This post was originally published as a zine, launched at the 2025 Festival of the Photocopier zine fair. The zine has quite a bit more content in it, including some Clyde/Leah fanfiction if you're into that sort of thing. I still have a few copies, if you’d like one email me and we can work something out. All profits from my zines are currently being used to purchase e-sims for Gaza.


screenshot of stardew valley farmhouse

another day on the farm

In April of 2024, I decided to start a new farm in Stardew Valley, after years of not having played the game at all. I named this new farm ‘Roosterspur Farm’, after the Tori Amos song “Roosterspur Bridge.” If you’ve read my Animal Crossing zine you’ll already know that I named my town “Helena” after the My Chemical Romance song, so I guess you could say there’s some sort of theme happening here. Although honestly I think it’s more likely that I’m just notoriously bad at naming things - in my writing and in my gaming it is truly my least favourite part of the process. So names just tend to come from whatever it is I am thinking about at the time.


somewhere down past roosterspur bridge

When I started playing Stardew Valley again, I was thinking a lot about the Tori Amos album American Doll Posse. Released in 2007, it was the first Tori CD I bought at the time it was released, and I listened to the shit out of it. Tbh I could probably write a whole zine’s worth of words about this album, but I’ll try and save that for a future Tori Amos zine, maybe. But I would like to include a few relevant things for context; American Doll Posse is a concept album, which Tori wrote from the perspectives of five different characters or “Dolls”; Santa, Clyde, Isabel, Pip and Tori. Each character is Tori, but they are also themselves, with their own distinct personalities, constructed not only through the songs on the album, but by the different outfits and wigs that Tori wore for the album cover and art, and during the subsequent American Doll Posse World Tour. I was obsessed with this tour, it being my first chance to see her live since discovering her music a few years prior, but also because of all the lore surrounding it - for the first half of each show, no one knew which “doll” they were going to get. Speculation ran rampant through all corners of the online Tori community - I distinctly remember spending hours on 2007 YouTube watching terrible digital camera footage of these shows in preparation, trying to track which doll had appeared where and guess who we might get. I’d also totally forgotten about, until I found them on the American Doll Posse wiki-page, the secret blogs that Tori had also written for each doll, and then hid around the internet for fans to find. Tori has always been a world builder, but this album really felt like she had stepped it up a notch.


screenshot from clyde's blog 'clyde speaks'

a screenshot from Clyde Speaks

Listening to it again 2024/2025, I was struck by how much American Doll Posse resonates with me, much more than I was expecting it to. Not only does it showcase a level of creativity and approach to world-building that I find myself more and more drawn to in my own artistic practice, it speaks to a political moment that, in retrospect, feels like an important stop on this Hell Ride the world is currently on; a lot of these songs are openly critical of the US Invasion of Iraq, the subsequent war, and of then U.S President George W. Bush (the opening track is literally called Yo George). So yeah, listening to this album now, knowing that in just a few days, Donald Trump will be inaugurated for his second term as U.S President Donald Trump is very much in office and has opened the floodgates to some truly unspeakable shit, is one hell of a trip. If we were on ‘on the dark side of the sun’, as Isabel suggests in 2007, then right it now feels like we’re only a few steps away from blowing the whole sun up.


...anyway...

This is all to say that this is what my brain was soaking in when I decided to re-install Stardew Valley 1.6V and start a new farm. And in a similar vein to what happened with Animal Crossing, I chose my farm’s name without realising how important it was about to become to me. I chose ‘Roosterspur’ because it sounds like a farm name, and I named my player character Clyde because Roosterspur Bridge is Clyde’s song, and she was always my favourite of the five. As written on the wiki-page;

"Clyde wears her emotional wounds on her sleeve, but remains idealistic. She is looking at the effects of not being a whole person. She is trying to figure out what she believes in and she is dealing with having been disappointed in her life."

Also, Tori based Clyde on the goddess Persephone, who is both Queen of the Underworld and the goddess of spring and agriculture, so choosing to call my character Clyde is actually kind of perfect.


somewhere down past roosterspur farm

Ok, so now that I’ve spent a bunch of time going on about some random Tori Amos album from 2007, I should probably give a bit of background on what Stardew Valley actually is.

