A sealed birthday card was left behind before heading off to work. For once, Fennec didn't work past the morning shift in order to head to the next location - Pastry Paradise cafe. He needed to pick up the gift box waiting for him in the kitchen's fridge. He returns home after being dropped by a cab, greeting Yen with an eager grin. The box is unpacked to reveal three small lemon pies, each about the size of one's palm. Lastly, a vanilla and lemon layer cake with buttercream. On the surface, there's icing shaped like chrysanthemums and in the center:
Celebrating Our Precious Owlet
"Happy birthday Tawny~"
Needless to say, I think Tawny is having a better birthday. 💜))
Hey mun, how did you get the Stardew edit? Or is it real? 🤔
I mean, asides from the art of Yen on the side, those are real screenshots of myself, @askyourboyfriend, and @bashfulfennec playing Stardew Valley in character for fun.
I've got 897 hours in Stardew, so I'm nowhere near the level of Yen's incompetence with it. :P It's just for fun. And for making IC shitpost like the images below~
If the different AUs could see each other, which do you think would be most envious of who?
Oh that's easy. Most of them wouldn't give a damn about the rest for one reason or another, but it boils down to most of the alternate universes being pretty contented with what they have vs the rest of them...with one obvious exception.
HS!Yen doesn't want to see "themselves" as an adult--especially not one who grew up without their friend some goth asshole, so they couldn't care less for the others; TTT!Yen doesn't want to see a universe where they don't have Fennec, and would even pity the main 'verse for being controlled by the player instead; if we're counting Stella & Todd as their own AU then that Yen is already technically ahead of the main 'verse and wouldn't need to look back, and--for reasons yet to come--wouldn't want to see an AU where Lizzie is prominent, so they wouldn't like the HS!AU either.
The one exception to the lack of envy is the main universe's Yen, particularly their self that has all their memories. They'd be incredibly jealous of all of them for a bunch of things: HS!AU Yen has Peter from a younger age, and gets to avoid a terrible part of their young adulthood as a result. They may also have a better future with Lizzie, if certain events unfold differently. TTT!AU doesn't have the Player in their head at all, and, even though they're not entirely free of a Player, this one seems much gentler than their own. They also have much more free will than the main 'verse ever did, and they have healthier relationships with the others because they're not the "Y/N".
But the universe with Stella and Todd is...uh...a bit of a mixed bag for Yen. On one hand, they can see a universe with themselves and Peter married and with children. Even if the same people had to die as in the main 'verse to get that far, they're much, much farther than Yen has ever gotten. And Stella and Todd are what they would have wanted as children, had they the choice. It's...almost a perfect future.
And yet, at the same time, it's a future that Yen is terrified of.
Do they want a future with Peter? Abso-fucking-lutely! They'd love to get married, have kids, be happy, etc. But they also know that their universe is under the constant threat of being overturned and reset at the whims of the Player, and the very thought of getting that far only to have it all ripped away? They can't bear it. They know the Yen "in game" wouldn't remember it past a few dreams--and, hell, may be able to get it back if the Player went down that path again--but outside with their memories they would be an absolute wreck. Their happy life would be gone. Their children would be gone. And they might never get them back.
So...as sweet as it looks, Yen would be too scared to be envious of that AU. Unless they found a way to stop the resets, or cut the Player out of their head indefinitely, they wouldn't be able to ever want that for themselves.
(Though who knows. Some seem to have done it, maybe they can, too.)
