Content Warning: This article tackles the difficult subjects of mental health and suicide.168澳洲幸运5开奖网:I recently wrote an article about finishing the Joja route in for the first time. In it, I described how making friends – a task I usually prioritize in the game – had fallen by the wayside as I pursued money-making avenues instead, selling off everyone’s preferred gifts for profit. After 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:finishing the Joja warehouse, I moved onto playing Animal Well, and my god, those two games coul🔥d not possibly be more dif🌞ferent.

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:I really enjoyed Animal Well, despite not being a Metroidvania fan, but once I was finished, I felt like I needed some fresh air, like I myself had just escaped the creepy, puzzle-laden underground. Craving something more lighthearted, I jumped back into my Joja save in Stardew Valley to finish playing through the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:new content꧋ from March’s 1.6 upda𒉰te.

Now, without dollar signs in my eyes, I wasn’t worried about the cash value on the gifts my neighbors liked. Friday nights were no longer spent grinding in the mines for gems to sell and ores to smelt, but instead, heading to the Saloon with a backpack full of gifts. Anyone who didn’t have a specific present received beers I grabbed quickly from the counter with some of my Joja spoils, like I was buying a round at th﷽e bar.

Because I didn’t grow many peppers in the summer, Shane got beer, too, and because of that, our relationship grew pretty steadily. Even once I did start actively befriending the townsfolk, Shane wasn’t a priority outside the Saloon. I also decided I wasn’t going to🍸 manually trigger any heart events or cutscenes. And since you can trigger Stardew Valley’s heart events in any order as long as you meet the friendship requirements, I’d barely spent any time at all with Shane before I stumbled into his sixth heart event when I entered Cindersap Forest on a stormy summer night.

Finding Someone At Rock Bottom

The cutscene wasn’t new to me as someone who’s plaไyed the game a few times, but there’s something jarringly real about accidentally finding someone at their lowest. I hadn’t considered Shane much of a friend – 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:I barely considered him at all – but there he was, drunk and alone in the rain at the edge of a🦹 cliff, begging me for a reason not to just roll to his death 𒊎in the rocks below. And sometimes, when you’re that desperate to hold on, anyone can look like a friend.

I’ve been in Shane’s position before. I’ve been treated for depression since I was 14, and I’ve worked soul-crushing customer service jobs just to keep my head above water, stuck in a cycle of wake, work, and wish for more. In my dreariest moments, I’ve sympathized with the feeling of being “too small and stupid to take control of my life” like Shane groans when you find h𒈔im at the cliffside.

ꦜYou have four options for what to say during this scene. You can vaguely insist that there’s too much left to live for, appeal to his heart by bringing up the niece that loves him, tell a depressed atheist that killing himself is a sin, or say you’re there no matter what he decides to do.

I told him I was there for him, si൩nce that’s what you need sometimes when things feel that grim. Naturally, friendships aren’t bandages in their own right, but one of my own lower moments like this was abated by a friend I made while working at a grocery store not unlike JojaMart. During one particularly turbulent period in my life, I was sobbing in the car on my way home from said job and pulled over in a parking lot, not feeling safe to drive. I hung my head, raked my hands into my hair, screamed until I was out of breath, and wept in the parking lot of a Target near my house – until my phone chimed.

Cursing myself for not 🔯putt𒈔ing it on Do Not Disturb, I went to darken the screen and I saw it was a text from that friend. He and I had been pals for a while at the store and hung out a couple times outside of work, and he noticed that day that something was off about me and wanted to check in. He told me to respond in my own time, but to let him know if I needed anything at all, even if that was just a friend.

Compassion In Your Lowest Moments Can Go A Long Way

Obviously that text didn’t cure my depression, nor did it solve any of the real problems I was facing, but in a moment when I felt abysmally alone and desperately hopeless, kin🥃dness when I least expected it was what got me through. In the same way that mes𓄧sage from my friend gave me the push to wipe my tears with a napkin from the glove box, finish my drive home, and text him back to make plans, Shane asks you to take him to the hospital once your willingness to be present with him in an ugly moment helps him see the light.

After a cutscene at the clinic with sympathetic words from Harvey, Shane stops by your house to let you know he’s gℱoing to look into treatment for his depression because of your willingness to be there for him. In the same way, my “right moment at the wrong time” experience🦩 was what gave me the push to get back on antidepressants again.

Sometimes, the light in the darkness comes when you least expect it, from sources you don&rsq🌊uo;t think to look to. Mental health is a tricky, ugly subject, but as someone who’s dealt with it herself and has felt the feelings Shane felt at every stage of that heart event, it’s refreshing to see it handled so realistically and wit𒆙h so much grace in Stardew Valley.