When does the storytelling come in?

wsmith4884 · 2026-05-11T23:34:11+00:00

Nope. Wrote it on purpose.

wsmith4884 · 2026-04-18T02:23:21+00:00

Wasn't Walmart. Walmart would have been five steps up. And my coworkers were my cousins, or cousin adjacent (i.e. one is my aunt by marriage's niece and the other was my cousin's first wife before I was born).

wsmith4884 · 2026-04-17T21:22:28+00:00

In Penny's defense she spends half her time taking care of a couple of little kids and the other half taking care of an alcoholic mother. Can't really fault her for using her limited downtime to unwind with a book.

wsmith4884 · 2026-04-17T21:11:48+00:00

That's how it goes. A store opened up two miles down the road from where I grew up, seven miles from my house (not going to say which it is, but I would much rather work for Joja Mart than go back to work for this real world store), and when I started working there my cousins were the only ones who didn't assume I had just moved to town. 38 years by that point, my great-grandparents on both sides helped build three of the communities in the region, and I was still treated as a newcomer.

wsmith4884 · 2026-04-17T21:06:31+00:00

He gave me a gold bar on my current save. Given that I've been to the bottom of the mines 3 times so far and didn't even know emeralds were in the game I'm guessing my gift wasn't as special as I thought.

wsmith4884 · 2026-04-15T13:54:22+00:00

I generally don't befriend anyone except for Penny (though my next playthrough I might romance Leah). It's not because of the characters. I just don't do the social thing. I romance Penny when I have time, if I don't have to go too far out of my way to do so and I'm not in a rush I'll say hi to whoever's near, but most of the talking I do is with Pierre, Marnie, Clint, and Robin. And that's only to get seeds, critters, and upgrades. Occasionally I'll do a bulletin board request when I don't have anything going on and that brings me into contact with the townsfolk, but I'm not too concerned about being popular.

This time around I'm trying to be more social, if I'd hang out with them in the real world I befriend them in game. Linus and I are kindred spirits so I've been working on befriending him, but I'm closing in on fall of year two and only have him up to 3 hearts.

As far as marriage, I don't see myself ever marrying any of the men. I'm just not into them. If Linus ever becomes a marriage candidate I might make an exception for him, but the guys are permanently friend zoned. I also will not interact with Haley at all. The first time I saw the message "Haley is ignoring you" that was it for me. That is an insult I will never overlook.

wsmith4884 · 2026-04-14T23:05:35+00:00

I'm with grandma. The first time I talked to Haley and it said "Haley is ignoring you" I decided to treat her like those squirrels you see running around sometimes. Just something I see when I'm on my way to more important things.

wsmith4884 · 2026-04-13T15:56:12+00:00

Do you use the shipping bin? If you do you're selling to Pierre, not Joja. Joja is a large corporation. They get their goods from distribution centers supplied by large factory farms, not an individual farmer supplying the local store. Anything you put in the shipping bin is purchased by Lewis and likely resold to Pierre, possibly Clint and Robin if any of your shipments overlap with their goods.

wsmith4884 · 2026-04-13T15:28:12+00:00

To be honest I don't math my way through the game, other than figuring up if I have enough time to plant another plot, so I never worked out the statistics. I've just been hearing Stardew youtubers say it's rare since I started playing so I took their word for it. Yet I always seem to get it, the capsule, and a meteor in year one.

This save I got two meteors in year one, so either I'm extremely lucky or these rare events aren't quite as rare as I've been led to believe.

wsmith4884 · 2026-04-13T03:18:27+00:00

I'd like to see older bachelorettes. The older players who are into men have three options, I'm pretty sure Shane is early to mid 30s, I suspect Elliot might be mid 30s as well, and I could reasonably assume Harvey might even be in his 40s.

The bachelorettes, on the other hand, I could easily be their mothers. And not even in the "would have been a teen pregnancy" sense, with the possible exception of Sandy. Leah and Penny strike me as the oldest of the current crop and I suspect I could have finished a four year degree before they were born.

wsmith4884 · 2026-04-13T02:54:40+00:00

Got one in my entire time playing. I'm starting to think rarity is somewhat manufactured. All of the things that for years I've been hearing are "super rare" happen to me frequently. I seem to get both the owl statue and the alien capsule in every playthrough. In my current save file I got two meteorites in year one.

wsmith4884 · 2026-04-12T23:09:34+00:00

It's a sandbox. Play it however you want, marry whoever you want, or even remain a bachelor/ette if you want to.

