Inspiration

[Le Ham]

Espera is a conjugation of the Spanish verb esperar, which means either "to hope" or "to wait." You may also have heard of the word "esperanza" - that's "hope" as a noun. I went with the verb in the imperative (command) form because it's the name of one of the songs that got me through high school. It's... a Christian worship song , but the English version of the song is titled "Be Still." (To be clear, I don't speak fluent Spanish and I'm not Hispanic or Latino, but I took Spanish classes all four years of high school because I admire the language and culture, and as a Floridian I believe learning it would benefit me.)

Spoiler: be aware I do talk about my faith here. Nothing inflammatory, just a heads up, it's part of Espera and who I am. also it's super long oof

The island is meant to represent my spiritual journey, which is fraught with confusion, fear, trying to prove myself to everyone/please everyone because that's how I've lived my whole life to the point idek how to "be myself," being misunderstood and misunderstanding, not knowing who's right or who to listen to, feeling hopelessly inadequate or unable to do what's asked of me, realizing I'm still struggling against empty religion and shame just like all the people I used to think I could help, not knowing what God's love is actually supposed to look like or why all my church friends seem to have something I don't - all of which are things I'm learning to accept are true of my current condition, but that I can trust in (put my hope in, wait on) my God for the fact they won't last and He's faithful through all of it.

So that reflects in some of my design choices - purple to me represents a type of confusion I encounter when I try to pray, so all my purple flowers are on a path with garden rocks in the back of the island where "Pondering" is playing. The back room of my rep's house is a porch with a cushion and a book on the floor (meant to represent the Bible) and several symbolic items, including an hourglass, a hamster cage, a wardrobe, a sink - might take out the sink but you can guess what those symbolize. The song is K.K. Sonata on low volume because it conveys both a peaceful feeling and melancholy. Most of the exterior decorating I've done (such as the downtown area, the outdoor church I made with the wedding furniture) represents the mask I show to other people, what I wish my life looked like, or even what other people see of me despite me trying to explain my situation to them. I used jail bars in my entrance/RS as gates, but also for the hint of feeling captive. If you've ever seen my flag that's symbolic too. (And bonus thing I did completely by accident and then kept it, when you look at my map there's a right-side up cross the roads make on the eastern side, and a smaller St. Peter's cross on the western side.)

My spiritual life, unlike what I often hear in church, doesn't represent the common linear narrative of "once I was lost but now I'm found," (as I actually tried to express with Melemia, my second NL town) but instead I've accepted now that my experiences are valid, and I don't have to lie to myself about what's true or not true of my life because church culture tells me it's not supposed to look that way, but nevertheless I know there's a good purpose behind all my pain, and once I'm brought out on the other side of it, I want to be able to show the same compassion, love or whatever I find to those who've been hurt by religion much more deeply than I have.

yknow maybe I should just dump all this in my island journal bc I doubt anyone actually wants to read it. But thanks for the prompt, it helped me get my thoughts out

 

[Bluebellie]

My island is sort of a continuation to my new Leaf town. I had a sort of creepy gloomy aesthetic going on and I just continued it here. I changed the character names and Villager names though to make it match more the theme. In New leaf my character was Onyx from Achrome. In New horizon it’s Morticia from Melancolia.
I had to make a list of possible characters before starting though. All my villagers will be Black or Grey in coloring.

 

[Koi Fishe]

My town name - Hikaru comes from a Japanese name that I just like lmao. My old town in NL was called Tsuki so I wanted to keep the popular Japanese names going. My town aesthetic is almost like a modern zen?? Idek how to describe it.

 

[tajikey]

I'd say 99% my brain, 1% here.

Tajikey was inspired by Tajikistan, and came to be because of my abhorrence of the idea of having numbers after my AOL screenname.

ExIsle is a combination of my hometown of Exeter, and the shortened form of "island." Helps that it's also a play-on-words.

 

[seularin]

my island is based of seventeen’s oh my since it’s my favorite song ; and my native fruit is peaches so everything is just based off those two (and partially yukika’s neon)

 

[pinkcosmo101]

My island is named after Mt Ebott from Undertale and is based off the areas of the underground(The Ruins,Snowdin,Waterfall,Hotland,New Home)
I mainly looks up undertale maps for inspiration for decorating.XD

 

[Marte]

The name of my island is Borahae which means "I purple you." BTS always says it to their fans as their special way of saying they love us (rough quote is something along the lines of purple is the last color of the rainbow and they will love us until the last moment/end). It's comforting and I thought it would be fitting. I'm trying to go for a fairy/natural aesthetic, but I'm also trying to incorporate lots of moons and stars because I love space. (I'm also lame and trying to make little references to all my BTS favorite songs/MVs, but it's hard, lol.)

Your island name is really wonderful! As a fellow army this made me so glad, and I can understand how it gives you comfort because of how safe our fandom is (and BTS in general). And make as many refrences to them as you want, we can never get enough of it ~

 

[mirukushake]

In Japanese, you can add the prefix of "island" to your name, and it has 3 pronounciations: -tou, -shima, or -jima.

I am obsessed with mint chocolate chip flavored stuff, which is called chocomint in Japanese. So I named my island chocomin-tou.

i also considered nyan-tou (nyan is the sound cats make) and making it all cats but I didn't want to commit to a single species island.