#m!farmer

An adorable Scene from my modded stardew game.

(Mods used: Stardew Valley Expanded and Date Night Redux)

Less than Innocent Thoughts

Missed Elliott at 1 AM so I drew a cute morning picture of him . . . then thought it was missing something.

[ 1. Uprooting ]

“What is a weed? I have heard it said that there are sixty definitions. For me, a weed is a plant out of place.”

~Donald Culross Peattie

Riordan was never happy growing up. The city was stifling, school was standard. When he got an office job with the Joja Corporation that paid well, he didn’t realize he’d be sacrificing most of his time. Life felt inevitably bland in the chase for another dollar to support another vice that distracted from the dullness and existential dread of every day. Wake up. Work. Go home. Try to forget about how much you hate it. Go to bed. Wake up. Repeat. Year after year, it was always the same. Days blurred into months blurred into seasons blurred into years as Joja crammed more work down his throat with a meager raise every two years. The passage of time barely registered, and before he knew it, he was sprouting a streak of gray and he hadn’t even hit his thirties yet. His grandfather’s letter remained untouched, afraid of what it might contain. Riordan hated change. It was what kept him in the hamster wheel of Zuzu City all that time, until he felt like he was at his wit’s end. “Join Us. Thrive.” Thrive my ass, he thought of the company logo emblazoned over everyone’s desks. Pay cuts were happening, people were being let go all around him and his work load was increasing without a real sense of accomplishment. He felt drained. His free time became more and more scarce, and his father’s passing left him without the closure he sought from the man who thus far correctly predicted with words and backhands that Riordan would never amount to anything.

It had been five years since his grandfather’s passing, and after frantically searching for his phone charger, Riordan spotted the off-white, slightly crinkled envelope with Grandpa Killian’s handwriting. He’d stopped thinking about it years ago, but the letter seemed to be laying in wait, patiently sitting beneath a pile of office supplies until the day Riordan finally gave in to curiosity and read it. His grandfather had been a dedicated fisherman living on a farm on the banks of the Cassian River just north of the Cindersap Forest. In fact, their family had a seafaring history that his mother never really got into. It wasn’t unless he spent a few summers at Grandpa Killian’s farm that Riordan learned how to build a fence, plant radishes, and make scarecrows out of burlap potato sacks and old, ratty shirts. He learned how to fish, too, although he wasn’t very good at it. Long ago, he’d decided that a farm life wasn’t for him, not that he’d ever go live with his grandfather. Pelican Town was small, and there were no theaters, sports stadiums, or night clubs, and honestly, how could anyone live like that?

“If you're reading this, you must be in dire need of a change. The same thing happened to me, long ago. I'd lost sight of what mattered most in life... real connections with other people and nature. So I dropped everything and moved to the place I truly belong.”  ~Grandpa Killian Blackthorne

First of fall 🍂 ❤️

(Mods used: Stardew Valley Expanded and Date Night Redux)

“I never had many friends in town... I sometimes wonder how I'd end up if you never moved here.”

[ 2. Strays ]

“A person does not grow from the ground like a vine or a tree, one is not part of a plot of land. Mankind has legs so it can wander.”

~Roman Payne

The cabin Grandpa Killian lived in for decades had to be the mustiest, dustiest place Riordan had ever known. As a child, it hadn’t been this bad, but he had to consider the place had been empty for years now. The first week, Riordan could barely sleep. He’d spend the day cleaning the inside of the place, dusting the cobwebs and locating his grandfather’s tools, and with minimal electricity, he had to make do and turn in early. Without the white noise of the city, the quiet was almost deafening night after night. Several times a night, a gentle breeze picked up, and the rustling of leaves and the odd critter traipsing about the brush kept him alert. Almost the entire night was spent tossing and turning, heart pounding at every creak and crack of what he kept telling himself were the boards expanding and contracting from the cool of the night. This was a mistake. How do people live like this? It wasn’t until he saw the subtle purple of dawn creeping up that sleep overcame him, and he was knocked out like a light. Without needing to report to anyone in the morning, he would be able to sleep until noon.

That is... until a heavy knock came to the door just a few days and four hours later. Riordan didn’t hear it at first, but when the knock came louder, he quickly jolted up from the bed. What the f-- Who the hell is it now? His brows furrowed as the knock came again. Whoever it was, they were certainly persistent. Riordan scrambled to make himself decent, pulling on his pair of jeans and a shirt, then padded off towards the front door. “Coming!” he called out. “Fucking hell,” he murmured under his breath. When he swung the door open, an older woman smiled at him. Her thick mane of fiery red hair was plaited in a messy braid over her shoulder. It had been a long time since Riordan had last seen Marnie. There was something about her that reminded him of his mother.

“Mornin’ Sunshine! I heard you were in town and had to swing by and say hello! I’m sorry ‘bout Killian. He was a good man. I haven’t seen you since you were a little tadpole swimmin’ around in the river. My God you’ve gotten so big and scruffy,” she said, bringing one of her large hands to her bosom. She grinned softly, then tilted her head towards a mangy looking dog with a simple rope collar. “See this dog here?” she asked. “I found it sittin’ right outside your farm here. I think he’s a stray from somewhere, poor thing.”

She handed the leash over to Riordan, who hadn’t said much. The man looked completely dumbfounded, and his lack of sleep also left him feeling a little somnambulist. Slackjawed, he glanced down at the matted, muddy and dirty golden retriever, then rubbed the back of his neck. "I don’t... I don’t know anything about dogs, I’ve never--”