Luthien's Firefly Hollow Thread

Longtime forum lurker. First-time poster. Just wanted to say you've done a great job with this thread. Looking forward to this next chapter.

 

And thus, it begins. Got the first week written for - it was kind of hard because so much happened and I didn't keep very good track of *when* things happened while I played, so I had to do my best to remember the correct sequence of events. If some things seem out of order on here they very well might be, but...just go with it anyway. lol I'm writing this of course from the farmer's perspective, as daily journal entries - this isn't high fantasy (which is what I usually write), just the perspective of an artist embarking on a new and exciting phase of her life. Commentary and suggestions are welcome, this is kind of a new type of project for me since I usually tend to draw more than write, but I think it'll be fun. I'm not really going to be posting on any particular schedule this time around, but I will make a post for each week in-game, and share pictures of the farm and house at the end of each season. Anyway, onto the fiction!

Farmer's Journal - Year 1
Spring, Week 1


Dear Journal,

A wise person once said, “The two most important days in your life are the day you're born, and the day you find out why.” I think today might just be that day for me. I arrived here just a few short hours ago, and already I feel like I'm at home. Not just in the sense that I belong here, but that I've finally answered my soul's true calling. Art and nature have always been hugely important to me, but only in my wildest dreams did I dare to imagine a life where they'd be at the center of everything. The little voice telling me to pursue such a life has, until recently, been drowned out by the hum of fluorescent bulbs and coworkers frantically typing away, all of us racing desperately toward that paycheck at the end of the week. That's just surviving though. I want to thrive.

When I opened Grandpa's letter it was like the world went still, and the path before me lit up, leading me here, to this wonderful place. Stardew Valley. Pelican Town. Misthaven Manor. This is my home now.

A few hours on the bus, easily slept through, and I found myself in a new world. My house, Grandpa's old cabin, had been beautifully renovated and made ready for me to live in, right down to the smallest detail. A few pieces of furniture were provided free of charge as a welcome gift from Robin, the local carpenter. She's really quite nice, she was there to greet me at the bus stop when I arrived and showed me the way to the farm. If everyone here is as nice as her, I'm going to enjoy living here just fine. The Mayor, the “old guy” Lewis that Grandpa mentioned, planted flowers in the little planter on the front porch. The plumbing works great – I have hot water and a nice big bathtub, which I very much look forward to soaking in after a long day of farm labor.

Speaking of – the farm is...well, if I may be blunt, a disaster. I'm going to have a lot of cleaning to do before I can even make an attempt at any actual farming. I may try to start a small garden though, once I have enough room cleared. I was a bit taken aback at first but you know what, nothing worth having is ever achieved without hard work, so I'm up for the challenge. Tomorrow though. Today I just want to settle in. This has all happened so fast, I'm still kind of taking it all in – the reality hasn't quite set in that this is my life now.

I have a few boxes to unpack – the only one I really care about right now is the one that has my art supplies in it. I'm hoping that being here will inspire all kinds of ideas for art, even if I might not have much time to actually carry them out. The rest, I suppose, I'll take one day at a time. I'm excited to get out and start exploring, and even to meet my new neighbors. Its a small town from what I've been told – everyone here already knows about me, which is kind of cool and kind of weird at the same time. I'm not really used to so much attention.

Before I left home, mom and dad wished me luck, and I hope I'll have all the best of it. I want to make them proud of course, but I also want to prove to myself I can do this. I feel like fate brought me here, and if there's some greater purpose that goes along with it, I'm sure it will reveal itself in time. But for now, its up to me what I do with the opportunity.




Monday, Spring 1
Dear Journal,

I am exhausted! First day on the farm and I already feel like I need a vacation. I know I'm physically out of shape – years stuck behind a desk will do that to you. But this exhaustion is mental too. So many new faces, so much socializing, on top of all the exploring and clearing the farm. I'm doing my best to project a friendly, approachable persona in public, I want these people to like me after all. But at the end of the day I'm definitely thankful this farm...MY farm (it feels so weird to write that!) is tucked away in the woods. It gives a measure of peace and solitude I know I'm going to appreciate in such a small, close-knit community. Everyone so far seems really nice though, and I think eventually I'll fit in just fine, even if I keep to myself a lot.

