sunkelles

this weekend i get to go to my first comic con! i'm really excited because i've never been before and also i'm cosplaying doc ock from spiderverse :)

Hello friends! I've recently decided that I want to get into creating video essays on youtube on different literary and fandom topics, and I've been torn about what video editing software to use. I don't need a lot of bells and whistles, but I do need it to be functional and intuitive. I'm fairly familiar with iMovie and honestly like it a whole lot and I'm getting a new laptop soon, but I don't really want to switch over to a mac JUST for iMovie, you know? I dislike the mac operating system apart from a few programs.

Does anyone know if newer versions of Windows Movie Maker or other windows compatible editing software have

1. Voice over capacity
2. Easy editing of sound and the capacity to move and adjust sound independent from video
3. Ease of adding in audio from a different source
4. Ability to easily trim videos within the program
5. Ease of adding in pictures

I don't need fancy bells and whistles because honestly, I doubt if I would USE them, but I do need software that has the tools I know I will use and is easy to figure out.

Thanks guys!

so, in two days i'm doing a short presentation with the English department about name symbolism in the Handmaid's Tale hulu series (if you're interested you can ask me and i'll give you the rundown of the presentation in the comments) and I gave my presentation to my mom at the beginning of spring break, taking great care to not let my dad overhear because he's conservative and ya know, it wouldn't be a fun conversation to have. easier to just avoid it But then I was staying at my aunt and uncle's over the back half of break and offered to give it to them, thinking, hey I'll wait until I'm there for a few hours after mom and dad leave and then that'll be a good time to do it. Because I very much Did Not Want to do it in front of my dad.

But. My aunt was like "HEY LET'S DO IT RIght NoW WHEN YOUR DAD IS HERE PERFECT RIGHT!?!?!?!" and I'm like. Uh. Okay. I guess. So I gave the presentation to my aunt and my uncle and my mom and my dad. And it went well. I think it's going to be fun and it's going to go well, but that was incredibly fun to try to explain to my dad.

"So is that book set like, three hundred years ago or something?"

"Uh, no. It's set in the future..."

"What's that supposed to mean? Is this like. feminist stuff?" And I was all ready to go into this because we had already dug this hole so I might as well at least just go through with it and like, actually give this feminist theory with My Father, Conservative Midwest Businessman Who Has Never Heard of Plan B TM but my mom swooped in and was like LETS TALK ABOUT HOW GOOD THIS WILL LOOK ON JOB APPLICATIONS DEAR JESUS SAVE US

And like. On one hand. I'm glad that I didn't have to have this discussion and was a bit peeved that my aunt put me in that situation in the first place. But on the other hand, if we continue to just. Skirt around these issues with him he won't ever learn and it's not doing anyone any good. I had the opportunity to at least TRY to do something and it makes me feel bad that i didn't get to give him a better chance. I don't know if it would have helped, or led to something productive, or anything useful at all, but my brain still wanted to give it a go, you know?

Fandom: The Handmaid's Tale
Relationships: Serena Joy & Time Travel, Serena & Fixing Some of her Mistakes, Serena & June
Summary: After allowing June to leave with baby Nicole, Serena wakes up in her old bed and old pajamas. She still has all of her fingers.

She realizes that she has a chance to change the future, and she takes it.

Dreamwidth

ao3

Hello everyone! I know it's been awhile. Life has been a lot lately, but it's good to be back on dw again and see your lovely icons :)

some life updates

1. i am officially doing the short study abroad this summer! i've promised a few folks pictures, and i won't disappoint you. there will be pictures :)
2. i'm giving a talk for the literature department and i'm not even officially a literature department student since i have something smaller than a minor in lit. so i'm just gonna be like "hey guys. i don't go here but i like books?"
3. i haven't had much time to write fanfiction recently, as i haven't had much time to do anything, but i'm almost done with a handmaid's tale fic and might get some bnha or fma stuff done next week over spring break
4. i've finished the first four volumes of the promised neverland and i love it! what an interesting concept and what cool characters! putacorkinitzane recommended it to me and i am so glad. what a good way to spend some of that precious free time XD

I'm not a strings player, so learning how to play the ukulele (at least at a basic level) has been a bit of a baffling experience for me. Wait? that's how that works? that's why? what? that's what the different things do? those things are called "frets"? what?

Would anyone be interested in a short post about how the thing works?

1. I've found it really cool figuring some of this stuff out
2. I think that you guys might find that cool too
3. I also think that creating a post would probably be the best way for me to gather my thoughts so I can better explain how it works to other people tbh

i asked [personal profile] colls to select three of my interests to talk about like they did, so they chose

1. janelle monae
2. the raven cycle
3. writing

COME ON VAMANOS

1. janelle monae is one of my favorite musicians! i would die for literally any song on dirty computer and i got to see her dirty computer tour, bawled my eyes out, sang until my throat hurt, and there was just this. amazing aura of solidarity and resistance in the air there. WE are the new american dream. you will not take that from us.

