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Donncha @[email protected] · 2023-06-12 · 17:38 UTC

The moderators of r/programming have set this community as private. Only approved members can view and take part in its discussions.
In a dramatic turn of events, a wave of subreddits has gone dark today, making their presence disappear from the digital landscape. These virtual communities, brimming with discussions and camaraderie, have taken this drastic action to protest against recent changes to the pricing of the Reddit API for third-party mobile apps. It’s a bold move that could potentially alter the Reddit landscape forever, for the worse.
Among the affected applications is Apollo, a highly regarded iOS Reddit app. The developer of Apollo would have been burdened with an astonishing $20 million annual cost to keep the app running. Such a financial blow would have undoubtedly crippled their operations. As for me, I’m an avid user of Reddit is Fun, a cherished app that has become an integral part of my daily routine. Unfortunately, the costs associated with maintaining this beloved app have also skyrocketed, forcing the developer behind it to announce its impending shutdown on June 30th.

I tried the official app, but it’s not as polished as RIF. The second post I saw was a promoted post, which is, of course, one of the reasons for pushing users towards that app. Many point out that Reddit wouldn’t be Reddit if it wasn’t for all the volunteer moderators who keep the site running. Annoying those moderators isn’t going to encourage them to volunteer more time.
I hear that the Reddit app can be modified and patched (no, I won’t link to it) but I’ll probably visit Reddit a lot less now. There’s always Hacker News, where there are already two threads this morning about it. In one of these threads, a user conjectured that Reddit may be intentionally shedding its current user base to appeal to a less technically inclined, more advertisement-friendly demographic. It begs the question: who will shoulder the responsibility of moderation in this new era?
As well as the protest, Reddit seem to be boycotting themselves. The site went down today for a while. It might be all the private sub Reddits don’t cache that well, and the traffic to so many of them is bringing things down. Ouch.

I guess I’ll be reading more books. That will be good for my peace of mind.
#reddit #tech-2
https://odd.blog/2023/06/12/this-reddit-is-a-private-community/

#tech2 #reddit
13xforever @[email protected] · 2023-03-06 · 13:00 UTC

CW: Thoughts on Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

So, this is a story about two teen girls who hate each other, coming together to solve the mystery locked house puzzle with necromantic powers to become immortals.
Variouos synopses and promotional blurbs try to sell this as a lesbian necromancers in space thing, but it's honestly misleading. This is a somewhat classic and straightforward whodunit in a decrepit castle sitting in the middle of the ocean.
While yes, there are spaceships and queer characters, it's just a background information in the same vein as the nebulous concept of the King Undying ruling the universe.
Now, back to the important part. The plot, and pacing are starting very slow. The whole first act is a drag. But after act two, it's all thrilling downhill ride to the very end. Things happen all the time, and somehow the stakes keep escalating.
There are puzzles, there are murders, there are unexpected plot twists.
The main centerpiece of this novel are main characters from all the houses, working together and against each other. Their mutual growth throughout the pages. The magic system is kinda rudimentary, and general world building is very light and only mentioned as needed with bare minimum of details.
However, this was planned as a duology or trilogy from the beginning, and the ending of this book goes straight to the plot of the second, where the more broad exploration of this universe is expected as part of course, in case you're interested enough to stick with it.
As a bonus, there's a free short story published by Tor that is technically set long before the events of Gideon the Ninth, but as a remembrance from one of the characters after the events. There is a spoiler in that, but I've read it first to get the sense of the setting (which actually prompted me to get the full series), and you will miss the connection unless you go straight from it to the main book.
Anyway, you can get official ePub, mobi, and pdf downloads for offline reading.
I would recommend revisiting it after reading the first book, just because you'll have much more context for all the in-universe mumbo-jumbo terms, and will have deeper knowledge of anatomy and characters.
Unfortunately, the worldwide version of Kobo edition got removed at some point, so here's the US version.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4347153011
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4347159245
#ReadingCorner #ReadsOfMastodon #TheLockedTomb

