(10-03-2020, 01:40 AM)werepuppy Wrote: 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.

(10-03-2020, 07:25 AM)Alliecat Wrote: 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<

(10-02-2020, 10:59 PM)neon_jellyfish Wrote: And cats, but those talk with humans all the time.

Awwwww...  Now that WOULD be lovely

(10-02-2020, 10:59 PM)neon_jellyfish Wrote: 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

(10-03-2020, 11:34 AM)dargosmydaddy Wrote: 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.

(10-03-2020, 11:40 AM)Elfy Wrote: The middle pic has a haunting, ethereal quality to it.

(10-03-2020, 12:25 PM)davidd Wrote: 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/california-places-of-worship-pandemiic-trnd/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.

(10-03-2020, 01:30 PM)Elfy Wrote: Oh yes, I remember the ‘suicide eress’ from Riverworld.

(10-03-2020, 09:06 PM)werepuppy Wrote: 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.

(10-04-2020, 12:45 AM)davidd Wrote: 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.

(10-04-2020, 10:46 AM)Elfy Wrote: I love the way Holly and Raven frame the cover. I can imagine them sitting down together to read it.

(10-04-2020, 02:19 PM)Lejays17 Wrote: 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.

(10-05-2020, 11:38 AM)Alliecat Wrote: 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.

(10-05-2020, 04:37 PM)Alliecat Wrote: 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.