#and subtitling what the dialogue means of course

[sleepdepravity]

protag went into his mind palace to try to argue that his brother's death was murder and in his mind palace there are representations of the people he's arguing with acted out by himself, and i think it's really neat. They're english policemen so they normally voiced in english, but for this the va is acting as them and talking in chinese. the way he shifts his voices between them is fun. i love voice acting.

[tincanaudio]

Vertical Editing - A Tiny Essay Zine!

Behold! My first entry into the 2024 Fiction Podcast Zine Festival organised by @boombox-fuckboy. It's a tiny essay about the way I edit audio and why I think it leads to more immersive stories.

This was scribbled together really quickly just to see if I could do it.

Page scans with subtitles under the cut

[VERTICAL AUDIO EDITING - a tiny essay by AMBER DEVEREUX]

[Hi! My name is Amber...and I can't draw. BUT! What I can do is EDIT AUDIO. I often get asked how to make IMMERSIVE SOUND DESIGN in audio drama. Where dialogue and sound design blend together. THE ZESTY SECRET IS VERTICAL EDITING]

[See, the typical editing pipeline for audio is usually horizontal, like this: (a sketch of an audio project file with 3 tracks: 'Vocals' 'SFX' and 'Music' next to each track name is a long rectangle with a label for which kind of edit is which 'Dialogue Edit' for Vocals, 'Sound Edit' for SFX, 'Music Edit' for Music)

Each part is edited separately then put together at the end. Which means all the elements sit on top of each other. It's clean, yes, but is it IMMMERRRSIIVE? BEHOLD! VERTICAL EDITING!

(the same sketch of an audio project, except the rectangles have been chopped up into smaller pieces, some bits of the Vocals overlap with the SFX, some bits of the music overlap both Vocals and SFX. There are also vertical lines through the middle and end of the picture, denoting scenes)

Dialogue, SFX (and sometimes music) are all editing together at the same time. So all the elements interact with each other from the start: The dialogue becomes sound design!

The sound design becomes dialogue!]

[Of course, this approach isn't perfect:

if you're working in a big team, it's not always possible

edits take longer, with more notes per edit

it's also just a lot more work and creative responsibility (which, sometimes, is the last thing you want)

BUT it also allows you THE MOST HUMBLE AUDIO EDITOR To have more of a voice in the sound design, and it allows you most of all, to be AN ARTIST]

[THANKS FOR READING! This zine was made for the 2024 Fiction Podcast Zine Festival.

(A drawing of the Tin Can Audio logo. A square with 3 lines on the inside. On each line there is a rectangle styled to look like a fader on an audio mixing desk. In each rectangle there is a letter, spelling TCA)

TINCANAUDIO.CO.UK]

I had a lot of fun putting this together! I've definitely caught the bug and hopefully I'll make a couple more before the month is out.

[bonbon-bonny]

I don't usually write a whole lot but I wanted to talk about this for a moment

Ahem. *flips through notes*

So I loooove Sailor Moon. Specifically the 90s version. It was my favorite show growing up. My home life was difficult and to see someone like Usagi with a perfect family, a perfect boyfriend etc. getting to live her best life despite the fact she herself wasn't perfect was too easy to become a bit obsessive over ^_^;

well, let's just say I wanted to be Usagi just a bit too much because my world, my family (Side note: I looove my family! They did the best they could to take care of me growing up, but we had to deal with an unusual circumstance that made it hard for all of us), heck just even being myself didn't feel good enough and frankly it left me having to confront a lot of issues just to be okay with who I am now.

And of course ,naturally, I looooved Tuxedo Kamen XD. On the outside to me, he seemed perfect; a knight in shining armor.

But I always kept running into a particular conversation which is "why do you like him so much tho? He seems like a jerk. He seems so different from her. He never shows her affection. She'd be better off with someone like Seiya who's more on her level. He's useless. He's bad for trying to help her because she's a girl boss and doesn't need to be rescued." Like, seriously the amount of criticism I've heard towards this character is wild and he literally gets attacked no matter what he does.

And you know I get it. If you just look at it from a surface level it's easy to maybe get that impression of him but after one particular conversation I was having with a friend of mine about it I stopped and asked myself why. Why does she like him? why does he like her? how can two people who outwardly look so different from each other ever be in a healthy relationship? what could the two of them possibly have in common?

So I did what I do best and I watched the show I grew up with carefully. I observed him. I watched the things he said and did. And in the end I reached several conclusions.

Mamoru isn't perfect, at least in the beginning, but he's always trying to do his best to be. With almost anyone else in the show he's usually calm, collected and somewhat reserved. The only person besides Motoki he seems to act out a bit with if you can call it that IS Usagi and half of the time it's not even that he's actually being mean.

[IF you watch the Japanese version with subtitles, because in the English dub? Ooph! they changed so much of his dialogue and gave him such a smirky voice it's hard to listen to him without wanting to punch him in the face imo.]

It's that the way she perceives him is off. Also, sometimes it's not even HIM that starts the arguments.

Sometimes SHE'S the one who starts their spats and he snaps back at her. Sometimes she hits him with shoes and papers and doesn't seem to care.

One episode that comes to mind is the Dreamland episode where the toy train stops and she rams into him. All he did was look at her and say hi and immediately she got defensive and started making fun of him.

Making fun of an orphan sitting on a toy train who most likely was just trying to do something fun that he never got to because he didn't HAVE a family to take him as a kid.

Seriously. If you were to be in his place, going through this world, it's rather scary, stressful, terrifying, and uncertain.

He didn't get a magical talking cat to walk him through his powers. Instead he got seizures and psychic visions, and a past life version of himself that took over his body without consent until he finally got the rainbow crystal and understood what was happening around him.

He gets amnesia not once but twice, kidnapped several times, and gets trapped in his own mind twice ala brainwashing by beryl and Nehelenia and by stars I wouldn't be surprised if half of the reason he went to study abroad instead of staying with Usagi is because he was afraid if he did he'd only continue to be a burden for her, because the man hardly has any dialogue and seems almost catatonic.

Also let's be real here. As amazing as it was for him to meet and talk with his future self it probably scared him. The responsibility of literally being King of the world, of making decisions that could impact the lives of everyone in tremendous ways. Of being the kind of partner and provider he thinks Usagi deserves or being a good father for Chibi-Usa when he didn't get to have parents to show him what those things looked like.

He didn't get a loving family to support him or tell him that they loved him, he was an orphan who probably hoped someone would eventually rescue him but no one ever did.

He probably feels in his heart that he doesn't deserve to be loved by anyone, and even if someone were to pursue him romantically he probably couldn't reciprocate in any meaningful way because he's most likely too closed off emotionally to be in a healthy relationship with anyone.

Heck the guy only for the most part has only two best friends. Motoki and Saori and frankly I'd hardly even call Saori a best friend since she literally just shows up in an episode in Super S as "Romantic competition" for Usagi and then just ups and vanishes and is never mentioned ever ever again.

So how does someone like him see Usagi and wind up constantly sacrificing his life over and over again for her?

Three words:

She. Sees. Him.

Once she starts to look at him a bit differently instead of seeing him as some tall guy running around with his stupid green jacket with his prickly personality, once she realizes that it was him trying to rescue her when she was so close to the brink of death on occasions and getting injured in the process, once he opens up to her about his struggles she sees him. Not just because he's a hero, but because even if it's hard for him he still tries to help her. A lot of times he even gives her really sound advice that she winds up listening to even if at the time he tells her she doesn't seem to understand him and takes it the wrong way.

He probably also deep down worries that he truly doesn't deserve someone like her.

Even if we don't always see it from the outside he adores Usagi because she sees him for who he is and doesn't ask him to be more outgoing or different.

Usagi adores him because he doesn't ask her to be anything other than who she really is.

Both of them accept the other as they truly are inside. THAT is true love.

You don't really get the chance to see what their relationship looks like from the outside. But he smiles a lot when he's with her which is certainly not something he really ever did with Rei or anyone else from what I could tell. And I bet when he does take her out on dates he's embarrassed and flustered and stumbles but he also probably takes off his mask and tries to make her happy and have a good time.

Also I'd like to add some notes on King Endymion and the violet. Why so much violet? Like....an overwhelming amount of violet XD I never understood why when I was younger but as I've grown up I've spent some time delving into subjects such as Psychology, Spirituality, and Philosophy.

Ladies and gentlemen, Violet is the color of the crown chakra.

https://www.chakras.info/crown-chakra/

Crown chakras deal with the mental and the spiritual. They are a gateway to enlightenment and in my opinion perhaps one could even say that the journey of mental health and enlightenment are two sides of the same coin.

So I'd like to think that for as much as Mamoru might struggle with his mental health, he also walked the path towards true enlightenment. Such a man truly should be King of the World and is more than deserving of being Usagi's partner.

And I'd die for a relationship with a man who is brave enough to confront the things which makes him suffer because I'd know that he'd have the clarity of mind to be a good partner, to treat me with kindness and compassion and show me the kind of love I've always dreamed of having, and that's something only someone who has love for themselves and others could ever possibly be able to give. He doesn't need to be perfect, because perfection is unattainable. He just needs to be brave enough to try even if it makes him deeply uncomfortable at times.

So,

To the men who truly and deeply identify with Mamoru, know I'd marry you in a heartbeat if you asked. That if you showered me in chocolate and flowers I'd do the exact same thing for you because you deserve it. Anyone who is brave enough to do the work necessary to heal and grow, to have kindness and compassion for others, to show me that even if I'm not perfect that it's still okay to be myself around you deserves every happiness in the world.

Not everyone is brave enough to do such a thing and I've come to a point in my life where I'm not interested in what someone can give me externally as much as I am in the kind of person they choose to be and what their values are.

Maybe some people might look at someone like Mamoru and judge him, but Usagi most certainly never would once she got to know him; and considering I've always wanted to be her I'll die on this hill defending him. Out of everyone, Usagi WOULD defend him from the judgement, from the criticism, of the need to be perfect and wear masks, or be something other than what he truly is on the inside.

Mamoru is more than just a knight in shining armor,

He's beautiful imperfection; and I'd choose that over anything else any day.

@heavyheartedprinceofearth

[benkyoutobentou]

How to study languages without studying

Whether you're just starting out and have had bad experiences with textbook learning in the past or are getting burnt out from prepping for the next proficiency test, it's never a bad idea to put the textbooks away for a time and just enjoy your target language. If you're new to the world of immersion, here are a few ways to get you started.

Follow along with the lyrics of a song. Spotify's not-so-new-anymore lyrics feature is great for this, especially since it has timed lyrics, but it doesn't have every song.

Expert mode: Write out the lyrics and underline/highlight/make note of all the words and grammar structures you don't know. Learn these unknowns until you can understand the whole song!

Extra challenge: Translate a song from your target language. I usually tend to stay away from translations in my study, but for those of you who aspire to be translators (or already are!), the poetic nature of song lyrics can be a fun challenge.

Watch a show or movie. Netflix has now introduced a feature where you can sort by language! If there's nothing made in your language that you're interested in, it also gives the option to sort by shows and movies that have the audio or subtitles available. Internet Archive also tends to have lots of foreign films that I'm looking for.

Easy mode: Watch with English or your native language subtitles. When doing this, try to still listen to what's being said and pick up on words and phrases that you know, or match new words with their translation in the subtitles. Note: reading one language and listening to another is a skill in and of itself! Don't be discouraged if you can't do both at the same time yet, you're brain is still making the connections in intonation and cadence of the language.

Hard mode: Watch with captions in your target language. This helps you connect listening and reading, especially in languages where the spelling isn't exactly phonetic, or it uses a different alphabet than what you're used to.

