wait what did they oh right a code push last night

New create-entries beta is Distressingly Different. I'll probably cope.

What I actually opened this entry to say is: my todo list is SCARY LONG. I think I probably ought to just write off this week homework-wise and hope it doesn't tank my grades too badly, and then start on the week three material.

Selma

So I saw Selma today. It's powerful, it's triggery, and it ought to be required viewing for every high school student reading about the civil rights movement.

( spoilers, I guess? tw, murder. also I am unfairly focusing on the white folks who answered Dr. King's call. )

If you go—and unless the depiction of violence and death is going to trigger you, you should go—stay till the end of the credits, for the music.

I don't know what else to say about it. (I have the damnedest caffeine headache.)

ETA: Oh yeah, that's what else I meant to say:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

"Unlawful assembly", when the only people who brought weapons to Bloody Sunday 1965 were the sheriff and his people trying to stop the march. "Unlawful assembly" my skinny white ass.

thing I just said elsewhere

I dunno about VocaliD. I love it as a concept, but as a potential donor I'm...my voice is horrid, nobody wants it representing them to the world.

So VocaliD is a thing where people record their voices saying a few sentences that between them contain all the sounds of English (concept expandable to other languages) and then the VocaliD folks use the recordings to synthesize unique voices for people who use text-to-speech software. Fabulous concept that could help a lot of people. (And now the above two sentences make sense.)

But now I'm thinking. I do not like my voice. I am so sick of hearing "Slowly. Clearly. E-nun-ci-ate." I trip over words, sometimes even when I've scripted it in my head beforehand. And when I have scripted it and am carefuly speaking slowly and clearly and enunciating everything, I am informed I sound like I'm reading off cue cards. I am fail at using my voice, basically.

And even when I'm successfully communicating vocally, I do not like the way it sounds in recordings. My recorded voice has this profoundly irritating quality to it, and I don't think that's just the difference between how my voice sounds in my head and how it sounds in my ears.

Okay, so. How do I go about fixing this? Because the whole point of VocaliD is that voices are important, and a crucial point of feminism is that voices are important, and subtly different meanings to 'voices' there but still. And I want to be able to like myself, all of me, and here is a part I don't like. (And also if I'm going to sell spoken-word poetry on Bandcamp, or even simply successfully communicate with people face to face, it would be good if my voice were understandable and didn't irritate people!) What do I do?

I don't think anything's wrong that would necessitate speech therapy. (Or not such that my insurance would pay for it, anyway.) I'm pretty sure vocal coaches are a music thing, and I don't sing. (I can't hit notes worth crap, either. I'd like to learn, but that is a thing that is Money and also Time, and therefore Later.) So what's the term for what I'm looking for?

I mean, I suspect what I'm looking for is Money and also Time, and therefore Later. But it would be nice to have a solution in mind for when I have the resources to implement it.

on another note

ow. okay, head, I have learned my lesson. no more attempting, even inadvertently, to go cold-turkey off caffeine. ow. ow. ow. can you stop now?

(no subject)

So I asked seananmcguire whether there are trans characters in October Daye. My headcanon that yes there are but nobody gives a fuck because transformation magic is a thing: TOTALLY ON THE MONEY.

Sweet.