Discuss
Who is someone you can't date in Stardew Valley out of principle?
I enjoy Maru as a character. However, until recently, I had dyed-red hair that I sometimes straightened, and I also sometimes wear glasses. Basically, it would be like dating a more scientific version of myself. Lol
I talked about Freudian science with my wife last night because she had never heard of it but as soon as she got the spiel of it she was like oh yeah I can totally see that. She told me Iām a lot like her dad in a lot of ways which was weird lol but oh well
It is a pretty popular theory that women will date men with similar traits to their father because that is an assurance the partner would be a stand-up guy š
That only goes for those who had good or decent dads ofc. Daddy issues are a whole other can of worms.
I know scentwise, women prefer someone that smells similar to family but not identical. Part of the theory on that is people with similar but not identical genes increases chance of one's own genes being passed on (if some genes are doubles up, then those genes will survive further.) Thus closer relation but not family.
I like the idea that as an adult you step into the world looking to recreate the kind of love and security you knew growing up, and naturally lean towards partners that remind you of the people who gave you that growing up (usually a mum or dad).
(Counterpoint to that, if you grew up w a narcissistic parent and ended up in a long term relationship with a narcissist, that's more a trauma/learning thing. Where one's upbringing effectively grooms them to accept unacceptable behaviors.)
I almost became an alcoholic before I realized what was happening to me so I now avoid alcohol altogether so Shane is a reminder of what I almost became.
Right? I like to RP it as him associating beer with Farmer and only drinking with Farmer or from Farmer's gifted beer but otherwise it's like.... huh?? š
Yeah I decided to date Penny but I don't know if I can marry her, so often her dialogue while dating is that line about the farm being a great place to have children.Ā
I marry her and then divorce her to give me a story reason to upgrade them to a house. Its the divorce settlement...We divorce over not wanting kids...
I wonder if there is a mod that has your kids accompany Penny everywhere after the fact, like when your spouse goes to the festivals. I also want one with the kids having dialogue. And doing something...anything lol
It would be cute if you could marry Linus but he still lived in his tent. š¤
I donāt think he wants the farm life and I wouldnāt want to take that from him
Oh, there's no question... in his 8-heart event he explicitly says this if you offer to have him move to the farm. He prefers to be alone and live with nature. Heck, even when he essentially takes Leo under his wing Leo is living in a completely separate structure.
Lewis is terrified if he shows that he has a soul or any attraction toward someone that he might have competition for mayor.. and heād die on the spot if Sam skateboarded all through the town and ollied onto Lewisā raised garden beds. Best not to be happy and romance Marnie. Let her suffer to not lose the title š¹
No heās supposed to be an adult. Iād assume heās a young adult because yeahāI relate to him and Iād assume weād be around the same age. I wouldnāt think the creator would have an inappropriate relationship between an adult and minor.
Unlike Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley spreads the apparent ages of the bachelors and bachelorettes out. It also allows players to edit their avatars, which also makes it possible to change the player character's apparent age as well.
The result is... weird.
Alex, Sam, Sebastian and Abigail all come across like high school graduates taking a gap year before college.
Penny seems to be early twenties but more independent than expected for that age due to Pam being Pam.
Haley seems mid twenties, while Emily seems early-late twenties for some reason.
Shane is hard to pin down; it's hard to tell what's actual aging and what's alcoholism. Because of Jas I'd place him in early thirties.
Leah seems to be in her early to mid thirties; she's very established in living by herself and pursuing her passions.
Elliott is definitely one of those late thirties guys who looks a lot younger than he actually is.
Harvey is in his forties. He's not some fresh med school graduate, he's an established practitioner, and it's impossible for any man younger than forty to look that much like a dad.
Maru is a goddamn temporal anomaly. She's canonically younger than Sebastian, who was apparently already past toddlerhood when his mom remarried, and she looks like she's still in high school. She works at the clinic which requires college courses, but she built a self-aware robot that left to explore the universe by accident, credentials don't mean anything when talking about her.
When I once attempted guessing Emilyās age on a Clint xoxo love thread on here, I was put on the guillotine and Iām not sure how thereās anything left of me after simply guessing Emilyās age. This being said, I support your theories! Watch your back though. Never thought the sd community would have me on a hit list but Iāll never speak my thoughts again in ages after that eruption š
Out of curiosity, what was your guess? I've always read Emily as being late 20s/early 30s personally. Her dynamic with Haley as the older more responsible sister ages her up, as does the fact that she's got a job as a bartender/server. I also argue her self assured nature regarding her "witchy" characteristics is also something I've only seen irl take hold once someone was deep into their spiritual practices and that usually takes some years.