Expert mode: No captions or subtitles! But who knows, maybe you're better at listening comprehension than I am. Make sure you're getting comprehensible input here; some shows and movies are much harder than others. But above all else, watch what keeps your interest. A movie where you can catch half the dialogue but is super engaging is better for you than an "easy" movie that you're going to spend your time ignoring.

Polyglot mode?: Watch something in your target language with subtitles in a different target language. This adds just one too many layers of obfuscation for me, but if you're into the challenge, more power to you.

Watch YouTube. You can change your language preference on YouTube, and with that, the Explore section will give you recommendations in your target language. Going into the trending tab with your target language can give you a good idea about what people are interested in in the countries where your target language is spoken.

Read something. It can be a book, it can be a comic. There are plenty of webcomics out there in a number of languages! There's also probably an English language listicle with recommendations of easier to understand webcomics for learners, too.

If you're just getting started in immersion, you can choose whether you focus on intensive reading or extensive reading (this actually goes for all kinds of immersion, but is easiest to control with reading since it happens at your own pace). Intensive reading is reading with the goal of understanding everything 100%. If you don't understand a word, or a grammar point, or the reading of a character, look it up. Extensive reading is reading just to get the gist of things. Look up words and grammar points only if they stop you from understanding the general meaning of the sentence or section. And of course, the more you immerse, the less you'll have to look things up, but remember that difficulty varies between materials, even within books of the same age range, genre, and medium.

A small digression: If you decide that you never want to open a textbook on your language learning journey, more power to you! It can be done and I know people who have gotten to proficient levels of their target language without textbooks. If you want this to be you, extensive immersion is your best friend. You also might want to get comfortable with the flashcard program anki, because, if this is your goal, all those unknown grammar points and words will probably end up there. But at the end of the day, language learning is an intensely personal journey, and what works for others won't necessarily work for you. Finding what works for you is just part of learning a language.

Play a game. Lots of games are region locked (hint: Pokemon Sun/Moon isn't! If you start a new game, you can choose which language you want to play it in), but there are plenty of free online games still lurking in the corners of the internet. With a bit of googling, you can probably find something in your target language. Just the other day, I went out to find one of those hidden item games in Japanese and ended up finding an entire site dedicated to user made browser games.

If you're learning Japanese or Korean, picrew might be fun to look through as well. I noticed that plenty of picrews have basic anatomy vocabulary. I'm not super familiar with picrew myself, but the ones I've seen tend to be in Korean and Japanese

And lastly, don't fully give up on textbooks before trying them out. Don't be discouraged if textbooks truly aren't your thing, but studying a language on your own time can feel much different than studying for school. Don't put too much pressure on yourself and just have fun with your language. Additionally, if you'd rather learn in a video format, many languages have full courses uploaded to YouTube for you to try. Finding these can be difficult for some languages though, so don't hesitate to reach out to other learners and see what they recommend!

Got your materials ready? Great! Now go forth and immerse!

[eerna]

So was it any good? tbosas I mean

Well,,,,,,,,, kind of? I had fun, but also went in knowing they won't pay attention to what I loved about the book so my expectations were properly low. TBOSAS is my fav THG book so a different adaptation exists in my head

Non-spoilery: The movie is divided in parts like the book, but there is no rhyme or reason why, no dramatic breaks or changes like in the books. The Reaping isn't on July 4th because of course. Tom Blyth as Coriolanus was a surprise because I expected nothing from him other than looking sort of like old Snow. The movie naturally removed any and all nuance from his character and kept spelling out everything, but there were a few scenes where they let him yknow, act out how his character is supposed to feel, and it was really good! Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray was more of a mixed bag - sometimes she was fantastic in selling the over-the-top dramatic flare, but other times (especially towards the beginning) it was just weird. I firmly believe this is because the movie didn't fully commit to Lucy Gray as a charming crowd director who keeps her heart hidden and instead made her a more honestly vulnerable girl. She dazzled in musical numbers, though, that girl is a performer through and through! Viola Davis was bad I am so sorry but I felt like I was watching a Disney Channel performance and it's entirely the movie's fault and not hers. Peter Dinklage was super good as Dean Highbottom, he makes him all sad and lost without being over-the-top. The rest of the cast was also good. I loved the sets and the costumes, very in-line with what I'd imagined. The night/dark scenes were so dark that subtitles felt like they were burning into my eyes, it was the absolute worst quality dark scenes I've ever seen in a big movie.

Spoilery:

They removed Coriolanus' obsessive love for Lucy Gray and turned it sooo muted :(((( He didn't even want to kiss her before the Games! He didn't try to control her or feel jealousy or ANYTHING that could imply he might turn on her one day!! His emotional changes and impatience and politeness and selfish kindness are also all gone now. Sejanus and he aren't nearly as close as in the book, but there was this funny moment where the two of them had a more intense forehead touch moment than any Coriolanus shared with Lucy Gray and it made me chuckle. Tigris and Coriolanus were very very well done, I loved how she was always his first bestie!!! But I am sort of annoyed they turned it from "Tigris puts Coriolanus down for the way he treats others" to "Tigris is scared Coriolanus will become his dad". Lucy Gray's Reaping was absolutely horrible, she threw a singing fit instead of being a confident performer, so it makes no sense that she just flips a switch into untouchable after. Loved the snake charmer climax where everyone stands up for Lucy Gray and proves that Capitol needs a victor! It worked better for the movie than the book version, and the way the music exists as a meta instrumental scene where the score eventually catches up to her singing - THAT is how ALL her songs should have been treated!!! The way music worked was one of my biggest issues, sometimes they were totally off tonally from what their role was in the books (The Ballad of Lucy Gray Baird this is about YOU Maiah Wynne's version makes me sob to this day while the movie version is only saved by Rachel's passion) and only the snake song was properly utilized as a plot point. They were such good opportunities for exposition that is more subtle than just putting whatever is Coriolanus feeling in clunky dialogue. And the clunky dialogue WAS constantly used to make up for the amount of internal monologues, even if it made zero sense -at the end they literally had Lucy Gray say "Haha if you destroyed the guns and killed me you could go to District 2 no sweat hahahaha anyway I'll go get some potatoes bye" like what. In what world would she literally tell him that. She is supposed to be a smart survivor. They also put "it's things we love most" quote as the final line in the movie, and I can't describe what a stupid choice that was, because if it wasn't there the movie would go "Highbottom tells Coriolanus he won't be able to forget Lucy Gray-> Coriolanus' proud exit where he believes to be the victor as snow falls down -> Can't Catch Me Now end credits including the snow motif", which would have been SO much stronger since that song delivers the "Lucy Gray eventually caught up to Coriolanus" message and we don't get it spelled out like we're 5 years old. It's not the only part of the movie where references to the OG stick out like a sore thumb, and I am once again asking Why. Why don't you think your audience is smart enough to understand.

[shadowykittengladiator]

Gregory is not a bad character but people act like he was in the wrong and hate him for no reason.

Spoilers for the Security Breach Ruin dlc here. Also pardon my English. I'm learning.

So I have been seeing a lot of hate toward Gregory after the ending of Security Breach Ruin dlc. Specifically by Roxy simps. And in general, I've seen two arguments as to why he is a bad character.

1: Gregory killed Cassie at the end of the game

Look, we don't even know if it was Gregory at the end that dropped the elevator. ıt might as well be mimic, seeing as there were two subtitles before the elevator dropped and you can hear white noise from the speaker just before Gregory says 'we can't risk being followed, I'm sorry.' I will hold my opinion on this topic until we get proof that it was Gregory that killed Cassie. But to me it looks like it was mimic.

2: Gregory destroyed the animatronics, stole their parts and were overall unsympathetic towards them

People who use this as an argument; have you even played the game? You do realize these animatronics tried to kill Gregory, right? Like out of nowhere and without any provocation from Gregory. That Roxy that you think is all innocent and cool hunted him down like an animal. And Gregory is supposed to feel sorry for them?

Gregory was right to destroy them and take their parts. Because destroying them means they wouldn't be able to hunt him anymore, or they would be weaker. And their parts mean a higher chance of survival for him. You know, a higher chance od survival from dying from the animatronics that everybody act like are all innocent and completely safe. Like they haven't hunted down a child for hours.

Even if they were hacked or under the control of a virus, it doesn't change anything. Because they are in fact animatronics. They can be repaired. These parts can be replaced. Gregory on the other hand can't be just put in a new body and given a new arm or something.

At least this is my opinion. You are welcome to argue about it or not like it of course.

I also read some fanfics of ruin dlc and decided to write some dialogue of my own. The characters are completely out of character because I wrote it in like three minutes lol. But I think it gets my point across. This is how I imagined a confrontation between Roxy and Gregory would go.

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

R: Don’t come any closer to Cassie, not after what you did.

G: After what I did? So we are acting like there is no way for me to just drop an elevator and there is literally a robot that wants to murder everyone, can mimic people’s voice so perfectly that my friend didn’t recognize it was me and could also cut the cable of the elevator from his position. But of course it is my fault that Cassie almost died.

R: You stole my–

G:Stole your eyes? Cry me a river Roxy. Is that what she told you Cassie? That big bad psychopath Gregory that dropped you down an elevator shaft also cruelly stole her eyes and left her in darkness.

Cassie standing to the side, looking uncertain.

R: Gregor-

G:Did she also explain how she and her ‘friends’ hunted me down like feral animals and tried to kill me.  Without any provoking from my side. 

C:What?

R: And that makes it okay for you to steal my eyes and completely destroy us?

G: Yes it does. Because fuck you Roxy. Don’t act like you are innocent in all this. You are not. For you, eyes mean a part that can be replaced. Getting a bit hurt means always a chance for repairs. For me? Your eyes upgraded into Freddy means seeing you and your ‘friends’ from behind the walls and evading you. So you know, I wouldn’t die by your hands.

[gerbiloftriumph]

Lost and Found (ao3):

Grandpa’s story of the goblin caves started out familiarly enough, but as he spoke, the story started to twist and change. New friends, new conversations, and new ways to use old items transformed the tale, and the young king discovered new ways to be brave in the dark tunnels beneath Daventry.

~*~

An attempt to reinsert the cut lines from the subtitle file. Ch2 has a ton of cut content, and a lot of the lost dialogue is grand, but currently the only way to read it is in a contextless, barely legible slurry in the game files. I’m reconstituting it and fluffing it up and out to make it more accessible.

(3/?)

“Oooh, it has been a while since we went adventuring together!” Whisper said, delighted. “What was the last one we did, do you remember? Was it fetching the rare and miraculous golden fleece of Llewdor?”

“That wasn’t actually gold,” Graham said. “The paint flaked off when you touched it.”

“Yes, but the daring deed, that’s what was important! Those acrobatic leaps through those crumbling sun cult ruins, remember? You got all tangled up in those vines.”

“Acorn had to carry me out; I was so stuck,” Graham said.

“You were shooting arrows over his shoulder!”

“Oh, yeah! That was fun.” He paused. “Well, except for the almost getting caught by cultists and dying in a horrible sacrificial ritual part. But other than that!”

“So, what’s this adventure about?”

“Honestly, it doesn’t feel like an adventure,” Graham said. “We’ve all been kidnapped by goblins, and I can’t seem to figure out why.”

“Whisper thinks that’s pretty obvious.” Whisper flicked an armored finger at the crown, which made it ring like a bell.

“Yeah, maybe,” Graham said, grabbing the crown to muffle it, “but I don’t think it’s just a ransom. Why take everyone else, then? This hat’s what’s important, but I can’t figure out why Wente would get dragged into it, or Amaya, or even you.”

