#c&m

[franzis-frantic-thoughts]

Who’s Afraid of Alex J. Newall? by Newt Schottelkotte is definitely worth a read to everyone who’s a fan of Rusty Quill Productions.

I count myself amongst those. Which is why I want to add to something mentioned in the article that I, alongside @nossorgs​ have special insight into:

The Transcripts.

In light of everything that has happened this year, the way people inside of RQ have been mistreated, abused, and exploited, the transcripts appear to be a minor issue. But as Newt has pointed out beautifully: They’re a symptom of something much bigger, namely disregard, miscommunication, incompetence, reliance on free fan labour and pretending to be something they’re not. In this case the producer of inclusive and accessible content.

The official RQ transcripts were launched early this year and it was immediately clear how terrible they are. Countless fans have surely reached out to RQ to let them know. After all, there’s a handy feedback form. A feedback form which, incidentally, is neither up-to-task, nor easily accessible as it isn’t linked anywhere near the transcripts, but only in the 26 January 2022 “news” update.

However, Nossorgs and I, as professionals in the language service industry, had concerns that couldn’t be addressed in the feedback form. So we sat down together and wrote a very long email, which we sent to RQ on 22 February 2022. We have received no reply.

I’m now, after checking with Nossorgs, publishing the email here, because I don’t want anyone to say “well maybe they didn’t know”. They knew. They just didn’t care.

They didn’t even care enough to fix these issues by today.

Here’s the email and all the exemplary screenshots are below a cut.

Dear Rusty Quill Team,

congratulations on launching your new website and releasing the transcripts for the RQ original shows.

Upon review of several transcripts (in particular the ones created for Rusty Quill Gaming), we wanted to voice some concerns with the company or software used to generate the transcripts, since there appears to have been a grievous lack of quality control and a large number of errors have made it to the released transcripts. Screenshots are attached and a list of general concerns can be found below.

As professional linguists, who variously have been or are currently employed as editors, translators, transcribers, or project managers in the language service sector (each with QA responsibilities), with over a decade of experience, we would highly recommend requesting a partial or total refund from the companies involved in generating these transcripts. As provided, the transcripts lack any form of serious quality control and may even indicate that the supplier(s) you have partnered with are fraudulent.

With the professional experience we have, we understand the difficulties that come with transcribing audio of this type. One speaker having multiple voices, crosstalk, and "unusual" turns of phrase (i.e. Pathfinder mechanics and terminology) being used pose great difficulties. However, the concerns we would like to voice are unrelated to the content of RQG, but basic issues that any professional linguist should have been able to avoid.

Many of the concerns we have can be traced to a lack of consistency, which could have been avoided by the simple creation and adherence to a style guide. Did your transcription supplier provide or request one? With a project as big as this, it would have been standard practice.

Please find a list of general concerns below, the file names of relevant screenshots have been added in brackets:

Many spelling and grammar errors, which indicate a lack of language skill (Spelling001 to 005). Professional linguists should only ever work in their native language to avoid such issues. There are official ISO guidelines regarding linguistic qualifications, which any agency of worth is aware of and regularly audited on.

Misspelling of player and character names and misattribution of lines (Spelling001 to 005). We do not know whether RQ provided a list of cast and character names to the transcription provider, but they should have realised that many unusual names are included and references are needed. They should have reached out and requested a list if it hadn't been provided. If it was provided, it was clearly not consulted.

Lack of organisation: The very first episode is mislabelled as episode 25 in the transcript (Episode1_mislabeled). Episode 25, in turn, only seems to be available in a word format, not as a pdf (this also seems to apply to other episodes, such as 203). The transcripts are not labelled in a consistent pattern, meaning that they are not sorted consecutively by episode number in the RQ Sharepoint, making browsing difficult (Filing001).

Lack of consistent speaker tagging: In most transcripts, the players are not distinguished from the characters they are playing, and the formatting is inconsistent in the episodes that do note in-character speech (Characters001 to 003). This is probably due to your transcription provider splitting the work over multiple people. This is a common and reasonable approach to spread the workload. However, the linguists should have agreed on a common system, or the central project manager should have dictated one. Lack of cast/character distinction renders the transcripts as good as unreadable.

Lack of basic QA regarding completion: Episode 183 includes internal formatting remarks of the supplier, which should have been deleted by them prior to delivery (CW001).