My main focus right now is just getting the land cleared so I can make better use of it later on. I can tell no one's been here for a while. The trees are nearly choked by all the thick, tangled underbrush and fallen branches, and the soil is impossibly full of rocks. I'll get it cleaned up eventually, but right now all this manual labor is kicking my butt. The mayor left me a few parsnip seeds to get me started so I made a little garden in front of the house and planted those, and I've been finding more seeds when clearing the bushes, which I planted as well. I don't know what I'll get from them.

The good side to all of this is that as I clear, I'm getting to fully explore this little piece of the forest I've inherited. In addition to the small creek that runs through the bottom of the farm, I've also found a few other interesting things. For one, there's actually two more paths leading off the farm, one to the north that leads up to the mountain trail, and one to the south via a bridge that goes across the creek, which takes me right by another farm. I also found a little door hidden behind some trees, and it turns out that leads to...I'm not sure, an underground bunker of some sort? There's a room with bookshelves down there, which other than smelling a little damp and musty is in fairly good condition, and if you go down some more stairs there's this little spring – it's kind of magical really, just hidden away down there. It glows enough to light the whole cave up, and when I dipped my feet in for just a few minutes I felt completely recharged, like I'd had a full night's sleep. If I can find my swimsuit in all the boxes I still have to unpack, I might actually go down there and try swimming in it.

Next to the secret door, there's an old building that looks like it collapsed some time ago. Not sure what it used to be, but the broken glass makes me think maybe a greenhouse? It's pretty much in shambles. Maybe once I get some more cash coming in, I can have Robin help me fix it up. She did an awesome job on Grandpa's old cabin so I think she'd be able to turn it into something really nice if I pay her well enough.

The last thing is the shrine. Its in the back corner of the farm, but it's surprisingly well kept for how messy the rest of the farm is. If I didn't know any better I'd say someone had been coming here and maintaining it, but it couldn't have been easy to get back there.



Tuesday, Spring 2
Dear Journal,

Remember what I said about everyone being really nice? Allow me to correct that statement. Almost everyone. Met a few more people today and a couple of them were...well, pretty damn rude actually. I guess you can't win em' all though. On the plus side, this dude named Willy who lives down on the pier in the little bait shop pretty much just gave me a fishing pole. For free. And gave me pointers on fishing. Apparently it's kind of his thing and he wants other people to be into it too. Its cool though, fishing can be fun sometimes, even if I'm really bad at it. Maybe I'll get better.

I'm starting to make some progress with clearing the farm. Basically I'm just making room for the trees. I want them to drop seeds and spread, and I've started to cut away some of the older ones to make room for the saplings to grow and in turn, drop more seeds. If I stick to this strategy I should have a pretty good supply of wood by the time winter comes. At any rate, I can at least move freely around the farm now.



Wednesday, Spring 3
Dear Journal,

Today was impossibly grey and wet. The rain made my work outside a bit muddy, but it was nice of Mother Nature to spare me the task of watering my garden. Those parsnips I planted the other day are looking really healthy, in fact they're growing pretty fast too. I don't think I've ever seen a plant go from seed to ripe in just a few days, but that's what these are doing. The mystery seeds are growing fast too. There must be something amazing in this soil.

I've started to bust a lot of the bigger rocks and I found a couple geodes. I've always loved crystals so it was pretty exciting for me to find such big ones right here on the farm. I took them to the blacksmith, hoping by chance he might have a better way to crack them open, turns out that's actually a service he offers. A few taps of his hammer and I had myself a handful of interesting minerals. I took them to the museum curator because I thought he might be able to identify them for me, as my books are still packed. Not only did he know what they were but he asked if I'd mind donating them to the museum, along with any other artifacts or minerals I might happen to find. Turns out someone recently stole the entire collection and the place isn't doing so well financially since you can't make money from just letting people borrow books. He was really happy and gave me some cauliflower seeds in return for the donation, and promised better compensation for any future donations I might make. I mean, sure why not? I don't know if I 'll find anything worth donating but I'll definitely show him anything that turns up. I'm not going to turn down free stuff, especially when I'm this broke.

I also met another one of the townsfolk on the way home. Saw him walking in the rain, all dressed in black. I can't remember his name now, think it started with an S. He was kinda cute though, in that mysterious, broody kind of way.



Thursday, Spring 4
Dear Journal,

Fairly uneventful day. Woke up to a knock on my door, bright and early. Too early. The first thing I want to do in the morning is have coffee, not entertain guests. It was...Clint. The blacksmith. I'm starting to get better with names. Anyway, he mentioned I might start finding some ore on occasion (I have actually been finding copper) and if I wanted to do something useful with it, smelting it into ingots would be the way to go. I'm not a blacksmith, but it sounded interesting...could I even do that on my own? Turns out, yes. He shared some blueprints with me to make my own furnace – he says it's actually pretty easy to build and it's as harmless as a microwave so it's safe to keep in my house, if I want to. I like DIY stuff so maybe I'll sit down and take a stab at it this weekend.

