The guy was saying "I heard it and she heard it" ("it" being an air raid) "and I said 'stay where you are and let it make noise'". Molespeech was never all that hard to translate for me, and yet Terezi's typing quirk gave me no end of trouble...
I'll be honest, in your PPC missions, I had to read some stuff out loud in my own absolutely terrible accent to understand it.
Imagining it phonetically helps. British comics of the era did funetik aksents a lot, I picked up the habit of translating very early. I kind of don't want to PPC anymore but there are a few things I really want to MST.
Oh, yeah, I knew that already, but it's the only Redwall stuff I actually read, so I thought it was relevant.
I still really want to riff the one which had Martin using baby swears in one sentence and f-bombs in the next, as frankly I can see the canon Martin doing neither.
The girl power hints praised upthread started in the very first book. Cornflower's not a fighter but she successfully destroys the siege tower on her own, Silent Sam has a stay-home dad and warrior mum, and Constance is both a mother figure and a fighter at once. Apparently she was based on Mr Jacques' actual grandma. I'd love to have known his family. I'd also like to thank it for the non-adventuring characters playing just as big a part in winning the conflicts. I am very fat, have an extremely limited list of food I can safely eat, am clumsy as hell, and have panic attacks at the sight of slugs. I am not an outdoorsy adventurer. Thanks to Redwall's treasure hunts and battles within the Abbey, I got to have my vicarious indoor adventures.
Jacques is super physically inclusive and I love it. Like, okay yeah you have your traditional muscular-athletic otters and lean-athletic hares and bara badgers (male and female to all!) but you also have warriorbeasts that are scrawny as hell, and hugely fat heroes/clan leaders. And physical disabilities! There's been deaf, blind, and/or mute characters and characters with missing limbs (either lost or born without) and every single one has been a huge part of the story. Fat beasts aren't shamed for it (beyond friendly teasing), the otter with a missing tail becomes a master of disguise (I fucking CRIED over Mask, okay?!), the semi-mute hare that only vocalizes through a capella drums/beatboxing is a key part of the Long Patrol (and an officer!) and the other hares just translate through context--I could go on for a while.
With regards to physical inclusivity, a lot of people complained about Martha's recovery, but that was established in the opening as being psychosomatic. Which is just as valid a problem in itself. Also, hetero-platonic friendships. Dandin and Mariel are shipped a lot but it's not made explicit and there are plenty of good boy-girl friendships with no romantic tension at all (starting with Matthias and Warbeak). Fat furries are the best furries because there's more to hug. Am I odd for wanting to snuggle Prince Bladd?
I don't know if the WW2-era stag mags were a thing in Britain, but if they were Mr Jacques may have been a fan. I remember at least one instance of TIME TO BEAT THEM WITH THEIR OWN KIND.
Also on the topic of inclusivity, I know it wasn't intentional but Diggum and Gurrbowl transitioned between books and it was no big deal. Not a mistake, it's a happy accident, as Bob Ross would say.
I think that happened with a couple characters. Ferdy and/or Coggs the hedgehogs were male in Mossflower but in a later book where they're grown, one of them is female. Also: Was anyone else horribly disappointed by Outcast of Redwall and the whole "vermin will be vermin"? There's canonical vermin becoming goodbeasts (Blaggut the searat and his Dibbun boats, Romsca the Corsair in death, Gingivere, etc) and the underlying theme is goodness always triumphs. I was so mad that Veil stayed bad. Every other book previously had me thinking it'd be a showdown with Veil and Swartt Sixclaw and he'd realize life was better at the Abbey and while he obviously couldn't go back, he'd go wandering or something as a goodbeast or at least repent but NOPE, rotten to the core. It broke theme, and it's really the only time in the whole bloody series that it happens.
Okay finished and Veil gets a micro-redemption. He saves his adoptive mother in the end, but even with his dying words he was a lil' shit and redemption-through-death only half counts. Like, Romsca the Corsair could arguably be considered redemption-through-death but she had been on that path for a good while up to that point, she'd been protecting the Abbot (whoever it was, haven't gotten back to Lutra yet) pretty much the entire voyage, albeit initially to spite Lask Frilder and return the Abbot as a live hostage. (Can you tell I like her?) Veil's only point of redemption was saving Bryony at the very, very end.
Since I found out what Reactive Attachment Disorder was I thought it would explain a lot about him. I have yet to find any fans who share my view of him; the Abbeydwellers treated him terribly but most abused kids do not become multiple murderers.
Jacques also makes a point of showing him as an evil baby though. Biting everyone and visibly enjoying the taste of blood, crawling around a battlefield without fussing, etc. It's just, bluh. He's had ferrets that changed their ways written before Outcast, so you can't even say "well it's just ferrets" and any redemption is rejected like, the Abbess and Bella try to apologize to Bryony like "Hey we were wrong, he saved you, maybe there was a little good in him." And she says "No, he was always bad, I see that now." Like, jeez. Ouch.
I think mice have the right to be unnerved around a ferret, but they should have done a much better job of hiding it. Did you see the fanfic I linked on the Dead Dove thread? My favourite kids'-fandom-darkfic ever.
