Five things (actually on Friday for once)

[melannen]

Five things I would like:

1. I'm trying very hard to start a nice polite characterization fight over in fictional_fans but nobody's taking me up on it. Maybe that's why DW discourse never really gets going: everybody who stuck around is too conflict-averse. :P

2. Does anyone know of a good, hopefully free, Android music app that will let me a) take a folder of downloaded music; b) turn it into a playlist; c) sort that playlist using ID3 tags; d) play the playlist in order? Alternatively, that will play .m3u playlists? I have all these old fanmixes where the track order is based on either an m3u or track numbers/album name in the ID3 tags and I haven't found a phone app that will play them in the right order.

3. Probably... four years or so ago, I was reading a series of REALLY INTERESTING blog posts by somebody who was taking one comic book artist (or one page/story by said artist, I forget) every day (or maybe every week?) for a year, and dissected the art on the example pages in detail, talking about styles and trends and composition and inking and all sorts of stuff. I really enjoyed it, but it was super-dense so I went slow and never finished it, and now that I'm listening to Jay & Miles I really, really want to find it again, but I'm not having any luck. Does it ring a bell for anyone else?

4. AAAH SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT TO NOM FOR yuletide. Can I get through Guardian and Golden Kamuy fast enough to know if I want to request them? AAAAAAAH

5. Please can the weather stay below 85 and not humid and can my house be magically clean. With no bugs in it (except the spider who lives in the corner of the bathroom, she's a polite roommate, always cleans up her own cobwebs, she can stay). And the septic tank be working again. And make the kitties never have to go home. And while we're at it, can late-stage capitalism be over already? And none of my friends be sick? And the president have a heart attack while pooping? Thanks.


Five good things I already have:

1. Tom Swale and Carl Romeo from Young Wizards are allowed to be together, at long last! For a sad reason, but a couple generations of queer kids who desperately wanted them for mentors have a nice thing now, at least.

2. I now have a set of headphones designed for sleeping in, and a bluetooth adapter to make them wireless, so I will be at least 50% less likely to strangle myself in my sleep now! If only it ever gets cool enough to actually wear them.

3. Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men is really fun! I will never be able to read the actual comics now, because they make them sound way, way better than they are, but on the upside, I will never have to read the actual comics now!

4. NEW MURDERBOT. Also I am totally requesting ART for Yuletide.

5. The weather is nice today! And the kitties are still here (for now)! And THEY HAVE FUZZY TUMMIES

Comments

[alexseanchai]

fuzzy!

Not sure if useful or too technical or already tried or

[melannen]

The technical stuff in there is mostly about creating an .m3u playlist from scratch, which I don't need - that's really easy to do in windows media player. But it looks like the android app they're using is Meridian, which I think can make do most of the stuff I need? Maybe? It's got a kind of counterintuitive and annoying interface, but at least it has options. Thanks!

[alexseanchai]

:)

[isis]

That is an irresistible crop of tummy fluff.

[melannen]

It is SO FUZZY! And if she's lying on her side and you scritch, she will swing her leg up so you have better tum access. It is really really hard to remember other things you should be doing instead.

[extrapenguin]

I think vlc should be able to do all that? It has a free Android app.

Hmm, I should probably go look at fictional_fans and the three point characterization thing, though as I'm generally not into any of the popular fandoms, I doubt I can fight you. It's an interesting way to think of it, I admit, even if it might have been a precursor to the "1 (or 2) personality trait and 1-2 quirks" school of characterization that inevitably flattens everyone into unrecognizable cardboard.

[alexseanchai]

VLC has an Android app?

*checks its existence and functionality*

ignore me wrt m3us, then, VLC is awesome :D

[melannen]

I only ever thought about VLC as a video player so I didn't even think of it for my music app! But of course it does that too, it does everything. Thanks!

[rymenhild]

1. Tom Swale and Carl Romeo from Young Wizards are allowed to be together, at long last! For a sad reason, but a couple generations of queer kids who desperately wanted them for mentors have a nice thing now, at least.

CITATION NEEDED

[melannen]

Here: http://dduane.tumblr.com/post/177767909111/having-read-that-tribute-to-tom-i-guess-i-know

Basically she was refusing to confirm they were together as long as the real Tom and Carl were alive, and the real Tom and Carl are together in Timeheart now (which is the sad part) so she now feels free to start planning their fictional wedding.