Content warnings: Listing of content warnings is inconsistent, if present at all, with one remark noting that content warnings were unavailable because they were not listed in the (fan-made) wiki (CW002). It is concerning that the transcription provider would refer to a fan-made, unofficial source, when RQ provides content warnings with all episodes in the episode notes. Surely, these are also available at RQ internally in a centralised document which could have been requested by the supplier.

We understand you are probably very busy creating and promoting your new shows and troubleshooting your new website, but transcripts of this quality actively harm your reputation as an accessible and inclusive company. The mantra "better than nothing" only applies to a certain extent here. Low-quality transcripts, such as these, are of no help to those who rely on them. Clear labelling of actors vs characters is needed in order to follow the podcast, and content warnings should have been included whether they are available on the fan wiki or not. Even if these transcripts are intended as first drafts, to be revised and polished at a later stage, they are at best unuseable and at worst dismissive towards those members of the fan community who are hard of hearing or have auditory processing issues.

Professionally, we recommend that you reach out to your supplier with the list of concerns and screenshots we have collected and request corrections. Whether or not you also request a (partial) refund is up to you, but we also recommend you do. If you do not trust your original supplier to take care of the required corrections accurately, it would be standard practice to request a quotation from another supplier and contact the original transcription provider with this quotation in order to bill them for the additional financial burden. Before choosing a (second) supplier and contracting them for all 200+ reworks, it would be advisable to do a small batch of transcripts first, in order for you to get a feeling for their quality, as well as allow them to make an accurate estimate of the effort involved and ask any questions that may already have come up.

In the language service industry, it is not uncommon to have to rework one's deliveries. Language is subjective and linguists are people. Mistakes happen. We understand this better than most fans. However, no professional, qualified linguist would have signed off on these transcripts with the feeling of a job well done. There are human errors, and there is a gross lack of basic quality assurance. Unfortunately, the RQG transcripts, as they are, fall into the latter category.

If you would like to get in touch, we would be more than happy to share our professional knowledge and experience regarding linguistic projects such as these, in order to help you avoid such problems in the future, for instance if and when you decide to add transcripts for side quests, specials, and bloopers. We are aware that you don’t usually work with fans and understand and respect the reasoning behind the decision, however, many linguists in the fan community are prepared to offer their own services as transcribers. You have a wide range of professionals in your fan community, and all of them come with the additional benefit of being familiar with the source material and understanding what format these transcripts should take in order to be of use.

With kind regards,

Spelling001

Spelling002

Spelling003

Spelling004

Spelling 005

Episode1_mislabelled

Filing001

Characters001

Characters002

Characters 003

CW001

CW002

[undertale-check-and-mate]

Big thanks to everybody who has followed this blog and AU!

I have decided to adapt the concept of this AU into an original story, and so it's time to say that

⬜◼Check and Mate AU is officially discontinued◼⬜

It does not mean I prohibit people from drawing or writing about it, but as a creator I will not create anything for it anymore, and possibly take this blog down in the future

I know this was never much of anything - this AU was like a sandbox of mine with no defined story but some fun ideas and aesthetics I like. When I made this blog I purposefully omitted my name and did not link it anywhere or told anybody, because I was honestly curious how this blog will do on its own lol

You wouldn't be really able to tell from this blog alone, but I love this AU very much and it brought me a lot of joy over the years. Thank you everybody for indulging me 🤍🖤

[venelona]

Commission for @aneth-kokuyo of my boys Tag, Gambit and Midnight misplacing their shirts uh oh guys

More Tag at @lockfell

More Gambit at @undertale-check-and-mate

More Midnight here at #midnight sans

Thanks you so much for commissioning my gremlins fursjfres ❤

[sunbluethinking]

I think it is hilarious that Zenith has somehow become the emotions counselor for the group, despite being the least qualified for it.

[carterfx]

Took the Altezza to Daikoku Nights at Caffeine and Machine

[incorrect-rqg]

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

This isn't a tournament, there were just too many specials to put in a single poll. There will be a second round where we compare the top 4 polls.

[lichpoweredbyfandoms]

The newest episode of Chapter and Multiverse was SO GOOD! Go listen to it rn!!!