Cash has been pretty tight. I'm living on spring onions and field snacks, if I eat at all. I'm probably losing tons of weight though, that's the positive side of that. I have discovered, though, that making money in this town is ridiculously easy. So easy I'm not really sure why that one lady lives in a trailer. I can sell just about anything to the shops in town – produce at the general store, fish at the bait shop, and Clint will even buy those ingots from me (though I may take him up on his offer to upgrade my tools because this set that came with the farm is falling apart). I've been foraging, and fishing (slowly getting better at that) and selling anything I can spare. I finally earned enough to buy a better backpack. With all this stuff I keep finding, I definitely need those extra pockets.

Failing all those, the Mayor has me signed up for a pickup service that comes and takes anything I leave in the shipping bin next to my house, and deposits the money into my account straightaway. The more I put in there, the more I earn, and I'm slowly seeing those numbers go up.



Friday, Spring 5
Dear Journal,

Wow, what a day! Where should I even start? Probably with my new pet. Well, I think I can call it that. So, I'm not sure what this thing is, but it looks like an apple with eyes. I found it on my doorstep this morning and it's been hanging around all day. I left some water out back in case it gets thirsty, but I have no idea what it eats. I haven't given it a name yet, I'm not even sure if it's a boy or a girl. Its really cute, even if I don't know what it is, so I guess it can stay here as long as it wants.

My parsnips ripened today. I got them all picked, kept a few and sold the rest at the general store. I used the profits to stock up on potatoes, which I planted as soon as I got home. The cauliflower is doing well, as are the mystery seeds. I don't know what it is with plants here but they grow so fast, I can see crops being a very viable way of making money here.

As if finding the apple creature wasn't out of the ordinary enough, I made a rather strange discovery up on the mountain. There's this bridge up there that's been blocked by a landslide since I got here, but I got a notice in the mail saying it was finally cleared up, so I went to see what else was up there. Let me tell you, this town is full of surprises. Turns out there's an actual cave up there, complete with an abandoned mineshaft. This creepy guy with an eyepatch was in there and he told me if I'm brave enough to venture into the mines I might find some valuable stuff. Then he gives me this rusty old sword and warns me not to go down there without it. I'm not sure what the heck I'd need a sword for but it made me even more curious, so later on I went in. Get this – he wasn't kidding about there being dangerous things. Giant bugs, and these...I dunno what they are. Little balls of slime that have zero good intentions for you. I didn't think I knew how to wield a sword but I sure learned. I managed to get down about 5 floors before calling it quits. I'll be back though. Prepared, this time.



Saturday, Spring 6
Dear Journal,

Okay, this mining thing is kind of fun. I didn't think I'd be the type to enjoy hanging out in caves and killing monsters, but its pretty worth it for the amount of ore I'm finding down there. Geodes too. I think this could potentially be a pretty good way to earn extra income, if I can get better at it. I wonder how far down the caves go though. There's an old elevator that I was told was broken but I dunno, it seems to work fine for me so far.



Sunday, Spring 7
Dear Journal,

There's nothing quite like checking your mail and finding money from your dad. He's proud of me for taking such a big risk, I hope I can live up to the hype though. Its starting to sink in now just how much work I've got ahead of me. I started sketching up some plans for the farm today, and I've been kicking around ideas for what I might want to do with all this land. The lady that runs that ranch off the south exit (I think her name is Marnie?) showed me some of the animals she sells and honestly, I think I like the idea of a goat farm. It could be really fun. I have a long road ahead of me before I'm ready to bring any livestock into the picture, but I know where to get them when I'm ready. She seems quite knowledgeable on animal husbandry.

It rained again today so instead of farm cleanup I spent some more time in the mines. Evidently, my interest in mining caught the attention of the man with the eyepatch, and he invited me to join his Adventurer's Guild if I could slay 10 Slimes. The people in this town must really not like Slimes because the mayor also issued a reward for anyone who could kill 6 of them. I was already going down there anyway, so I accepted. Kill two birds with one stone...or, 10 slimes with...a rusty sword? Whatever, its extra money in my pocket and that guild sounds like it could be fun. I'm keeping track now of how many floors I manage to descend, just sort of a personal challenge. So far I'm at ten. I found quite a few minerals, which I promptly brought to the museum, and this time my pay was in melon seeds. They are summer crops though, so I'll stash them away for now.

