fix(subtitles): recover positioned ASS word spacing and drop control debris (#217)

docs/architecture/2026-03-15-renderer-performance-design.md

@@ -87,7 +87,9 @@ interface SubtitleCue {
 
 ASS scripts can also redraw one complete lyric for two or more long color/highlight phases. Those flush-timed phases collapse separately from short animation frames when they share text, style, actor, and layer and carry direct animation evidence, such as temporal tags or changing non-spatial overrides. Spatial command changes do not prove a phase, so separately positioned signs remain distinct.
 
-**Canonical animation recovery.** Some ASS producers keep the readable lyric or sign as a timed `Comment:` and generate hundreds of `Dialogue:` frames containing repeated glyphs or changing clip regions. Others retain the complete line as brief `Dialogue:` events around the generated fragments. A complete event is promoted only when nearby dialogue from the same style and actor forms a proven animation cluster and reconstructs its entire text in source order. The generated frames are then replaced by one cue marked `source: 'canonical-ass'`. This source marker lets the live primary-subtitle path prefer the clean authored text and timing for display, sidebar history, immersion recording, and mining, while unmatched editor notes and alternative translations remain ignored.
+**Canonical animation recovery.** Some ASS producers keep the readable lyric or sign as a timed `Comment:` and generate hundreds of `Dialogue:` frames containing repeated glyphs or changing clip regions. Others retain the complete line as brief `Dialogue:` events around the generated fragments. A complete event is promoted only when nearby dialogue from the same style and actor forms a proven animation cluster and reconstructs its entire text in source order. The generated frames are then replaced by one cue marked `source: 'canonical-ass'`. This source marker lets the live primary-subtitle path prefer the clean authored text and timing for display, sidebar history, immersion recording, and mining, while unmatched editor notes and alternative translations remain ignored. Secondary selection advances to an entering canonical cue at its generated animation start when the preceding authored cue ends before the new authored span. Unrelated simultaneous cues that continue through the new span remain visible.
+
+**Font texture cleanup.** A clipped repeated-glyph run or frequent changes to secondary alpha marks a texture seed. Clipped runs do not need a font override because some signs build their masks from ordinary `l` glyphs. The parser removes short clipped pieces that share a no-font seed's style and timing, or pieces that share a font seed's style, timing, and font even when the actor changes. It also removes positioned text layers with at least `E0` global alpha when they overlap a seed in the same style. Opaque authored sign text stays publishable when the texture switches fonts or actors around it.
 
 #### Prefetch Service Lifecycle
 

docs/architecture/subtitle-overlay-priming.md

@@ -98,8 +98,15 @@ coming and prefetching would otherwise idle for the rest of the cue.
 ## Secondary Subtitle Flow
 
 - `secondary-sub-text` remains the immediate fallback, so unreadable subtitle sources, remote URLs,
-  and files on network mounts still appear without waiting for file resolution. Embedded-track
-  extraction is skipped for those sources to avoid competing with playback for network bandwidth.
+  and still-extracting embedded tracks appear without waiting for file resolution. Embedded-track
+  extraction runs for local and network-mounted files alike (demuxing reads the whole container,
+  about 10 seconds per GB on gigabit, under a generous timeout); only true remote URLs skip it,
+  having no on-disk container to demux.
+- The live fallback also suppresses per-glyph typesetting walls: when many simultaneous
+  one-glyph lines are present (generated karaoke lettering flattened into live text), those
+  lines and their short syllable companions are dropped while concurrent dialogue lines stay.
+  This keeps the overlay clean while extraction is still in flight and for sources that never
+  produce parsed cues.
 - Parsed secondary text and the live fallback remove exact repeated lines at any length. A
   flattened-line identity also removes long dialogue/sign repetitions that differ only in
   whitespace or terminal punctuation, while distinct simultaneous short lines remain separate.
@@ -109,9 +116,12 @@ coming and prefetching would otherwise idle for the rest of the cue.
 - The selected source is parsed with `parseSubtitleCues()`, including metadata-aware ASS duplicate
   and animation collapse. Playback `time-pos` selects the active parsed cue after applying
   `secondary-sub-delay`.
-- Fragment reconstruction marks positioned parts that span multiple vertical rows as a grid.
-  Secondary text omits those grids instead of flattening a translated table or schedule into one
-  synthetic line. Reconstructed single-line karaoke remains eligible for display.
+- Fragment reconstruction marks tall multi-row positioned parts as a grid only when they read
+  like tiling: a couple of texts repeated across many fragments, the same text re-shown at one
+  spot over time (countdown/animation frames), or scattered single glyphs. Secondary text omits
+  those grids instead of flattening a translated table or schedule into one synthetic line.
+  Wrapped lyric rows, CC-style dialogue blocks, and reconstructed single-line karaoke remain
+  eligible for display.
 - The resolved text is stored in `mpvClient.currentSecondarySubText` before it is broadcast. The
   overlay, mining, timing tracker, and immersion statistics therefore consume the same secondary
   text when a readable source is available.
@@ -120,10 +130,12 @@ coming and prefetching would otherwise idle for the rest of the cue.
 - Simultaneous ASS lines are flattened in top-to-bottom positioned order, falling back to their
   authored source order when no usable position exists.
 - Fragment-only ASS karaoke is reconstructed per style before publication. Explicit spaces
-  survive concatenation, while scripts that discarded their word boundaries remain compact
-  instead of gaining false spaces between syllables. Short runs qualify only when overlapping
-  positioned events also show changing overrides or repeated layer copies; an English or romaji
-  style name alone never turns ordinary dialogue into a lyric.
+  survive concatenation. Latin fragment typesetting with no literal spaces also recovers word
+  boundaries represented only by materially larger horizontal `\pos` or `\move` gaps within that
+  line. Unpositioned fragments stay compact instead of gaining guessed spaces between syllables.
+  Short runs qualify only when overlapping positioned events also show changing overrides or
+  repeated layer copies; an English or romaji style name alone never turns ordinary dialogue into
+  a lyric.
 - Recovered canonical ASS text remains active for the generated animation envelope. For
   reconstructed lyric styles, the longest-lived active line wins over brief entrance and exit
   fragments from the same style.