Rush Limbaugh isn’t exactly known for “telling the truth” or “being rational” or “behaving like a person with a soul,” but on his conservative talk show this week, he finally told a thing that was not a lie. Citing recent news that the U.S. Department of Agriculture will partner with Des Moines, Iowa’s Drake University to sponsor the first Iowa LGBT Rural Summit, Limbaugh began to panic. What will become of Real Americans when homosexuals are allowed to openly farm their rainbow corn right next door? Said Limbaugh:
Rural America happens to be largely conservative. Rural America is made up of self-reliant, rugged individual types. They happen to be big believers in the Second Amendment. So here comes the Obama regime with a bunch of federal money and they’re waving it around, and all you gotta do to get it is be a lesbian and want to be a farmer and they’ll set you up … They are trying to bust up one of the last geographic conservative regions in the country, and that’s rural America.
He’s almost correct. Correct-er than usual, at least. It’s actually lesbian and bisexual farmers who are being set up to take over rural America. I know this because me and Autostraddle Managing Editor/noted bisexual Rachel Kincaid both recently began using the Obama Regime’s queer farming simulator, Stardew Valley. The internet claims this “game” was designed and programmed by Eric Barone, but I believe we can all agree Eric Barone is just an anagram for Iran Core Be. “Iran” as in Iran. “Core” as in destroying America’s core values. And “Be” as in the Periodic Table’s abbreviation for Beryllium, an element most commonly found in Aquamarine, the bluest version of which gemstone can be unearthed in Madagascar, an island nation off the coast of Kenya. Okay? Obviously Iran Core Be is to Barack Hussein Obama as Tom Riddle is to Lord Voldemort.
Anyway, it’s the most fun I’ve ever had destroying rural America! Let me give you a tour!
War is peace
Obviously the main point of Stardew Valley is to destroy capitalism. The villain of the simulation is a punk-ass laissez-faire superstore owner named Morris. He runs Joja Mart, a subsidy of Joja Cola Company, and he keeps enticing the citizens of Pelican Town to shop at his mega mart for super discounted prices, which: a) puts Pierre’s General Store in a real bind, and b) makes everyone assholes. Once Farmer Heather is able to work together with Pelican Town’s citizens to collect a variety of farming bundles, she is able to fix up the community center. This collective spirit drives Morris into a seething pit of despair and so he closes his superstore and leaves town and the people rejoice with the standard socialist revolution balloon release.
Freedom is slavery
The second most important part of Stardew Valley is learning to destroy the second amendment, a thing that is achieved by teaching homosexual farmers the fine art of wielding yeti tooth blades and lava katanas deep in the bowels of the town’s mines. Plus, the lost art of crafting mega bombs by combining solar essence, void essence and gold ore. What chance to Limbaugh’s Real Americans have against such legit sorcery?
Ignorance is strength
All of these tasks are carried out in the gayest possible ways. For example, the opportunity for alternative lifestyle haircuts and graphic t’s are endless. Here is Farmer Heather in the comfort of her home wearing a Pride t-shirt and looking like she’s fresh from Kip’s chair at A-Camp.
And here is Farmer Heather modeling a variety of queer hats, including the Good Ol’ Cap, the Cowpoke Hat, the Sailor’s Cap, and the Cool Cap. Scarecrows that keep the vultures (and vulture capitalists) away from Farmer Heather’s farm are, of course, witches.
Four legs good, two legs bad
Farmer Heather popped a dinosaur egg she found in the mines into the incubator in her chicken coop and hatched a real life dinosaur into the world. Normalizing “science” and stigmatizing Creationism is obviously an aim of the Obama Regime in this simulation.
It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words
It’s not all collective bargaining and gun-destroying swordplay, though. Stardew Valley is rife with opportunities for smooching. The single women in town are wooed with gifts of coconuts, broccoli, diamonds, iridium battery packs, cakes, goat cheese, wine, and prismatic shards. Once the single women are eight-hearts fond of you, you can present them with a bouquet and they will become your girlfriend. (No need to choose just one! “Polyculture” is an achievement you can unlock!)
Farmer Heather has kissed Penny while enjoying a late night soak in the steam baths, Abigail while fighting off bats in the mines, Leah after she punched her ex-girlfriend in the face for not supporting her art, Haley on the beach in a treasure hunting afterglow, and Maru while gazing at the sentient cylon she built and released into space.
Farmer Heather hasn’t reached the part of the game where she storms Pelican Town’s polling place to rig the upcoming mayoral election for shrill corporate sellout robot bitch Clillary Hlinton, but surely that mission is coming soon.
Wait are you saying that Iran is at the core of what’s letting lesbian, bi, & trans farmers to grow? As an Iranian-American, I’m not sure if I should be offended or not. :=/
Nah, don’t feel offended. It’s a joke – the target is the conservative rural American mindset, not Iranians.