“Whisper is incredibly valuable.”

“Okay, sure, but have you ever heard of a goblin wanting money? Maybe if you tell me what you were doing, it’ll help.”

“Doing? Nothing much. Acorn and Whisper were seeking flowers!”

“Knights? Gathering flowers?” Graham smiled.

“Well, someone has to do it!” Whisper agreed. “Here, these!” He fished in his armor and withdrew a little handful of delicate petals. “They’re lovely, aren’t they, nearly as lovely as the lovely Miss Amaya,” he said, handing them to Graham to inspect. “But that’s all we were doing, gathering flowers in the forest. We walked into an ambush, like they were waiting for us, but Whisper is sorry to say he has no additional information than that.”

“Hmm. Nothing else?”

“Nothing.”

 Graham sighed. “Well. Doesn’t matter anyway, not yet. I need a plan to get us out of here first.”

“This might be the only time Whisper’ll say this…but don’t look at me. You’ll have to figure it out.”

“Thanks, Whisper.”

“Oh, whatever happened to your silly squirrel pig?”

“You mean Triumph? He’s in the castle stables, of course.” And wouldn’t Graham love to be up there with him, with his whole face pressed into Triumph’s belly fluff, warm and soft and sweet.

“You never did answer Whisper’s message about a rematch.”

From above, a disapproving voice echoed around the caves: “Whisper.”

“Oh. Acorn.”

The two knights eyed each other, a little coolly, Acorn clinging to the edge of his Jack and the Beanstalk ledge, Whisper leaning so far back he staggered a bit.

“Kidnapped by goblins?” Whisper asked.

“Yeah. You?”

“Also."

“We’re not very good knights, are we,” Acorn said, sighing heavily.

“Speak for yourself!” Whisper said, posing.

“What if I got on your shoulders, Whisper?” Graham said. “Like Kyle and Larry. Maybe I could reach that ledge, then, and pull myself up.”

“What good would that do me?” Acorn demanded. “You just want a ride.”

“No! …well, maybe a little bit.”

“You keep looking for something else, Your Majesty,” Acorn grumbled. “Oh, duck.” The duck with the golden paint pecked hard at his helmet. He flapped a hand at it. It fluttered up, then perched back in place on his head.

*~*~*

Graham and Whisper explored the caves together, ducking out of sight when they saw goblins. They were fairly certain that, even though Graham had vague permission to be out so long as he was doing chores, no one else had been granted such freedoms. Once, he kicked Whisper behind a rock and stood in front of him, frantically sweeping with his little broom and dustpan. Whisper started sneezing as soon as the goblins were past, but they managed to avoid capture.

They came across the main prison doors. Graham remembered being pushed through them upon his arrival here, doors that should lead out into the crooked lines of the goblin city, to the weird river and the weirder raft and the sweet fresh air of Daventry beyond. But while they both pushed hard against the levers and shoved at the doors with their combined strength, they couldn’t shift it.

“I need another key,” Graham muttered, tracing the lock. “Every door is locked here.”

“It is a prison, Graham.”

“You don’t have to remind me.” That key had better be accessible somewhere in the prison, or this would be one short escape attempt.

They walked back, fully intending to keep exploring, when they were startled by a goblin with a spear. Graham panicked, springing backward, slamming into Whisper. On some ridiculous instinct, without even thinking, Graham grabbed his cloak and swirled it down over the knight, like he was going to hide him under a tarp—and popped Whisper into his pocket.

The goblin wandered on, apparently not having noticed, while Graham staggered back against the wall, without Whisper in the way to stop him.

“What—I didn’t know it could do that!” He stared at his own cloak. He could sense the weight, could feel the pockets straining, but—

He tipped his cloak, and Whisper poured out, sprawled on the floor. “What?”

“I mean. My mother designed my cloak with extra pockets,” Graham babbled.

“And an extra pocket dimension, too, apparently.”

“She’s a really good seamstress?”

“Magically talented, one might say. Does she order her fabric from the Hobblepots?” Whisper sat up. “Would she take commissions? Imagine the portraits Whisper could fit in there! No, the entourage! My fans could always be with me in person, not just in spirit! Imagine! The fan club will be so excited!”

“What was it like in there?”

“Red.”

“And I’ve just been using it as a blanket,” Graham said, swirling it. “That’s way safer than us walking around in the open! You could totally come with me and not be seen!” He paused. “Oh, but wait, at night. Uh. You can’t stay with me at night.”

“Why not?”

Graham hesitated. “So, I’m probably not supposed to be out here, even to do chores. At night, the goblins do a shakedown to make sure I’m not carrying anything I’m not supposed to be. I think you’d be something I’m not supposed to be carrying.”

“Oh, just a shakedown, Whisper’s sure they wouldn’t notice—”

“No, literally. They grab me and flip me upside down and shake ‘til everything’s fallen out of my pockets.” Graham loosened his bracer and pushed back his sleeve to show off fingerprint shaped bruises. “It’s. Not actually avoidable.”

“…oh.” For once, Graham wished Whisper wasn’t wearing his helmet—he wanted to see the knight’s expression, to see what he was thinking, but this time the mask was properly a mask, keeping Whisper’s thoughts to himself. “Not a long term solution, then.” His voice had that sort of forced cheeriness that made Graham wince.

“We’ll find somewhere safe for you to hide before the day ends,” Graham promised. “But for now. Back in there.” This had potential, this pocket thing, but he had to be careful not to rush in situations and make mistakes that would end up with everyone in a lot worse danger than they’d started in. Especially with the forced shakedowns threatening him every night. For now, he’d take it just as slow and carefully as he’d been. For now.

~*~*~

Graham explored the space by himself for a while, Whisper a comforting weight in his pocket. The knight didn’t seem able to speak to him while he was in there, and Graham thought probably he had fallen asleep. Graham found goblins reenacting old fairytales—the frog prince, the princess and the pea. He was able to procure a little pile of things, from frogs to flies, and managed to get his hands on what was supposed to be weed killer, but was more like weed grower, which he used on Acorn’s broken ladder, though it wouldn’t do much good til the next day.

And then, a familiar face. A face that probably belonged behind bars at the best of times, but which probably didn’t deserve to be down here, nevertheless. “Heeeeey, boy!”

“Merchant?”

“Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes!” He reached between the bars and grabbed Graham’s cloak, dragging him closer, squeezing his cheeks with unabashed delight. “Yep, that’s one lanky adventurer, here in the flesh! And with a sparkly new hat! It ain’t a patch on my turban, but hey, still looks nice!” He snatched at the crown and examined the gems inset in it with a practiced eye, picking at them with his thumb to see how loose they were. When they proved solidly placed, he slammed the crown back on Graham’s head. “Can’t hardly believe it, wait til I tell Mr. Fancycakes I’ve got a king shopping my wares. If I ever see him again, ‘course. Either way, Merchant of Miracles can definitely put royal patronage on the front sign now! That’ll be good for business. What business I can get these days, anyway.”

“What are you doing here?” Graham looked around. It was a fairly large cell, well lit and fairly comfortable. But still a cell, with the same heavy wooden bars blocking him from the rest of the villagers. The merchant’s cart was somehow smashed into the same space he was, though even from here Graham could see most of the boxes in it were now rumpled and empty and torn. No goats—unicorns—anywhere to be seen.

“I decided to expand my business ventures, see what new untapped markets there were out there. I mean, holy majeezus, have you seen the addendums and paperwork needed to start a business in Daventry? Ooh, you could build your shop out of ‘em! Down here, restrictions are much less restrictive, you can just set up a pop up stand anywhere!” He knit his fingers together and leaned forward conspiratorially, in a low whisper so no guards could hear. “No, actually, they're super restrictive. I got jumped by goblins ages ago and I’ve been down here ever since. Which has been a real dark mark on my bottom line, let me tell ya. And my bottom, if you know what I mean, since I’ve just been sitting here for ages.

“But!” He brightened, at full volume again: “I’ve got a business to run, even if we never get out of this place. Check the current goods list, m’boy, I’m sure you with your newfound fancy hat can afford my pricing scale.”

“Your pricing scale, right,” Graham scoffed. “Last time, you just flat out stole my money.”

“True, true, and I’m so sorry for all the bad things I did.” He clapped his hands together, with a pleading, innocent expression. “From here on in, I’m going to be an honest merchant, not a swindle in sight. Yep! Once I’m outta here, totally honest.” He leaned back again, casual and unchanged. “Learned my lesson behind bars, all that.”

“Sure.”

“Though,” and he said this totally offhand, nearly under his breath, “maybe I should partner up with one of these goblins. Imagine the roadside pilfering we could doooo—” his voice trailed off at Graham’s glare. “We could start a wheel repair shop! Nothing wrong with that! Daventry sorely needs one of those, to stop people being so sore when their wheels fall off in your potholey roads!”

Graham rolled his eyes. “Can I just see the goods?”

The merchant swept his hand across the countertop before him. “Of course! But it’ll cost ya! I’m here to help you, lad. But I’m not running a charity. Tariff code issues, y’know.”

He had a cure-all potion, chopsticks, and porridge. Graham figured he’d need all of it at one point or another, especially that cure-all potion. Poor Bramble downstairs couldn’t even keep to her feet in her cell, and Wente was running himself ragged pacing with nerves worrying over her. His fingers itched to grab it. “Is this all?”

“My finest! At least, my finest down here, there ain’t much refreshing going on here these days. Let me tell you, when I get out of here, I’m going to procure all the procurables in this place and Mr. Fancycakes will run the test lab. We’re gonna get a whole lot more interesting product. But for now, this is it. Mmmostly.”

“Mostly?”

“Yeah, all right,” the Merchant said in a low voice, “I do have a few more things in the back, but they’re not exactly the sort of things a goblin would approve of, if you get my drift.”

“It wouldn’t be you without a black market,” Graham agreed.

“Keep yer voice down, kid. I’ll show you the good stuff, but you gotta be careful.” He rummaged in his cart, and with a flourish, set a box in front of Graham. He whisked the top off, and, nestled inside…

A bow.

Graham’s heart leapt in his throat. A bow. He glanced hastily behind them, but no one was nearby. A bow, a bow! It didn’t look like it was in great shape, not at all like Achaka’s bow—left at home, he’d never go anywhere without a bow again, not after this—but he thought he could still make something of it. He’d practiced long and hard enough to make just about anything work for him. There was a single arrow with it. Splintery looking, not particularly straight.

Not great craftsmanship at all, but it would be something. Especially with a decent archer behind it. But it was only one shot, and not a very straight one at that. Still. It was something.

He reached out. The merchant slapped his hand away. “Six shiny gold coins.”

“I haven’t got six,” Graham said, shaking his stung hand with surprise.

“Then you haven’t got a bow.”

“But it’ll help us escape!”

“Anything could help you escape, technically, but I need to escape poverty on top of escaping from this cell, kid, and the only way I’m going to do that is by collecting your coins.”

Graham rummaged helplessly in his pockets. “I have this signed portrait from Whisper. Collector’s edition!” He also had Whisper himself, but it was probably best to not start treating his friends like trading cards.

The Merchant leaned forward, eyes glittering. “Oooh, such fancy printing, the stroke work is clearly from a master! Almost certainly that’s blue dye ink drawn from the swamp in Tamir. Numbered edition, even! And is that Serenian Goatshear Parchment, so glossy, so fine! Exquisite, really!” He sat back again.

“Don’t you...want it?”