#readingcorner #readsofmastodon #thelockedtomb
Gergely Imreh @[email protected] · 2023-02-12 · 04:20 UTC

When parts of a system are strongly interconnected, one can discover latent issues while debugging something completely different. This is what happened with this blog’s caching and integrating with the Fediverse.
Fediverse adventures
I was part of The Great Twitter Exodus of 2022, and like many I’ve landed on Mastodon (hey, hello, https://fosstodon.org/@imrehg). Mastodon and the whole Fediverse and its build around the ActivityPub protocol is technically very interesting and brings back a bit of retro-joy to me (which needs some reflections on why and how is retro joyful, but another time). This current blog is running WordPress, and soon found that there’s a plugin to turn a WordPress blog into a my own ActivityPub node. That seemed some excellent way to connect up tools and make a more inter-connected Internet (besides nerding out, if I’m fully honest).
ActivityPub plugin
It was super easy to set up, and seemed to have worked well: take my author URL, put it your Mastodon instance’s search, and voila, there’s a compatible profile which one can follow and interact with (to an extent, but still):
How does my author profile look when searched on a Mastodon instance, this time on Fosstodon. One can use either the author URL or the shortened address shown under the profile picture to find a person.
It all seemed to have worked, but coming back after a while, but Site Health popped up a critical issue. 🙀
WordPress Site Health highlighting the issue with the author URL.
Digging in into what the endpoint actually returned when setting what response format the client want to accept:
curl --silent -H "Accept: application/activity+json" https://gergely.imreh.net/blog/author/gergely/
I can see that it indeed doesn’t look like a JSON file, instead the cached web content:
Hot on your trail, W3 Total Cache (W3TC)! I use this plugin to make this site (hopefully) more performant, but it’s not looking great in this instance. Fortunately I got some interesting pointers by asking none other the Fediverse about this issue, and got some helpful pointers.
W3 Total Cache
The way I understood how the W3TC plugin and my configuration worked was the following:
The plugin does some internal caching (opcode, objects,…) using PHP, and something I don’t worry about much.
The main performance benefit is coming from generating page caches on disk that can be loaded quicker then regenerating the page.
Routing to those cached files is mostly through my nginx web server’s configuration: the caching plugin creates an nginx configuration file with the relevant logic and redirects, so on the “happy path” when the target page is cached, the request doesn’t even touch WordPress’ backend at all.
Disabling Caching for an Endpoint
Based on the above (especially point 2), my train of thought started at “Can I tell W3TC not to cache that author endpoint if a specific header is received?” Looking at the W3TC FAQs, there’s indeed a way to signal that, by disabling e.g. page caching when the plugin (ActivityPub in this case), by setting this inside the code path of the relevant page:
define('DONOTCACHEPAGE', true);
Looking at the source code of the ActivityPub plugin, I could find where in the data flow one would set this, before the author template is returned. I tried it out and seemed to have worked. I’ve even opened a GitHub issue so that hopefully a fix can be developed for everyone!
Looking further in the code (to do that fix), though, it’s not only the “author” page, but silently also all the posts and the front page has the same issue (of getting cached HTML when asking for JSON). 🙀 If one disables caching on author + blogposts + frontpage, what else of note is left cached? Nothing really. And the plugin owner agrees.
Route Request Based on Headers
Let’s try instead routing the request based on headers: if a compatible “Accept” header is received, bypass the cache, and use what he endpoint returns. Here comes the issue about the 3rd point above: the nginx configuration and its use.
