Neon’s A Doll A Day… Again (2020)

[Elfy]

Beautiful dolls amongst beautiful flowers.

[Alliecat]

Oooooooooo, lookit all the orchids. Where do you keep them, windowsills? And what happens on bath day? I just put mine in the sink and spray them to water.
Gorgeous collection with lots of colour variety!

[Lejays17]

It's always interesting to get the bits of "local" history you give us at times.

Ooh, so many gorgeous orchids there - with accompanying beautiful dolls.

I love the filtered version of Eos, and I generally prefer the non-filtered ones. But this one is extra-beautiful.

[neon_jellyfish]

Oh these are all just so stunning. I love how at home Venus looks among the plants.

Thank you!

Thank you for the brief history of the Czech Athletics Federation and in particular the evolution of the Czech national symbol through the decades of changing political and social ideologies. That was quite fascinating! And you are quite a historical scholar!

You are also an impressive horticulturist! Those orchids! All blooming at once! In winter, no less!

This was, indeed, a fun photo shoot! And the processed version of the EOS pic is perfection perfected!

Thank you! I'm afraid I'm not much of a scholar, it's more that this part of our history is still a frequently discussed topic. Which is good, because it would be stupid and dangerous to forget (and part of the population actually thinks it was the best we had and wants it back. It terrifies me).

Phalaenopsis are actually very easy to grow, they require very little care, and they blossom for long periods of time. They don't really do winter. They always just shrug the old blossoms, take a quick breather and pop out new buds.

Thank you very much!

Oh, wow! Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!

Thank you!!!

Beautiful dolls amongst beautiful flowers.

Thank you very much!

Oooooooooo, lookit all the orchids.  Where do you keep them, windowsills? And what happens on bath day? I just put mine in the sink and spray them to water.  
Gorgeous collection with lots of colour variety!

Yup, they live on my windowsills. I have east windows, which are perfect for orchids, although the neighboring building blocks a lot of light, so it could be better (for example, I can't grow any kitchen herbs here, it's too dark for them). On bath day, cca once a week, I put them in the water and let them soak for a few hours or overnight, depending on temperatures. This flat gets awfully hot in summer - from June to the end of August, the temperature inside is somewhere around 45°C, and this building is poorly designed, so it's impossible to cool this place down (even with all windows open the whole night, which is fun, because this is a busy street), so I have to bath the orchids more often and spray them in addition to bathing. So far they all survived, though, and my oldest lady, the yellow one, is 11 years old, and the lighter of the purple ones and one of the freckled minis are 10 years old. I'm kinda proud of them

It's always interesting to get the bits of "local" history you give us at times.  

Ooh, so many gorgeous orchids there - with accompanying beautiful dolls.

I love the filtered version of Eos, and I generally prefer the non-filtered ones.  But this one is extra-beautiful.

Thank you!!!


Day 56

ADAW #8



I forgot to mark where the frame covers the paper, so the top of the header got 'cut'. Here's a pic without the frame:



I have two theories as for what this is. Either it is one of those snake oil-style wonders, promising to dissolve everything and not even trying to hide that it's stored in a regular bottle with cork plug; or it's an Oddwickshire product, the bottle and the plug are impregnated with magic, and in that case, the horror of a liquid inside can really dissolve anything that doesn't have a magic shield.

[werepuppy]

If it is a horror of a liquid? Wednesday would like to place an order.

Monty looks very interested in it.

And avainq, your art work is so cool.

[davidd]

Love the shading and highlights on the bottle! And again, an authentic rendering of "old fashioned" style!

I very much like the atmospheric darkness of the fairground pic; the picture conveys  the mood I felt when reading Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Your lad's all-too-innocent exˆpression here suggests to me there's more than a little 'snake oil' about this elixir! 

[Alliecat]

Maybe it’s kind of a combination of both those theories… Seems like anything could be possible in Oddwickshire. Nice shading on the bottle.
Holy cow, 45°?!?! I like the heat but that might be a little much. I think orchids got the reputation of being difficult in the days when ex-plorers went bushwhacking through jungles and brought specimens home; you had to have a hothouse and most people couldn’t grow them. I agree phals are pretty easy... Just like any plant, you have to give them the right light, temperature, and water.