“I ain’t into the bartering system, boy. Unless you’re bartering gold. Get outta here with that, and come back when you’ve found more cash.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Nothing doing. Six for me, or an empty hand for you.” He swept the box back under his counter, hidden away from prying eyes, and changed the subject easily in case of eavesdroppers: “Did you know that unicorns have teleportation abilities? That’s what makes them so majestic…and so mischievous. They’re mischievestic. Shame you don’t have a unicorn to teleport back to your fancy new house with all them fancy flags on it to get you six shiny gold coins. Meantime, can I interest you in anything else down here?”

There were more immediately pressing issues than a bow, or throttling a merchant, Graham knew, and with a sigh, he shook out a single coin, the only one he’d managed to find so far, tucked out of the way in the shadows, for the cure-all potion to deliver to Bramble downstairs.

“Excellent. And, you know, if you’re ever ready to sell that cape, let me know. I want to make it into a pair of red, illustrious shorts!”

Graham flinched back, disgusted. “I think I’ll keep it for now.”

“Eh, fine, fine. Anyway. As much as I like seeing your face, you might want to see who else is looking for a hero. Lanky heroes are a thing now.”

[roxtron]

Soo after getting back into fnaf I finally got to play SB and Ruin for myself, and honestly I’m a bit shocked by the debate about who cut the elevator, I thought most people would be in agreement it’s more likely to be the mimic than Gregory but it looks like some of the fandom is pretty conflicted. So for fun I wanted to go through most of the evidence I’ve seen to try and argue why I think it can’t be Gregory.

Of course I could be wrong, anyone could, that’s the nature of this series. I think it’ll be interesting to see where the story goes from here, regardless of which path they take. But here’s my take on it.

I wanna try to keep this more structured than pure rambling so first I wanna go through evidence that suggests it was the mimic. Obviously the first note is the most obvious piece of evidence everyone points out, the subtitles. 

While some people think it’s an error or a glitch that the subtitles overlap, or argue that the files state this is the real Gregory, I don’t think that’s enough to disprove it. Why would they want to spoil if it was Gregory or not if that’s meant to be questioned? If it was supposed to be clear-cut that Gregory did cut the elevator, I feel like they’d make it more obvious. The static cut matching with the subtitle ‘glitch’ is way too convenient. And spoiling a plot twist would just defeat the whole purpose.

If it was a glitch, it would’ve been patched. I’ve seen some people argue they experienced this glitch in their playthroughs during SB, but the only times I’ve seen that is when two characters’ dialogue overlaps. I’ve only seen it with separate characters, and the only time I can remember it happening with the same character is if it was intended to be two different scenes, like if I were to get a dialogue trigger for an area while the cutscene dialogue was still playing. (By that I mean the dialogue for the last trigger was still playing by the time I activated another dialogue trigger, the player was likely meant to let the original dialogue finish before starting a new one.) I know it can also happen when you mute the game and it lets all the dialogue overlap, but that’s because they’re separate lines being played at the same time because they’re not playing at all, if that makes sense. Maybe this is because I played SB post-Ruin, but I feel like the argument that it’s a common glitch doesn’t really hold up, especially because this is an ending cutscene, you’d think there’d be more priority on making sure it works as intended. And if it were a glitch, why did everyone get it? Don’t most glitches only happen to some people and not others, and that’s why they don’t usually get caught in development? I know I went off on a long tangent with the subtitle glitch here, but I dunno. I just don’t think it’s a good enough excuse considering other evidence. 

Anyway, moving on to stronger pieces of evidence, something plenty of people have pointed out from searching out-of-bounds with youtubers like RyeToast, the battery pack. 

The mimic was left right outside the elevator, and the battery powering it right there. Obviously I’m not an elevator mechanic, I wouldn’t know the exact logic behind it, but I’d assume all he would need to do is cut the cords to let the elevator fall.

Some people have argued that’s not how elevators work, since it wouldn’t fall, it would just come to a stop, but I think some people are forgetting about location here. This isn’t a commonly used elevator like the ones that lead to the atrium or attractions, it’s an old elevator in a mostly abandoned building underground. When you use the main elevator to get down there in the base game, Freddy even mentions the elevator doesn’t seem safe, and likely won’t survive more than one trip.

(Though that line still confuses me, considering in that ending they go back up the elevator to get back to the surface. So does he mean one trip there and back?? If that was what he meant then how was the elevator still running by the time of ruin?

Regardless of which ending is canon, they would’ve used the elevator once there and back to trap the mimic in the first place, and then cassie would’ve used it again to get down there.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding Freddy, maybe it was just a gameplay mechanic so you couldn’t go back since it’s endgame stuff, I dunno. Just found that worth mentioning.

Either way, the point is the elevator probably doesn’t have those safety protocols that would make it come to a safe stop.) 

That aside, how would Gregory do it? Sure he can hack into communication devices to try to contact Cassie, but that’s all he’s done. It’s not like there’d be a system he can hack into where all he has to do is type a command to cut the elevator. Sure he’s been hacking into all kinds of shit, but there’s nothing he’s hacked into that’s directly resulted in any action similar to this one. Sure he could hack a bot and make a bot do it, but do you really think there would be any bot nearby for him to even attempt that? It just doesn’t make any sense.

I feel like if there’s anything Steel Wool has been consistent with it’s environmental storytelling, we didn’t exactly guess how the mimic got trapped based on dialogue or text. It’s because of the way the vent collapsed, the way the backpack was placed, the fact the walkie talkie had to have been left in a rush, no way they would’ve purposefully given the mimic a communication device to try and manipulate someone with.

So if they took the time to show the battery being right outside the door, right next to the mimic, but never showed us any kind of examples for how someone could remotely cut an elevator like that, it kinda points in one direction a lot more than the other.

Anyway, this section might be a bit all over the place, but I wanna look at some people’s arguments for why it wasn’t the mimic, and attempt to debunk them where I can, which will inevitably lead into further evidence I didn’t include in the first section.

One of the strongest pieces of evidence for why it isn’t the mimic is the voice, some people theorized the mimic may be running some sort of program to splice the audio together, and that’s why he’s only copying specific lines/clipping together sentences towards the end of the game. While that could be true I honestly don't think it is. 

While there’s subtle hints throughout the game that it isn’t actually Gregory talking to us, I’d argue that’s what a lot of them are, subtle. Some people point to the camera system using Cassie’s voice as a lure as evidence it can mimic people’s voices. But it wasn’t copying the voice, it was just playing a recording. Every time Cassie's voice played it was that one line from the beginning, “Gregory, are you there?” But it was never a unique line of dialogue she’s never spoken.

I honestly think it’s just a developer choice for that moment to really hit. If you’ve spent the whole game believing this is really Gregory, then by the time you get to Roxy Raceway and he asks you to kill Roxy to save him, all the glitching in that audio lets the realization hit. And I imagine it gives Cassie doubt too, but if you think about it, she’s already hit the point of no return. It’s too late to turn back now, she’s deactivated almost all the nodes, spent an entire night in this place (since it was still daylight when the game starts, but nighttime when we get to the wrecking ball area.) And considering how empathetic she’s shown to be, would she really just walk out because she thinks it isn’t him? Don’t you think there’d be at least some part of her that says “what if it is him, and I’ve just left him here to die?” 

Meanwhile when Gregory’s voice was used on the camera systems.. It’s honestly hilarious, I’m surprised nobody talks about it. Maybe it’s because I spent longer in Roxy Raceway than most players did, but his lines definitely fit with his personality. They’re all so taunting, and considering they’re used only against Roxy, I believe they were actually recorded by him, not the system mimicking his voice. The mocking “I’m so scared and alone!” “I’m here, you just can’t see me.” And FUCKING “Marco.. Polo!” (That one’s so evil it always makes me laugh.) You gotta admit that’s definitely something Gregory would do. 

Sure the mimic can copy his voice, but it can’t really copy his personality all that well if you read between the lines. The majority of the mimic’s lines for Gregory kinda fall into a few categories. Whiny, demanding, and monotone. With it being more whiny and scared than usual to try and get Cassie to believe it’s really in danger. It being more demanding to get Cassie to push forward. (Strong example being the Monty Golf catwalks, for some reason I struggled to find the Nodes there and he was constantly giving lines like “You really need to get back to redirecting the gondolas” or something along those lines. Trying to get you back on task.) And finally monotone, a lot of his lines can come across as more objective statements than anything, very little emotion involved.

Gregory’s never that whiny or afraid from what we see in the games, sure he has his moments, but in Security Breach his overall attitude isn’t being afraid, just done with this shit. It’s a bit more complicated than that but playing this game in retrospect with that knowledge makes it really interesting. Trying not to spoil the twist for other people led me to looking into all the voice lines, thinking “is that really something Gregory would say?” And the majority of the time, no, not really. I was practically scrambling at points to try and explain some voice lines to my friends trying not to spoil them. It’s not as much of a consistent personality as it is a split, he acts differently when the situation calls for it. Which, duh, that’s how human behavior works, but I hope you get what I mean when I say that.

I got a bit sidetracked but back to the idea the mimic is splicing audio together. While it’s an interesting point that would explain some cut-together dialogue.. 

Plus, it’s horror, sometimes characters have to be oblivious for the show to go on, y’know? I think this moment was intended to hit that way. The final confirmation something is definitely off, but as the player, you still don’t know what exactly it is. Because that’s not the reveal, you never find out what’s really been talking to you until you see the mimic in person. It’s another way to draw you in, keep your curiosity. If it did seem like it fully was Gregory players may start to question it in a way that wants them to turn back, but if it’s made clear this probably isn’t Gregory it leaves you to wonder, what the fuck is it?

Point is, I think it was just a developer choice, not something we’re supposed to take as evidence. And my main reason for that is, it’s kind of immediately contradicted. 

If you go back and watch the ending over again, he does mainly use pre-recorded lines, but if you look at what he says when Cassie frees him, it’s not pre-recorded. It goes from the pre-recorded, more upbeat and thankful “You saved me!” to monotone, stating it as fact. “You saved me.” If he were splicing together sentences, then where the fuck did that line come from? Maybe I’m just not as observant as I thought, but as far as I’m aware the only pre-recorded “You saved me!” is the one he uses first. The second one is nowhere to be found in SB. It kinda disproves the idea he’s splicing sentences if he immediately after gives us a new line that isn’t spliced. It’s an interesting theory for sure, but I don’t think it adds up. 

I was going to go more in depth on the tech stuff happening here but I realized I’ve made this section long enough already so I’ll put it into this section, I don’t think it’s something his character would do.

Now initially I was gonna cut straight to characterization and whatnot, and I will get to that later, but I’m gonna start by going through the tech stuff.

Every time Gregory tries to contact Cassie in-game, it’s usually through a separate piece of tech. I’ve only heard the lines separate from the game, and I’m definitely not data-mining myself, so I can’t prove that this line is the real Gregory, but..

I think one of the first times he contacts her is when you first see Roxy crying in her salon. For one, the timeline would match up. When he talks during the end of the game he says he’s been trying to contact us all night. But Cassie walked into the pizzaplex when it was still bright out, likely in the middle of the day since it doesn’t seem to be sunset, although that could just be my interpretation. If Gregory had been trying to contact her “all night” then it seems like he didn’t realize what was going on until much later in the game. If I’m remembering correctly you don’t see the wrecking ball through the ceiling revealing it’s nighttime until at least halfway through the game. 

(Although side note, I’m not sure how the mimic first contacted Cassie to lead her to the pizzaplex in the first place. The game makes it seem like the walkie talkie is the first time they talked but she wouldn’t be here in the first place if she wasn’t told to come here beforehand. Personally I think she was sent a message with the dialogue in the trailer, though I think we’re all collectively confused what device she would’ve received that message from.)