Ideally I would be able to add to the config a tests for this header, a check, roughly along the lines of this in nginx config::
if ( $http_accept = 'application/activity+json' ) {
# switch vars not to cache
}
Following the installation steps, when Page Caching is enabled in W3TC generates an extra nginx.conf file that governs what happens. There are a lot of various checks (e.g. do not cache on POST requests, do not rewrite paths if the predicted cache file location is empty….) I’ve been following the generated file, and tried to adjust the caching behaviour. To debug, I turned to adding various headers to the response, as it was easier than messing with the nginx logging rules. For example adding this just before the last rewrite rule kicks in would show the variable’s value that would decide if a rewrite happens:
add_header X-gergely-debug "rewrite-$w3tr_rewrite";
Looking at this, in every situation I was getting “no rewrite to do” outcomes, and it wasn’t in the end too much a surprise, as the logic in that file seems to be flawed: generating on disk file locations from the request incorrectly and thus never finding anything (and/or some of my misconfiguration? But there are definitely things which look plain wrong).
But while the nginx rules shrugged, in the same time my web requests were returning the files from disk! If I rewrote the generated files, I got the modified version back. Then, frustrated, even emptied out nginx.conf to try to “break” caching – and it continued to work! 🙃
So I guess the actual behaviour was different from the above 3. point, and rather:
W3TC generates nginx rules and hope that they work and take load off the WordPress backend
If that doesn’t fly, generate the caches internally in the plugin (of course, have to be able to do that on first requests/preloading anyways)
The plugin still checks internally (in code) whether the cached file exists where it expects one on the disk and loads that, bypassing this above point!
I haven’t verified this yet by looking at the code, but this explains all the behaviour I’ve seen while trying things (serving files that I’ve manually changed and working while having an empty nginx rewrite).
So after all, these checks for the Accept header would need to be both in the nginx config (less important for me as it was already broken), and also in the code of W3TC (which feels currently less tractable).
Current and Future Fixes
What I’ve ended up with is the simple and dumb way for now: disable Page Caching altogether.
For my site and level of traffic that should definitely not be a serious issue, though I did check with a site speed test just in case, and I don’t see much difference for my otherwise semi-broken setup.
Still, it’s definitely a step forward not assuming & hoping things are working (ie. nginx-based chaching) when they are not.
What would be good for the future, though, is a pattern where cache plugins only cache what they can and if not pass it on to the rest of the processing (ie. check if the client “Accept” header is empty or defaults to some browser-y value). I bet this is a naive view, and there are more complications. There likely should be more complications if WordPress is more of a “platform”, given then it will have to support a lot more different use cases and behaviours.
Future Rabbitholes
I’m definitely not alone in this quest, there are others who hit various ActivityPub + caching issues (e.g. using CloudFlare CDN). With More Mastodon usage there might be some more satisfying solutions than “disable most caching”.
I’ve definite learned more about WordPress Plugin internals by looking at the ActivityPub plugin’s repo. I’m sure I could pick up some stuff for the 100 Days to Offload plugin in the future.
During debugging I was also looking at my web server logs which I haven’t done for years, but I know would be a “proper” sysadmin thing to do. There were a lot of interesting queries that I want to follow up on (bots, sites, tools scaraping the blog and interacting with various bits). It’s the Internet, after all, so let’s look at the connections made!
#activitypub #mastodon #w3tc #wordpress-plugin
https://gergely.imreh.net/blog/2023/02/when-wordpress-caching-is-not-what-it-seems/

