I love this quest! Found family is one of my favorite tropes. It has made me realize how important some side characters are; the impact they have, the feelings they evoke, to the point that I’ve found myself loving them far more than some main characters.

Hi sweet friends, I wanted to come in here and chat a little bit about what actually draws us to cozy fantasy. Not as a debate on definition (because we've sure had plenty of those), but more to understand what pulled us into this little group here and has kept us here since. Maybe we can even get to know each other a bit and build a better sense of community while we are at it 🩷

So, to share a bit personally here, recently I've been having something like a crisis of faith about this genre, which I once loved so much (enough to make a quest!) but in the past few months just wasn't doing it at all for me. When I think back, I found cozy fantasy at a time in my life where I was very overwhelmed, when the world felt large and scary and unpredictable, and when these books offered me some hope and some calm. I read them for escapism and comfort. Thankfully, I was able to find much more steadiness and groundedness in my life, but that means the books snagging my interest have been offering a balance in the other direction: more problems, more adrenaline, more grey areas. In the spirit of transparency, I also got a bit down with seeing how much criticism several cozy fantasy books that have made their way to more of the mainstream got for being boring, shallow, sad, or on the flip side not cozy "enough." I admittedly started wondering if maybe these books only really hit in times of crisis? But I just finished reading A Psalm for the Wild-Built, and I feel like that book really reminded me that actually, these stories can be more than just a hug only when you need one. They can also be inspiring, and change your perspective, and just be really dang lovely to read for fun when you're already doing just fine. Maybe that's obvious, but I figured if as the quest owner I've had doubts and gone through different seasons with these books, surely some of y'all must have too? And maybe we can talk about that.

So, all that said, I'd love to hear: what prompts you to pick up a cozy fantasy book? What are you hoping to find within the pages? Do you need to be in a particular mood? Have you also gone through on and off seasons with it? Is there anything else you want to share that feels related?