Stardew Valley is an open-ended country-life RPG videogame, created by developer ConcernedApe aka Eric Barone and first published by British studio Chucklefish in 2016. I did try to and find a solid list of credits for this game, so as not to accidentally perpetuate the ‘solo-auteur’ myth and erase a bunch of people who might’ve also contributed important work– however, it looks like Stardew Valley is largely ConcernedApe’s baby, a passion project made by a Harvest Moon fan who was not satisfied with the direction franchise had taken. So, much like Tori for American Doll Posse (a stretch but hear me out), he created his own world, filled it with his own characters, even composed and recorded the music. I read a bunch of interviews just to double check, including this weird GQ profile and ... he seems like a pretty cool guy with an interesting approach to game design? Wild.
And while Stardew Valley became a huge commercial hit almost immediately, ConcernedApe seems to have retained the passion for his project, continuing to fix bugs and add features consistently, as well as releasing a huge free update for the game, Stardew Valley v1.6, in March last year. Had this game been made by a larger commercial studio (eg. Nintendo), this update would’ve been sold as a $40 DLC. I dunno, it’s just nice that for a game that focuses so much on what it means to be part of a small-town community, its developer seems to be somewhat invested in the real life community that has sprung up around it.


villagers hanging out in the refurbished community centre

just some folks hanging out at the community centre they managed to wrestle from the hands of the evil Joja corporation

So what do you do in this game? Well, you start by quitting your job in the Big City and moving to Stardew Valley, into an old farmhouse that was left to you by your late grandpa. You go buy some seeds from the local grocery store and start growing some seasonal vegetables; parsnips, beans, maybe some garlic. You sell these vegetables to build up some cash to buy more seeds, upgrade your tools, purchase livestock for milk and eggs. Spring turns to Summer, turns to Fall, turns to Winter, turns to Spring. You go fishing, foraging, mining for ore. You get to know the locals, you ask someone out on a date. You get a girlfriend, or a boyfriend, or both. You go see an old man at a secret beach on a rainy Summer day to buy a mermaid pendant that you can use to ask one of your partners to marry you. You get married, get a bigger house, get more farm animals, have a couple of kids. You kill monsters and dig for treasure. You go to the Egg Festival, the Dance of the Moon Jellies, Spirits Eve, the Feast of the Winter Star. You restore the community centre. You take a bus to the desert, or a boat to an island just off the coast. You do all of this, or just some, or maybe something else entirely.


clyde and leah at the haunted maze

gal pals hanging out in the centre of the haunted maze

Some objectives are obvious, but most of them aren’t - I have played over 200 hours of this game and am still discovering new things I can do, or more often, reading about it on the sprawling online wiki. Stardew Valley doesn’t have the same doll house-like quality that I loved so much about Animal Crossing, but there is still plenty of space to create the farm you want and, by extension, the life you want. And, as I found out while playing this time around, it can also help you figure out the life that you don’t want, by making you live it.


can’t remember when you stopped laughing or when I stopped wanting to win

Roosterspur Farm is not the first farm I’ve started in Stardew Valley. My first farm was simply called Farts Farm (see, I wasn’t lying about being terrible at naming things). During my stint on Farts Farm, I married Abigail, because of course I did. Abigail is beloved by many players (see: 'Abigail' by Soccor Mommy) and with good reason; she has purple hair, she plays videogames and hangs out in graveyards, she loves pumpkins and chocolate cake and swords, and her favourite season is fall. I knew from the moment I met her that she was going to be my wife, but once I’d fulfilled all my romance obligations and purchased the necessary mermaid pendant required to ask for her hand in marriage - things started to go a bit south.


clyde and abby playing music in the rain

making music in the rain when no one is around

Abby moved into my house, which made sense, I guess, because before we got married, she was living with her parents behind their general store. As we got to know one another - or rather, as I got to know her - she would often about the adventures she wanted to go on, and the fights she had with her parents, who both wanted her to fulfil the expectations of more traditional female gender roles. Once we got married though, she ... kind of did just that. She spent most of the time just hanging around our house. I kept wishing I could tell her - you don’t have to be here all the time! Go hang out with your friends, go to the mines or the caves, got to the city if you want to! Or come with me on an adventure! Imagine how deep into the desert caves we could go if we worked together! I started to regret having married her, not because she was a bad partner or anything, but because I started to feel like I’d ruined her life.

For Switch Farm (the name I’m giving my second farm, because I don’t actually remember what it was called), I decided to marry Penny. I did like Penny - she was sweet, she liked books, she had bangs and a cute bun. She lived with her mother Pam in a trailer by the river, and talked a lot about wanting to live somewhere where she could store all her books. I’ve got plenty of space for your books Penny, I thought, move in with me! I guess my reasoning at the time was that maybe Penny would be happier living in the confines of married life that this game allowed – what am I, some Regency duke trying to decide who will make me the most suitable wife? Gross. The fact that I can’t remember any of her heart events (cut scenes that trigger throughout the game if you have given a character enough gifts they like) probably says a lot about how little I was invested in that relationship. And to be honest, Penny seemed about as happy to be married to me as Abigail did which was...some amount, I guess? It’s hard to tell.

