#and improve accuracy

[learning--tech]

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[shadowsageingempress]

A family isn’t always

A couple

One or more children

A pet (optional)

Sometimes a family is

A genetically altered super soldier

His martial artist girlfriend

An angry single father with a gun for an arm

The last of a race of magical humanoids

A talking flaming wolf-lion creature of an unknown species

A 15 year old kleptomaniac ninja

A robot cat controlled by a remorseful government official

An immortal gunslinger who laments over his lost lover and has a primordial dark god of death sealed in his body

A pilot/future astronaut who hates the president

[no-psi-nan]

Clipping my fingernails is my version of putting on my baseball cap on backwards when it comes to writing fanfiction.

[eeveekitti]

ENTROPY ZERO FANDOM I PROVIDE YOU KITTY CATS

[narrativelysignificantturtleduck]

i think it's a really neat little cultural detail that the water tribe coming-of-age ritual is about teamwork and strategic thinking. like not a lot of the water tribe stuff is super accurate but in my understanding circumpolar indigenous people do tend to put a lot of value on community bc when you live in a harsh climate you gotta be able to trust & work well with the people around you in order to survive. so it's kinda accidental accuracy that they invented a ritual that wasn't just some evaluation of an individual's ability to be a tough warrior but more about trusting other people and thinking your way through problems

[spacenintendogs]

redraw of these lol

more direct comparison lol

2019 vs 2021 vs 2024

[mars-ipan]

finally (read: less than a day in) getting used to hard mode…

[dinosaurcharcuterie]

The crafting plan I had for my pre-vacation weekend:

- finish sewing that REALLY QUICK AND EASY dress I cut out in JULY

- interface that obi I cut out last October and pattern matched in friggin FEBRUARY

Crafting done in pre-vacation weekend:

- pumped 2.5 sticks of hot glue into the trash can lid to McGyver solution until new, more hygienic trash can is sourced, all the while drafting a strongly worded letter to IKEA about creating cavities on the warm, damp side of a trash can.

- tried and failed to spin on the big wheel, but established my 3D printed spool works. Also established one of the the spools my uncle turned for my small wheel is too long to work.

- put 2 skeins of embroidery thread into the stash-busting bag sewing project, bringing the total up to 4 and eliminating all straight pins for now. Might actually be over halfway done with the would-be boro section of this Hedeby bag with glow in the dark handles.

Crafting plan for first week of vacation:

- since the dress and obi should be done, start on that yukata and make a mock up of that summer dress you bought fabric for last May.

- buy fabric for new sauna robe

[skullzy20]

Yes it's a 5 year difference but still the improvement is INSANE

[slavicgerman]

[hohsalle]

GOU ON STAGE: SHINPEN SATOMI HAKKENDEN ENGLISH SUBTITLES

oh man. hi everyone, here’s a sub i did for the newest installment of the touken ranbu musical, gou on stage: shinpen satomi hakkenden! these subs are timed for the vod from 12/11, but may have a slight delay at some parts because of a few milliseconds of buffering. note that this is only the subtitle file, not the full video file

download here (link updated 4/15)! thanks for supporting cute gouchans and happy gouchan new year!!!!!!

[kiragecko]

Okay, I'm working on another Wayne Manor design (which may or may not ever be shared). Trying to make a decision.

Should the library still have it's original, crowded together, 200 year old bookshelves? They've got a robot (designed like some real archives have) that can get books for people who can't navigate between the shelves (Babs), can't read well enough to find a specific title (Cass), or SHOULD NOT BE MOVING BECAUSE OF THEIR STITCHES (everyone).

OR

Should the library have been remodeled so the former librarian can actually navigate it? It would fit less books, and make me, personally, feel less warm and safe, because I love being crowded in by stuff, but ... um, I keep imagining Babs going into the Manor's library for the first time in 2 years, and just ... stopping. Because she was more important than some pretty antiques.

I'm definitely leaning towards one option. But maybe someone has a third option that won't cause me such sadness? Something I haven't thought of?

[umhiimv]

i wanna rant about some of the setters real quick. so you know how oikawa, atsumu, and kageyama are all shown to use jump top spin (spike) serves? well, there’s a reason for that!!

typically, setters are the first to specialise in their positions, so they’re training and developing setter skills while everyone else is still doing all-around basics. but what happens, as a result of this, is setters end up having weaker arm swings or being awkward with their hand placement in hitting/serving. oikawa, atsumu, and kageyama are the only setters we see using jump top spins that have also been shown to be setting at a young age. i feel like oikawa had a beautiful standing float but had a low ball-back percentage due to how soft it was.

i’m thinking atsumu and kageyama both had weak and awkward arm swings and were taught jump top serves in their last year of middle school so they would have time to perfect the serve. i also think semi experienced this too but either wasn’t able to or didn’t want to perfect the jump top on such short notice, hence why shirabu plays, despite having the firmer hands; he has the better serve.

this also shows us which setters have the best hands!! setters who have weaker serves tend to have the better hands, whereas setters with strong serves usually don’t have as-good hands; it’s all in the wrists.

