Oh my god I woke up this morning and my Stardew Valley meta post had almost 150 notes????? Hello?????????? Anyways I started writing this last night because @moon-is-pretty-tonight left nice tags on the original so thank you so much!!
We know from the starting scenes of the game that the farmer's grandfather loved Stardew Valley. So why did he leave? Pelican Town is a good place to grow old; George and Evelyn are just fine. It's a fine place to raise a kid, but maybe he just wanted to raise his child closer to real schools and other children.
Or maybe, just maybe, he understood.
Was there a day when he was in his thirties where he looked at his friends and realized they weren't like him? That he could run faster than them, work longer, explore deeper into the hidden places of the valley?
Was there a day when he went to the wizard to ask him for help, for knowledge if nothing else? Did he learn then that his family was different? Special? Chosen? And how did he react? He couldn't possibly raise a child in the valley if they would be as strange and fey as him. He had to leave. There was no other way.
But years later, on his deathbed, did he regret that choice?
Is that why he gave the farmer the letter?
Is that why they went back home?
When the farmer steps off the bus that first day, the valley is still on the cusp of winter, just barely tipping over into spring. The flowers are starting to bloom, but a chill still hangs in the air. As soon as the farmer's boots touch the soil there's a change. The air gets warmer. The trees get greener. Not by too much, not all at once, but it changes.
The junimos watch the farmer as they do their work. They're new to farming, but take to it with frightening speed; their first batch of crops is perfect. None of the townsfolk tell them that parsnips don't normally grow in less than a week, that cauliflowers don't grow to be ten feet tall, that fairies don't visit when the sun goes down and grow potatoes and beans and tulips overnight. The junimos talk amongst themselves in their strange, wild language, and agree: this is the one. They're back. The valley recognizes its own, even when they've left for a generation. The farmers have come home.
Things change fast in the valley. The community center, empty and decrepit for so many years, is rejuvenated. (Lewis says it was abandoned only a few weeks after the farmer's grandfather left. Strange coincidence, he says, that it both came and went with the farmer's family.) The mines and the quarry, similarly abandoned, are explored for the first time in ages. The town becomes cleaner, brighter, more vibrant, happier.
And it is happier. Not just the environment, but the people. It's the talk of the town for weeks when Haley does her first closet purge. Leah's art show in the town square is a huge success. Shane's smiling for the first time since he moved to the valley. All of them, when asked, say it's all thanks to the farmer.
People love to ask why Lewis didn't fix the community center on his own. Why Willy never repaired the boat to ginger island. Why Abigail or Marlon never went down to fix the elevator in the mines, or why Clint didn't fix the minecarts.
But isn't it so much more interesting to ask how those things were there in the first place? How they got so broken down? If the stories the townspeople tell are true, the valley was once a beautiful place, flourishing and full of life; why did that change? When did it change?
Was it when the farmer's grandfather, the locus of the valley, its chosen representative, left town?
And if so, what happens when the farmer comes back?
152 notes
·
View notes
hello i’m sorry, i’m so sorry (I’mnotsorry) but has anyone written about the scars Steve is definitely going to have in a thin ring around the base of his throat from the demobat’s tail?
Those aren’t just bruises, in the first image you can see raised, damaged skin. Abrasions at the least, from the demobat gripping and shifting and sliding as it tightened its grip. Filthy abrasions, too, being from the Upside Down. Animal injuries are dirty. I have scars from YEARS ago that were small scratches at the time, discolorations now. I was scratched by a goose once when I was 10, and that minor injury remained lashed over the back of my thumb for well over a decade. I have thin, pale discolorations of my forearms right now from over 8 years ago, made by a the slip of a bird’s foot. A small circle between my pointer and middle finger from when I was bitten in high school, 20 years ago by a rescue parrot while I was helping out. Animals, even our mundane ones, have bacteria of all sorts that can become minorly infected and cause healing to take longer, to cause scarring to form. I can’t even imagine how much worse an injury from something in the Upside Down is.
I’ve seen fics where they talk about the one on his side, but these are the delicate ones I want to see mentioned. These are the ones I want to see Eddie touch with reverence for the horror of it, with respect for the fear that had come with them. The ones I want to see Steve draw in a too-quick breath when they’re touched, because he remembers the rough tail wrapped around his throat, dragging him down to his death, strangling the air from him. The one that bit him hurt him, this one made him panic, if only briefly. This one made him vulnerable to the others. These are the ones everyone is going to see, day to day. The ones he has to live with constantly instead of only with himself. The ones he’s gonna touch, himself, absently.
and i’m just curious if anyone else has written about them, or if I’m gonna have to do it myself
1K notes
·
View notes
Queen of Tears is so interesting cause i've never dealt with two really complex leads like this in romcom (i mean it is funny)
i've said it before but Haein and Hyunwoo know each other very well but don't know each other at all (i don't know if i've ever seen communication issues this bad).
Losing the baby clearly drove them apart. She blamed herself and put up high walls. He wears his heart on his sleeve and cried over it. We can argue that he should've comforted her in that moment but at the same time she clearly knew he was upset so why didn't she go to him? Haein thought she had no right to grieve and consequently Hyunwoo thought she didn't grieve at all. The moment where they needed each other more than ever- the moment they should've been together they both fucked up.
The core of the issue is that they can't read each other's mind, this is literally said at the beginning of 6- they love each other dearly but also tripping over each in the process.
Outside of Hyunwoo jumping up and down at her diagnosis and faking his way into her will (which was painfully cruel and soooo funny) It's very clear that this is a two person game. Although I always interpreted Hyunwoo's joy as the same as the mistress of a wealthy man who is just waiting for him to die so she can get the money, (it's mean but most times the master either sucks or he's naive as hell and she has no reason to mourn) and at that point Hyunwoo's in the same situation.
Why didn't Haein defend him in front of her relatives? Why scold him publicly in front of the employees? She does a lot of things behind the scenes but good intentions can only go so far if object of those affections is ignorant of the full story. The same thing happens in episode 6, she is trying to protect Hyunwoo from her family but without telling him so he is ignorant of the big picture. Why wasn't Hyunwoo honest with his feelings? Why is he always assuming the worst when she never explicitly says something? We see he tries to talk to her (it fails) but his fear of upsetting her leads him to do otherwise cruel things to keep her happy.
Which is also why the divorce paper is so interesting. That paper was one of the best things he’s done. He was completely justified in writing that. It breaks Haein's heart but severing ties like that was way healthier than him forcing himself to stay in this marriage and pamper her with fake love.
One thing I will admire this piece for is the role reversal, like i'm seeing so many typical fl tropes on Hyunwoo and ml tropes on Haein. You ever read one those isekai or time reverse manwha's were the fl goes back in time to get a divorce but falls in love with her partner again? yeah this is the same exact thing.
28 notes
·
View notes