#shells lore

[shellsstardew]

Hehe

Alright, soppy letter about this entire year under the cut ↓

This entire year has been such a wild and delightful ride for me! You guys need to understand that I always loved writing, drawing, and making up stories in my head. But I never shared anything online, or barely, and never quite believed in my skills ever. So I took on a reliable job that I sort of liked, hoping I could keep writing on the side, as a hobby that made me happy. Sadly, the more realistic and burn out side of me took over and as I grew older, my dream was put more and more to the side until it was fully abandoned. And just following the motions of life, never expecting more or having hope made me really depressed, without me even being fully aware of it.

It took me an autistic burnout, loosing my job, being finally diagnosed with autism and AD(H)D to wake up and pick up that dream of making comics again. Realizing that you cannot be happy when you ignore who you are and are only concerned about trying to fit, about being stable and safe.

Shells changed my entire life. It gave me so much hope, and happiness, and I've met so many friends thanks to it, it drives me insane that I might have never knew all those wonderfully kind and loving people if this story that kept me up at night for weeks had stayed inside my brain. I'm so thankful life and my personal situation permitted me to stay unemployed and fully give in to this dream and share my work with all of you. I thought I was sorta good at writing, nothing much to brag, but the incredible response I've received seriously makes me so proud of myself, and pushes me forward with incredible confidence.

When I'm drawing Shells, I sometimes laugh to myself at my silly jokes, get giggly at how cute the boys are being or emotional at certain moments. And it's always wonderful to know now, that when I share it will make so many people also laugh, and giggle, and be emotional.

Thank you all so much for following along, supporting me, believing in my story and telling me so ♥️

I love you all ♥️

[shellsstardew]

Re-reading some old chapters and Elliott telling Leah ”What if I’m too much for him” hurt even more after the latest chapter(s) for some reason. Not something I thought that much about before but seems like he’s had a lot of.. loneliness in his life. And his face when Shane said ”You’re being dumb” ughhhh just having a lot of Elliott feelings recently. Last chapter was absolutely beautiful thank you for this series it really is relatable/moving to me!

OUUUGH yes 😭 I think in his head Shane just confirmed all his fears, he's probably been told he's "too much" a lot in his life

Obviously it's way more complicated than that from Shane's perspective but that's how he's going to interpret it 😭

And YES HE'S LONELY 😭 Probably has been lonely all his life before coming to Pelican Town! In my head nobody back home quite understood him, like maybe he had friends and a family but he always felt like he had to fake being someone else because he learned the hard way that the real him was too off putting/couldn't be taken seriously? So he never really could quite connect with anyone before that

So yeah, when you have all of that in mind it hurts even more 😭 He just lost the most precious connection he ever managed to make

Ouuugh you made me blab about my sad man 😭💛 thank you!!

[shellsstardew]

Im going to strangle that self loathing chicken man with a joja branded prescription for anti depressants i swear to Yoba

SHANE ACCEPT THAT PEOPLE CAN LOVE YOU AAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAA hehehe

That little dude is so satisfyingly frustrating I love him

This is SO thematic with your ask so I wanted to talk about the fact that, since Shane barely open up or explains his struggles, I've been using Leah's bluntness and wariness of him as a way to write plainly how he feels about himself a LOT

So under the cut, I made a "Leah's dialogue as Shane's thoughts bubbles compilation" lmao (this might be a brick, kissing it just in case)

I guess he didn't let him decide for himself though, heh! Anyways I hope that was interesting, it is to me at least 😂

[shellsstardew]

The "for uncle shane" drawing on the wall is so cute it breaks my heart. But they also look like potatoes. So now when i think about the accident with Jas' parents, can't help but think they "got mashed". Like potatoes. Yeah.

TOO SOON 😭😭😭

Little appreciation for my wall of despair

They're totally meant to look like potatoes but I hadn't thought about the implications

Fun fact I got the idea to add the pictures after planning the part, cause I thought the zoom out wasn't sad enough 😬 haha..

[shellsstardew]

Did you always have a support system online with the comic (Just in general, I doubt you had enough fans to make an entire discord server right off the bat), or was this something that developed over time?

