ripowal

[ripowal]

[ripowal]

Series - A Good Year for Withering

A series of character portraits as I'm developing To Stand on Sinking Ground to better explore each villager's personal experience with the encroaching eldritch corruption in the valley.

Elliot and Shane are up so far.

[ripowal]

I'm thinking about various game mechanics in Stardew Valley that would be unsettling, unnatural, or potentially horrifying if you were experiencing them in real life. I've got a healthy handful of ideas for my eldritch horror fic already, but what else is out there? Surely other folks who love this game have thoughts about this:

Time Freeze Indoors - You spend hours crafting or sorting, yet step outside to find only seconds passed. You exist in a temporal cul-de-sac.

Crop Death - At midnight on the first day of a new season, all incompatible crops die—instantly, without weather or warning. It’s not decay. It’s refusal. A command from the land itself. A purge. The soil enforces a law older than farming. Something ancient is resetting the field.

Building Relocation - Entire farm buildings can be moved instantly. You’re not physically relocating structures—you’re reassigning space. The terrain folds itself around your intention. Reality accepts revision. Livestock blink through dimensions.

The Shipping Bin - Anything placed in the bin vanishes overnight. You wake up with gold, no questions asked. and something always accepts. Even literal trash. Even living things.

Tool Upgrades - Eventually, your tools are potent enough to shatter old-growth trees and boulders in a few paltry swings.

Giant Crops - If you plant certain crops in a 3x3 grid, they may fuse overnight into a massive, singular organism. It cannot be harvested by normal methods. You must break it open like a sealed vessel.

Skull Cavern - The deeper you go into Skull Cavern, the stranger the world becomes. There is no known bottom. You’re descending through something not meant to end.

Fixed Collapse and Waking - If you’re not in bed by 2:00 AM, you pass out, regardless of where you are. And regardless of where you fell asleep the night before, you wake in bed in 6:00 AM.

Legendary and Mutant Fish - Some fish have names. Histories. They appear only under strange conditions. They fight differently. They watch you. They’re not animals. They’re remnants.

The Junimos - They collect offerings and restore architecture with unearthly power. No one else but the Wizard can see them. When their work is done, they vanish. You did not hire them. They answered a call.

Digging - You unearth relics and tomes and artifacts all over the valley. Their presence is marked by a boneless creature writhing in the dirt.

[ripowal]

Bite Radius

Sylvia’s not shy about what she wants, and Finn is more than willing to let her sink her teeth in. She might not walk away unscathed, though.

[ripowal]

The fluorescent light in the employee bathroom stuttered in its socket like a failing pulse. Shane stood hunched over the sink, both palms flat on the chipped laminate, breath fogging the mirror. The air smelled of ammonia and paper towels, overripe despite the company-mandated cleanings.

He hadn’t spoken to anyone since clocking in. The early shift meant quiet aisles and long pauses between duties; that was the point. Just the hum of refrigeration units and the occasional burst of cheerful synth from the overhead system.

"Smile! You’re at Joja!" The speaker crackled out the corporate jingle. 

The version of himself staring back looked worse than usual. Bags under the eyes, hair flattened with sweat, uniform hanging baggy and wrinkled. He pressed the heel of his palm into his eye until he saw the pop of stars, then dropped his hand. Nope—still looking just as disgusting as he felt.

There was a warp in the mirror, right at eye level. Like a thumb pressed too hard into cooling glass. His reflection blinked too late. Half a beat behind. He rubbed his face with the back of his hand, smearing sweat and the faint grit of inventory dust.

“Okay,” he muttered, voice flat.

The gratingly cheery recording continued overhead. "Ask about becoming a Joja team member today! We're proud of all our associates." 

He told himself it was exhaustion. Or the vodka. Half a bottle the night before, hidden behind the detergent. It was the only thing helping him sleep.

"Including Shane!" the speaker chirped.

Shane blinked, recoiled slightly. "What the hell," he muttered. Automatic, like a curse dropped on a stubbed toe. His gaze flicked to the speaker in the ceiling.

No one said his name at work. Not unless they needed something. Certainly not in those chipper, pre-recorded mantras. He stocked shelves in silence, eyes glassy, movements mechanical. Then he went home, tried not to let Jas see how bad he was underneath, and drank until nothing could follow him down.

Who the hell would be proud of that?

Maybe it was a prank. Someone thought they were being funny. 

"That's right! You're doing so well, Shane! We're proud of you!"

It wasn't funny.

A paper towel coughed out of the dispenser unprompted. He took it anyway. Dried hands he hadn’t washed. When he glanced at the mirror again, it seemed to have an oily sheen until he blinked. The air snapped back to normal, his ears popping faintly. The speaker overhead fizzed again, alerting the empty store to the wonderful variety of coupons available to customers with a Joja membership.

He left the bathroom without looking back. The door let out a puffing breath as it swung back and forth in the frame.

Behind him, inside the mirror, his reflection smiled.

✏ Pelican Town Prompt

Twice a month we post a prompt focusing on a Stardew Valley character/or characters. The word count for each prompt is 100-500.

The second prompt for July is (🥁): Shane looking in a mirror! 💙🩵

Where is his life at? How does he feel about himself? How does he think others perceive him? Or w/e you’d like to write about!

You can participate by reblogging this post and adding your 100–500-word creation! All sfw submissions will be reblogged to this account, and positive feedback will be added in the comments.

The next Pelican Town Prompt will be a surprise! 🤫

July’s prompts were close together because I started this blog later in the month, but next month I plan on doing them on the 1st and the 15th.

[ripowal]

The walk to the beach was wetter than expected. The ground had soaked up most of yesterday’s rain but offered it back in places. Primarily in mud pooling around fence posts, treads in the dirt road, and every place I decided to step. 

