foxinthestars

Inspired by the article I linked last time (again, TW for rapey stuff), I attempted my own de-creepified lyrics for the holiday song that's been annoying me the most. I also identified the voices as just "guest" and "host" to make it more gender-neutral. Feel free to give feedback or spread it around if you like it!

EDIT TO ADD: Now on Ao3 with a few revised lines.

Baby It's Cold Outside (revised and updated)
CC-BY

GUEST: I really can’t stay
HOST: They tell me it’s cold outside
G: I got to go ‘way
H: Be careful, it’s cold outside
G: This evening has been so very nice
H: I’m glad — I’ll help you ‘cross that ice
G: I’m glad I met your sister
H: I’m glad you’re jibin’ with her
G: This kind of thing’s what Christmas is for
H: It really is, yeah
G: I really have got to go but…
(Beat)
G: Well maybe just a half a drink more
H: Should you be driving??

G: I really must go
H: I’ll give you a ride, my dear
G: Just look at that snow
H: We’ll take our sweet time, my dear
G: It’s so hard to leave, we’re so cozy and warm
H: I’ll drive so careful through that storm
G: My mother will be getting worried
H: Let’s give her a call, yeah
G: The gossip stories won’t be denied
H: I’ll be there on your side
G: I really can’t stay
(Beat)
G: O but it’s cold outside!

(instrumental interlude)

H: Look, do you wanna stay?
G: I wanna be with you, dear
H: Well, why didn’t you say?
G: But I don’t know what I’ll hear
H: Well, who should complain, if I love you?
G: What’s that you say? You love me, too!
H: I guess I should’a said it
G: Say it again, please!
H: Instead of just assuming you knew
(Beat)
G: I should be brave and say it—
BOTH: O Baby, ‘cause I love you!

G: Just watchin’ the snow
H: O Baby, it’s cold outside
G: In the fireplace glow
H: O Baby, it’s cold outside
G: This evening has been so very grand
H: Out there’s a winter wonderland
G: It’s better to be together
H: This is the best Christmas ever!
G: We’re cuddled up side by side
Both: And here we will stay
‘Cause Baby, it’s cold
Baby it’s cold outside!

I've randomly found myself looking at pictures of servals, and it's like somebody photoshopped the head of a housecat onto the body of a cheetah and didn't size-correct anything but the ears.

(And I got my Yuletide assignment drafted in time, yay! It still needs polishing though, and I'm dragging my feet on beta-hunting although I know I shouldn't.)

I found that something I have long wished for has come to pass, and my favorite manga magazines are now available in digital editions from Honto.jp. Now I can get Hana to Yume (home of Yona of the Dawn) and LaLa (home of Natsume's Book of Friends and Snow White with the Red Hair), roughly as they come out in the original Japanese, without shelling out international shipping charges or precious shelf space. Another big perk of collecting the magazines is the frequent one-shot stories, which are hit or miss of course, but I like getting them in general. The issues only stay on sale for a limited time, though, so I'm playing a bit of catch-up right now.

When I'll actually manage to try to read these things, I'm not sure, but they make me happy.

Hello, fellow Yuletider! Thank you for offering to write a story for me, or for considering writing me a treat! I’ve been participating in Yuletide every year since 2011 now. It’s become a beloved personal tradition for me, and I hope you have a great time this year!

See under the cut for the things you need to know… ( Includes prompts for Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn, Kemono no Souja Erin, and Kuroorihime to Kawaki no Ou )

My final sprint was successful! The thousand cranes are complete!



The wish: "May this year's elections move the USA toward democracy, compassion, and justice."

May it be so.

I'm planning to take the completed cranes with me tomorrow and donate them to my church.

To my mild surprise, I encountered an actual Jack Chick tract today.

Someone had left it in the Aldi bathroom. It was called "The Twin Towers," and I think maybe he was blaming Catholics for 9/11 or something because a brief flip-through revealed an appearance by "their Pope."

I'm past the phase in my life where I would enjoy sneering at the contents, so I just went for damage control/public mental health and threw it in the trash.

Less deep than it sounds; I'm actually just fangirling about a current-run anime.

Because if you aren't already, you should totally be watching Phantom in the Twilight. I know these Chinese co-productions have a lousy track record, but this show is a gift, with paranormal good boys (including a machine-gun-wielding jiangshi, what's not to love), a go-getter heroine who faces challenges but has the narrative behind her, and a healthy dose of shameless action and melodrama. It doesn't come off as a AAA project, but what it lacks in polish and elegance it makes up for in good-hearted fun.

( Thoughts under the cut on where the paranormal characters come from, whether the apparent main villain is one, and if so what kind. )

I seem to be having some remission or at least shift in my mental health issues, and looking back from here it strikes me how often my depression and anxiety expressed/expresses itself as "I don't know what to do or how to do it."

Sometimes I don't think this was even a cognitive inability to identify the steps, but a sense of some indefinable resource I needed and didn't have and didn't know how to get.

But sometimes it really was not knowing, and here's the thing. A healthy person who doesn't know what to do can move forward on the basis of trial and error, but when trial requires more energy and confidence than you have readily available and error can send you into a tailspin and severely wreck you, the situation looks a lot bleaker.

Crane Count: 480. Almost halfway!

And here they are:



I've also noticed (although I couldn't get a good picture of it), that the part of my thumbnail that I use to burnish folds has itself been burnished to a high gloss.