#activitypub #mastodon #w3tc #wordpressplugin
Poor 'Possum @[email protected] · 2022-11-20 · 00:04 UTC

@wasted Yeah, the thinking laid out in this article is exactly what I think is the main enemy of us ever achieving meaningful change. We need massive shifts in the way we live our day-to-day lives, but #recycling and other #greenwashing techniques get rolled out to placate folks who "mean well" but are wholly unwilling to accept any aspect of their current lives and goals. Just put that bottle in the right bin, buy the right kind of car, and you've done your part.
Seeing as how I'm not hamstrung by word limits on this instance, I'll copy and paste your other responses and respond to them here, to try to consolidate this into a more parseable thread. Not sure if that's actually helpful, but hey, we're all learning the ropes.
"Also wrt compostable plastics, is that true of industrial / high-heat facilities? I was wondering about this recently, I use Bootstrap for my compost and often find myself tossing PLA containers in the bin."
I was only ever involved in transport, so I can't speak to this at all, aside from saying, in general, any #composting system has to maintain a #balance, and there's a limit to how far you can push one component or another. Prefacing the following statement with "I am a #greencollargrunt, and have no qualifications to make these statements, but if I had to put forth a theory:" Most of these #compostable plastics are "technically so," but there's so much of them being put into the system that they are out of balance. I think the ratio of actual biologic matter to plastic to effectively break down everything is huge, so... it doesn't take much. But of course the American public just wants to hear that they technically could compost it, and that's good enough for them. Just like with recycling.
"(Last reply lol my character limit is small) Can I boost this btw?"
Boost away. The main reason I started transitioning over here (actually not a twitter refugee!) was because it seemed like a platform that we could actually have conversations on. I am a recovering instagram junky, and I kept posting my photography and trying to talk about the problems I was seeing, and The most I got was "🔥 shot!" over and over again from folks trying to work the algorithm. I'm pretty sure everyone who is likely to see my stuff on this platform gets it already, but I am really hoping we'll be able to move past just talking in circles into actually DOING SOMETHING about this shit. Solutions exist, but we need to decide to start working on them instead of waiting for some politician or bug-fuck billionaire to suddenly find fixing these problems to be profitable.
Gonna sign off now, but have somne #bikesatwork porn. A few shots of the #trikes out on the job to atone for the previous trike pic I posted and neglected to alt-text.

#recycling #greenwashing #composting #balance #greencollargrunt #compostable
Poor 'Possum @[email protected] · 2022-11-20 · 00:04 UTC

@wasted Yeah, the thinking laid out in this article is exactly what I think is the main enemy of us ever achieving meaningful change. We need massive shifts in the way we live our day-to-day lives, but #recycling and other #greenwashing techniques get rolled out to placate folks who "mean well" but are wholly unwilling to accept any aspect of their current lives and goals. Just put that bottle in the right bin, buy the right kind of car, and you've done your part.
Seeing as how I'm not hamstrung by word limits on this instance, I'll copy and paste your other responses and respond to them here, to try to consolidate this into a more parseable thread. Not sure if that's actually helpful, but hey, we're all learning the ropes.
"Also wrt compostable plastics, is that true of industrial / high-heat facilities? I was wondering about this recently, I use Bootstrap for my compost and often find myself tossing PLA containers in the bin."
I was only ever involved in transport, so I can't speak to this at all, aside from saying, in general, any #composting system has to maintain a #balance, and there's a limit to how far you can push one component or another. Prefacing the following statement with "I am a #greencollargrunt, and have no qualifications to make these statements, but if I had to put forth a theory:" Most of these #compostable plastics are "technically so," but there's so much of them being put into the system that they are out of balance. I think the ratio of actual biologic matter to plastic to effectively break down everything is huge, so... it doesn't take much. But of course the American public just wants to hear that they technically could compost it, and that's good enough for them. Just like with recycling.
"(Last reply lol my character limit is small) Can I boost this btw?"
Boost away. The main reason I started transitioning over here (actually not a twitter refugee!) was because it seemed like a platform that we could actually have conversations on. I am a recovering instagram junky, and I kept posting my photography and trying to talk about the problems I was seeing, and The most I got was "🔥 shot!" over and over again from folks trying to work the algorithm. I'm pretty sure everyone who is likely to see my stuff on this platform gets it already, but I am really hoping we'll be able to move past just talking in circles into actually DOING SOMETHING about this shit. Solutions exist, but we need to decide to start working on them instead of waiting for some politician or bug-fuck billionaire to suddenly find fixing these problems to be profitable.
Gonna sign off now, but have somne #bikesatwork porn. A few shots of the #trikes out on the job to atone for the previous trike pic I posted and neglected to alt-text.

