welcome to my uhhhhhhhhhhh

So Amethyst is like “but that’s my favourite word, when will be stop being young & impressionable so I can say it again??”

And Greg is like “uhh I don’t know, 15 I guess? 15 is probably old enough” 

“Got it”

flash forward to Steven’s fifteenth birthday and he is woken at dawn by Amethyst yelling “wake the FUCK up Steven it’s FUCKING TIME”

Garnet: *deadpan* Amethyst just got her favourite word back

Amethyst: you said once Steven was 15 I could say fuck again

Greg, who only hazily recalls the conversation in question: ……i DID?

Steven: I know what fuck means Pearl

Steven: um… Lars and Sadie… *mumbling* five years ago…

Amethyst: I’ve been denying myself my favourite word for FIVE YEARS for NOTHING??

Greg: uh even if he knows what it means it’s still not really appropriate for you t-

Amethyst: *running outside* FFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCK

Steven: …

Greg: …

Pearl: …

Garnet: …*quietly* fuck

Everyone else: O_O

Steven: Amethyst is allowed to say fuck now

Connie: oh! are we all allowed to say fuck now??

Greg & Pearl in unison: NO!!

Name: Little Beepo

Skill: Fucking Miserable

First of all, the entire caption industry is contractors, just like Uber. And each company has a specific way they want those caption to be written. One of the easiest ways to tell which company had the contract for an episode is to see what punctuation is used for sound effects and speaker tags, which should clue you in that we are judged even on something as stupid as when exactly an ellipsis is allowed.

We are not allowed to transcribe foreign audio, even if we do know it. Because of the rushed timetable we are expected to keep, it’s not like we’d have time to look up words even if we were allowed to. Heck, we aren’t even allowed to *label* the language unless we are absolutely positive and sure 100%. And that file is ours. We are the only ones who see it, because otherwise they’d actually have to pay wages to real employees.

And then we get graded. Not even by actual employees, just by other trusted contractors. If our ratings drop below the threshold, our account is closed and that’s it. Done. Try another company. And here’s the thing.

Captioning is work done by people who can’t get anything else. I’m disabled, I have the stamina to work 10 hours a week, and no one will hire me for that short a time at a real job. I’m not artistic and I can’t write my own words, which left me with transcription and captions. Transcription make 10 cents per minute of audio. Captions make 50 cents per minute of audio.

I use captions as often as I can, I love them. And it breaks my heart every time I see a set where someone decided to get through it as fast as possible and cut every corner they could get away with. But it’s the industry that is broken. The industry that set itself up to move things as fast as possible, take advantage of the community it was serving TWICE, and resist any change that did not directly relate to their profit margin.

Me: omg I love that marvel character so much! 

Normal Person: oh so you like the mcu?

Me: no. fuck marvel. I hate them with a burning passion