[joyfulsoda]

Interview With Geoff Packard

Hi! It’s been about a week or so since I’ve posted about the fact that I had an interview I had with Mr. Packard, and I figured I would write up a transcript of the whole thing just because! I would post the audio, but the quality is not the best and also I do not like the sound of my voice on recordings. The entire interview was about 16 minutes long and both he and I speak pretty fast (there are a lot of words), so there will be a td;lr at the bottom.

For context, this interview was for a music class I’m currently in, where we had to present on a song that we like - specifically on how the music was written to make us feel, and how it actually made us feel. We could only play two minutes’ worth of whatever piece we chose, so I chose Proud Riff because it’s under two minutes and I figured I could put the clip from the show into my presentation. The idea to ask about an interview came later!

Before I begin, he was an incredibly nice man to talk to and I was super, super nervous but that went away a few minutes in! He asked if I planned on recording it and that he would be okay with it, I said I was, and then we got right into it!

-------------

Me: “So, to begin, obviously because you portrayed Wayne on Broadway, I thought it would be interesting to ask how the music influenced your performance. So, as an actor, how did the music of Proud Riff make you feel?

Him: “How did it make me feel..? Um, well, I think the music is sort of optimistic, I feel like it sort of bops and it’s sort of a swing tune and it’s sort of lighter than what is going on in Wayne Wright’s world. Although, the sort of genesis of that song was a conversation Andy Blankenbuehler and I had - Andy Blankenbuehler, the director, choreographer- (laughs) Tony Award-winning choreographer... We had a conversation about what their day-to-day lives may have looked like, and how we don’t really represent a lot of that for the rest of the guys, we see sort of what Donny goes through, but the rest of the guys that came back from the war, we didn’t get to see what their day-to-day was.

“And so, there was a couple iterations of what that Proud Riff would be, and we decided it was how Wayne would be spending his time at home, getting his kids ready for pre-school or school or something, and how he... sort of locks into a habit, or locked into a habit, y’know, he was obsessive-compulsive and he... really used his habits to sort of survive during war time. And we talked about how he probably gained that sort of germaphobia that he has in the play in his trench warfare, because of the necessity to keep everything clean and to have a clean, firing weapon, and all that stuff. So... We talked about that. On an otherwise normal, sunny day, what he might be doing during the day, and that’s where that came from. And so I think the music is sort of sunny, cheerful, and he’s... slowly, y’know, through the habit of cleaning his gun, is trying to stay sunny, and just simply can’t. And I think that’s where the minor changes come towards the end of the song, if I remember correctly. And all the rhythmic hits at the end that are physicalized through tap, and the sort of twitches that Wayne would have- that’s sort of a manifestation of his memory coming back, or him not being able to control those memories.”

Me: “That, actually, was really insightful. And y’know, like... you can kind of see that on stage, but to hear that directly coming from you, it’s like “oh, so that wasn’t just up to interpretation, that was actually what was happening.”

Him: “Yeah! You know, I think- so, for anybody that might be listening to this, I teach at the University of Michigan now, and so, the next generation of theater artists are what I care deeply about, and certainly when I was training, or when I was a young person sort of experiencing shows or reading a play for the first time, I often thought: “Wow! How do they come up with this? This is, y’know, Arthur Miller just writes a play and just, hands it in, and this is the thing?” And what I’ve learned over time is that it’s much more of a collaboration from all parties involved, so, it’s not that Richard Oberacker and Rob Taylor wrote everything you saw on stage in one sitting and then shared it with us- they wrote a lot of it and had a first draft, then we all collaborated and had different ideas that helped them have other ideas. It did not occur until previews, I think, of the Broadway production. We had done a production at the Paper Mill Playhouse that did not have that piece in the show at all, but through conversation and through an idea of how to give a little more insight in their lives, they created that.

“And I should mention, a large part of that creation came from Greg Anthony Rassen and Bill Elliott, who were the orchestrators of the piece. They wrote all the dance pieces and orchestrations, too, so they were very involved in that sort of collaborative process, and y’know, that’s what you got to see on stage.”

Me: “That’s really cool! Well, um... With that last question, you kind of answered the other questions I was going to ask, um...”

Him: “Sorry.” (imagine someone saying sorry in all lowercase).

Me: “No, no, that’s totally fine! I was just going to ask like, how the music influenced what Wayne was doing on the stage, and you answered that with him twitching and, y’know, him having his physical manifestations of trying to stay sunny, and how some of the stuff he did towards the end of the piece coincides with the minor tones and all the hits and stuff, so thank you so much for that.”

Him: “Mhm.”

Me: “So, because I wanted to keep this short, I didn’t have many questions to ask you- relating to Proud Riff; can I ask just, like, one personal question that doesn’t relate to it at all?”

Him: “Sure!”

Me: “Just because I was curious, uh, because Wayne is a Lieutenant in the show, I was doing some research and I found out that most Officers have college degrees, and I just wanted to ask what you think he might’ve gotten his degree in, because- well, I don’t know, it was just something I kind of wanted to know.”

