Neon’s A Doll A Day… Again (2020)

[Elfy]

Oh yes, I remember the ‘suicide eress’ from Riverworld.

[neon_jellyfish]

Omg your Lil' Fairies steal the picture with how cute they are. I'd say the first one - with the slight blue tone to it - can have a hint of menace if that's what you're looking for.

Thank you!

Yeah, menacing carolers, because singing is dangerous!

Yeah, they do look a bit dangerous all filtered down, but I like the glow-y more ethereal colours in the original.
If it's any consolation, the singing thing has been floated here too.  With reference to school music programs.  Which seems to me kind of idiotic when some of the same schools are probably allowing sports, with contact and heavy breathing from exertion... I wonder who came up with that.  Anyway, no, you aren't necessarily alone in the dumb rules.
And speaking of elections & dumb rules, we just had a provincial election & now that he has a majority, apparently the premier is considering implementing mandatory mask rules.  The angry people in this community at least are freaking out... "I wont do it you can't make me..." etc.  MY question is why the bleep they didn't do it in the spring, when everyone was really freaking out.  There are like 6 cases in the entire province, 200 since it started, & 2 deaths.  Maybe we still have to be vigilant but it seems like dumb timing for that.  Anyway....  >shrug<

And cats, but those talk with humans all the time.

Awwwww...  Now that WOULD be lovely

the entire bush produces red-turned-white flowers first. When I cut them and new ones bloom, they're all pink (last year) or all orange (this year). Then comes the third pink-orange gradient batch.

OK.  It's a magic bush then.
That sounds seriously cool!  
Since roses are deer food, I don't have any.  I'd still love to speculate about soil pH or something, but, I don't know enough about growing roses.
It's a magic bush

I don't know whether that's comforting or more terrifying... Hang in there!

I think cats in this world would talk to people, too, but we're too stupid to understand...

It's a magic bush

The second one looks more apocalyptic... because all the colors been sucked out like a happiness vampire got to them.

I love all the pretty colors of the original.

Thank you!

The middle pic has a haunting, ethereal quality to it.

Thanks!

Sorry, but Czechia is behind the curve. The sadistic psychopaths in the US state of California banned singing three months ago:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/03/us/califo...index.html

But only in church!

If anyone has any doubts that a certain political party in the US is anti-Christian and anti-religion and is using tactics patterned after a couple of influential dictators in 1930s Europe for mass social control, well, those people are in some kind of denial.

My tremendous fear is that the idiots here are going to vote like the idiots in Alliecat's province... and then cry "but we didn't know they'd do something like that!" Especially since they've already made it perfectly clear that they will, in fact, "do something like that."

Yes, they'll do something like that... and a whole lot more. I'm very troubled by what's happening here, and what's happening around the world.

I concur with the other assessments: second pic looks more deadly-innocent.

As for the suicide thing, no, I do not think I misinterpreted it. Suicide, or intentional ending of life, is a thing in Oddwickshire because they can "fix it." It reminds me a bit of the Riverworld SF series of books by Philip Jose Farmer. I think it'd be kind of cool to be able to "start over" or hit the reset button.

Well, at least we're more thorough, sigh.

As for the suicide thing, I'm sorry, but no, suicide isn't a custom in Oddwickshire, neither it is encouraged, it is a solution that gets used when there's nothing else left (brings me back to amputation as treatment for papercuts), and nobody is trying to fricken end their life (we obviously don't agree on definition of suicide. I don't count it as one when the life doesn't end, but I don't want you to change your view of suicide or anything, I just don't want to have Oddlings painted as trigger-happy suicidal saddos when they're not). And it's not a reset button, they're not starting anew, the way they live changes, but it's not a clean slate.

Oddlings are positive folks, and if I made them seem like some unhealthy bunch that glorifies suicide as a means of escape from life's problems on national level, and makes you insist on 'suicide being a thing' (eventhough I, who happen to be the sicko who made this world up, tried to ex!plain it's not like that, it's very rare, and the fact that something happens - again, very rarely - doesn't automatically make it a cusom or a 'thing'), then I'm very sad, and I'm very sorry. I'll try to be more careful and more clear next time.

You see, I'm so protective of my own view of my own dolly world, because I'm not publishing a work of fiction here, I'm sharing my happy place with you guys. It's one of my methods of coping with all the shit going on outside, so I need to keep it functional. And yes, some sick crap happens in my happy place, the key thing is that its inhabitants always face that crap with smiles on their faces (that's kinda the lesson in this whole Oddwickshire codswallop, one that I need to learn myself).

Oh yes, I remember the ‘suicide eress’ from Riverworld.

Not familiar with these books.



Day 277

Another fairytale book, The Malachite Box by Pavel Bazhov. He based his fairytales on traditional tales from around Ural, and while they are his own work, they're very true to the folk ones in both style and themes. I had to get it second-hand, but it wasn't so hard. The trickiest part was that the book only came out as 'The Malachite Box'  once in Czechoslovakia, then they changed it to 'The Stone Flower' (because of the ballet and the movie), so I had to figure out which names do I need to look for.