[Elfy]

Which one of your Oddwickshireites makes the acid? Floriane?

[neon_jellyfish]

If it is a horror of a liquid? Wednesday would like to place an order.

Monty looks very interested in it.

And avainq, your art work is so cool.

Haha, I can see why Wednesday wants one. I think she (and a few other Room inhabitants) would enjoy visiting Oddwickshire, they could find other useful things there.
Monty is very interested in it, he likes everything dark and macabre
Thank you very much!

Love the shading and highlights on the bottle! And again, an authentic rendering of "old fashioned" style!

I very much like the atmospheric darkness of the fairground pic; the picture conveys  the mood I felt when reading Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Your lad's all-too-innocent exˆpression here suggests to me there's more than a little 'snake oil' about this elixir! 

Thank you! Old fashioned was exactly what I was going for!

I haven't read that one, only a few short stories, maybe I should put it on my list...

I think you're right! I wonder whose corpse what kind of problem is going to get dissolved...

Maybe it’s kind of a combination of both those theories… Seems like anything could be possible in Oddwickshire.  Nice shading on the bottle.
Holy cow, 45°?!?! I like the heat but that might be a little much. I think orchids got the reputation of being difficult in the days when ex-plorers went bushwhacking through jungles and brought specimens home; you had to have a hothouse and most people couldn’t grow them.  I agree phals are pretty easy...  Just like any plant,  you have to give them the right light, temperature, and water.

Thank you!
Yeah, the heat kills me every summer. I don't deal well with anything above 25°C to begin with, so not being able to hide in a cool place the whole summer is hard for me... Combine that with my vampire skin that gets burnt by the slightest ex°posure to the sun, and you can see why summers are always a survival horror for me.

I found out that Phalaenopsis aren't actually all that sensitive to temperature, they can thrive even when the temperature fluctuates. This flat gets hot in summer and cold in winter, and I don't have heating on all the time (it only has 'sauna' and 'off' modes, no comfortable room temperature), but they don't mind, as long as they have some basic amount of sunlight and water, they're fine. I also have an Acacallis x Zygopetalum hybrid, but she didn't blossom for two years in a row now, because of too high temperatures (and too little light in the only place I can keep her relatively cold).

Which one of your Oddwickshireites makes the acid? Floriane?

I don't think it's a named character. Florianne specialises in botany, so she could be involved if there are some ingredients extracted from plants, but I don't know Uni-Acid's composition.


Day 57

February 26th is the Tell A Fairy Tale Day. I'll put the TL;DR here, so you can fast-forward right to the photo, if you want. In short, I love fairytales. I also have some issues with them. Today's photo is about Sleeping Beauty. I love Sleeping Beauty. I also have some issues with it.

I love fairytales (I prefer it as one word). Both the old folk ones from various parts of the world and new the ones written by various authors. Most of all, I like the old versions of fairytales, with considerable amounts of horror and darkness and cool guys and gals. I could whine endlessly about how the new retellings of lots of fairytales got sanitized and characters flattened, but that's a rant for another day, today's rant will be specifically about Sleeping Beauty.

One of my favorite generally known fairytales is Sleeping Beauty. Some of my all-time favorites are either Czech/Slavic, and thus not very well known, or some of those horror-y ones that weren't possible to sanitize, so they got somewhat forgotten (Robber Bridegroom, anyone?).
When I was a kid, I liked Sleeping Beauty, because I always had insomnia issues, and taking a mighty beauty nap and waking into perfect life where everything has been solved for me had some serious appeal. Nowadays I like Sleeping Beauty because of nostalgia and aesthetic allowing for interesting visual interpretation. I just love the theme of roses and a slightly decrepit castle completely covered with thorny vines intermingled with skeletons of fallen princes.

Mind you, there are a few things I don't like about this fairy tale. Namely:

• Consent. When I only think about S.B. herself, it's not that bad, it's just one kiss, he's handsome (they always are), and hey, that pesky curse is finally broken. But when I think about the prince... You just waltz into a girl's bedroom and the first thing you do is kiss her? What's wrong with you, dude? Some versions solve this by having the kiss as the condition for breaking the curse from the start, and the prince meets some kind of ex²position-mission character, so he knows that's what he has to do, but a surprising amount of versions just doesn't bother with this. And don't get me started on Snow White.
  
