#closed captioning

Signed up for a series of online lectures. Couldn't understand a word, couldn't lip-read speaker (which is very difficult anyway). Couldn't participate, couldn't engage, couldn't understand. Had to leave because it didn't even occur to them to put captions on

Folks, if you are posting ANY video online or send it to another human, please enable captions/subtitles.

Deaf people need captions

Hard of hearing people need captions

People with audio processing conditions need captions

People with ADHD often need captions to maintain attention

People who are not native speakers of the primary language need captions

People who are watching something in a private space and are not able to watch with volume need captions

People with learning difficulties/differences/disabilities need captions

People trying to watch something with bad audio recording need captions

People who have migraines/headaches and really can't deal with sound but still need to watch the video (for whatever reason) need captions

People who have colds/ear infections/went to a concert without ear protection and have bad tinnitus need captions

People who are very new to a topic need captions

People who are multi-tasking need captions

people with misophonia need captions

People who are neurospicy and just need fucking captions need fucking caption

People need captions.

And, whilst I have your attention, don't just use autocraptions from the computer that only get about 65%. I mean, look-- I'll take auto craptions over nothing, but there is a reason deaf people cal them 'craptions.' We hate them, it's very often word salad, and it's just useless. You can process the video through with autocraptions, and then go in and make corrections where the craptions got it wrong. And, if you feel super fancy, you could even put in things like full stops and commas to make it easier to read.

Also, when captioning, please put actions/reactions in brackets. Anything off screen, any noises we may not be able to hear. Examples: [Audience cheers] [Explosion off screen, people shouting] [sound of phone ringing.]

If something is inaudible or the sound does not catch what they said, please signify this. If it's a montage and there's music with no dialogue, say this. Examples:

[Mulcahy speaks indistinctly.]

[inaudible]

[audio cuts out]

[no audio, no music]

[music- Sinatra' song (song) plays; no audible dialogue or sound from scenes]

[dialogue from film 'My Darling Clementine' plays in background whilst Hawkeye whistles]

[music is interrupted by the sound of a record being ripped or pulled off a record]

If you just feel REALLY generous to the audience and really want me to love you, please feel free to put tone that I might miss, such as [Hawkeye whispers] or [Klinger shouts]. Maybe it's visible on the screen from expressions/body language, maybe not.

Hawkeye: [imitates Groucho] Hello, Room Service? Send up a larger room.

Hawkeye [imitates British accent:] [drops accent]

And, when there may be confusion on when characters are speaking. Examples:

[Multiple characters talk at once.]

Potter: [speaks dialogue from 'My Darling Clementine' at the same time as a character in the film]:

Margaret [interrupts Frank]:

Hawkeye and BJ [speaking together:]

Also also, if there are multiple speakers, please show this. [speaker 1: ] [Speaker 2]:

Even if you don't receive a request from anyone to put on captions, please just add captions. Simple accessibility considerations, please. Some people don't even realise they need captions until they see then and go 'oh, yay. Captions.'

I know it may take a little bit of time and planning, but there are more of us out there than you realise. So please, just add captions.

If you ever doubt how important captions might be to someone, sometime just put on a video. Put on an episode of a show you haven't seen before. Mute it, watch it with no captions. See just how much you manage to get without ANY captions.

CAPTIONS.

people who rely on CC will tell you loudly and often about how fucking terrible automated captions are, even the "better" ones, and now that production companies have a cheap-to-free option, they're not hiring the transcribers who are actually good at their jobs.

so people who rely on CC have to put up with crappier and crappier captions so Amazon can save a few dollars, already-underpaid transcribers lose their jobs, fewer people start going into the industry to start with, there are fewer people to hire, and the cycle just continues.

Can we talk about the fact that the thought process of "this disability aid would make (insert game) too easy for some" is a fluffing ableist idea overall? [This doesn't even just go for games but we had a specific thing we saw in mind that was about a game]

Firstly, it's not even just ableist, it's just a fluffing dumb ass thought process. Like why the fuck do you care if another being will have a game be "too easy" for them if they want? (Kinda reminds us of those who hate on those who use creative or keep inventory in Minecraft)

Secondly, you think it's ok to not have a disability aid because it would make something "too easy" for another being. Which is literally an ableist idea and we don't think we should have to explain why

(Next 4 things are together just too long for 1 thing for us, lol, also next parentheses too)

The thing that brought this on was actually about us looking up if subtitles could be turned on for a specific game (they couldn't as far as we saw). And a Steam discussion thing showed up where one of the users were talking about how "subtitles would make the game too easy for some" and we were like why the fuck do you care?

Like you aren't being forced to use them for your gameplay so it literally wouldn't affect you. (Also what they were referring to that would "make the game too easy" was specifically closed captioning not even subtitles although we think both of those should be a thing for the specific game.

Also they pulled the "I have trouble hearing and I could understand it" right away which just jrjrndjdjdjdjdjd. Fuck off, not everybeing is you. We looked up about subtitles cause we have issues with hearing and could barley tell/understand somethings sometimes

Also we literally played a "knockoff" [the knockoff was basically the same game but multiplayer and in the style of the game it was in] version of the game with subtitles (not closed captioning sadly) and it worked great, so like their whole thing about how "it wouldn't work with the game" was also dumb as hell

(This Steam discussion was from a few years ago so we hope this being learned from what they thought and said then)

If you love Dragon Age, lovingly rendered fantasy adventure, or BOTH - then this is the video for you!!!! I truly cannot express how hard I worked on this.

There's totes no pressure for you to reblog, but it would make my day if you did!! You can also share this link on other platforms, as long as you don't remove my credit from the piece! (And please let me know if you share it elsewhere because I'd love to see people's reactions!) I'm gonna post this on my Bluesky today as well!! ^_^