i like researching and learning about animal crossing villagers. like. little tidbits about them, little hints to their personality, little hints of LORE. so i decided i want to start a series where i analyze a random villager and lowkenuinely cook up a whole ass essay explaining their lore AND possible theories,,,, even though you can look at their nookipedia pages i think a lot of people gloss over that
anyways. lore.
read for a LONG yap about a villager no one cares about!
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Over-analyzing Animal Crossing villagers out of pure curiosity and fixation #1 !!
Or just… over-analyzing villagers.
anyways.
first villager i want to yap about - out of pure bias - renée!!
if you don’t know who renée is, this is her
okay. let me explain why i love her
first off, what we know and what we can learn.
with renee, you could basically tell something happened in her past. her favorite saying, for example - "Reckless youth makes rueful age."
reckless youth makes rueful age means that if you're irresponsible, thoughtless, and yknow, 'reckless' in your youth, that shit's gonna have consequences. if you smoke, your lungs are gonna be damaged. if you pick fights with people, you're gonna run into the wrong person eventually, reckless youth makes rueful age.
this already stems a question - did renee have a reckless youth?
short answer: yes.
long answer: WE can lore it up. her happy home prompts reveal that she 'used to hang in empty lots'.
“I want to relive the days I spent playing in a vacant lot." and "I miss the time I spent hanging out in empty lots..." HHD and HHP prompts.
renee used to hang in lots - a thing that's common for people with 'reckless youths'. i wonder what she did or what she talked about.
yeah so pocket camp just straight up TELLS us.
"She ran with a bad herd in her younger days but later said rhi-NO to delinquency and shaped up into the dependable woman you see before you now."
it even says the word "delinquency".
renee was in some sort of delinquent group. a gang, even?
now, theories.
first of all, i want to talk about the drastic change from her new leaf house to her new horizons house.
here is her new leaf house. vvv
this interior shows, well, an empty lot-esque house. it kind of reflects her past, in a way. this was the type of place she’d hang in back then. this was what she preferred. this was her environment.
now, HERE is her new horizons house. vvv
it looks a lot more like a house. she completely changed styles. i interpret this as how she is NOW. she’s found herself. this is her environment now. she still has that edge in her, but she’s fixed herself. she even has the DJ set awwwe yes blast your tunes 🥹🥹🥹
now, even MORE yap!
youth is consistently mentioned across her profile, leading me to believe she was a JUVENILE delinquent - these guys are known for vandalism, theft, and truancy (skipping school). renee most likely followed a bad crowd, maybe around high school or college? her 'playing in empty lots' symbolizes the freedom she felt, but she was with a 'bad herd'. her favorite saying shows she regrets it, but she also misses it. she misses the very thing she regrets. she doesn't want to act like that again, as she already realized it has consequences and yknow its bad, but she misses the freedom. her prompt went from "playing in an empty lot" to "hanging in empty lots". playing in empty lots is a common connotation for something a child would do. HANGING in empty lots is a common connotation for something a delinquent would do. this could have a double meaning, and knowing renee's past now, it seems pretty damn symbolizing.
another thing to note - her sisterly personality. she "shaped up into a dependable woman", right? yes. she shaped up into a better person. she acts sisterly now. maybe she wants to care for people like a sister so they won't go down the same path she did, or maybe she herself never felt that affection. a common causation for juvenile delinquency is parental background.
but that part is just a theory. we've got the basics, now it's up to simple speculation.
we can only suspect what led renee to that path, and what got her out of it.
reckless youth makes rueful age.
…and that's why i love renée. like for part 2 /silly
