#the direct method

[rigelmejo]

The Nature Method

Information about the old Nature Method institute's textbooks. Note: Lingua Latina is still being published and can be bought from the official publisher. The other nature method textbooks are either out of print (and can be found online if you look), or are being printed by a few companies making them easier to access again (I found a company printing the All Spanish Method since I wanted a print copy badly). This rather long page also mentions some newer books which have come out since for Russian in a nature method like style, which is the first I've heard about: "In addition, we have Marianna Avery’s Сорока (Soroka) children’s books, as well as Stanislav Chernyshov’s Поехали! (Poekhali!) books. There is a new course entitled Дорога в Россию (The Way to Russia) by V.E. Antonova, M.M. Nakhabina, and M.V. Safronova, too. There is also Ignaty Dyakov’s series of books, Рассказ Сенсация (The Story of Sensation), Рассказ Провокация (The Story of Provocation), and Рассказ Канонизация (The Story of Canonisation), to which learners sing praises. Still, though, darn it, I want to find Uncle Oleg’s course!"

A collection of links to several of the nature method and direct method style textbooks. Note: several of these can also be found on archive.org and annas-archive.org. These are not all by the nature method institute. The 'direct method' books are a little bit different, they still use only the target language, but they're often designed with the intention that a teacher will help students understand the meaning of unknown words and the lessons are more dialogue based. Poco a Poco textbook is more 'direct method' styled, compared to say Lingua Latina which is more 'nature method.' Nature method textbooks tend to have more context of what is happening on the page (This is Maria, she is Mary's mom, Mary is the little sister to Sophia, Sophia and Mary are Maria's daughters), more of a connected narrative through each chapter (versus direct method where you see more 'this is a chair' 'this is an elephant' 'this is a rose' 'is this a rose?')

[riskerat]

[mollysunder]

The Medarda arc of s2 struggled to be good, because the plot viciously smothered it. You can argue that Arcane was never about politics but you cannot say the Medardas were never explicitly a family defined by politics. So when the show shifted it's priorities from a drama steeped in political conflict where even though the setting was fantastical the stakes were grounded to a shift where magic is the end all be all threat to humanity, the Medardas are rendered largely irrelevant.

In s2 Mel's agency over her own story is both largely stripped from her and poorly communicated. Arcane has Mel abducted from the plot to be the Black Rose's captive. Even when Mel manages to free herself it's not through the traits the audience understands are her strengths, her cunning and social intelligence, it's through an innate instinct that natural to her and indecipherable to the audience.

Ambessa as a character is more or less a villain of convenience, which would be fine if she wasn't immediately following Silco's act. Once Mel is removed from the story Ambessa is largely disconnected from any emotional tension fuels conflict between the characters and previously drove the plot in s1. She's there to play the worse bad guy for Caitlyn and then give Viktor the man power for the Glorious Evolution.

It's frustrating to see the Medardas used the way they are in s2 because when they're together I can see how it could be good. When they're together Mel forces emotion out of Ambessa. In Act 1, Ambessa proved she could do circles around Piltover's court, which could actually put Mel in a tight spot.

Their final scene on paper sounds like a good idea where the true resolution to Mel and Ambessa's story was that Ambessa saw Mel's own ruthless behavior as she not only betrayed Ambessa to the Black Rose, but used her as BAIT to double cross LeBlanc. Ambessa died proud that her daughter killed her the way she did, and that's so cool and tragic, but the execution was a flop.

One, their final fight is completely unimportant to the actual Glorious Evolution, Mel's grief can't even be a highlight because it's interrupted by Viktor's mind trap. Two, their fight didn't rely on any of Mel's actual strengths, just magic and the poorly explained MacGuffin LeBlanc gave her. How did Mel even know it would do that?

It's like the writers had the bones for a great story for the Medardas, but then they're like the world's worst archeologists and fit those bones together in the worst way possible because they were convinced the bones made a stegasaurus instead of a T-rex or something.

[sollucets]

Why do you have to manage everything by yourself?

[front-facing-pokemon]

[yzafre]

"Gotta Draw Fast" Day 3 - Donatello group shot! Slightly different coloring method this time! Timed at 1 hr 24 minutes.

[dykedvonte]

I hate the stretch lines in the front of Curly's uniform because that means the devs rushed to make a model in like a month or so and thought "They gotta at least know he has huge knockers, gotta know he's got back pain." Cause like what is the thematic importance of his tits having overhang?

What responsibility is that representing? Breast reduction? It shows an inherent greed in his character due to the excess and heshouldletmeholdone and that he clearly is blinded cause if he tries to look down his damn ladder all he's seeing is his own cleavage.

[samipekoe]

another day of working hard at the being normal factory

[anxious-shifter]

NEW SHIFTING METHOD!!!

Just fucking shift.

[ingravinoveritas]

(Just needed to make a separate post about this, because I feel like I'm having an aneurysm.)

Michael Sheen has a playlist on his Spotify for The Way, and one of the songs on said list is "I Who Have Nothing" by Shirley Bassey. Which has these lyrics:

This song. On a playlist for The Way. Which has a gay swingers scene at the beginning of episode 3. That Georgia Tennant is in. Where this happens, and after which the camera lingers on the two men kissing more than anyone else in the scene:

...Which of course could mean nothing. But...yeah...

