#shells lore

This entire year has been such a wild and delightful ride for me! You guys need to understand that I always loved writing, drawing, and making up stories in my head. But I never shared anything online, or barely, and never quite believed in my skills ever. So I took on a reliable job that I sort of liked, hoping I could keep writing on the side, as a hobby that made me happy. Sadly, the more realistic and burn out side of me took over and as I grew older, my dream was put more and more to the side until it was fully abandoned. And just following the motions of life, never expecting more or having hope made me really depressed, without me even being fully aware of it.

It took me an autistic burnout, loosing my job, being finally diagnosed with autism and AD(H)D to wake up and pick up that dream of making comics again. Realizing that you cannot be happy when you ignore who you are and are only concerned about trying to fit, about being stable and safe.

Shells changed my entire life. It gave me so much hope, and happiness, and I've met so many friends thanks to it, it drives me insane that I might have never knew all those wonderfully kind and loving people if this story that kept me up at night for weeks had stayed inside my brain. I'm so thankful life and my personal situation permitted me to stay unemployed and fully give in to this dream and share my work with all of you. I thought I was sorta good at writing, nothing much to brag, but the incredible response I've received seriously makes me so proud of myself, and pushes me forward with incredible confidence.

When I'm drawing Shells, I sometimes laugh to myself at my silly jokes, get giggly at how cute the boys are being or emotional at certain moments. And it's always wonderful to know now, that when I share it will make so many people also laugh, and giggle, and be emotional.

Thank you all so much for following along, supporting me, believing in my story and telling me so ♥️

I played Stardew Valley for the first time (and very intensely) around 8 years ago. I fell in love at first sight of Elliott's portrait (look, the man radiates charisma) but dropped him for Shane who had a much better story than him (cause that's more powerful to me than beautiful long hair apparently). I got REALLY obsessed with Shane. Like REALLY. I wrote essays about him to my friends who didn't know what the fuck I was talking about. Then I must have moved on to an other hyperfixation I guess and barely touched the game since then.

A year ago I fell back into the fandom by reading a lot of super good Stardew comics. I was unemployed (still am technically) and doing an original comic myself (see there) so I thought "Hey what if I could do this too?" I had to think of a story and didn't want to do a self-insert so I thought "What about my old two fav 🤔 could they work?? 🤔 🤔" and ohhh boy they did. Ohhhhh they worked so well it was writing itself. Also the ship had so little fan work at the time and that was making me a little mad (I knew the 10 fan art they got by heart haha)

I love Shane x Elliott so so much because it's kind of ship where at first people are like "Really? Them? 😒 Makes no sense" and when you think just a little more about it, IT DOES. IT DOES SO MUCH. It is NOT random! They're a reason why they both appealed to me while being so different, you see? They're different in how they appear but so similar at their core.

In my head they both have depressive and insecure tendencies but the way they deal with it is so different, which in my head makes them complete eachother so nicely. Elliott is a very optimistic person (leaves it all behind to write a book) and Shane a pessimist (can't get out of that hole he's in). Elliott is an hopeless romantic that seek love and connection (but as a hard time finding it) and Shane absolutely rejects everyone (as a defense mechanism? as a way to protect you from him? both?). Also, this can only be extrapolated from canon but I like to think of Shane as being happy and having a good life in the past, and having lost it. Elliott being the opposite, started unhappy and "stuck" and getting himself outta there.

They're both so lonely. They both need love so, so much. I also love the idea of someone so extra and... particular like Elliott being able to charm a guy like Shane, I think that adds to his character so much. They just have such distincts and interesting personalities that writing their interactions is so much fun.