my empty halls to echo, with grand self-mythology

I love that obsidian scalpels for surgery are still a thing.

And I've bought my candle this year at Fantasy Faire.



As I promised last year, this one was going to be for Alastair. It's the uppermost candle in that picture. It says:

Alastair Whybrow, irascible, loyal, and dear friend. You believed in me when I didn't believe in myself. You are missed.

Because...he is. Those important to us always are.

So. It's time, I think, to finally talk about Drear Fen.



So, years back I gave up my Linden home, because I heard there was an alternate program: find a 1024 parcel of mainland, and it's yours tier-free. I happily gave up my Linden home--which I never used anyway--and set to looking through the auction house.

And...years...go..by.

Finally, a dear friend says, well, I have some extra parcels in Cardew, you want one? Um...YES?!?



Inside, it's on the sparse side for furnishings, but--this is partially by design. Yes, I do have a limited number of prims, but I also wanted it to have something of an abandoned look.



There are little details here and there. I'm fond of them, but they'll change as the year progresses. I haven't decided yet if this is the permanent, year-round house, and then I'll put up a fancier house in October with more prims, or I'll take this build back and put down a creepier one in Cardew, but whatever it is I do, this IS going to be a year-round haunt.



Upstairs is where the dolls are. I realized how many I have, and this is not even a third of them. But they've been huddled in my inventory for far too long. It's the decent thing to do to let them out to play...



...and if you know where to look...you can find the stairs to the attic.

Nothing in this house, visually, will jump out at you. Some of the sound effects seem a bit loud, so I'll be working on adjusting them. But if that's going to unnerve people in bad ways, just turn your sounds off. At the least that will prevent the creepiest aural effect from going off--the refrain from the Banana Phone song, coming in from someone else's parcel in the distance...

But all are welcome. Someone may be in residence, or not. Enjoy.