#trikes #bikesatwork #compostable #greencollargrunt #balance #composting
Andy Arthur - Threadinburgh @[email protected] · 2022-09-16 · 00:30 UTC

The thread about John Paul Jones; the Scottish-American “pirate” who tried to capture Edinburgh and Leith but lived to tell the tale

This thread was originally written and published in December 2019.
It was on a day like this, 240 years ago, with a west wind howling up the Firth of Forth, rattling the window panes and lifting the roof tiles, that Edinburgh and Leith were saved from sacking by the fledgling United States Navy. The year was 1779 and it was the middle of the War of Independence when a squadron of American ships of war appeared in the Firth. Their objective; to disrupt shipping, spread panic and “raise a contribution” to the American war effort of two hundred thousand pounds from the wallets of the good folk of Edinburgh and Leith. These ships were the 36-gun Bon Homme Richard, the 32-gun Pallas and the 12-gun Vengeance and in command was one John Paul Jones. To the Americans a great hero, a father to their naval service:
John Paul Jones by Charles Wilson Peale
To the British, a common pirate. Of course, they would say that, because he beat them at their own game, rattled the establishment to its core and made the mighty Royal Navy look rather impotent.
“Paul Jones the Pirate”, a contemporary British caricature
So who was John Paul Jones? For a start, he wasn’t born as John Paul Jones or an American, he was actually from Kirkcudbrightshire. He was born in 1747 as plain John Paul to John Paul (senior), a gardener and Jean Mcduff. In 1760, John junior was apprenticed to a sea captain in Whitehaven and took to the seven seas on the merchant ship Friendship. He sailed the Atlantic trade route, mainly between Britain and the colony of Virginia where his older brother was settled.
The cottage in which John Paul was born in 1747, now the John Paul Jones Cottage Museum. Pic © johnpauljonesmuseum.com
For quite a few years John kept this up, working his way up the ranks to First Mate by 1768. At this point fate begins to intervene and steer his life on a new course. In Jamaica, he decides to abandon his ship and work his passage back to Scotland. Once home, he finds a new ship – the appropriately named John – and is taken on as lower mate. When the master and leading mates unexpectedly die of fever, he takes command and brings the ship and her cargo safely home. In gratitude, the owners raise him to master. So at the tender age of 23, John finds himself a ship’s master with 10 years experience under his belt; life has worked out well for him. But then some things start to go wrong. On only his seconnd voyage as master he has someone flogged for insubordination. This was a very common and non-noteworthy act for the time, sailors were kept in check with fairly equal proportions of corporal punishment, alcohol and the promise of the occasional pay packet.
But the flogged man has connections back in Scotland and when he died (from Yellow Fever), the blame for his death is laid at the feet of John. As a young captain from a humble family he has little influence himself over matters once he’s off his ship and finds himself thrown in the Tolbooth of Kirkcudbright to await his fate. But clearly he is not without any friends as he is bailed and given some quiet advice to get far away from Kirkcudbright before the law has its way. This was sensible advice, which was followed.
“The Old Tolbooth, Kirkcudbright” by Charles Oppenheimer © Manchester Art Gallery
As a result he quickly leaves Scotland for England and finds a new ship, the Betsy, and spends 18 successful months toing and froing in the Caribbean, before once again clashing with a subordinate crewmember. This time, he allegedly runs the man through with a sword in an argument over pay. He would claim this was self defence, but having fled from the law before he must have realised that he couldn’t go back and face any more music the music and so headed north to the Virginia colony in about 1772. He finds that his brother has died and so takes takes over his affairs there.
John Paul Jones. Quick, perhaps too quick, with his sword.
Perhaps it is to cover his tracks that in Virginia he changes his name to John Paul Jones, with American folk legend suggesting that it was in honour of statesman Willie Jones. JPJ takes to his new home and when war breaks out with Britian he signs up to fight for his adopted homeland against that of his birth. Whether this was opportunism or patriotism is not clear but in 1775 he is part of the newly formed Continental Navy. As an experienced sailor and officer, JPJ’s potential is recognised by founding father Richard Henry Lee and he is appointed First Lieutenant of the frigate Alfred. Like most US ships of this time it’s a converted merchantman, but the line between smaller naval and civilian ships at this time was rather blurry so it was not that uncommon.