• Age difference. Hundred years is just... too much. And yes, the time stopped (except for the roses, those kept growing), so she's still 17, but still. Language, culture, habits, social norms and other relevant things didn't change that fast in the past, so she would most likely be OK, but it still weirds me out.
  
• The new retellings make The Cursed Shrubbery more and more boring. It started off as an evil, semi-sentient entity that killed everyone who got near and the prince had to be brave and fight it in order to get into the castle (and it felt like he deserves that kiss). Then it still killed everyone, but it just got out of prince's way simply because the mandatory century passed, and the dude became The Prince Of Destiny just because he happened to be nearby at the right moment. Cheesy. And then it stopped killing altogether, and turned into a pile of decorative greenery with kitchen timer and Moses effect built in for the convenience of The Prince Of The Cheesy Destiny. Grrrrrh!!!
  

I actually started putting together my own versions that would get rid of these issues for me, but they're just a bunch of bullet points and they look nothing like a story, so I won't share them. I can't really write.

Howgh, I have jabbered, oof, oof! Now onto the photo. Finally. 'Tis about fricken time.

Here are my Sleeping Beauties!



Here are my Sleeping Beauties without the heavy filtering:

[davidd]

On the "consent" thing and the prince, I always thought the idea was that Sleeping Beauty was so radiantly beautiful that he simply could not help himself. And that it was a relatively chaste kiss, not a full-on make-out session or anything. Back in the day, a kiss was sometimes a symbol of respect and honor and fealty and not just romantic (or lustful). To break the curse, someone had to pledge eternal loyalty to her, which is what the kiss represents. It's not just, "whoa, what a babe, I gotta get in on that action."

The "PC Police" are ruining fairytales. I'm glad you're doing what you can by taking fairytales back to their grisly, violent, horror and base-emotion infused roots, effectively illustrating them with your artfully edited photos. The processed pic is especially fine today.

[werepuppy]

I will admit - regarding the consent issue - the film 'Maleficent' did actually good a decent enough job with it. The Prince in question points out it would be extremely rude, and that he barely knows the girls, but he's yelled at to do it by the three fairies who raised her because they're kind of deseperate. Of course, keeping in with that film, it doesn't do anything and the kiss of true love that breaks the spell is a more ... familal kind on the forehead.

As for other re-tellings? Well, it's better than the versions where S.B. gets pregnant and is awoken by her baby sucking the posion from her finger...

Briar looks very in command here!

[Lejays17]

Fabulous rant about fairytales & their sanitising down for a modern audience.

My favourite fairytale is Beauty and the Beast - when I step back and think about it, it raises a lot of questions similar to yours.
(Another favourite is 10 Dancing Princesses, also some not-great stuff about consent & forced marriage).

All 3 of your Sleeping Beauties are great, and nice books you have them posed with.
The one they’re leaning against - is that the one by Neil Gaiman & illustrated by Chris Riddell? The artwork looks familiar.

[neon_jellyfish]

On the "consent" thing and the prince, I always thought the idea was that Sleeping Beauty was so radiantly beautiful that he simply could not help himself. And that it was a relatively chaste kiss, not a full-on make-out session or anything. Back in the day, a kiss was sometimes a symbol of respect and honor and fealty and not just romantic (or lustful). To break the curse, someone had to pledge eternal loyalty to her, which is what the kiss represents. It's not just, "whoa, what a babe, I gotta get in on that action."

The "PC Police" are ruining fairytales. I'm glad you're doing what you can by taking fairytales back to their grisly, violent, horror and base-emotion infused roots, effectively illustrating them with your artfully edited photos. The processed pic is especially fine today.

See, that's why I prefer when the fairy tale makes it clear that the kiss is necessary to break the curse, because then he's simply doing the right thing. I assume that it has always been that way, and it just became so ubiquitous that a lot of fairytale collectors didn't feel the need to put it there while they were jotting down the regional variants, and it later mutated into variants where the curse just ex^pires after a century.

I always had troubles with 'true love's first kiss', because I couldn't imagine how could true love be born of just seeing a gorgeous girl for a few seconds. Infatuation, yes, but true love? Also, true love obviously doesn't need to be mutual, because she's still fast asleep and doesn't know anything when it all goes down. How does he know that they'll get along and be able to support each other through the life's many hardships? And the less-than-hypnotizingly-beautiful princesses are obviously screwed... Then again, so are the princes whose trusty steeds aren't perfectly white and whose armor has only average shine, I guess.