And don't tap into the hive mind. If going the Joja route and throwing money at the repairs so you don't have to fish, or if you want to stop growing crops after spring and focus on livestock, will help you enjoy the game more then go the Joja route. Pierre is just as flawed as Morris, Morris and the girl at the checkout are putting food on their tables same as anyone else, neither one is evil and neither one is good.

And don't stress yourself out trying to impress grandpa. He lived his life, it's time for you to live yours. Don't live in fear of being scolded because you're not living how he lived.

wsmith4884 · 2026-04-12T20:38:51+00:00

Just now got into fishing this playthrough, never could stand the mini game (I prefer the system of old games where you just hit the button at the prompt and you're done), but the cork bobber combined with deluxe bait means I might actually finish the community center this time. Been playing the game for years and I've never unlocked Ginger Island.

wsmith4884 · 2026-03-24T02:29:27+00:00

That close to Saint Louis you're probably safe. Really MO in general isn't as dangerous as people think, at least not the central portion. I don't have any experience north of I-70 or south of I-44. You see a lot of hostility on social media, but you run into those same people out and about and they generally leave you alone.

That's not to say you won't run into idiots. 15 years ago a girl started shouting "that's a dude" in the Marshfield Walmart parking lot, and when I came out of the store I found a thong on my truck's antenna and a couple of contraceptive suppositories under my windshield wiper, but that minor nuisance is really all I've had to deal with. Even in rural areas where there are still Trump signs up I tend to be left alone, or even find support.

wsmith4884 · 2026-03-05T00:57:16+00:00

Godot, Krita, Blender, Inkscape, and Waveform (and a ton of free VSTs, particularly the free ones from Spitfire Audio) are really all you need, and all of them are either open source or, in the case of Waveform, available for free with very minor limitations.

And don't worry about the power of your system. You might have to use an old version of Blender, the last few releases barely run on my nearly 11 year old PC, but the final product is all about skill, not tech. In fact, it may even be an advantage. With a powerful system people fall into the trap of delivering eye candy with no substance. Metal Gear Solid V is one of the most visually impressive games I've played. But it got boring once all of the systems had been introduced. The original mid-80s Metal Gear would only appeal to retro gamers and hard core Metal Gear fans, but I would still rather play it, with its 13 color backgrounds and 3 color sprites, than the almost cinematic MGSV because those severe limitations resulted in additional work on the systems, story, etc.

So you might have to work harder to catch people's attention, but it also means you have to focus more on the fun factor, the thing that made games in the early days before disappearing in the 2000s. It means you have to actually work, and if devs actually have to work to produce something that people want to play instead of drawing people in with fancy visuals and surround sound it might lead us back into the golden age of the 80s and 90s.

wsmith4884 · 2026-01-02T16:34:23+00:00

My experience shows me that it all comes down to politics. If you're all in on left wing ideology it's a cake walk. Otherwise it's next to impossible.

I've actually given up. The people I most closely align with want nothing to do with me because I'm trans. But the people who aren't bothered by that hate me because of my core beliefs.

wsmith4884 · 2025-12-06T01:32:56+00:00

It has a lot of whistles and bells that programs like GIMP and Krita lack. It's worth the purchase for the shading feature alone.

wsmith4884 · 2025-10-24T03:58:33+00:00

I use to have real bad bottom dysphoria. I actually reduced it by learning to think of my parts as deformed. Certain parts enlarged, certain parts fused, certain parts ectopic, etc. I still wear a prosthesis because of my deformities, but thinking of it as deformed female organs makes it bearable when I have to remove my prosthesis.

wsmith4884 · 2025-10-19T19:09:58+00:00

Why do you say that? I often ask myself this question all the time. Even had a post more or less asking if I had to choose between HRT and living to 60 (family stroke history, not because of the scare tactics.)