I spent the rest of my afternoon building that furnace and amazingly, it works. I smelted all the copper I'd found into ingots and I'm now I'm saving up for new tools.

After that, I went fishing and wow, did that ever pay off. Not only did I catch several fish but I kept finding treasure boxes, all of which contained at least one or two useful things, including rubies and more geodes. I absolutely can attest to fishing being a lucrative hobby in this town - I think if people were more interested in it they'd find themselves worrying about money far less.

 

Hey guys.

So um...I have to be honest with you all. I've been doing some pondering today and I think...maybe I might just go ahead and play this save without doing all this journal stuff. I mean...it's a fun idea, I like what I came up with for the first week but...it's a LOT of writing. There's a lot to keep track of just within the game itself, on top of coming up with an interesting and relateable way to tell the story . I don't feel like I'm getting much interaction over here anymore (I'm sure people are reading, but I don't see that, I can only see comments or likes so I have no idea how many are actually lurking this thread) and it's killing my motivation pretty quickly. I'm not upset or anything, I don't want you guys to feel like I'm complaining, I'm just explaining my reasoning. I just feel like it might be kinda nice to simply play. Without deadlines or pressure. I'll still happily share full farm and house screenshots at the end of each season but all this content in the middle is pretty tiresome after this many saves. A good chunk of my creative energy already goes towards commissions so to try and put a writing project of this magnitude and frequency on top of all the art is just...well, maybe I was a bit too ambitious. lol So yeah...I'm gonna just play, at my own pace, and when Spring is over, I'll drop some pretty pictures on here.

If you are lurking (especially if you've been around since the beginning), thanks for sticking around.

 

Well written. Nicely paced. You're welcome to play without posting, but frankly, your posts have humor, an easy flow, and a sustained interest although we know what's coming up.

And considering I'm a professional writer (for what little that's worth) and edited a mid-sized national magazine for a while in the 90's, I'm not just talking through my hat.

 

I read your thread every now and then, because it was a well written story with nice screenshots to lighten it up. Your last diary got me thinking: "Wow if she keeps that up, it will be countless hours of writing before year one is finished.". So I can really understand you wanting to just play. Posting a screenshot when you got one like in the 'magical thread of slimy awesomeness' would be nice, but don't feel pressured.
I always tell my friends that SV is a game were you can and should play as fast or slow as you like and the way you have the most fun.

 

It's funny I stumbled across this topic. I considered doing a personal farm log/journal for the forums a while back. Making brief, but personal, overviews of what happened and how my character felt. And accompanying the logs came photos! But I like this topic. Very well written and logged.

 

Just do what you want to do. If you want to write a journal part, do it, if not, don't. I don't care if you write it or not, as long as you're happy with it and have fun here (as long as you upload your beautiful farm screenshots from time to time).
I am always happy to see your screenshots and everything else is just cake decoration. Yummy cake decoration.

 

Thanks so much guys, I appreciate it.

I will definitely keep sharing the screenshots and maybe some art from time to time if I'm able to get any done.

 

Hello everyone!

I just finished Spring, so I have some house and farm screenshots for you.

House:

The house is more utility than comfort right now, I've been keeping all my chests and equipment in here just so it's close by and I don't have to run all over the place looking for stuff when I need it. As Summer arrives I'll be moving it all out and making my house a little more comfy. I'm using a new furniture set, this one is actually a combination of three other mods and a few pieces I put together myself (I had no prior experience with making pixel art but I'm pretty proud of what I did turn out!). The little art desk is actually something I made, I took an already existing table from another furniture pack and modified it to look like it has paper and markers spread across it, just like my own desk in rl. Also, the flower set under the singing stone is actually the futon bear modified. I'm also using the wallpaper set I made, which also has pieces from a few other mods. (I'll put links to all of them below the update.)

Farm:

It decided to rain on the 28th, of course. lol My farm is mainly a tree farm right now, I've been letting all the trees grow to maturity, chopping them, and planting every seed they drop. I want to make sure I have a good supply of wood by the time I hit year 2 because that's when I'll start doing a lot of building. For now, just the basic pathways have been laid in. (Working around things like trees that are still growing and the big boulders.) I have a garden plot set up and ready for Summer crops. I have decided I will not use any automation on this farm, as a challenge to myself. No sprinklers, no auto-feed barns. I'm going to do everything by hand. In addition, I'm not buying anything for the bundles from the traveling cart. She's had some tempting deals but I want to do this all on my own this time.