The kiss being the pledge of eternal loyalty is actually a very romantic notion, and the prince pledging his loyalty to the lady in need in a knightly, self-giving manner definitely comes across heaps better than him basically claiming her as his own without her having any say in it, and by doing such a thing, he gives her both quite a decent reason to fall for him and the freedom to choose not to. That's neat.

In the end, though, it's a fairytale, and that in itself is a guarantee that the true love exists because of course it does, that they are in fact perfect for each other and will live happily ever after no matter what.

Fairytales actually started to get ruined long before political correctness became a thing. Gradually, they stopped being educational tales about facing and overcoming evil and misfortune and became bedtime stories, and their new purpose was to lull innocent little children to sleep, so all the nightmare-inducing stuff had to be cut. And today's society seems to get more and more... frail, when it comes to what counts as nightmare-inducing.

And finally, thank you very much!

I will admit - regarding the consent issue - the film 'Maleficent' did actually good a decent enough job with it. The Prince in question points out it would be extremely rude, and that he barely knows the girls, but he's yelled at to do it by the three fairies who raised her because they're kind of deseperate. Of course, keeping in with that film, it doesn't do anything and the kiss of true love that breaks the spell is a more ... familal kind on the forehead.

As for other re-tellings? Well, it's better than the versions where S.B. gets pregnant and is awoken by her baby sucking the posion from her finger...

Briar looks very in command here!

I've seen Maleficent, and liked how they handled it.

Oh yeah, those kinds of retellings... I always found them fascinating, for various reasons, and not exactly in a positive way, but fascinating nevertheless. Punzie has quite a spectacular preggers one, too.

Briar is the most adventurous one of these three. Zombie Sleeping Beauty is a zombie, so if she decides to move, she mostly just shuffles around, and the fake-bisque Briar Rose is a chill lady who prefers books, tea and witty banter to action adventures.

[neon_jellyfish]

Fabulous rant about fairytales & their sanitising down for a modern audience.

My favourite fairytale is Beauty and the Beast - when I step back and think about it, it raises a lot of questions similar to yours.
(Another favourite is 10 Dancing Princesses, also some not-great stuff about consent & forced marriage).

All 3 of your Sleeping Beauties are great, and nice books you have them posed with.

Thank you very much!

My favorite version of Beauty and the Beast is a Czechoslovak movie from 1978, it has serious horror vibes, and both the Beauty and the Beast are actually quite fleshed-out, and the Beast has sort of a split personality, a fairytale-ish one, but it still helps to make him relatable, as the struggles between his gentle human side and the beastly one are written quite well. Also, Beauty's father comes home to say goodbye and wants to go back to the Beast, but she learns about him having to pay for the rose with his life and runs away from home to find the Beast and save her father, so the annoying father-sends-his-child-to-certain-death-to-save-his-own-life problem doesn't come up here. And she's pure and good, but also has some weaknesses, she becomes afraid of the Beast, and tells him cruel things and runs away, but then realizes her mistake and returns, which makes her, at least for me, more believable.

I know 12 Dancing Princesses, but aside from liking the fancy trees and gorgeous ballgowns, it never did much for me.

Thank you! The books are Grimms' Complete Fairy Tales by Fall River Press, and Neil Gaiman's The Sleeper and the Spindle (that's the one with the beautiful full-page illustrations).

Edit after your edit: yes, that's the book and Chris Riddell is indeed the illustrator, I love his work.

[Elfy]

Love the pictures of the dolls with the book, especially Briar.
There are some fairly good retellings of the fairytales that don’t sanitise or sugar coat things. I’m currently rereading Jim Hines Princess series, where he mainly deals with what happened to Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty (her name is Talia in the books) following the ‘happily ever after’. He also deals with the Little Mermaid, Red Riding Hood and the Snow Queen. Angela Carter’s Bloody Chamber was a fantastic quite visceral look at the old stories. Being from Eastern Europe you may also like Naomi Novik’s Uprooted and Spinning Silver, which take a new look at some of the old stories, but with an Eastern European slant.