"This is not my America
But I tell you today that the devil is a liar
Because it's gon' be my America before it's all over"

2. the raven cycle

this is one of my more recent fandom additions and one hand i really love it. i adore the characters, i think that the dialog is realistic and the books are super engaging. it's also one of my favorite portrayals of teenagers just being teenagers and acting like them that i've ever read.

i would die for henry cheng, blue and her many many moms, gansey, ronan and adam and the lynches are fascinating. the lynches and the elrics actually inspired my nano project this year, but i also have some weird problems with it. it feels a lot less epic and well planned out than i would like. i know that ending is supposed to be symbolic of things not needing to have a higher purpose, yadda yadda, but it just feels incomplete and a little disjointed because the books feel like they're too many conflicting, not totally thought out parts melded together a little carelessly. maybe the dreamer trilogy will fix some of my issues with it.

3. writing has either always been my second biggest hobby or it became my second biggest hobby seven years ago when i started posting regularly to ao3, take your pick. writing fanfiction is a big part of my life. i also am trying to get into the habit of writing more original stuff and love writing meta. writing is just such a good way for me to express myself. i love words and i love stories, so it's perfect.

side note: writing is only behind singing and singing is my biggest hobby and i've been doing it all the time either since i was a toddler or since birth if you believe my grandma's story about me humming as i was born. i take that with about a mine full of salt but it's still a fun story.

Maternal, Paternal
Fandoms: bnha
Relationships: the todoroki family
Summary: Todoroki Rei wanted to help people. All she wanted was to help people. How did it go so wrong?

5 Todorokis who wanted to help people + 1 that didn't.

A.N: hey so dabi is a BLAST to write

I have a class this semester about how to integrate music into the standard elementary classroom, and the professor asked how many of us (elementary education majors) had been made to feel by someone that we shouldn't sing because we had "bad voices". I have never been told this in my life, so I just sat there feeling bad about my years and years of vocal lessons (including many semesters in college). I really hoped, though, that most of these kids hadn't been told that, because I truly believe that singing is as natural as breathing and that everyone should be able to do it and love it, even if they're not trained classical soloists or famous pop singers.

To my disappointment, at least a fifth of this large class raised their hands. Then the professor asked about who got shamed out of playing instruments and there was some overlap with which kids raised their hands for getting shamed for singing but there were some new faces. I'd wager at least a fourth of this class had been told by someone, at some point, that they were bad at music and shouldn't do it.

There were so many kids who were told by their parents, or their teachers, or their friends or whoever in their lives that they shouldn't do something as natural and human as make music because they weren't good at it immediately. They were probably kids when this happened, too. Tiny people with undeveloped vocal chords, told that they shouldn't do something when the mechanism that they use to DO IT hasn't even fully developed. It's like telling a third grader that they're too short to ever be a basketball player. Not only is it terrible to shit on a kids dream, it's also not even something that you know is true because they still have so much growing to do in that area. In third grade you don't even know what a kids' voice is going to sound like as an adult.

But that's still the mentality that we're drilling into them. You aren't good at this now, so you never ever will be. You're short, so you'll never be good at basketball. Right now you sound "bad" so you should never ever sing. Don't ever do something you're not perfect at.

This idea that if you're not The Best TM at something you're embarrassing yourself in front of everyone, making their lives worse, and you should not do it is part of the reason that I curled up in a corner for so much of high school and only tried things that I was good at. And considering that things I'm good at include the arts and not much else, I didn't end up with nearly the versatile skill set that I could have if there wasn't that deeply ingrained mentality that there's something like, morally wrong and deeply embarrassing about doing things that we're not good at. Sometimes I think about the skills that I robbed myself of because of this mentality and I get so mad. That mentality is so toxic.

We can't even GET good at things if we don't start out being bad at them! Especially if we're not prodigies! Or we don't have the access to private lessons or tutoring or all these things that let kids with more money push ahead of kids with less money. Just let kids be themselves and try things without shaming them for not instantly being amazing at them.

One silly way that I plan to do that is to never to go up to the whiteboard and draw something and then tell my students "yes, I know it's bad, but I'm not an artist". I don't think they should have to apologize for doing something while "bad" at it, so I refuse to model that for them. I will try my hardest not to pass that mentality onto my students. I am trying so hard to get over my fear of being bad at things in public and I refuse to contribute to that particular baggage for them.

I really do like the age demographic difference here on DW from what I'm used to on tumblr. As someone in my early twenties getting closed to graduating college, I've become something of an.. old person on tumblr, at least around a lot of the people I associate with. A lot of my followers are in their mid teens and then the core demographic that I'm around is 18-23ish college age. Seeing some people who are older than me but still active in fandom and just. being real adults here on DW is so cool. Y'all have kids? Real people jobs? Spouses? Do taxes? And still make time for fandom activities? It's inspiring and it makes me feel so optimistic. My cool DW friends are still having fun with fandom in their Real Adult Lives TM so why can't I when I become a real adult soon? Why can't I?