And look, I’m aware that a lot of this would be due to a limitation in programming, and that adding that level of depth to character interactions would likely mean so much extra work for a solo developer. Perhaps I am expecting too much from a game where the dating sim is only one thread in an expansive tapestry woven by a single pair of hands. There is much to say about the genre of the dating sim and the weird power dynamics they can perpetuate (particularly when the only way to make someone like you is to consistently give them gifts) and much of it has already been said by smarter and more thorough people than me. So, my addition to the cannon is simply this - it’s a real bummer. It is also interesting though, to look back at my previous games, and the choices I made with both Abby and Penny. It’s interesting because, as I found out this time around, you can play the game just fine without having to get married to anyone.

For Roosterspur Farm, I decided to date Leah. I hadn’t spent that much time with her in my two previous games, so I thought it might be a good opportunity to get to know someone new. Like Abigail, she seemed like someone I would like to get to know in real life – she was an artist, working largely in sculpture, although I would often find her out an about with her easel and paints. Unlike Abigail, it seemed like she had already lived some of her life - she had moved to Stardew Valley from the Big City too, to escape a shitty ex and focus on her art. She had her own cottage by the river, and enjoyed her own company, it seemed. Her favourite food was salad, but hey, nobody’s perfect.


clyde and leah having a romantic picnic

gal pals turned girlfriends having a romantic salad picnic

I showered her in salads, goats’ cheese and truffles from my farm until she agreed to become my girlfriend. I could feel the pull of the matrimonial mermaid pendant, especially on rainy summer days, and of wanting to see what my house might look like after Leah moved in. Not marrying her wouldn’t stop me from doing anything else in the game that I enjoyed – I could still fish and forage and explore the mines – yet it felt like work to resist it. A part of me still wanted to complete the marriage quest, even though I’d already completed it twice, and both times it had bummed me out so much I stopped playing the game pretty soon after.

And maybe that’s what I’m trying to unpack here; how much of that comes from my desire to complete an objective in a videogame, and how much of it is to follow a path that had been laid out before me since birth? It’s a big thing to unpack, particularly because I’m already a ways down the road; I am married, I’ve been married for eight years now. I hate that the institution of marriage is built on the foundations of women as pieces of property, handed from fathers to husbands, but I also love weddings, and had so much fun on my wedding day. Not to be a total husband-guy, but I really do love my husband, and our relationship. We split everything; rent, bills, chores where we can, but we don’t have a joint bank account. We share friends and we don’t, we share hobbies and we don’t. Just hanging out at home with him is one of my favourite things to do, and if I don’t get minimum one day a week in the apartment by myself, I start feeling like I want to tear my own skin off.


clyde sitting on a torn couch by the river

my kingdom for a peaceful sit on a warm summer night

And yet there are times, despite all of this, where I still feel that pull to move further along the path – to buy property, even though we could never afford the quality of life we have now with a mortgage. To have children, even though we can’t really afford that either, and neither of us actually want them. To make him the centre of my universe, even though I know we’d both hate it. And each time I feel the pull I have to stop, take a step back and think – wait, do I actually want that? Like really, really want that? Or do I just want to complete the objective?

When I asked Robin to upgrade my Roosterspur Farmhouse for the last time, a room appeared, with dinosaur print wallpaper and two single beds in it. I knew what it was meant for, and I knew that I couldn’t have in-game kids without getting married first. I was immediately so annoyed by this room – it felt like the game was baiting me, it almost made me want to quit. Until I realised that I could just remove the beds, change the wallpaper, and turn the space into a sewing room. Which I did. And it’s gorgeous.
clyde in the sewing room

i think this is my favourite room in the house


a post script about Krobus, my void ghost housemate

Ok so, since writing and publishing this zine I found out that, in place of getting married, you can invite Krobus aka the void ghost that lives in the sewers to become your platonic housemate. Except that to invite him you still have to give him a (void ghost) pendant, and once he moves in he starts doing pretty much the same stuff as a regular human Stardew Valley spouse, like baking poppyseed muffins and getting grumpy at you for seemingly no reason. I know this because I asked him to become my roomate, and he now lives with me on Roosterspur Farm. And to be honest I'm feeling a bit weird about it, especially once I noticed that after Krobus moved in, Leah's status as my 'girlfriend' has now changed back to 'single.' Because you can't have girlfriend and a housemate? Anyway. I've decided that I'm ignoring it; Leah is still my girlfriend, Krobus the void ghost is my housemate, we're all having a great time, whatever.


clyde and krobus sheltering from the rain on the farmhouse porch

they were roommates

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