[werepuppy]

I love the framing of the book - with the 'evil' and the 'good' and that classic style illustration on the front. It's a very striking image.

ETA: Sorry for typo! Honestly, I wouldn't have noticed if davidd didn't point it out - my keyboard is just randomly not showing letters up when I press them.

[davidd]

That certainly looks like a classic style fairytale book – "classic" in this case unfortunately being defined as "the style of books I remember from when I was a kid."

Took me a while to decipher werepuppy's comment. "Goo? What goo?" I kept looking for some kind of dripping, oozing slime. Then I figured it out: typo!

As for the other stuff... well, I'll send you a PM! No worries, I have never interpreted Oddwickshire as being anything but a happy place, and it's certainly not filled with " trigger-happy suicidal saddos" or anything like that.

There, does, however, seem to be an abundance of cake.

[Elfy]

I love the way Holly and Raven frame the cover. I can imagine them sitting down together to read it.

[Lejays17]

The Malachite Box is a much more interesting title than the Stone Flower, so I can see why you would search out that particular title.

Love the framing of the two dolls on either side - the contrast in colours are great.

[neon_jellyfish]

I love the framing of the book - with the 'evil' and the 'good' and that classic style illustration on the front. It's a very striking image.

ETA: Sorry for typo! Honestly, I wouldn't have noticed if davidd didn't point it out - my keyboard is just randomly not showing letters up when I press them.

Thank you very much!

I did understand even with the typo there. You see, I'm a pure genius, I make typos like this all the time (that... is a proof of genius... right?), so I was able to guess what you meant thanks to my vast typox'perience.

That certainly looks like a classic style fairytale book – "classic" in this case unfortunately being defined as "the style of books I remember from when I was a kid."

Took me a while to decipher werepuppy's comment. "Goo? What goo?" I kept looking for some kind of dripping, oozing slime. Then I figured it out: typo!

As for the other stuff... well, I'll send you a PM! No worries, I have never interpreted Oddwickshire as being anything but a happy place, and it's certainly not filled with " trigger-happy suicidal saddos" or anything like that.

There, does, however, seem to be an abundance of cake.

 I don't remember any specific style of fairytale books from when I was a kid. It was a dark era, the 90s. I always preferred older books.



Now that you mention it... Well, good thing diabetes and cavities aren't a problem for Oddlings, right?

I love the way Holly and Raven frame the cover. I can imagine them sitting down together to read it.

Thank you!

The Malachite Box is a much more interesting title than the Stone Flower, so I can see why you would search out that particular title.

Love the framing of the two dolls on either side - the contrast in colours are great.

Oh, my book is the Stone Flower one. The problem was that I only knew the book as Malachite Box, so I couldn't find it, because most editions used the new name. I was only able to find the Stone Flower edition (the tales are exactly the same, just the title of the book is different). The Malachite Box title was last used in 1957 (and it was probably used more than once, I keep finding conflicting information. Not that it matters...).



Day 278

Boo.



Unfiltered boo.

[Elfy]

The filtered one gives her the look of floating through fog.

[werepuppy]

Oh the filtered look really adds to the idea of Spectra floating. It looks so good! Through the fog, looking for... whatever? Maybe just aimlessly drifting through the world...

It would make a great book cover, actually...

[Lejays17]

Ahh, I misunderstood what you said - and it makes perfect sense that you couldn’t find the book if the title had changed from what you knew it as.

Spectra looks very spooky & ethereal floating through the gloom in the filtered pic.

[Alliecat]

Floating underwater, perhaps.
I thought I commented yesterday but maybe my phone ate it. I bet those Czech folk tales are quite entertaining, especially those that are quite different to what we in North America might be familiar with.

[davidd]

And entity of mist and shadows, waiting, ever waiting, alone in the void.

[Elfy]

Floating underwater, perhaps.
I thought I commented yesterday but maybe my phone ate it.  I bet those Czech folk tales are quite entertaining, especially those that are quite different to what we in North America might be familiar with.

Author Naomi Novik has written a couple of books (Uprooted and Spinning Silver) which are based on the eastern European folk tales that her Lithuanian grandmother used to tell her. Hungarian born Theodora Goss features themes and characters from her homeland in her short stories, and she's worth checking out anyway, because she's brilliant.

[Alliecat]

She did the mash-up of dragons and Napoleonic war nautical, didn’t she? I remember hearing about them but never got around to reading them.

[Elfy]

She did the mash-up of dragons and Napoleonic war nautical, didn’t she? I remember hearing about them but never got around to reading them.

Yes, the Temeraire books. Jane Austen meets Patrick O’Brien with dragons. She did 9 all up, but it kind of ran out of steam at about book 4. Uprooted and Spinning Silver are totally different and a good read. Lejays gave me the first book of her new series A Deadly Education for our anniversary yesterday.