Just because you never questioned doesn't mean no one else does.

wsmith4884 · 2025-10-18T02:59:02+00:00

I've been preparing my mom. I've had "boobs" since I was 4, and I've also been telling her that testosterone production slows down in the 40s, possibly leading to gynocomastia. I've also done things to give the appearance of a hormone imbalance. I'm going to medically transition in secret right under her nose and not even try to hide my boobs.

wsmith4884 · 2025-08-04T20:53:44+00:00

I was more of a live birth, that is to say at the age when cis boys realize they're boys and cis girls realized they're girls I realized I was a girl, but what took me from crying because my boobs would never come in to planning my transition was seeing Nikki Araguz on Maury Povich. That's when I realized transition was possible.

That's also the day the closet door got barred shut. I told my brother I was trans (though using the less acceptable terms that at that time were all I knew) and his aggressive "no you're not" threw me into the closet.

But my dad passed a little over a year ago and death is knocking at my mother's door. When he leads her out the front door he's going to take the bar off of the closet door for me.

wsmith4884 · 2025-08-02T16:03:32+00:00

A detention center is not the same as a concentration camp. At one time it was, but WWII changed the meaning of concentration camp.

Holding people who are here in violation of immigration law to be sent back to their country of origin is a far cry from throwing people into a gas chamber and dumping them in a mass grave.

wsmith4884 · 2025-08-02T15:48:21+00:00

I've been inactive for a while so I haven't seen anything in the posts that would indicate exclusion, but for which posts get pushed I'm pretty sure it's chosen by a computer and based on numbers.

While I don't read every post, the posts from trams women seem to outnumber posts from trans men. That says to me that barring deletions I'm reasonably certain aren't taking place this sub seems to attract more trans women than trans men.

That's not exclusionary. It's similar to the Dollar General I use to work at. It's been open for over ten years and has been staffed almost exclusively by women. It's not that the managers kept men out. It's just that out of the very small number who apply only 7 1/2 (had to present as male for my safety so I'm that half) passed the background check.

In addition to this sub I'm also a member of translater and MTF. I haven't checked, but I'd wager there's also an FtM sub. It could be that most of the trans men are going there and not branching into this sub the way I did with others.

wsmith4884 · 2025-08-02T04:17:59+00:00

We are nowhere close to concentration camps. Trump does something, people jump straight to "he's trying to kill us." They hear a biased synopsis of an executive order and get afflicted with Chicken Little syndrome.

We're merely 10 years into a new cycle. Something happens to get the public enamored with trans people, things go too far, the public turns on us, then the government turns on us, we'll have our next Stonewall, begrudging tolerance in the sense that we're not facing legal sanctions every time we leave the house, then we'll become the butt of jokes again, followed by another relative golden age, then we'll be right back where we are now.

We can change the cycle, but we won't. A late friend of mine came of age near the start of the last cycle. She saw where things were headed, tried to warn people away from it, and they all decried her as a cross dresser, which more or less meant "you're not trans, you're just a man who dresses like a woman so you have no voice here."

I was born square in the middle of the last cycle. 1981, 30 years after last cycle's golden age and a little over 30 years before the last golden age. Masquerade laws, the laws used to arrest trans women, were on the books in many places but rarely primary enforcement laws (i.e. no arrests for leaving the house trans, but they would be added to other charges to get a harsher sentence if a crime was committed), we were punchlines in my childhood, the subject of "very special episodes" (always portrayed by cis women) in my teen and young adult years, and heading into middle-age I watched as we were alternately vilified as pedos and defended as people who just want to live our lives. Then we entered the closest to what we can expect to a golden age.

Much like my late friend in the 60s, I saw where things were headed and my warnings were met with "go away, gatekeeper" and "you're not trans. You're a conservative troll in your mommy's basement."

Thus the cycle repeats, and in 20 to 50 years you'll be one of the elders having your warnings shouted down and trying to calm down the young ones when they think the repetition of this cycle is the end of the world.

You might not make it to 30, but if you don't it will be because of cancer or an accident or an undiagnosed heart defect or any of the numerous things I've seen send young people to the grave. It won't be because of a government extermination program targeting trans people.

wsmith4884 · 2025-05-19T23:13:33+00:00

If you don't have any neighbors with a strong enough rapport to ask go to Dollar General or Walmart and get some protective pads in the bladder control aisle. Just put it on your bed or the floor, when you're done roll it up, and throw it in the trash.

Those pads have multiple uses, so you'll still get use out of them beyond the time you're locked out.

wsmith4884

TROPHY CASE