It developed other time! I started posting the comic in February without knowing anyone in the community and around the end of May @mongoosingisme sort of adopted me into a friends server she was in with other Shane lovers hhaha

Couldn't have made a Shells Community Server without my dear @glazedsnail and all my lovely mods I met there :))

This server i joined truly helped with the creator loneliness I was starting to feel, I love this little friend group so much! I also have a beta team of English speakers thanks to it, which is SO helpful for the comic (I used to have to type out everything into spell checkers to make sure there was no mistake 😭) (it took so long) Mongoose and @cutethulu I'm so grateful for you 🥺 ALSO @thesoggyn00dle I love you so much!! We formed a "Shelliott Council" group chat that Noodle joined a little after, and thanks to your ask finally have an excuse to share the art I made of us hehe

@cutethulu → magic rat | @mongoosingisme → goose with glasses | @thesoggyn00dle → smoking bowl of noodle

[shellsstardew]

I do wanna ask… why Elliott x Shane??? How did you stumble upon this ship and why did you like it so much?👀

SHORT ANSWER:

They're my fav bachelors. I wanted to marry them both when I first played the game and before making the comic had the thought of "What if them.... them together... What if them.... Hahha.. lolol... hmmm"

(I didn't STUMBLE upon this ship I SOUGHT IT OUT IN MY OWN HEAD, YOU SEE) 😂

LONG ASS ANSWER:

I played Stardew Valley for the first time (and very intensely) around 8 years ago. I fell in love at first sight of Elliott's portrait (look, the man radiates charisma) but dropped him for Shane who had a much better story than him (cause that's more powerful to me than beautiful long hair apparently). I got REALLY obsessed with Shane. Like REALLY. I wrote essays about him to my friends who didn't know what the fuck I was talking about. Then I must have moved on to an other hyperfixation I guess and barely touched the game since then.

A year ago I fell back into the fandom by reading a lot of super good Stardew comics. I was unemployed (still am technically) and doing an original comic myself (see there) so I thought "Hey what if I could do this too?" I had to think of a story and didn't want to do a self-insert so I thought "What about my old two fav 🤔 could they work?? 🤔 🤔" and ohhh boy they did. Ohhhhh they worked so well it was writing itself. Also the ship had so little fan work at the time and that was making me a little mad (I knew the 10 fan art they got by heart haha)

I love Shane x Elliott so so much because it's kind of ship where at first people are like "Really? Them? 😒 Makes no sense" and when you think just a little more about it, IT DOES. IT DOES SO MUCH. It is NOT random! They're a reason why they both appealed to me while being so different, you see? They're different in how they appear but so similar at their core.

In my head they both have depressive and insecure tendencies but the way they deal with it is so different, which in my head makes them complete eachother so nicely. Elliott is a very optimistic person (leaves it all behind to write a book) and Shane a pessimist (can't get out of that hole he's in). Elliott is an hopeless romantic that seek love and connection (but as a hard time finding it) and Shane absolutely rejects everyone (as a defense mechanism? as a way to protect you from him? both?). Also, this can only be extrapolated from canon but I like to think of Shane as being happy and having a good life in the past, and having lost it. Elliott being the opposite, started unhappy and "stuck" and getting himself outta there.

They're both so lonely. They both need love so, so much. I also love the idea of someone so extra and... particular like Elliott being able to charm a guy like Shane, I think that adds to his character so much. They just have such distincts and interesting personalities that writing their interactions is so much fun.

Hope that answered it! Not sure if that was very comprehensible, it's kinda hard for me to defend that ship outside of my comic haha! I'm like... JUST LOOK AT THEM!!

[shellsstardew]

I’m curious… and feel free not to answer if it’s a spoiler. But does Elliott’s ex have a name?

Hmmm he does in my mind, because it might be necessary for the story at some point, but I rather not tell since I can still change my mind on it haha

Now I'm curious... Why are you curious about that? Hehe

And did you have an idea of what his name might be, since you asked? :)

[shellsstardew]

Goddd im obsessed with your use of micro expressions!!!!!! I dont think ive seen another comic use them like you? You've always been great at writing very real feeling dialogue, and combined, it makes for such a satisfying read. I love studying each panel and being able to tell where their thoughts are going just by a little change like that. Its a huge inspiration to me 💜💜💜

Thank you so much! I'm so happy to know that the little details go through :)

Here's a little behind the scenes if you want:

All my characters' line arts look like the first picture, I put all the parts of the face on different layers so they are easier to change up! I also often use the Liquify tool (shown on the third picture) to push around the lines. It helps me a lot when I want to turn a frown into a light smile, open the eyes a little wider or furrow the brows for example :)

I love doing it this way, it makes them feel so alive and real! Most of the time I tweak around until the perfect expression jumps at me haha