write your name in lightning; shame the sky

My IRL friend Blurr has joined DW! He posts about videogames, anime, and other cool stuff at radiokomorebi so if you've got similar interests, feel free to take a gander. I've been trying to bring more IRL friends to Dreamwidth (for my own selfish reasons: I don't like the social media sites they're on and want to convert them to mine). Every such success shall spur me to never stop trying!

The cozy fantasy anthology that I'm part of is out now! You'll be able to read my story, Dollshops & Deathmages, and four others which all have the theme of forced proximity. You can get the anthology for free here. It's free because it's a reader magnet (so in exchange for getting the book, you'll be signing up for the author newsletters of the authors featured in the anthology, but you can unsubscribe later if you want to.)

Dollshops & Deathmages is about Melna, who crafts dolls and prefers them to people, and Clariel, a deathmage who is isolated because of his profession. They get trapped together in Melna's giant dollhouse, which could be disastrous given they're both (involuntary) habitual loners. But Melna is surprised that Clariel doesn't think dolls are frivolities like other men she's known, and Clariel is surprised that Melna doesn't think he's lame for wanting a doll of his own. And both of them are surprised that sometimes someone specific is nice company, even if you are stuck together.

I got the anthology onto my Kobo and started reading it at once, and of course, found two typos in my own story that I didn't catch before despite my previous editing and proofreading. It's some comfort to me that after the anthology has run its course, I can re-release my story separately, on its own. I'll take the chance to correct these then. If they niggle me in the back of my mind meanwhile, I'll have to live with that :/

I'm especially excited to read Thea Hawthorne's contribution to the anthology, because I've read some of her other work which was atmospherically cozy-spooky and had deep yet unobtrusive worldbuilding. I'm looking forward to the other stories to discover some new-to-me authors, too. Most of the fiction I read these days leans cozy, my nervous system right now prefers it. So I'd like to find more cozy authors. On that note, let me know your cozy fantasy recommendations! I've read the classics like Legends & Lattes, and I have my favourite authors whose backlist I peruse, like Celia Lake and Stephanie Burgis. I'd also love cozy recs without fantasy; I recently read D. E. Stevenson's Miss Buncle's Book and enjoyed that a lot.

myrtillenne is one of my favourite Dreamwidth layout creators so I'm surprised at myself for finding out they made a new layout months after the fact. Nevertheless, I've changed my layout now, and changed my default icon to match the yellow accents. 😁

My grandparents have left for a short duration, and my aunt and uncle continue to stay here. I didn't post for 3w4dw the past few days (and now there's just a few days left). All my energy went towards trying to protect my energy, and now it feels as if a whirlwind has come and gone.

I changed my avatar on Kingdom of Knuffel and submitted it to this month's avatar contest.



I like how the snowballike/bubbly dress blends into the snowballike/bubbly hair. They're actually items from two different sets! It's the Doughnight '23 dress and the Drama Llama hair. The poofy little pet is from a different set too, it's the Skypuff Pet. The spell shapes in the background make it look like the pet was summoned. I built this avatar around this pet!

Speaking of pets, there are now a new set of pets you can get for your avatar and they're SO CUTE!



And you don't need in-game currency to get them, either! You can dig with your Knuffel (the site's adoptables) on Candy Island to find them.