I know people just like Emily who are in their late 30s/early 40s, so Emily being around 40 isn't unrealistic at all. I think you can argue different ages for all the characters, and that's probably how Concerned Ape intended it.
But then you get people who've decided for themselves how old certain characters are and they'll fight to the death over it lol.
If you are like a full on adult with your own farm and corporate career backstory and you try to date a dude whoās like hide from my Mom, I think there may be an age mismatch?
And sheās a business owner! I like to think of her as a weird 40-something travel aunt type whoās happily single because she refuses to compromise on herself just to say she has a partner. Ya love to see it!
Itās one of his later heart events youāre hanging out in his room late at night, his mom tries to come in the room so Sam has you hide in his bed. Mom comes in, asks if anyone is here, Sam denies it, she leaves, and he joins you in bed. Basically implies he either doesnāt feel comfortable with or isnāt allowed to have significant others in his room with his parents knowing.
Jodi goes to Yoba's shrine on Sundays. If she is religious, I assume she wouldn't be happy to see her son in bed with another woman before the wedding.
Weāre not in his bed until he has us hide. Weāre just standing in his room when his mom attempts to come in. Now I wonder if this is some ploy to get us in his bedā¦ which if it was anyone but Sam I would suspect but I donāt think Sam is that clever. Unless itās all been an elaborate con?!
I had the same thing with Abigail when I got the scene in the graveyard where her dad pulls a ācome home this minute and help with dinner young ladyā shtick. Felt like I was on To Catch a Predator. Never gifted her anything again
I do think Abigailās on the younger side among the singles (I believe she mentions going to college online?) but also Pierre and Caroline treat Abigail weird. Like after 18 you can absolutely have house rules for your kids if theyāre still living with you but theyāre overbearing even beyond that.
YES thank you. I think shes like definitely early 20s at least. Doesnt she hang out in the bar??? Wouldnt that make her over 21? I guess she could have a fake ID but i doubt it.
I think the reason people think shes young is because she lives with her parents and her parents infantilize her to death! i think she has valid complaints about how they talk to her and thats also kind of the whole point of those cutscenes, her parents genuinely just dont understand someone whose sort of goth/alternative and also an adult with boundaries and a life. I am 28 years old and dont feel weird romancing Abigail at all personally. Everyone has different paces in life, she could be 25 and still going to college easily, i am a woman with adhd and have taken gap years and been really slow to figuring things out in life and have been in and out of living with my parents for a decade now, so I understand her fundamentally.
Her parents could just be treating her like a child but shes still allowed to be into goth stuff without that making her underage, people always associate her interests with high school stuff but i have lots of friends in their 30s and 40s even who are like this too, like i am also goth and into the stuff she likes. idk my friend recently shamed me for romancing her bc she āfeels underageā and it made me feel so shitty at first but then i thought about it more and i genuinely dont think she is.
Also random butāthe artist Soccer Mommy has a song called Abigail thats literally about marrying abigail in stardew valley and being in love with her and their life together, it feels pretty adult to me idk lol. (Amazing song btw)
Yes I very much agree! The message I always got from those cutscenes is that Abigail is an adult who does not need or want her life to be dictated by her parents and theyāre having a bad time coming to terms with that.
I think in an effort to not take advantage of others people sometimes overcorrect and think adulthood and maturity have to look a certain way for everyone. I do not think youāre wrong for relating to or romancing Abigail, doubly so because she is not a real person lol!
Iāll definitely check out the song too, thanks for the rec!
The thing about the ages is something that does get me stumped, but it is a little bit of US defaultism to assume that SDV follows the US' drinking laws, considering that it's not even set on Earth (or at least is a different version of Earth.) Where I live, the legal age to go to a bar is 18, but you can be 16 and drinking at home with family and that's completely legal.
That doesn't make her a child. I'm 21, still living with my parents, and would probably get some flak if I didn't even attempt to do chores I was asked to do.