Just for fun, my Summer garden layout:

I like to grow a little bit of everything. I'm not concerned with max profit, I just like variety. I'm already doing fairly good with money, I'm keeping my funds between 10,000 and 20,000. All my tools are upgraded to copper, and I've gotten down as far as level 40 in the mines. (I'm actually pacing myself, 10 levels per week. Otherwise I rush it and end up at the bottom still using copper tools.) I've hit level 5 on all skills, with a few already being a few levels further than that. Not doing too much socializing yet, kinda saving that for next year, though I have been spoiling Linus and Seb just a little bit. With anyone else, I talk to them if we cross paths, but I'm not going out of my way for anyone.

The furniture and wallpaper mods I used to make my personal set can be found at:

http://community.playstarbound.com/threads/glitched-burger-furniture-overhaul.126892/ <--- Most of my furniture is from this set, though I did revamp or replace a few pieces.

http://community.playstarbound.com/...ngs-farmhouse-craftables-more-to-come.128233/

http://community.playstarbound.com/threads/alis-witchy-gothic-buildings-updated-for-1-1.115631/ <--- This is my old furniture set, but I carried a few pieces over.


You can find my personal set (furniture and wallpapers) here if you want to try them out:
http://community.playstarbound.com/threads/can-someone-pack-a-couple-files-for-me.130097/
(You'll need to scroll down a bit to find the correct set, I made some fixes and had it repacked.)

See you at the end of Summer.

 

Well that's good idea Luthien.

 

Interesting challenge. I think I would go crazy before half of year two. The reason why I completely went orchard is that I couldn't stand milking, shearing and talking to each animal every day.
Are you still using your time stretching mod?
And would you buy sashimi from the travelling cart for Sebastian, if you haven't got a kitchen yet? You know how much he likes those

 

Honestly though I love all the farming stuff. I wish there was more to do. lol I usually end up filling the hours with mining and fishing but if I could have things my way I'd just stay on the farm all day. That's why I keep going for larger amounts of animals. I do still use Timespeed, I don't think I would ever play without it. My ticks are set at 30 seconds which does make for a very long day, but I love having all the extra time to just do what I want and take my time and not feel hurried. I can always go to bed early if I run out of things to do.
For sashimi, I actually have a mod that puts a stove in the first house. There aren't many things I'm able to cook right away because I won't have the ingredients yet, but I always befriend Linus early on so sashimi is something that I'm able to make as early as the first summer. I'm also mining and picking up frozen tears but even before those levels I was giving him amethysts. I've got him at two hearts now.

 

I'm glad you started posting here again

 

Yeah I took a little time off to finish my last save, the last couple years are kinda boring and my posts would have been a bit redundant. lol

Using your beautiful seasonal victorian buildings this time around too.

 

By the way, I'm learning how to stream on Twitch.tv - would any of you guys be interested in watching me play sometime? I'll be able to save the recordings for up to two weeks, I'll totally record some game time if there's enough demand for it. (Might just do it anyway, it's kinda fun. lol)

Let me know if that's something you guys would like.

 

I wouldn't be able to watch a lot or regularly but I love seeing other peoples games. So yes, I'd watch.

 

Here's my Twitch channel if anyone who plans to watch wants to go ahead and subscribe. I don't have anything set up so it doesn't look pretty yet, but I'm working on it.

https://www.twitch.tv/luthiennightwolf

I'm thinking I'll most likely stream on weekends, though I don't have a set timeframe in mind.

 

Your so good at designing your Farm~!! (ohh..don't mind me just taking a little inspiration)

 

Well that's great.

 

Okay, I'm not sure if this is how it works but here's a link for my first stream (I recorded this earlier so it won't be Live):
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/131668055

No voice, my webcam sounds awful so I just did the game's sound (I don't have a headset so if I try to record voice and the game at the same time, you'd hear an echo). You'll quickly see how slow and easy I take things, there's absolutely no rushing anything. lol I got Seb's 4-heart cut scene in there so yay for that. n_n I'll take care of things on the farm, then do some mining, then some fishing to finish things off. Right now I'm just working on getting my skills up.

I'm about halfway through Summer so I'll have some more screenshots for you guys soon. n_n