Anyways, if that point is one of the first times he’s contacted her, it would make a lot of sense. If it was the mimic calling to Cassie again, why would it not be from the walkie talkie when it’s still right there in her hand? If it was from the walkie talkie, why would it sound like it was coming from a distance, and why would Roxy run in the opposite direction? Whatever he was attempting to contact her from, it clearly wasn’t the walkie talkie.

Then there’s the rare voice line with the staff bot. 

Once again, he’s trying to contact her through a robot, not the walkie talkie. There’s a possibility he may be able to access the walkie talkie’s signal, but he can’t speak through it. I initially thought he might need cameras for this, and that point kinda stands for the mimic chase, but for this? All he has to do is listen in on the walkie talkie conversation to know which area of the pizzaplex is in. And if he had no way to access the walkie talkie’s signal, how would he even find out about this whole situation? If he found out sometime that night it seems likely to me that he somehow came across the signal and realized what was going on. And if he had 0 access to the walkie talkie.. Wouldn’t it be pretty inconvenient if he’d hacked a staff bot in Roxy Raceway to talk to her while she’s running around Bonnie Bowl?

I’ll talk about that voice line again later but for now I wanna move on to the other lines of dialogue, the last time he’s able to contact Cassie, finally through the walkie talkie.. Is the moment the mimic is busy fighting Roxy and chasing Cassie. I’ve seen some people try to argue even that wasn’t Gregory but that wouldn’t make any sense. If he was still talking on the walkie talkie during the chase wouldn’t she recognize the sound is coming from behind her.. And not the walkie talkie.. Plus, again, the files argument, with other lines being referred to as Grimic and these lines being labelled Gregory. 

And this might get a bit too theoretical but here’s my idea, the mimic used a signal jammer to prevent Gregory from communicating with her. That’s why he kept hacking separate signals like the staff bot. Considering he supposedly gives Helpi a signal jammer to prevent M.X.E.S (though to be fair that doesn’t last, it’s still established he can do this.) I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the walkie talkie’s signal was jammed so he couldn’t talk through it, the only times he does talk through it is while the mimic is busy. Even after Cassie gets in the elevator Gregory still might not fully trust the walkie talkie won’t cut him off now that the mimic isn’t busy anymore, that might explain why he hacks into the speaker system when, again, the walkie talkie is still there, isn’t it? Unfortunately for him I think that plan doesn’t work out, the mimic takes over and speaks for him. I think one of the biggest pieces of evidence is cut voice lines. 

Getting sidetracked for a bit.. 

If you look at some of the voice lines labelled to be Gregory, there’s an alternate line for the elevator scene. While the final game says “But we can’t risk being followed.” the cut line instead tells her “But make sure it doesn’t follow you.” This feels a lot more in character, a warning to her instead of a goodbye. I think this may not be a cut alternate ending, but it may be how the conversation would’ve gone if it was Gregory talking. What Gregory meant to say vs. what the mimic told Cassie. While this isn’t solid proof I think this interpretation makes a lot of sense, especially considering all the other evidence. 

Another detail about her being tricked, considering the missing posters in Roxy’s salon, this might be the first time she’s talked to Gregory in a long time. He might’ve just left after SB and just stopped talking to her because of how complicated everything’s gotten, thinking it’s better for her not to be involved in all this. Would anyone really want to have the conversation of explaining all that? Telling her the truth about him getting trapped in the pizzaplex, almost murdered by Vanny and the animatronics on multiple occasions? 

And another side note, if Gregory had told her what happened to Freddy, wouldn’t she also be questioning that whole situation? She doesn’t seem to have any reaction to the prototype on his foot, just hoping he’s functional. The only endings where Freddy doesn’t escape the pizzaplex are the endings where his whole body is destroyed. (Except the escape ending where Gregory just leaves and gets killed by Vanny after, but that’s not canon for obvious reasons.) 

As much as it sucks to be kept in the dark she clearly has been, she has no idea about Vanny or the animatronics being destroyed from what Gregory did to them.

Her only note about seeing Vanny on the cameras being “hey, she’s wearing my mask!” as if it wasn’t worn by her first. And her “What happened to you?” when she sees Chica. 

If he were to get the fire escape ending, Freddy dies after pushing himself and Vanny off the roof. While that already feels not-canon because of Vanessa most likely being freed and with Gregory during Ruin, even if you’re one of the people that assumes that ending means Vanny isn’t Vanessa, regardless of argument on that theory Freddy would be broken, and outside the pizzaplex, not in fazerblast. 

If he gets the bad Vanny ending, Freddy is fully dismantled with his head still attached and left behind. So why would he have no head in Ruin if that were the ending, especially when the work tables suggest there were technicians trying to repair the animatronics in between SB and Ruin. You’d think putting his head back on would be the first repair they’d make if the head was still there, and this was our Freddy.

TLDR here, point is if Gregory had told Cassie what happened to Freddy, through whatever canon ending that would be, Cassie would’ve known that wasn’t the real Freddy. Personally I think the prototype foot suggests a lot more that this is a red herring, not the Freddy we know, rather than just a retcon. 

Sorry for the long tangent, I know it was a bit sidetracked from the main topic here.

Even her Dad’s kept her in the dark regarding secrets like this considering the whole “My Dad wouldn’t tell me what happened to Bonnie.” Whether he knew what happened or not is a different story, but clearly she’s already been kept in the dark about stuff like this. After all it’s a heavy topic to get into, and with Gregory, considering some people still hate him for dismantling the animatronics I don’t think it’s a stretch to say he might worry Cassie would be mad at him for it. Whatever you feel about his character, in his mind it was self-defense. Extreme self-defense, but still. In his mind, the animatronics have spent all night trying to kill him, so if he harms them, it’s really just an eye for an eye, isn’t it? Those upgrades would help Freddy and whether this was his main motivation or just a part of it, upgrading the only animatronic helping him would definitely increase his chances of survival. 

But finally I wanna move onto more emotional arguments. It doesn’t seem to fit his character with what we’ve seen so far. Some people will say “wtf are you talking about? If he’s willing to kill the other animatronics he’d be willing to kill Cassie.” But I disagree. I think it’s missing an important part of his character. Yes, he’s been shown hurting other people. The other animatronics, Vanny, but I don’t think he would ever hurt someone he cares about. That’s the difference. The other animatronics were trying to kill him, so was Vanny. It’s not like he antagonized them first or did all this unprompted. He had a reason, and he had no emotional connection.

But have we ever seen him hurt anyone he cares about before this? He never has and I don’t think ever would hurt Freddy. In all the endings something bad happens to him, he cries, in some endings he’s able to do something to fix it, but in others, he’s clearly upset by the loss. Even in cut voice lines, apparently he originally would’ve been crying when Freddy got kidnapped by Moon. He clearly cares about Freddy, and does his best to make sure they can both escape. That’s the balance here. If he really was just a terrible character that doesn’t care about anyone, why would he be so distressed when something happens to Freddy? Why would he bond with him in the first place? Theoretically he could’ve just viewed Freddy as a tool, he is a robot after all, but he didn’t. He bonded with him and cared about him as he would for another person. 

Why give her directions for how to escape, why take the time to explain things to her? If he knew how it was going to end, why do any of this at all? I think if you were forced to kill your best friend, you’d probably sound more stressed than that. And it’s not like that’s any sort of voice acting issue, there’s clearly good direction given for there to be a clear difference between the mimic and Gregory during most scenes. He’s had stressed voice lines before, including the lines he has in Ruin, it just doesn’t make sense for him to seem like he doesn’t care at all when he’s been desperately trying to contact her. 

If he really was the one to drop the elevator, if he purposefully killed her, why does he seem so cold? If he had to kill Freddy for whatever reason I’m sure he’d be crying about it. Even in the escape ending where he leaves without Freddy he’s crying, and that’s not even an ending where Freddy gets hurt as far as we’re aware. So if Cassie was his best friend, someone he cared about enough to go through all this trouble to help her in the first place, to spend all night trying to contact her, guide her to the elevator.. If he really didn’t care about her, why do all this? Why wouldn’t he just assume she's dead and move on.

You could argue it’s because he was trying to prevent her from freeing the mimic before it was too late, but if that’s the case why would he give her directions when the mimic’s already been set free? Even in the elevator he directly tells her “You shut off the security, and now it’s free.” So if he knew/believed the mimic had already escaped, why kill Cassie ‘so it can’t escape.’ Even if that were also true, that’s not the only escape route. The mimic could still use the elevator Cassie used to get down here in the first place. He’d only be cutting off 1 of 2 exits. 

It’s so contradictory, if it were true I sure hope it has a good explanation in the next game. And again, the voice lines.. He sounds so panicked during them, through the mimic chase he’s yelling the directions, repeating himself, he’s clearly not calm during all this shit. He clearly cares about her. And for me, especially the rare voice line shows it. If you go back and listen to it again, the initial “Cassie is that you?” sounds a bit more panicked than the typical mimic calling out to Cassie, but at the end? After the voice glitches, that final “Cassie. Is that you?” It just sounds so full of despair to me. It’s a level of emotion the mimic never really displays for Cassie, it only sounds worried for its own safety, never concerned for hers.

Maybe I’m too invested, after all I get far more attached to characters than the lore itself, but from what we’ve seen of these characters I just feel like it would be really out of character if this was all meant to be taken at face value. If it was Gregory that cut the elevator, if he somehow managed to do it, and barely seemed to regret that choice. 

I think even if he did there’s still an argument to be made in his defense, after all we don’t know what the mimic has done to him in the games, we don’t know what it’s capable of, what he’s so afraid of. While sure we know about the mimic from the books, considering the questionable canonicity from books to games being the same timeline, and considering (as far as I’m aware) Gregory isn’t directly shown to have a connection to the mimic in those books.. Whatever he’s done in the games we haven’t seen yet, whatever happened that led Gregory to seal the mimic down there in the first place, it had to be pretty bad to cause all this. For such extreme security to be put around it, for him to leave things in a hurry, desperate to get out of there. Whatever happened clearly left some scars, whether those are physical, emotional, or both.

But that’s all I’ve got. I still find the other theories interesting, and I’m not denying they could be true. Look at the series we’re talking about here. But, with the evidence we’ve got, personally this is my take on it. I can only hope it’s true, but if I’m wrong, oh well I guess lol. I think Gregory’s definitely going to come back one way or another, whether he’s just down there to try to trap the mimic again, or if he’s going back to save Cassie, or both! I hope however he does come back it can clear up a few things. If you read all the way through, thanks, I know I ramble a lot, and I appreciate you taking the time to go through this, whether you agree with me or not. 

[skamenglishsubs]

Subtext and Culture, Young Royals, Season 2, Episode 3

When Jan-Olof called August at the end of episode 2, he said August was supposed to be at the castle next Tuesday, which is when this episode ends. So we're probably picking up this episode in the weekend before that maybe?

Culture: August calls his not favourite step-dad to get some legal advice to prepare for being summoned by the Queen. But if you listen to the Swedish dialogue, Rickard keeps repeating a word - grovt - while listing the possible crimes. The subtitles struggle with this, and the word normally means coarse or thick or rough, but in the context of Swedish criminal law, it means grave, egregious, or worse than normal, and it means that if convicted, the punishment should be from the upper end of the scale.

Subtext: Wilhelm is trying some self-help for his anxiety, but it's not going too well. Baby steps!

Subtext: It's no coincidence that the "injured party" is in the image while August's step-dad mentions it, and that's of course the problem for August. If he confesses or gets dragged into court, he's got an uphill battle, fighting the royal court and their lawyers, which his step-dad might not be up for.