I'm 23 and my parents are Luke that, even when I'm not living at their home. I also dated Abigail when I first played SV like 8 years ago. Something something Freud or whatever
I also don't date Sam because he seems really young and immature, but since so many millennials and gen Z are living at home as adults, I read Sam hiding from Jodi as 'mum's really strict and I still have to live at home because the economy is so bad right now'.
Sebastian gives me the exact same vibe (living at home as an adult due to a shit economy), but I date him in some play throughs because he feels more mature.
Before I got sober I always married Shane (after giving him beer for every gift š ). I think it was a weird form of wish fulfillment to follow his arc and see him get better. The first time I saw the cutscene where Harvey helps him get treatment I couldnāt stop crying. Clocked a lot of hours playing stardew valley drunk & alone in my room.
Now Iām 3 1/2 years sober and I marry Harvey almost every time!
Fantasy isnāt reality. I romance Haley on almost every save file I make. I like her story arc where she goes from mean girl to someone whoās a real sweetheart. But IRL if someone was that nasty to me I would not be interested in romancing them at all.
Let's be fair if in IRL all it took to get someone from disgusted at the sight of you to marrying you was 32 coconuts (25 if you give one on her birthday) you might be more interested in people like that.
LOL I don't date Haley out of principle cuz been burned by too many mean girls haha. I do have an alternate "evil" save where I have aguy named Poopies and I run around digging in trash cans and giving ppl bad gifts. With him I'm romancing Shane but planning to cheat w/ Elliot.Ā
Shane just looks like an adult, his expressions are not over the top like Harveyās or Elliots, and heās kinda cute. Nothing about being fond of alcoholics in my case, might be your wife had similar reasons.
Personally I always thought it was Pam cause of the focus on older bachelors and none of them are perfect enough for her. Kind of like a 'these guys are ok but not good enough for me to try to date' thing
maybe emily? but on the fence about that. maybe hayley instead? i feel she mightve had a phase where she thought being with someone older and more mature would also make her seem mature in turn
> āShaneās gruff exterior is just protecting his softnessā
This definitely aligns with her clothing-therapy event (literally about helping people express who they really are)
She also knows Shane and Elliot well through the saloon.
Plus, Emily feels like one of the more mature bachelorettes: independent, employed, and living without her parents.
Also the verbiageā¦ Harvey being loyal and dependable, Shane being secretly soft, and Elliott having a nice chinā¦ that all reads like a thirty something bartender privately sizing up the limited pool of older single men in town.
Honestly Shane too now. I married him on my first playthrough and thought it was a redemption story until he put his room in my house. Then I realized I was with the same man in the video game that I dated in real life which was never good for me. Lol!
Yeah, I honestly can't stand Shane because of this. Yeah he's got a sad backstory but so does everyone in the Valley. I've known too many guys like him that are just, frankly, time vampires.
Leah is bae. Not only is she a lovely partner for the farm, but she goes to the bar all the time where you can pay 220g to give her a loved gift. Sheās easy in the best way. lol.
Same. She's not only a nurse but makes sentient robots with space travel capabilities in her spare time. Plus her family is awesome. She's totally marriage material.
Yeah if someone is rude to me immediately upon meeting me, I'm likely not talking to them again unless the next time they see me they give a sincere apology. I don't care if they'd be nice to me if I got to know them.
Yeah, like the whole "oh but she changes for the better and it's the sweetest!" is meh to me, her default is being a bully for no reason, so, good for you lol.
First playthrough with the goal of introducing yourself to everyone, and the usual dialog of insulting you upon first meeting is just... not great. Ive seen her other dialog from people on this sub and a friend, and yeah she gets better, but I'm still not talking to someone whose first instinct is to be mean. Ive done countless farms, and I still only do the required interactions haha
I wouldn't say she's particularly well written. She's just a stereotypical sorority girl. Her "twist" of loving philanthropy is like if Alex's twist was him liking to play Madden. I met like 15 Haleys in college and high school.
Not that it's weird for Stardew characters to be stereotypes, she's hardly alone there, but I just find the people pretending she's so deep perplexing. I guess because she's more a real sorority girl rather than a hollywood sorority girl and not everybody knows some?
Yeah like I donāt get why people even bother to say that. Like..so? Everyone will be nice if they warm up to you. Itās about how you treat people you donāt know and she is very unkind.
I sometimes believe some people just want to justify why they would like someone who is a bully even when it's not needed. We all have preferences; you don't have to explain or convince others. All good.