OMG I only just got round to buying this game and I’m so excited. It looks like the best harvest moon game only even better! I’m mid house move at the moment though so I can’t really allow myself to install it until I’m done because I just know it’s going to take over my life.
I just came here to talk about Harvest Moon. So glad someone else is as into virtual farming as i am.
This is the best headline ever.
I once worked with a lesbian libertarian Republican operative whose dearest wish was to start a homestead somewhere and exercise her 2nd amendment rights to keep everyone annoying away from her property, so I hope she gets some of that sweet culture war money.
Also: guess I actually have to start playing Stardew now, it looks great.
Aaahhh Rush, can’t you all just feel the HATRED rolling off that man? I wouldn’t stare directly at him, lest you burn in MISERY!! Can you pass me some hateraid? (Goes back to sit down in rays of hatred .)You would think that he and his talk show cronies would direct thier rays of hatred toward people that deserve it… like themselves. Good God, why have hatred with the very people that lives thier lives, not involving…
Oh wait, I may have stumbled into a paradox here. It’s the lifestyle we lead, the heads we turn, they want to be us, but they are afraid of what thier peers might think! Maybe its the hateraid, (I mean, I have drunk 8 glasses, but come on, don’t tell me you haven’t fallen down the rabbit hole and stared though the looking glass) but indulge me for a minute. I think being straight is overrated. Turly, I don’t think that being straight has gone to the way side. And the fuckin liberals are trying to horn in on our lifestyle.
Sooo it’s like a fancy Harvest Moon? Count me IN.
Yes. Good.
Oh, dude, I didn’t know you could girlfriend them all at once!
I’m laughing a little bit though because the next content patch is adding a romance with Haley’s sister, Emily, to the game. I need there to be special dialogue if you date both Haley and Emily at the same time.
Poor long suffering Clint. :(
I LOVE THIS GAME SO MUCH!!! I was never a computer gamer (I mostly play Pokemon on my various DS consoles) but this game pulled me in so much that I am now exploring other computer games to buy and play.
I didn’t do any kind of poly stuff on my first playthrough-I went with marrying Elliot because he’s a hot bookish type and I’m supes into that. He gets all poetic and mushy quite frequently and makes me coffee a few mornings a week and sometimes helps with the animals/crops. I started another playthrough a few weeks ago so I might try the poly thing out. Not super into Haley tho-she seems kinda bitchy and self-involved? Maru, Abigail and Leah are more my types.
What names did you go with for your farm animals? I used the random name generator for a while but most of those names were too funky for me so I started giving them fandom related names.
Can’t wait until this game updates so we have more to do! Getting kind of boring tending crops all day and then going to the mines or skull caverns in the afternoon.
I FORGOT to say that I love how gay all the hats make my character because I have the overall outfit and that paired with the trucker hat and my butch haircut is like, the gayest thing ever.
Okay, this looks fucking cute and being one who grew up playing and loving Harvest Moon, I want it too!! Why can’t it be free though?! I don’t buy online, dammit. D=
oh man if someone ever wanted to woo me, an iridium battery pack would be so dreamy…
The in-body subheads made me happy cry, it’s been that kind of week.
Were they partially inspired by the ignoramus who legit name dropped the Ministry of Truth in the comments of the apology post last week?
If not I don’t care.
All editors are equal, but some editors are more equal than others…Heather.
Reading the Stardew wiki (I have to play it now, thanks Heather. Oh well, time to go start a polyamorous lesbian farming commune) and my favorite line from an article so far: “[A spouse will] occasionally change the wallpaper of [the] living room.” I mean, just… at any time? With no warning? That’s the sort of thing I’d think you’d want to talk over with your S/O… Or I guess not?
Leah once changed my delightful ombre wallpaper to medieval castle walls overnight. She was so excited about it, I couldn’t be mad, but, like… girl, why?
Yay I love this article and I’ll have to play this lesbian farming game when I have some spare time in three months time :)
I never knew I had a need for a lesbian, poly, farming game until just now. Thank you, Heather, for enlightening me!!
As an Iranian American lesbian, I feel COMPELLED to own this game.
I’ve wanted Stardew Valley since it came out. It started pulling me in as the Harvest Moon spiritual successor that it is, but when I found out that being a lesbian farmer was perfectly accepted in the game (something that always disappointed me in the HM games) it won me over completely. Now I just need a job to get the money to buy it (after digging out of my current situation…).
OH MY GOD THIS ARTICLE JUST MADE MY FREAKING DAY.
Thank you. I have been giggling and enjoying the “lesbian farmer” thing all day (uh, is there room for a lesbian B&B for us lesbian non-farmers to visit and check out the farmers … market, yep, checking out the *market* – all about the produce), but I had not leveled my enjoyment up to 11. Thank you for putting it in terms of your apparently romantically prolific Farmer Heather. I had not seen the light, but you (and Obama, the secret lesbian) have shown me.
This article is the best