[thewebcomicsreview]

[yourangle-yuordevil]

They are smitten, I believe <3

[batboyblog]

Copy Right and Public Domain in 2024

Happy 2024 all! its also Public Domain Day! a magical holiday here in America where things enter the public domain. Works published in the year 1928 (or 95 years ago!) have entered the public domain, which means they belong to us, all of us, the public!

Mickey's Back!

Yes! I'm sure you've heard, but Mickey Mouse (and Minnie Mouse too) is entering the Public Domain today. This has been news for a few years and indeed Disney's lobbying in the late 1990s is why our copy right term is SO long. So what exactly is now public domain?

Most people know about Mickey's first appearance Steamboat Willie, but a second short film, Plane Crazy was also released in 1928 so will also be public domain. So what's public? well these two films first of all, you're allowed to play them, upload them to YouTube or whatever without paying Disney. In theory you'll be allowed to cut and sample them, have them playing in the background of your movie etc. Likewise in theory the image of Mickey and Minnie as they appear (thats important) in these films will be free to use as well as Mickey's character as he appears in these works will be free to use. Now Mickey's later and more famous appearance

will still be protected. Famously the Conan Doyle Estate claimed that Sherlock Holmes couldn't be nice, smile, or not hate women in works because they still held the copyright on the short stories where he first did those things even though 90% of Sherlock Holmes stories were public domain. It's very likely Disney will assert similar claims over Mickey, claiming much of his personality first appeared in works still copyrighted.

Finally there's copyright vs trademark. Copyright is total ownership of a piece of media and all the ideas that appear in it, copyright has a limited set term and expires. Trademark is more limited and only applies to things used to market and sell a product. You can have a Coke branded vending machine in your movie if you want, but it couldn't appear anywhere in the trailer for your movie as thats you marketing your movie.

Where trademark ends and copyright begins and how trademarked something in the public domain is allowed to be are all unsettled areas of law and clearly Disney in the last few years as been aggressively pushing its trademark not just to Mickey in general but Steamboat Willie Mickey in particular

Ultimately the legal rights and wrongs of this might not matter so much since few people have the money and legal resources of the Walt Disney corporation so they might manage to maintain a de facto copyright on Mickey through legal intimidation, but maybe not?

And Tigger Too!

All the talk about Mickey Mouse and Steamboat Willie has sadly overshadowed other MAJOR things entering the public domain today. Most people are aware Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain in 2022, but they might not realize his beloved friend Tigger didn't. Thats because Tigger didn't appear till A. A. Milne's second (and last) book of Pooh short stories, The House at Pooh Corner in 1928.

Much like Mickey Mouse only what appears in The House at Pooh Corner is public domain so the orange bouncy boy from the 1960s Disney cartoon is still on lock down. But the A. A. Milne original as illustrated by E. H. Shepard is free for you to use in fiction or art. His friend Winnie the Pooh has made a number of appearances since being freed, most notably in a horror movie, but also a Mint Mobile commercial so maybe Tigger too will have a lot of luck in the public domain.

Other works:

Peter Pan; or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up

Peter Pan is a strange case, even though the play was first mounted in 1904, and the novelization (Peter and Wendy) was published in 1911, The script for the play was not published till 1928 (confusing!) meaning while the novel as been public domain for years the play (which came first) hasn't been, but now it is and people are welcome to mount productions of it.

Millions of Cats

The oldest picture book still in print, did you own a copy growing up? (I did)

Lady Chatterley's Lover

The iconic porn novel that was at the center of a number of groundbreaking obscenity cases in the 1960s and helped establish your right to free speech.

All Quiet on the Western Front and The Threepenny Opera in their original German (but you can translate them if you want), The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie, and Orlando by Virginia Woolf will also be joining us in the public domain along with any and all plays, novels, and books published in 1928

for Films we have The Man Who Laughs who's iconic image inspired the Joker

Charlie Chaplin's The Circus, Buster Keaton's The Cameraman, Should Married Men Go Home? the first Laurel and Hardy movie, Lights of New York the first "all talking" movie, The Passion of Joan of Arc, The Wind, as well as The Last Command and Street Angel the first films to win Oscars for Best Actor and Best Actress respectively will all be entering public domain