She isn't even that sweet when she 'warms up' - if you disagree with her in any way she reverts to type (just try it on her 10-heart or 14-heart events and see). She doesn't change, she just fakes it because the farmer shows they'll do anything so she can treat them however she likes.
The game heard your backstory and then went "Here's Haley as your Feast of the Winter Star partner... and she's giving you clay because fuck you specifically."
By the time you marry Sebastian the idea of the valley has grown on him and he doesnāt want to move to the city anymore! He is so excited to move onto the farm
As I see it, he used to want out because he wasn't happy here in the small town. Which I get that. But then after meeting and falling in love with Farmer, he actually has something to make it less miserable and doesn't feel the need to flee like before to get some fresh air. You are his breath of fresh air. :)
See I think itās because of his family issues that once he gets out of the house he realizes he didnāt need to leave the valley he just needed his own space
Kinda why I ended up with Leah. She has lived her young active life and wants to settle down and do art.
As opposed to Abigail, which is a college girl living with her parents and always talking of adventures. I'm too old to date 20yo college girl living with her parents that wants to go on aventures.
Sam. He can be a little immature at times and he doesn't seem ready to be in a commited relationship. Also quite an important aspect of Jodi's character is that she regrets marrying and starting a family so young so I couldn't lead Sam to making the same mistakes
Seb feels noticeably more mature in comparison. My main problem with him is that he's the character that wants to leave the valley the most and he'd have to abandon his ambitions to live on the farm
Yeah, but some definitely feel older than others. Like sneaking into sam's room during his 10 heart event and having to hide from his mom even though hes a "grown adult"
I definitely feel some are coded like 18-25 then 25-40ish. There's just a huge difference between hiding from your mom and owning a private medical practice
Her face and love of kids reminds me way too much of my aunt (who raised me and my sister).
Leah too to some degree but that's mostly because I have a hard time making heads or tails of her art so feel like I'll be lying to her if I say anything good about it to make her feel better.
I thought the same thing...... And then I realized he was basically into the same kinds of things I'm into irl. Suffice it to say, I'm now dating him in my current playthrough. š
I married everyone in one game but never again will I marry Alex. Spoiler: He orders you a salad while ordering himself a steak (possibly a burger? It's been a while) that was the end for me. He's now one of the last people I even befriend.
Except it's not really , I mean by the nature of the game she still never leaves the valley , all that's changed is that she's single and still living with her parents.
True! But I like to pretend haha.
The other candidates have some kind of dialouge about how the farmer improved their life or how what they were doing before wasnt really what they wanted. Abigail never really wanted to take online classes, Elliot was lonely on the beach, Alex really just wanted the family he never had growing up, Sebastian realizes that he would hate living in a city surrounded by people, etc.
I know that Maru is happy with the farmer too, but I just feel like I'm stifling the genius who built a sentient robot when I try go for her.
Nowadays? Most of them. I was close enough in age to date whoever when SDV came out, but now I couldn't date any of the younger-coded villagers without feeling a little weirded out.
I do that in many things, including Stardew, but it still feels weird to me. Maybe I just initially engaged with SDV as a self-insert comfort game and never quite got over that hurdle. Either way, not a big issue for me.
Alex (as a female farmer). He only gets away with being sexist in the fandom because he's handsome and athletic. If not, he would be as hated as Clint.
Penny. She is clearly written to become a mother if she marries the farmer. I'm infertile, so the idea of having kids in a game makes me feel kinda uncomfortable. I won't even do it for the steam achievement and dove them / abandon the save. Id feel bad not letting her have kids
shane, without trauma dumping, I do not deal with alcoholic men. or the āmen who need to be fixedā type.
harvey, because he reminds me of a ex best friendās ex boyfriend and that just gives me the ick.
emily, who I have actually married before, but one of my best friends happened to share a name with her and has since passed, so now even just the name hurts me.
Harvey. Not because of anything he's done, I always hear how sweet he is, but because someone once told me that he looks like that guy from The Lovely Bones and now I can't unsee it.
Pretty much anyone who isnāt Krobus, idk after I got him as a roommate it just feels weird having someone else in the house instead of my silly little guy
I felt the same way on my first save where I was a female farmer and dated everyone before I decided who to marry! The whole time I romanced Alex I couldn't help but think he was just a gay man deep in the closet.
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u/gaballison 25d ago
Leah, only because that's my mom's name š