Subtext: Wilhelm demanded distance from his bodyguards, the Queen said she couldn't do that, but what do you know, apparently it wasn't impossible for them to back off a bit.

Subtext: This is somewhat of a theme for this episode, but also for the series as a whole. Wilhelm talked Simon into cheating to get into the rowing team, for purely selfish reasons, and because it's second nature to him. But he'll never get punished for cheating, it's always someone else who will. Simon knows what's up.

Lost in translation: My subtitles skipped this word completely, but isterband is a kind of pork sausage. I'm not a fan, so I completely understand Felice here!

Subtext: Despite Jan-Olof being set up as kind of a villain, opposing Wilhelm all the way, at the end of the day he is employed by the royal family, and Wilhelm does outrank him and can order him around.

Culture: I live in Hawaii, so imagine my surprise when I went to Sweden in 2019 and suddenly noticed tons of places selling poke bowls of all things, when no-one would have known what that even was a year earlier. Sweden has this funny ability to take a trend from zero to a hundred seemingly overnight, leading to over-establishment and people burning out on trends as quickly as they appeared.

Subtext: Simon knows that cheating doesn't work, so he has enlisted Rosh to help him out with his workout in preparation for the competition, while Wilhelm is having a lazy "room-service" dinner with Felice.

Subtext: To be fair to Simon, Wilhelm has been manipulating things in order to stay close to him, and not the other way around.

Subtext: I'm gonna headcanon things a bit about Marcus here, but this is my take on it: Since they went to the same school, I think Marcus knew who Simon was, knew that he had come out as gay, and has been secretly crushing on him since. Marcus is probably really in love with Simon, and so caught up in finally going out with his crush that he isn't exactly picking up on the fact that Simon isn't on the same level.

Subtext: Simon is wearing a purple hoodie which means he's thinking about Wilhelm according to our popular colour theory. And he's wondering why he can't fall in love with Marcus? It's a complete mystery!

Subtext: The only times Simon has reached out to Marcus has been when he's feeling hurt by Wilhelm. But right here he realizes that he actually likes Wilhelm more, which is why he ignores Marcus.

Subtext: Everyone has been encouraging Wilhelm to talk about his feelings, so this is a start, he's finally found a friend he can talk to. Ironically, he's trying to let go, just as Simon realizes he shouldn't move on.

Subtext: Ah, Nils, never change! Boris isn't like the other teachers and staff at school, he doesn't fit in with the upper classes, which is why he's got this nickname. For all his derision though, it doesn't stop Nils from seeing him.

Culture: Nils shows contempt for the concept with his air quotes, but hbtqi-certifiering is a real thing offered by RFSL, Sweden's oldest and largest gay rights organization. For a psychologist to have that certification, it just means they're equipped to deal with the unique mental health problems queer people face.

Subtext: In his own way, Boris actually does answer the question without answering it, hinting that Erik also had problems with the role of being the crown prince and the weight of that responsibility.

Subtext: He's not wrong, though. The more money and power and fame you have, the more people will want to get close to you and use you and potentially blackmail you and leech off of you. There is a legit reason for the secrecy and privacy among the upper class.

Blink and you miss it: He's talking about Erik while touching the watch he wears as a memory of him.

Subtext: This old question again, "Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?" I'd say he's lying to himself here, it hurts right now, but he is better off for it.

Culture: The authors are four very well-known Swedish authors from the turn of the century, these books are classics, and every high school student in Sweden will have read some works by these authors, if not these specific books.

First up is Den Allvarsamma Leken by Hjalmar Söderberg, which is about a couple who met while young, couldn't get together, but stay in love over many years and relationships. Obvious parallels to Wilhelm and Simon's situation. This novel has been made into a movie several times, and the 2016 version was directed by none other than Pernilla August.

The second book is Kris by Karin Boye, and as the characters explain, it is an autobiographic novel about a lesbian love story hampered by tradition, because being gay in the 1930's wasn't exactly kosher.

The third book is Herr Arnes Penningar by literature Nobel prize laureate Selma Lagerlöf, which is about a murder-arson-robbery gone wrong. I certainly hope it's not meant to parallel our story! Selma used to be on the Swedish 20-krona bills introduced in the 90's, but design was replaced in 2015 to feature another author, Astrid Lindgren.

Edit: Thank you @emberc and @richtearex for finding out the title of the fourth book!

I can't make out the title of the fourth book, but the author is The fourth book is Getting Married by the internationally most well-known Swedish author and playwright August Strindberg. Many of his works are about challenging tradition and social rules, and he was seen as very controversial during his lifetime. The book is a collection of short stories about different kinds of marriage, including same-sex ones, which was extremely controversial when it was published in the 1880's. Again, obvious parallels to the show itself.

Subtext: If you haven't picked up the super duper obvious parallels between the novel and this story by now, I have completely failed in teaching you how to pick up subtext, and you are as completely clueless as Henry, who completely misses the point of the novel!

Blink and you miss it: Wilhelm really doesn't like speaking in public.

Subtext: Given how clueless Henry is, he's probably also completely missing the tension between Simon and Wilhelm, and he's that guy in a group project, always escaping responsibility. But him bailing to get coffee actually allows our boys to have a talk.

Subtext: Earlier, Simon chided Wilhelm for not being able to talk about his feelings, and now Wilhelm flips it and criticizes Simon for his lack of honesty.

Subtext: Simon starts reactively texting Marcus about meeting up to break up. But this time it's a reaction because he's slowly realizing he doesn't want to move on from Wilhelm. In the end though he changes his mind and doesn't send the text.

Subtext: Obviously, Sara is trying to sabotage the horse sale. Unfortunately for her, everyone else realizes what she's doing and is pretty much ignoring her.

Subtext: Simon did not fool the music teacher, she immediately realized that the song was actually about Wilhelm, but gives him suggestions on how to salvage it into a proper school song.

Subtext: Wilhelm's plan of replacing August backfires some more, Vincent is his usual douchy self, and Wilhelm realizes he can't control him like he could with August.

Subtext: First Brutus, now Judas. August really sees Vincent as the ultimate traitor.

Subtext: I think Marcus is getting an undeserved amount of shit in the fandom, because up until this point he's been nothing but good. He's actually getting his heart broken here by Simon, because he thought he really had a chance with him.

Subtext: Marcus says he is willing to wait for Simon to be ready for a relationship, which is the exact same thing Simon broke up with Wilhelm about, because he was not willing to wait for Wilhelm to be ready.

Subtext: He lied, like a liar. Wilhelm is 100% the reason Simon wants to call it off with Marcus at this point.

Subtext: But from this point on, I agree with the rest of you, this is manipulative behaviour from Marcus' side and not ok! He is clearly getting ahead of himself and wanting to salvage this relationship by any means, because in his head it's this beautiful thing that was meant to be.

Subtext: August is definitely sending some mixed signals here, he says he just wants to talk, so why is he lounging around half-naked waiting for her? However, it's also the case that Sara is the only person he can talk to about the sex tape at this point.

Subtext: Everyone has been telling Sara that August is the worst person in the world, using those exact words, and here he is saying it himself. But because he does that, Sara thinks he's self-aware enough to change and to redeem himself for what he did, which is why she's encouraging him to turn himself in.

Subtext: Except Sara felt like everyone hated her at Marieberg because she was bullied, which was absolutely not her fault, whereas August's situation is totally his own damn fault.

Subtext: I'm not sure exactly how to interpret this sequence, but I have some ideas. In season 1, we saw August being an extremely selfish lover with Felice, but here he's offering to go down on Sara for her sake, so that's a nice change. There's also a parallel to Wilhelm going down on Simon, making this a mirror to that scene. Or Sara is just nervous about having sex for the first time and not ready for oral sex?

Subtext: She lied, like a liar, clearly super happy about having had sex for the first time.

Subtext: Of course the horoscope matches her situation perfectly...

Subtext: ...it's just that the jealousy drama is not her own, it's Simon and Wilhelm's drama.

Subtext: Felice thinks she's talking about Rosseau, Sara is obviously talking about August. Or both.

Culture: I described the house system back in season 1, so it's nice to see it fleshed out a bit more in this season. The inter-house rivalry is strongly encouraged by the school, and here we see Sprucewood hyping themselves up before their Quidditch match against Slytherin indoor rowing match against Forest Ridge.

Subtext: Yeah, no, that kiss clearly crossed the line, it's not what Simon wanted. But Wilhelm saw it, thinking Simon lied about him and Marcus not being together, oh shit, oh no.

Subtext: Remember the talk about cheating and who gets the blame? Of course Vincent blames Simon for it, instead of Wilhelm, even though it's actually Wilhelm's fault Skogsbacken lost.

Subtext: So Simon quits the team, which means he's gonna get lower grades, getting unfairly punished yet again. And Wilhelm's plan for staying close to Simon backfired even more.

Blink and you miss it: Aww, Wilhelm keeps a small photo album labelled "Simon" on his phone, with a bunch of private photos of them.

Cinematography: If you listen carefully, the quality of the music changes noticeably in the cut, because the show does a diegetic switch between us hearing the music come out of Emo Wilhelm's earbuds, and it being a general soundtrack. It's also a very pretty montage of Angsty Teenager Being Angsty.

Culture: In season 1 there were only some distant shots of the royal castle, but this time we're getting a beautiful close-up of it. In real life, we're looking at Stora Sundby, which is Sweden's largest non-royal castle.

Subtext: You should all have read my previous piece laying out my thoughts on this entire plot, but note that the Queen only mentions Wilhelm quitting because he can't handle the pressure, she says nothing of the issues of being in a same-sex relationship or not having an heir, so she should at least get credit for that. Also note that this is specifically what Wilhelm's outburst in episode 1 was about.

Subtext: The show continues to paint the Queen in a good light, further separating her wishes from that of the nefarious System that forces her to do this.

Lost in translation: In Swedish, she doesn't say August is next in the line of succession, she says he's closest in the line of succession, which isn't the same thing, so the original is explaining this plot point slightly better than the subtitles.

Cinematography: This entire cursed scene is a mirror of the one in s1e4, which starts by Wilhelm asking Simon to hold him.

Cinematography: It's also physically mirrored, because Wilhelm and Felice are on the opposite bed on the opposite side in his bedroom.

[halliescomut]

My Personal Weatherman Ep 7- No Subs watch

Again a reminder, this is me reacting to the new episode of MPW that I get from an internet friend-y, but unfortunately (for me) they speak Japanese, but I do not, and the link they send has no subtitles, so I have no idea what anyone is saying. In fairness...I have been watching Japanese series for about 2 decades, so I can pick up on a couple words/phrases, but mostly my goal is to observe body language to kind of guess what the story is. It's a fun, silly little game. There may be moderate spoilers about sequences, though I try to keep things vague, and of course no dialogue spoilers. Let's go!

-Oooh! An on location segment for the weather. How exciting! (ALso I swear it looks like the location is just outside of Man-san's apartment building, and that's why they had the camera framed so close in.) And Yoh still watching Mizuki so closely.

-Oh, we have ARCs...is this actually a few weeks later, or is the BL manga publishing industry able to do a two day turn around?

-Man-san sounds very encouraging, at least.

-That is a clearly depressed and defeated Segasaki. Poor guy. Has still no one explained that Man-san's husband isn't after Yoh?? Really?

-Why is Yoh always so goddamn suspicious??? My god dude.

-I will say also, I don't love Mizuki's tone here, but I think that's me relating a bit too much to Yoh (since we're both on the same side of a D/s dynamic). I know I would be really upset to hear that distance in in Mizuki's voice if I were Yoh.

-Now we're getting the flashbacks from Mizuki's POV....interesting. I can't wait to know what he was thinking when he saw Yoh. His face is so precious.