For Musical Compositions (more on that in a moment) we've got

Mack the Knife by Bertolt Brecht, Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love) by Cole Porter, Sonny Boy by George Gard DeSylva, Lew Brown & Ray Henderson, Empty Bed Blues by J. C. Johnson, and Makin’ Whoopee! by Gus Khan are some of the notables but any piece of music published in 1928 is covered

Any art work published in 1928, which might include works by Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe, Alexej von Jawlensky, Edward Hopper, and André Kertész will enter the public domain, we are sure those that M. C. Escher's Tower of Babel will be in the public domain

Swan Song, Public Domain and recorded music

While most things are covered by the Copyright Act of 1976 as amended by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, none of the copyright acts covered recordings you see when American copyright law was first written recordings did not exist and so through its many amendings no one fixed this problem, movies were treated like plays and artwork, but recorded sound wasn't covered by any federal law. So all sound recordings from before 1972 were governed by a confusing mess of state level laws making it basically impossible to say what was public and what was under copyright. In 2017 Congress managed to do something right and passed the Music Modernization Act. Under the act all recordings from 1922 and before would enter the public domain in 2022. After taking a break for 2023, all sound recordings made in 1923 have entered the public domain today on January 1st 2024, these include.

Charleston by James P. Johnson

Yes! We Have No Bananas (recorded by a lot artists that year)

Who’s Sorry Now by Lewis James

Down Hearted Blues by Bessie Smith

Lawdy, Lawdy Blues by Ida Cox

Southern Blues and Moonshine Blues by Ma Rainey

That American Boy of Mine and Parade of the Wooden Soldiers by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra

Dipper Mouth Blues and Froggie More by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, featuring Louis Armstrong

Bambalina by Ray Miller Orchestra

Swingin’ Down the Lane by Isham Jones Orchestra

Enjoy your public domain works!

[franzis-frantic-thoughts]

I got a message on one of my various social media platforms, that asked for anonymity, but also said I’m free to use the information.

I dithered for a while on whether to post this or not. But this person sent me this info, because they were worried the information remaining secret would cause more hurt / disappointment. So I’ve decided to make this post after all.

I’m not posting screenshots and I’m not going to copy/paste the message verbatim. Paraphrased, these are some things I just read:

Rusty Quill has run out of money.

They overpromised and now can't keep up.

The hiatus was not to avoid crunch, but because they couldn’t pay their staff.

“A lot of” staff is currently going unpaid because of bad financial management from RQ. People’s income is actively suffering.

Shows that were on hiatus are being pulled.

TMA2 is a desperate attempt to bring in some money in order to cover debts and bail out already ongoing productions.

Anon is worried that RQ is overpromising yet again.

RQ is not being honest with “the world”, whether that means “its fans”, or also its staff, is up to you. However, saying the hiatus is for staff’s welfare is a downright lie and Anon wants this to be known, even if RQ is probably unhappy with this information being publicly known.

Anon has pointed out that they want people to be aware of the facts before throwing money at TMA2 - money that will be used to bail out bad financial decisions, rather than producing good new content for a show they love.

Anon fully acknowledges that remaining anonymous makes them less trustworthy, but they don’t want to get anyone into trouble. (Neither do I. This is my mudslinging, by the way. Treat me like a rabid fan and ignore me if you’d rather not be involved in all this drama. Which is very fair and valid of you.)

Part of my response was the following:

I wish you, Anon, all the best for your personal and professional future. Please take care of yourself first and foremost. No company - not even one founded and run by friends - is worth working yourself to the ground for.

By the way: Personally, I’m really happy to see everyone’s tags on the reblogs I’m currently getting. Some people have said really nice things about RQ shows and the respective people behind them.

But please make sure that your love and support goes to the people who need it, not to me. And make sure it goes not just to people whose voices you know, but also those working behind the scenes.

[undertale-check-and-mate]

Gambit but he's husbando

[nobigneil]

"a vampire and a bear walk into a bar..."

[catsofyore]

People are often surprised to learn that this is by M.C. Escher! 1919. Source.

[terraquea-mortal-20]

C&M

"Oi, qual o tamanho do seu pau?"

"Nossa, você é espertinha ne?!"

"Moço, do seu pau de selfie, na sua mão..."

"Ata, desculpa moça..."

[cartoon-goon02]

Miss Oranje Disco Dancer