumper off and then the shirt underneath also has the same logo on it. but in my school as a kid they annoyingly made us buy a whole separate set of identical shirts but in a different colour to indicate summer uniform like GEEZ DUDE its already expensive enough! made more sense in high school where winter shirts are button up blouses like suit jackets and its only summer that gets a regular cotton shirt. but there you also wear blazers (kids’s suit jacket) instead of jumpers, and jumpers are optional if it gets extra cold but its more of a light cardigan style instead. also boringly every damn school’s colours are black blazers except like one or two rare exceptions. i got extra unlucky and the two high schools i went to also had red shirts so i kept getting them mixed up until i noticed the wrong logo halfway thru the day

* hey lol literally the park behind my house. we get real shitty weather here and i actually kinda hope maybe umbrellas are something we could pick in character customization?

i wish tht my dad would just....make his mind up abt whether or not he gives a shit. my dad, who emotionally and verbally abused me since i was four years old. who told me to go wh/ore myself out, who taught me to consistently hate myself, who let me starve for days on end during my undergrad because he’d give me rm100 (which is like 22 dollars) to live on for a month. who throws fits at restaurants when he feels they’re too expensive, yells at waiters and waitresses, etc. who whipped me with the end of a copper wire, who i still have scars on my thighs from, just bc i agitated him. who once got angry at me for breathing. who consistently talks to me abt what a burden i am to him, financially and otherwise, and makes me wish i was never born. 

and then he’ll turn around and??? when my mum had her first proper psychosis episode two years ago, rushed home from uni to take care of her and the household and he legit??? thanked me??? and told me he wouldn’t know what he’d do without me??? when i was working, we’d have conversations like real people, real kids and their parents do? he would talk to me abt my novel writing ( which, he never does bc he doesn’t support it and thinks it’s a stupid waste of my time ) and encouraged me to write? he told me abt his own plans n hopes n dreams and abt his frustrations with work?

for my bday, we went to a really nice steak house, where he must’ve spent hundreds on me even tho i never asked for that (why would i when even spending a few bucks on me for sweets was always The Biggest Burden to him), which had like a live band playing and everything?? and it was really nice and he never once made any noise about how much it cost??? who took us on holiday for the first time in our entire lives last year, and we went to langkawi, and it was??? really nice??? he spent THOUSANDS and never once??? got pissy or upset or anything about it??? i ended up FEELING BAD that he’d spent so much???

and then, i lost my stipend abt two months ago because i switched phd supervisors. i’m living off nothing but my savings rn, and i obvs had to update my parents on my financial situation. and i told my dad tht i would be getting a job, etc (tho, i still havent because its hard to find smt w flexible timings and within travel distance so i’m probs gonna have to move back home in june/july lmao) and he was like don’t worry abt it, if working is taking away from yr phd, just let me know, i can give you money.

i cant remember the last time me and my dad got into an argument, i cant remember the last time he raised his voice at me or even LOOKED at me angrily. today, he randomly messaged me asking if i needed money to eat -- the first time, in my whole ENTIRE LIFE, where he’s done that. where it feels like he’s thought of me, and about me, and is concerned for me.

and like!!! i know tht this seems like Nothing, or it seems like one of those situations where im overinflating a few Nice Things he did and weighing it up against the abuse as though they’re equivalent, but i’m not. and its not that i think that spending money on someone means that you love them, i know it’s not. but my dad is really...money-oriented. money means EVERYTHING to him, and majority of our family issues are rooted in the fact that he doesn’t want to spend money on us, not just w/ regards to Big Things like holidays or whatev. but legit, food we need to survive, or money for clothes. he’s always only ever been willing to spend money on people outside of our nuclear family, but never us. the fact that he’s suddenly flipped with regards to this is, to me, Significant, not because money means so much to me, but because spending money means so much to HIM. like, it feels almost...apologetic from him and i don’t know what to do with it. i can’t forgive him for all the things he did to me, and for how fucked up i am now because of it, and part of me hates him so much??? 

at the same time, there’s a part of me, who isn’t tht little girl who he used to smack around and yell at and make feel so small, who understands??? he never meant to be abusive and he probably doesn’t think he was??? which isn’t to excuse him, ofc, but it means tht now he’s? idk regretting that we arent closer or something like that and trying to make up for it? that, he really did love me and value me all along, and he didn’t think of me as a waste of time and space and resources tht he wished was never born? there’s a part of me who sees tht he’s gotten so much older and wearier and he’s? tired of pretending to be aloof and unaffected? tired of pretending like he DOESN’T want us to care abt him?

and i dont know what to do with that, or how to reconcile those two different understandings. i dont know how to feel or where i should be at. like this isn’t anything new, its been building up over the past two years, i just don’t know??? what to do with it??? he messaged me today asking if i needed money?? like he cares?? why does he have to blur the lines like this at THIS stage in my life? and i dont know what to do or how to feel and i’m just

yea ok this got really long sry