Willy seemed pleasantly surprised to see me. Said he’d been sorting tackle. Accepted the bundle I handed him and gave a simple, sincere thanks.

It was my outlier parsnip. Above average in size, pristine, structurally sound, still carrying residual soil aroma. I'd earmarked it post-harvest without clear purpose. Too distinct for standard sale, perhaps. It required a more deliberate endpoint. This gifting felt like the right kind of gesture.

Then he handed me a fishing rod.

Which immediately complicated my no-strings, non-transactional intent. I’d come without agenda, and now I was holding a fishing rod, used but unmistakably reciprocal.

Willy didn’t seem bothered. If anything, he looked pleased. Like this was the logical outcome all along. He showed me the motion again. I remembered by stages. Wrist first. Then elbow. Then shoulder. (Only a faint twinge left now.)

For a moment, I remembered the feel of Grandpa’s hand over mine. Adjusting my grip. Quiet instruction, wordless. He never told me I was doing it wrong—only showed me how it could be better.

✏ Whip out your WIP!

For July 15th - 21st

It's time to whip out your Stardew Valley fanfic project and pick an excerpt you're excited about!

Reblog this post to add your short excerpt.

One day your story is going to make someone's day brighter. It will make someone feel seen and heard! So even when you feel like what you’re writing doesn’t matter, it does. Keep going! 🧡💛❤️

Positive feedback will be added in the comments, and all sfw entries will be reblogged to this account.

Missed this Whip out your WIP? No worries, the next one will be on July 22nd.

[ripowal]

Gnashional Treasure

Finn receives a uniquely thoughtful, mildly cursed bracelet from his girlfriend. Public reaction is swift, horrified, and frankly deserved.

[ripowal]

📚 Masterlist

➤ Potionomics | Sylvia/Finn

With a Grain of Salt — slow burn romance in the game timeline | T 🟨 | 75k | complete ✅

Tiny Giant Monsters — post-game relationship development, domestic fluff and Itsy Bitsy Kaiju | T 🟨 | 113k | complete ✅

Satisfaction Guarantee — first time together | E 🟥 | 6k | complete ✅

Nine Tenths of the Law — shop burglary, emotional hurt/comfort | T 🟨 | 7k | complete ✅

Tinctures & Tides — ficlet collection: sillies and spicies, prompts | M 🟧 | 10k | ongoing 🔃

➤ Stardew Valley x Cthulhu Mythos

To Stand on Sinking Ground — the valley and residents are subject to creeping cosmic corruption | T 🟨 | 6k | ongoing 🔃

A Good Year for Withering — portraits of each villager's personal eldritch corruption | T 🟨 | 1k | ongoing 🔃

Check out all my works here!

(And feel free to chat me up about writing, fandom, etc. here or on ao3!)

[ripowal]

I put together a little shareable playlist of the music I vibe out to when i'm writing Potionomics fanfiction! Some of them are more literal, some are more of a feel, and some are sillier—it takes all sorts.

If you have any recs, please share!

[ripowal]

hyperfixating on a character to this degree really is not what the human brain is built for, there is smoke coming out of my ears

[ripowal]

The cabin had always smelled of salt and ink. Tonight, it smelled like damp vellum.

Elliott sat at his writing desk, unmoving. The window to his left framed the grey tide as it slid up and down the shore like a mouth trying to remember how to speak. The sky above it had gone anemic. No color left but a bruised sort of yellow.

The page before him remained blank. A negative space, dense as fog. His pen hovered just above it, a trembling cursor in a sentence he couldn’t begin. He used to fear not having words.

Lately, he feared the ones he did.

Some nights he caught himself transcribing things he hadn’t meant to write. Fragments that came in sleep, or in the stillness between gull cries. “The mask is not the man.” That one had repeated itself three times before he tore the page in half and threw it in the stove.

He told himself it was just a dream echo. Just subconscious detritus. Writers were magpies, weren’t they? They collected things. Discarded things. Strange, glittering phrases half-heard from the tide or pulled from the gutter of some forgotten dream. That was all this was.

He’d meant to burn it completely, but somehow only the bottom half had caught. The rest sat in his bottom drawer, scorched and folded.

Tonight the lamp sputtered as though protesting illumination. Elliott adjusted the wick, and the flame flared up too quickly, casting sharp shadows on the far wall. One looked like a man.

He didn’t turn around. He’d stopped doing that.

With deliberation, he dipped the nib again. The words that followed were not his. Not at first. The pen jerked. The next line appeared crooked. Frantic.

Elliott set the pen down. Folded his hands. Stared at the paper. He told himself he was tired. That he needed rest. That he’d been working too hard.

But he hadn’t written anything in days.

The tide dragged itself back again with a wet, insistent hush.

Behind the glass, the sky—no stars. Only that same rotten yellow.

Elliott closed the notebook, careful not to smudge the ink. Then, after a long pause, he reached for the bottom drawer. The half-burned page was still there.

He flattened it against the desk. Read it once. Then again, brow furrowed.

The words had changed.

And this time, they rhymed.

✏ Pelican Town Prompts

Twice a month we will post a prompt focusing on a Stardew Valley character. The word count for each prompt is 100-500. ✍️

I couldn't imagine a better way to kick off Pelican Town Prompts than with the town's resident writer, Elliott! 🧡💛❤️

The prompt is (drumroll 🥁): Elliott alone in his cabin.

What is he thinking about? How does he view his life in Pelican Town? What brought him here? How is he feeling? How does he describe his cabin? Or yk like w/e you want to write!

You can participate by reblogging this post and adding your 100–500-word creation! All sfw submissions will be reblogged to this account, and positive feedback will be added in the comments.

The next Pelican Town Prompt will be for Shane! 🐣