Jean and Jorts take over Stardew Valley
When I saw the Jean and Jorts mod, I knew I had to explore that one. The story of Jean and Jorts is an epic Reddit saga from 2021 featuring two workplace cats, Jean and Jorts, and the misguided attempts of one of the staff members to teach Jorts how to do simple tasks like walking through doorways and grooming. This included but was not limited to putting margarine on Jorts (it is the origin of the infamous “buttering Jorts” meme) and filing HR complaints in Jorts’ name. Needless to say, I was very curious as to what a Stardew Valley mod inspired by a Reddit story about cats would look like.
I am happy to say that the extent and thought put into the Jean and Jorts mod blew me away. After a harrowing couple of hours spent trying to download and open mods in Stardew Valley, which ended with Stardew Valley running with no less than nine mods, I opened the game to find everything looked the same. Initially disappointed, I headed towards the town only to be confronted by two cats, one of which was stuck in a trash can. It was Jorts, of course. After Jorts was freed, they told me that they were helper cats whose goal was the unionize JojaMart workers. This instantly changed the direction of the game. No longer was Stardew Valley a peaceful, meditative game with the threat of capitalism looming in the background; now it had an anarchy-driven directive as expressed by the cats to take down JojaMart.
Soon I learned that Jean and Jorts had changed all the Pelican Town residents as well. Now whenever I approached one of them, they would only offer a comment about the cats. Most of them were positive, observations of how sweet and helpful they were and the like, only two or three were negative. (This was how I learned that Pierre is allergic to cats). It turned out that the kids were aware that Jean and Jorts could speak, but the adults were not. The plot was thickening. Jean and Jorts had become an integral part of not just the plot but of Pelican Town as a whole, and that was of course the point where I realized I did not know how to find Jean and Jorts again. In short, a real-life story about two real cats managed to completely transform Stardew Valley into a nearly unrecognizable game.
I am SO HAPPY to see someone talk about this mod! I’m not sure if you got it from my link in the Discord, or just happened upon it yourself, but either way, it’s definitely worth the analysis. I haven’t yet tried it out myself, but I’m glad to know that Jorts and Jean have an impact on other aspects of the game, rather than just roaming around passively. Joja Co. could use a pair of union mascots!