[unteriors-in-house-flipper-2]

how do you get the angle & fov so close to the original!! is it just trial & error or do you superimpose the photo atop the game somehow

recently ive been tracing the outlines of the rooms in Clip Studio Paint, and then capturing both CSP and the game in OBS and changing the blending mode for CSP to multiply!

i use CSP's perspective ruler tool to find the horizon in the reference picture and then compare it with any doors in the image (theyre very consistently 2m tall) to find the height at which the photo was taken, and then make a little platform in the game so the pov is at the same height

i then trial and error the approximate position by putting down square tiles and lining it up with the floor in the picture. i'll then build up the walls (theyre usually around 2.5m tall, so i just make them 13 blocks/2.5m tall and use the resizable cube to get the ceiling to the right height). then i do even more trial and error to find the FOV, focusing on matching the angle of vertical lines near the sides of the screen.

i use a kitchen cabinet inner corner piece to "save" my position, i'll back into it to get to the exact same spot every single time. i'll also place a small item (usually a clothing hook) on the wall on the spot my cursor needs to be so i can always face the right way!

often the images have to be rotated very slightly for the horizon to be perfectly horizontal. i'll always note down by how many degrees, and when i'm cropping the final screenshot to the correct aspect ratio i'll also rotate it to match :)

[wrenwhite]

had a big brain moment and was like "oh i can just block the base color in with markers over a pencil sketch so i don't have to spend 3 times as long coloring with just pencil (and frankly using up the pencils way faster), and this will allow me to keep the colored and fuzzy lineart, which is very visually appealing."

and so i did that.

[cinemaocd]

Every Protest Has

Outside provocateurs starting property damage, and violence.

Hardened activists/Professional protestors that are out to get strategically arrested. Usually <10 people.

The groups with almost no connection with the cause being protested who try to make it about themselves.

The cops starting shit. Escalating to militarized police response.

Street theater.

Privileged people starting shit with the cops putting marginalized folks in even more danger.

Surveillance.

Private Security

FBI informants

Counter protestors not in a formal protest group but scattered around the margins, making themselves visible to the media but also on or near public transport so that they can intimidate people coming/going to the protest

"Non-lethal" crowd control methods.

People with bullhorns who should not have them. Ever.

and finally but probably most importantly:

Every protest has

been mischaracterized, often wildly so, by the media.

[napoleon-usher]

KEYFRAME TUTORIAL FOR THOSE WITH A WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF PHOTOSHOP AND GIFMAKING

This is my gif with the coloring I want it to have eventually (including the manipulated color). I changed the yellows and reds in the scene to be purple. I want the majority of the gif to be purple and cyan, but do not want it to be on her skin.

First add a layer mask to the adjustments that are creating the color you want to remove. I used several layers to create the purple coloring, so I grouped them together and added the layer mask to the group instead of having to do them individually. In this case, I erased anywhere the purple was on her skin.

She is walking away in this scene, so this layer mask alone is not enough. This is where keyframes come in.

In the timeline window, scroll to the layer that your layer mask is on (or in my case, group). On the far left side, each of the layers should have an arrow which toggles a drop down menu. Click it and it will list options for Opacity, Layer Mask Position, and Layer Mask Enable. Make sure the current time indicator (small blue arrow and red vertical line in the timeline window) is positioned at 00:00:00 and then select the clock icon next to Layer Mask Position. It should place a small yellow diamond at the same place as the indicator. Each successive move of the mask will place a grey diamond at the timestamp that you move it.

CMD+click on the layer mask in the Layers window so that the area of the mask becomes outlined with a dotted line in the main workspace. Click the chain icon next to the layer mask in the Layers window to unlock the mask's movement.

The next steps are the most tedious. You have to manually move the layer mask every few frames to a new position that follows the movement of the gif. I usually zoom the timeline in so that each second is broken into six sections and pick a new layer mask position at approximately each section. If there is more rapid movement in the gif, you may have to pick new positions at more frequent intervals and vice versa.

After the initial layer mask is set at the 00:00:00 point in the timeline, select the next interval that you want the layer mask to move to. Do this by moving the time indicator to your chosen point. Now with the move tool, click within the layer mask and drag it to where it needs to be to keep coverage on your desired area. The longer/more frames in the gif, the more keyframe points you will have to select. This gif was about 2.5 seconds long and I used 14 different points.

These are just a few of the keyframes I made on this gif. You can see here that the original area that I erased in the layer mask doesn't quite cover all of her skin throughout the movement. I just erase a bit more until I'm satisfied with the coverage.

Once you have mapped all the points out, deselect the mask area and click the blank space where the chain icon was to make it reappear and return the mask to a locked position.

Scrub through the gif to make sure that the mask covers everything you want and also that the keyframes make it move smoothly. Shorter intervals and minor position changes between keyframes usually keeps choppiness (this normally presents as the mask noticeably jumping to a new position) to a minimum. You should not be able to notice the mask's movement except in the way it removes color from specific areas as intended.

Export and save the gif as normal.

This is my finished result:

[yallthemwitches]

Do you ever just wake up from a fugue state and find shit like this on a word document??

[ultfan]

me when tumblr recommends me someone defending dr3 in the tags and i read through the entire thing and get mad bc they don't understand what brainwashing really is.