Him: “Yeah! Oh my god, I’d have to go back to my original, sort of, research journal... Um... For that. I feel like at one point in time, I knew where he went to college, and I knew what he studied, but I don’t- I mean, y’know, in my mind what he studied, and it’s not in the script, and I don’t remember really talking about that- I know we talked about him being a Lieutenant a lot, and how that would have led to him being a leader, and not being very content under Donny as the leader of the band (laughs). But what would he study..? The thing that comes to my mind is something mathematical, so I wanna say an engineer of some kind.”

Me: “Oh, that’s interesting!”

Him: “Well, I feel like he, of all of the musicians in the band, he was obviously the most strict and maybe square of everybody? Y’know, I wouldn’t call him an improvisor, y’know, he has that famous line “If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage.”

Me: “I was actually gonna mention that when you said what you did about him and Donny not gelling well at first.”

Him: “Yeah! Well, you know, he is the only officer in the group, and what that would mean for these gentlemen, y’know, they know that more than- oh, what would they be called, I wanna say muggles and it’s not- civilians! They would know that more than civilians, so we talked about the relationships in that way, but yeah, I think he would be- I forget what it was, but I think it’s sort of engineering, or something that involves something that can be accomplished through math, and that has a specific answer and an end to it.”

Me: “That makes a lot of sense for him. Well, that all I really wanted to ask.”

Him: “Do you still have some time? Do you have any more questions? I mean, we’ve got three more minutes.”

Me: “Well, let me see if I can think of something, uhhhhh..!”

Him: “Oh, remind me, did you see the show- did you see it live, or did you see the Fathom Events recording?”

Me: “I really wish I could have seen it live; however, in 2017 I was only 14, and going from [REDACTED LOCATION] to New York was... Well, that wouldn’t have been possible, unfortunately, so I’ve only been able to see the professional recording, and- and I love it, I need to rewatch it again. But yeah, y’know, I do really love the show, I like going back and looking at all the little details that happen, like not necessarily what the focus is on the stage, but also looking at all the side interactions- like, there was one time I went back and watched, and I noticed that in Breathe, right after Davy makes his comment about Nick, the “choreography” bit, you walked over to Mr. Ellis, and y’know, Davy just gave Wayne a salute, and it was the funniest thing to me for forever. And these aren’t things that you notice on the first watch-through, but going back and looking at all of it is just- it’s just fun.”

Him: “And the interesting thing about the filmed version of it is that, since film and TV is such a visual medium, the editors, which I think Andy (Blankenbuehler) was a part of, they sort of tell you where to look. If you think about all the things that you’re like “Oh, I missed this from the filmed version,” there’s infinitely more moments like that when you have a whole stage that you can look at. So unless it was in a wide shot on the Fathom Events version of it, you only got to see what the editor wanted you to see in those moments, so... Y’know, that’s why I was asking you if you saw the live version. I really loved the Fathom version, and I’m so grateful that it exists; there’s really no substitute for being in the room. Although you can’t, y’know, you can’t rewind, it, so... (laughs) You just get what you get, you know?”

(After this point, we have a short conversation about me! There are a few identifying details in this section that I don’t feel comfortable sharing, though, so I would rather not type them out.)

Ta-da!

Td;lr:

Proud Riff was meant to give an insight into Wayne’s everyday life.

It shows how on an average day, the sun might be shining, but Wayne is still struggling.

Wayne most likely developed his germaphobia due to being involved in trench warfare, out of the necessity to keep everything clean and working.

(Including this just because some people might not have seen interviews where it is confirmed) Wayne has OCD, cleaning his gun is a ritual.

The taps are meant to be a physical manifestation of the memories that haunt Wayne- the ones he cannot control.

Proud Riff was not in the Paper Mill Playhouse production of the show.

Wayne obtained a degree in engineering or something relating to math. He likes how they have specific answers and ends.

Wayne is the only Officer in the Donny Nova Band. He usually takes on leadership positions and does not enjoy Donny being the band leader at first.

Wayne is, in Geoff Packard’s mind, the most strict and square out of everyone in the band. 

Wayne is not an improvisor.

There were a lot of side interactions onstage that we did not get to see in the Fathom Events recording. Sad day. :(

[hickeygender]

i do not know if wolfenstein: the new order has a stats page. i do not want to know if w:tno has a stats page because i do not wish to see my inability to remember the difference between the knife stab/throw button, the crouch/stand button, and the fucking grenade button summed up in cold, uncaring numbers. i do not want to remember how many times i have killed myself to restart after wasting one of my precious grenades in a difficult section. i'm singlehandledly inflating the european suicide rate with how much i do this shit

[solradguy]

Reading Interlude as a Sol fictive has been an absolute experience. If you had tacked onto the end of Begin without saying anything I'd probably have thought nothing of it, it matches so well

Sol to Sol communication... Comrades, you and I...

Real talk though thank you so much!!! I appreciate it a lot. It's very difficult to judge the quality of one's own writing... So sometimes I wonder a little how it compares to Kazuya Negishi's work for Begin since, even though I did a translation of Begin, I don't have an original text this time for Interlude to guide my words or the plot. It's tricky!