[rymenhild]

Ohhhhh. That is very sad.

I wonder why she chose to put two real friends in as Advisories, and if she knew how long she would have to fictionalize them while keeping their secret.

[melannen]

I suspect she didn't - writing real people into stories was common practice in SF fandom at the time, presumably under the theory that everybody in SF fandom knew everybody anyway. And SYWtbaW was her second book - I doubt *anyone* expected it to be a perpetual children's classic, still going after thirty-five years. (and I definitely doubt that in 1983, anyone foresaw the problem being people asking her why they weren't married in canon! - closeted Tom & Carl living together *was* good representation for a kids' book in the 80s, and even the mid-90s when I found them.)

But yeah, there's an object lesson there in why you should always scrub off the serial numbers! It must have been really tough to have people constantly badgering her about why they weren't canon when so many queer kids needed that. Especially since it made her later attempts at LGBTQ representation fall all kinds of flat, because Tom and Carl should have been there as mentors for the queer kids in canon (either as the gay couple or the ace life partners, but one of the two!) and it just pointed up how they weren't. Hopefully she can at least fix that!

[rymenhild]

I mean, I pretty much thought that this exactly was the case, because, well, I've read the Door into... books! Herewiss could not be any queerer. It's obvious that Duane has always been very clear on the concept of gay partnerships and that Tom and Carl have always been one, and her refusal to talk about it was always phrased interestingly.

Although I wouldn't have guessed that she used the real people's full names.

[finch]

I knew enough to know what that would have to mean and now I'm crying at work. XD

[hannah]

Invite me over to your house some weekend and I'll help clean the place. And bring booze.

[melannen]

The real problem is that we've been living here too long, so what really needs to be done is stuff like cleaning behind the baseboards and degriming the ceilings and washing the outsides of the windows and scrubbing out all the cabinets, even the ones up high that we never open - the kind of things that don't need done often, and you don't notice when you live there because they only get infinitesimally grimier every year, but probably do need done at least once a decade.

I did one of the bathrooms and most of my bedroom down to the baseboards last september-january, and then I got a series of illnesses and lost momentum, and then it was too hot all summer. But I really need to at least finish my bedroom and do the kitchen and the hallway and living room this cool season. It will not be a one-weekend job, even with help, alas.

[fairestcat]

look at that fuzzy tummy!!!

I would DEFINITELY read ART fic for yuletide. I might even be able to write it. I'm still deciding on my nominations. Last year was all abut the queer romances for me, this year I'm branching out into different things more and that's actually making deciding on nominations harder.

[melannen]

soooo fuzzy.

ART is so great, and it and Murderbot made such a great team! I want it to manipulate its humans into letting it help Murderbot on the books. (I bet *it's* certified to study strange synthetics!)

I did a few years where I nominated on a theme, and it definitely made it easier, but I dunno where I even want to start this year. Other than murderbot. Maybe it will be all AIs and robots! I wonder if I could get Douglock nommed somehow.

[stardreamer]

I'd read Douglock!

[melannen]

I've never tried to nom something from Marvel continuity, is the thing - New Mutants is definitely a small enough fandom, and so are the characters involved, but it seems like the rules on that change every year.

[stellar_dust]

Have you tried RocketPlayer? I started using that one back in the day because it was the only one I found that would let me browse and sort by folder/filename.

[melannen]

I have not! I'll keep it on the list if VLC fails me. Most of the 3rd party ones will let you browse by folder (eventually, if you poke around enough) though - they just won't let you sort by anything other than filename in that view, as far as I have been able to tell.

[stellar_dust]

Looks like rocket will do what you want! Made a screen shot but I don't have internet on that phone now.

[melannen]

HOW ARE FUZZTUMS

[snickfic]

The comics-art-a-day series is here!

[melannen]

Oooh, thank you! You have made my week!

[swingandswirl]

Kitteh!

Ooh, choosing what to nom for Yuletide is so hard! I've got The Swiss Family Robinson and Searching (the new movie with John Cho, SO GOOD) on my list, need to find a third.

[melannen]

I am still thinking! A lot of what I might want is almost certainly going to get other noms, but I might nom them anyway just in case.