-^^Literally all I could hear in my head at this scene: "Hands touch, eyes meet/Sudden silence, sudden heat/Hearts leap in a giddy whirl"

-Segasaki's college friends feel very much like friends of convenience. Like when you become best friends with a kid when you're 7, but it's mostly because you live in the same neighborhood.

-Aww, now we have Yoh in a cozy sweater.

-It is so sub of Yoh to just hand over his sketchbook without question, completely forgetting all of the portraits of Segasaki in there...and I REALLY wanna translate what Segasaki's response was, but I will wait.

-IDK what Segasaki is saying exactly, but I'd bet real folding money that's something pretty close to 'no matter what I couldn't stop thinking about him"

-The way Yoh came and grabbed him...what's going on??

-Aww, sick baby Mizuki. So cute. And the costuming makes them a matching set with their beige and blue. That's so cute.

-I just spent the last scene going like this, so....

-But now we have THE CURRY!!! The curry that made Segasaki finish falling in love with Yoh. I don't feel like curry is supposed to be that crunchy...but I could be wrong.

-His face, I'm dying.. And the little bonk on the head. Oh, if I wasn't already head over heels for these two dinguses, this would have been the last straw for me as well.

-Mizuki's love for petting Yoh is so fucking CUTE!!!!

-Yoh's smile as he draws Segasaki- so PRECIOUS!!!! (Sorry I keep yellling.)

-Poor Mizuki's face. 🥺🥺🥺 He really thought for a minute that Yoh left again.

-Dripping wet rain kiss!! We love it!!!

-Ooh...ooh....OOH!!!! God I really wanna translate Mizuki's little speech here, but I'm pretty sure the gist was 'you're mine, and I'm not letting you get away again". 🥵☺️😁🥰

This was an excellent episode. I mean the whole series has been, but this just....so good. I can't wait to understand more than 27% of it.

Finale next week (Booo!!!😠) but I will be happy to be able to watch the complete story over and over into forever. That'll be nice. Honestly this is the first BL I've every considered getting a physical copy of it's so good.

[hogans-heroes]

https://www.tumblr.com/hogans-heroes/744517790110826496/httpswwwtumblrcomhogans-heroes74451655142580

no because if u do rewatch i need to know how u perceived some of the scenes and dialogue, mainly when bucky asks buck what he thinks of them and buck says he doesn’t think anything of them and i’m like what on earth does that mean😅 or when they first came in the room and everyone got weird and quiet and i even got weird vibes from buck and bucky and i’m like ok is this just racism

Thanks for making me stop my chores and look at the episode again with subtitles so I could get the rest of the dialouge lol.

When the guys first walked in and introduced themselves, Buck nodded and said "Gentlemen, welcome to paradise." (On second look the bunks they took were the empty ones, Hambone was just sitting on one).

Then in the library Alex says to Buck, "Back on that first day, all the guys looked to you. You got the final say. So why didn't you gripe about us bunking in 8? [their barrack number]"

Buck: "Well let's just say I knew you weren't spies."

As far as Bucky asking Buck what he thought of them, Buck's response that he hadn't been thinking of anything came across as having not given them a second look, they were just three more guys to him, though I suspect Bucky was asking because he knew they were up to something. I'm sure there's a certain "itchy" look about guys who are contemplating escape, which Bucky would be very familiar with.

This is kind of where we get into the realm of needing to have an entire lifetime of background in that era to really understand, but we can try. Alex and Macon were definitely getting a variety of Looks when they walked into the barracks, which could be for any number of reasons. It's safe to say there were at least several guys there that weren't happy about it and had that deep-runnign predjudice, and we also need to remember that even when someone wasn't racist, having your whole world perspective turned around is gonna take you a few seconds to come to grips with (meaning you never knew there were Black pilots and if you were from certain areas of the country were living with segration as normal whether you liked it or not, which explains a few "deer in the headlights" looks). From Alex and Macon's perspective however, it would suck to be on the receiving end of those looks no matter what was behind them, and they certainly would have a right to be worried about bunking with people they felt they couldn't trust. Alex seems to be more quick to trust than Macon, which of course could be for any number of reasons.

[marquisedemasque]

Helloooo I see your Godzilla posts on my dash a lot and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind telling me which films/shows/other things to start with to get into Godzilla and Kong and associated stuff?? It looks really good

Yeah I really love Godzilla its a lot of fun. Ok so for both series I recomend watching the original movies Godzilla from 1954, and the original King Kong from the 30s.

King Kong is very easy to get into because there is less films with him and to be fair they all mostly tell the same story. The Monstervers material with him has the most variety as well as an animated show on netflix.

Getting into the Godzilla series is interesting because there is a lot of variety in tone, story, characters, and continuities. If you want to go very serious then Shin Godzilla and Minus 1 are great. If you want complete cheesy camp fun then Invasion of the Astro Monster or Godzilla vs Megalon are great (especially if you watch the mystery science theartre 3000 episode on it).

Here is a basic rundown of the different continuities, or eras, to keep in mind:

First there is the Showa era which is from the first film in 54 to Terror of Mechagodzilla in 1975. This is the era with the widest variety in tones with some being dark explorations of trauma of nuclear war, to fun kids films ablout Godzilla being a dad, to experimental explorations about the dangers of polution, to cheesey alien invasion flicks with size changing robots. Its great!

Then there is the Heisei era which ignores the continuity of the first and follows on from the original 54 film. This lasts from The Return of Godzilla in 1984 to Godzilla vs Desroroyah in 1995. These films try to have a bit more of a consistant tone throughout, being more of a balance between the cheesey and the serious, again great fun.

Then theres the Millenium era, which is again a reboot, disregarding the last era except of course for the 54 original film. These are from Godzilla 2000 in 1999, to Godzilla Final Wars in 2004. Most of these films are stand-alones.

And then there is the Reiwa era which is the current era of Godzilla. These include Shin Godzilla and Minus One, as well as two anime series. Technically the Monsterverse is a part of this but since its an american lead series its a different continuity to the japanese lead films.

All eras include films with wild plotlines, like alien invasion, fairies, time travel, genetic experimentation, spies, terrorists. And Godzilla himself has different characterisations aswell, from being the embodyment of nuclear destruction or the acumulated vengful souls of the victims of Japans actions in ww2, to being the defender of earth or like mentioned earlier, being a dad.

As to watching subs or dubs, go with subtitles first if you can, because often the american versions edit out parts of the films or change dialogue, but that doesnt mean you shoulnt watch the dubs either because they can be funny as hell. Its the dubbed version of Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster where Godzilla swears.

Its a series with a lot of ups and downs but it is def worth it.

Here is a youtuber that is reviewing all of the Godzilla films if you want to get an idea of what you are looking for:

This is just his ranking of the Showa era, but its a good starting out point to find what you may like.

[denaphoenix]

GO2 closed caption hell

Welcome to the comprehensive compilation of my absolute favorite mistranscribed captions in Good Omens, season 2, ranging from slightly wrong to deeply troubling - documented for everyone to enjoy before maybe, hopefully, one day, they fix them.

Let us begin, because... while the subtitles really should have read civilian non-combatants, I do quite think that:

Sooo... Here's the structure: I will start with some simple, relatively harmless misheard captions, then we move to names, on to my gripe with non-captioning, before getting into those captions where someone seriously dropped the ball, changing some important meanings, and, because, really, we all need a laugh, all that will be intersected with my absolute favorite, genuinely funny bits. So stick with me, on this beautiful ride.

Starting out with...

Which, of course, I would assume should have been a stripper deliver-O-gram, like a kiss-o-gram, and not a shoutout to a well-known British food-delivery service. However, I definitely would consider ordering at Deliveroo, if my food came with a side of amnesiac John Ham, so I doubt they mind the accidental promotion too much.

Speaking of food. When Jim later DOES deliver food, what is clearly said as "they are little pieces changes to "good old"

And I'm also pretty certain that Shax's taunt a bit later was supposed to be sous-chef as well.

And there are not just misheard captions, but also outright typos, such as God only being interested in exactly one of blameless Job's blameless goats.

Maybe that one goat they mentioned in the contract is special? Maybe it's the loophole Crawley found in order to spare all the others? Maybe it's just an ordinary cock-up. I know what my money's on.

And speaking of Crawley... At the time of Job, the demon was still millennia out from changing the first vowel in his name, and Mr. Neil Gaiman has officially assured us that Aziraphale did remember not having heard of a name change yet, and got it correctly.

The captions however were ahead of their time.

And in that same episode, yet another person was mislabeled, if only in mentioning.

While it is anyone's guess who Lady Brackney is (I'm certain she's a perfectly respectable Lady), Crowley was indeed ordering for Lady Bracknell, the fictitious brainchild of Sir Oscar Wilde in the importance of being Earnest, who, according to Britannica.com "is the embodiment of conventional upper-class Victorian respectability" (the lady, not the sir).

Aziraphale himself, of course, was called Mr. Phale enough times I have given up on screenshotting them all.

And the misnaming doesn't stop there. Just an episode after the Lady Brackney incident, Let's see" suddenly transforms into Aziraphale giving Crowley's car a nickname...

and Shax's name becomes completely silent...

...meaning that our deaf friends can come to the faulty conclusion that Shax was rude enough to not introduce herself wanted to keep that upper hand Aziraphale had mentioned her having. (and don't think I don't appreciate the single dot that was put there in its stead. The dot made it exponentially more funny, really)

The whole scene is quite bad when it comes to subtitles (I swear, that whole episode must have been subtitled by a person with an auditory processing disorder), but the other ones, I'll get to later. There is a structure after all -

- and still one great misnaming to point out with the great Furfur becoming... Fofo.

But back to the bit about Shax's name not being captioned at all. We are quite lucky that that is the only time something is not captioned at all. However, there are other parts that skip heavy bits of dialogue, and while there is a reason for it, I do still have a gripe with it. I am, of course, talking about not captioning the foreign dialogue.

Because while even those who do not understand German, do hear that Fräulein Greta Kleinschmidt calls his colleague "Dummkopf", and those who are able to hear, AND speak German will know she called him a dunce, the non-hearing community only gets the information that the "female zombie" is:

In fact, non of the German dialogue is transcribed.

Neither is the French dialogue by the way. We only learn that Aziraphale is:

as he struggles his way through a full invitation for the "réunion de l'association de tous les commerçantes de la rue", and that, after her informing him that she speaks perfect English, he simply

But we never get a transcript for what he says.

(Until now, because I won't stand for it. The conversation is: Bonjour Justine! Pardonnez moi, mais, [...] Excellente! Well, uhm, viens, maintenant, j'ai un réunion de l'association de tous les commerçantes de la rue dans mon magasin de livres - des - des livres (sic). Je serais honoré si vous pouviaiez (sic) venir. Il y aura des vol-au-vents.")

Then he informs her of the time, and buggers off to tell Crowley, who points out that his french should be better, how he's looking for the (non-existent) feather of the (non-existent) gardener of his (non-existent) aunt: "Ou est la plume du jardinier de ma tante?" which Crowley then repeats by pointing out he's "spent the last 250 years wittering about...

And by the way, I have decided that that "taunt" instead of "tante" is not a mistake in my books, but a funny pun that you can rip out of my cold, dead hands (as well as definitely a mistake.)

But despite neither transcribing the French, nor the German, the Chinese already comes pre-translated - it's just a pity that that translation comes without any disclaimer that they're currently speaking Chinese.

But, admittedly, transcribing the dialogue in 汉字 or even in pinyin would have been less understandable.

All in all, I see no excuse for there not being at least transcriptions for the foreign languages. After all, a bilingual non-hearing person should be able to profit from their bilingualism just as much as a hearing one. While this still happens all to often, I think it is an accessibility issue that needs to be pointed out.

But moving on. Those of you still with me after my whole language rant might remember how I mentioned that I would postpone the rest of the problems in episode 4 for later, and later it is, so let's get into some transcriptions that are seriously baffling, and do change meanings significantly.

Shax's name not being transcribed might have been already bad, but the rest of her dialogue is just as bad. First the captions inform us that:

Even though I have the fleeting suspicion she wanted to seem "in distress" rather than what the captions suggest.

Then she completely messes with the timline,

And, yes, once again, Mr. Gaiman had to specifically inform people that it was indeed eighty, ninety years, which adds up with when the whole Blitz-thing happened. And the downright baffling errors don't stop there.

Greta's "Well, I suppose that's dinner" becomes

And the beautiful finish of the fart song becomes completely jumbled. Instead of legs being "far apart" they are "full apart", and the following lyric should have been "her bottom did sing".

And by the way, I am heartbroken that Crowley's "little demonic miracle of my own" became a

Because we have established that Crowley is a demon, not a man. But what can you expect from mere paltry humans.

Sorry, chicken it again, it seems to be poultry humans.

Aziraphale, later gets completely dehumanized, going from a book seller to "the book selling"

and Crowley grows some unprecedented self-esteem, deciding that instead of Aziraphale:

And, yes, he is, damn it, but that's not what he said, unfortunately.

But he still doesn't deserve to be...

And while smut is very funny, I still believe he said "smote".

Which reminds me...

The weirdest wrong sentence is one that would have later be repeated almost verbatim, which makes the error just seriously confusing.

It should of course be "it would make it seem", even though that one, at least isn't too bad.

The most grievous error, however, is reserved for the fact that people reliant on closed captions will never learn that Shax BROUGHT CROWLEY'S MAIL to their battle, changing that line into the non-descript "brought him out" instead of "brought your mail".

That line was crucial! Come on! And the next few sentences after it make pretty little sense without that information.

They also l miss out on her beautiful neologism "dangerosity", with it the -osity bit being transcribed as

Somebody, please, explain!

The point stands, and while I could go on for several more pictures, I think I've made it well already.

And to be honest, sometimes it is simply hard to tell if the captions are wrong. They are simply unreliable at this point in time. At other times of course, the damned humorously turn into

So this is just as much of an appreciation post for how ridiculously off the captions are at times, as it is trying to serve as a reminder that this is what you get when you don't pay your writers. It's their job to write the scripts, and it would have been Neil Gaiman's job to check for all those errors the fans now had to suffer through/laugh at, if he wasn't on strike. This is what happens if "just anyone" does it. So let this remind you that the people who do it WELL deserve the fair pay they are currently fighting for.

[marshmallowgoop]

Excuse me, I want to ask a question. Is it ethical to like the Kill la Kill dub? I noticed some of the changes in dialogue between it and the sub. I ask bc the kill la kill dub is my favorite dub of all time.

Hi there!

This has obviously been sitting in my inbox for a while. I haven't been quite sure how to respond.

Maybe I can start by posing another question: is it ethical to like a movie adaptation of a book that makes changes?

A translation—be it of a book to a movie, or of one language to another—is always going to be different from the original. There's no getting around that. But I in no way believe that this means we shouldn't try to translate books to screen, or that works in one language should only ever remain in that one language. Translation increases accessibility so that more people can enjoy and engage with a text.

Of course, however, I do recognize that accessibility is also a concern for particularly loose translations. For those unable to read, a movie or an English dub of an anime may be the only way they can enjoy a story—and if there are drastic changes, is that really fair?

It's not a question I can definitively answer. But personally: though it's not Kill la Kill related, I eventually want to finish writing my report about Anime NYC's English dub premiere for the 24th Detective Conan film, The Scarlet Bullet, which released last month. And the tl;dr of my thoughts really boils down to how disheartened I was by the movie's script. Unlike the series's English dub from FUNimation, which changed characters' names (and occasionally dramatically altered plots and dialogue), Bang Zoom! Entertainment's dub is very accurate—to the point that I felt it was to its detriment. It sounded like the actors were simply reading subtitles, not speaking like actual humans; I scribbled down several lines during the showing with the thought, "No one would ever talk like that." While I certainly have my concerns with how many creative liberties FUNimation took, I desperately missed it watching the new dub. The script felt so stiff and lifeless.

So, another question: is it unethical to make changes to the source material to better fit the translated medium?

It's again a question I can't definitively answer. But as I've said about Kill la Kill...

. . . the dub script and actors are taking some liberties with the material—while still keeping it in-character, in my opinion—and coming up with stuff that maintains the energy and feel of the original lines but is still new and different. That’s what I like in a dub; it’s faithful, but it isn’t afraid to mix it up a bit.

And Detective Conan:

Loosey-goosey dubs that take lots of creative liberties with the material are my favorites. I think they’re so much fun and add so much flavor. Not to get too "subs versus dubs" here, but as I see it, a dub is an adaptation, much like how an anime can be an adaptation of a manga, and I like it when adaptations put their own spin on the work and breathe a new life into it.

I'd personally much rather a translation be lively and creative and different than try so hard to be as accurate as possible that it loses so much soul.

But that's just my take!

[mygreatadventurehasbegun]

Thoughts on Catch-22

That was...an experience.

Honestly, I think that’s the best way to describe it.  I haven’t read the book yet, and all I really knew about it was what I read on the back of the DVD, so I went in pretty cold.  I knew it was a black comedy and that it was a satire, but I really didn’t know what to expect.

This movie is bonkers.

And I mean that in a good way.  Maybe in the best way.

I don’t really know where to start.

I guess the best place to start is with Alan Arkin.

He is so fucking good in this movie.  Yes, he was good in everything...but his portrayal of Yossarian is so nuanced...he’s funny, irreverent, dark, sympathetic, charming...it’s a fantastic performance.

And let’s be honest, the casting in general is top-notch.  In addition to Alan Arkin, you have Anthony Perkins, Martin Sheen, Bob Newhart, Martin Balsam, Art Garfunkel (which made me do a double take when I saw him on the box cover) and Orson Welles...talked about a stacked cast.  

Of course, I love seeing Anthony Perkins in anything...it was nice seeing him do something a little bit lighter.  And seeing him do a scene with Martin Balsam made me smile...a little Psycho reunion, ten years later.  *Side note, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: when are we getting the Anthony Perkins biopic starring Andrew Garfield??  Holy shit do they look alike*.

And while this movie is very funny...there are some great bits of subtle comedy that really got me (Bob Newhart as Major Major comes to mind)...I was actually kind of shocked when the tone drastically shifted to some really dark stuff.  That scene between Alan Arkin and Charles Grodin legitimately made me gasp.  (Brief TW) When Aardvark says: “I only raped her once”, my hands flew to my mouth, and I was frozen for the rest of the scene.  Just the frankness at which he delivered his dialogue was such a contrast to the rest of the movie.

And of course, the scene in the airplane with Yossarian and Snowden was a major gut punch.  I was not expecting that level of gore in that final flashback...again, huge gasp and absolutely frozen...and Arkin’s reaction is heartbreaking.

And I have to admit, I actually thought this movie was going to end differently than it did.  *Spoilers for a 53 year old movie*  Given the way it started, with Yossarian being stabbed, I thought it was basically his life flashing before his eyes and the movie was going to end with him dying.  But lo and behold, he survives and decides to try and row to Sweden!  Because why not?

All in all, I really enjoyed this one.  It could maybe have been cut down a little bit (I thought I had arrived at the movie a couple times), but it was a fun trip!  I’m glad I watched it with the subtitles on though, because a lot happens in this movie.  

I think this is one that I will enjoy more with multiple viewings!

[angryteapott]

Twenty Questions

@nutcasewithaknife thank you so much for tagging me! I had a lot of fun looking through all this

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

10

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

101,426

What fandoms do you write for?

Currently Mysterious Lotus Casebook, but whatever's on the mind honestly

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? (Edit: WHOOPS sorted by the wrong thing)

resiny and earthlike and fragrant- My beloathed incomplete fic for CQL, oh how I despise you (45.4k)

from a distance, in a crowd, i know the shape of your shoulders - the angsty beginning to my Mr. Queen series about what it means to know a replaced identity for Hong Yeon (3.0k)

all my life i’ve been waiting for a good time (let's ride)  in my Mr. Queen series; the Soyong gets her groove back fic (2.5k)

i chew chew chew cuz they hope i, choke - the raunchy end to my Mr. Queen series with Bong Hwan and Cheoljong. (6.4k)

i don't think plato had us in mind - A Do Revenge piece on Drea and Eleanor's bonkers vibes (2.4k)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Usually respond to the first ones but fall behind. I love any and all tho!! But when I do respond to a comment that accidentally sets off my brainrot I usually rant for an unhinged amount of word count. Sorry to those commenters. I love to run my mouth, see my too long answers here

What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

If I go for sad I usually intentionally go for somewhat open ended; that said Hunminjeong'eum (my fic about the butterfly effect of conversation for Nam Seon Ho) is canon compliant to my country the new age and thus has an implied angsty ending. There's also the pending sad ending for my MLC series

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Definitely my Mr. Queen fix it series. My favorite of the bunch is all my life i’ve been waiting for a good time (let's ride) which is the least popular one of course. But I think that Soyong deserved her own proper happy ending away from the husband who despised her, so that's the happiest one to me.

Do you get hate on fics?

One person insisted I tag OOC which honestly cut deeper than it should have

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I wrote one pretty graphic smut piece, it is my second most popular work, and I think it is deeply unhot. Go figure

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

My only crossover is my My Country the New Age and The King: Eternal Monarch reincarnation fic from the perspective of a side character squared remembering their past life amongst political intrigue aka lately I'm a nervous wreck (i only have two real friends) (24,023 words). As I wouldn't wish The King: Eternal Monarch on my worst enemy, it's unfortunately incomprehensible to many people of taste.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I'd be flattered if it happened honestly

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No I am far too unpopular for that

What's your all-time favorite ship?

Li Shiqing and Xiao Heyun from Reset! I love that they're couple that works better together than apart and that they're both mostly practical, very ordinary, and matter-of-factly devoted to each other by the end.

What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I have a Reset 2022 fic I need to finish, but I don't think it would have any readers and it's not on the brain so who knows if I'll find the time

What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm good at a funny, modern sort of voice with quirky character details. It's one of the many reasons I love my silly crossover fic- I think it's funny.

What are your writing weaknesses?

PACING AND PLOT. my white whale is that awful CQL fic that's by far the most popular thing I've written. Also probably culture I'm in a lot of fandoms where the culture is not my own and I'm sure I bungle it

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I do include non-English words sometimes, usually following the format of the subtitles I watched since that's how I experienced the work. In terms of full sentences, probably not.

First fandom you wrote for?

Self insert E/R fic that if anyone irl found I would need to flee the country. Except u my one tumblr irl crossover friend love u

Favorite fic you've written?

lately I'm a nervous wreck (i only have two real friends) by a wide margin. It's my second least popular work. It's my favorite thing I've every written writ large: I was working through some big feelings and philosophies when writing it that helped make me a better person. It's funny (to me). It's sort of dark. It has a cheesy Olivia Rodrigo lyric for the title. It centers a platonic relationship and has a bunch of carefully transcribed details from MCTNA, a show I love. I'm pretty sure literally no one else read the last chapter since I posted it a year after the others. I reread it regularly. I still find typos.

Tagging @rosyfingered-moon and @haraxvati and anyone else who wants to do it!