“Continental Ship Alfred“, W. Nowland Van Powell, 1974
It is apparently JPJ who had the honour of hoisting the Grand Union Flag – the first national flag of the United States, on a US ship, for the first time. He and the Alfred sail to the Caribbean and raid Nassau, but after this this point he takes a demotion to a smaller ship, the sloop Providence, as a step on the ladder to commanding a frigate of his own.
Providence, flying the Grand Old Union Flag. W. Nowland Van Powell, 1974
Long story short, JPJ rapidly impresses his superiors with a combination of skill, aggression and good luck. By 1778 he is in charge of the new frigate Ranger. On February 14th, on the Ranger, he took a salute from a French naval squadron under La Motte Picquet in the Robuste at Quiberon Bay, the first official recognition of the young American state by a foreign government.
“First Recognition of the American Flag by a Foreign Government”, Edward Moran, 1898
He is now sent to take the war to the British on the other side of the Atlantic but finds that his crew – and in particular his officers – are completely lacking, unwilling to take risks or to follow his orders. A raid on the sloop HMS Drake fails due to poor seamanship. A raid on Whitehaven, his old home port, fails due to a combination of poor weather and an uncooperative crew who decided to visit the pub instead of set fire to the shipping in the harbour.
“Launching of the White Haven Raid” by Charles Waterhouse © National Museum of the Marine Corps
JPJ next hatches a plot to kidnap the Earl of Selkirk for ransom from St. Mary’s Isle, but this scheme is foiled as the Earl is away; the Americans are instead cordially entertained by the Earl’s wife before leaving after helping themselves to some silverwear. (JPJ would later buy the loot back, at his own expense, and return it to the Selkirks).
“John Paul Jones seizing the silver plate of Lady Selkirk”, his crew depicted as pirates. A print from 1903.
The effect on British morale and general public alarm was much significant. Here were American rebels acting with impunity, not just in British waters but also on the land! It was a national scandal. But the reality was that his raiding around the Solway proved fruitless and resulted in a crew who were restless from the lack of prize money. And so JPJ sails the Ranger back across the Irish Sea and finally catches up with his previous quarry, the sloop HMS Drake, off of Carrickfergus. A roughly equal fight on paper, he deploys a ruse to get the initial jump on Drake before bettering her with skilful gunnery. Five of the British crew, including their captain and the first lieutenant, were killed in the fight and after an hour the Drake surrendered. This was another national scandal for the Royal Navy in home waters at the hands of the young man from Kirkcudbright.
The surrender of the Drake, from “The Boys of 1812 and Other Heroes” by James Soley, 1887.
JPJ has Drake sailed to Brest to be sold to the French as a prize. This was finally a great victory for him and the Continental Navy, but there was much acrimony between captain, second in command Lt. Simpson (who he tries and fails to have court-martialled) and the crew. In France, JPJ is given a bigger ship, the merchantman Duc de Duras, which has been gifted to the US Navy by a sympathiser. On conversion to a 40-gun warship he has her named Bonhomme Richard after Ben Franklin, who used the pseudonym “Poor Richard” to publish his almanac in Paris
Bonne Homme Richard in 1779 by F. Muller
JPJ assembles a little fleet and prepares for war in Lorient in June 1779 but is forced back from his initial cruise by bad weather and in need of repairs. A second attempt is made in August; Bonhomme Richard, Pallas and Vengeance are accompanied by the French naval cutter Le Cerf and two privateers, Monsieur and Granville. Monsieur falls out with JPJ only days out of port and leaves the fleet – falling out with his subordinates is quickly becoming something of a hallmark for JPJ’s expeditions. But this time the Royal Navy are better prepared and locate and attempt to chase the Americans. He is able to lead them on a merry dance around the north of Scotland before shaking the pursuers off. On his way, despite ongoing squabbles with other officers, he is able to take 16 merchant ships as prizes.
And so it was on the 16th September 1779 that there is great alarm on both banks of the Forth when John Paul Jones and his three remaining ships (the others had returned to France by this time with the prizes), appeared in the Forth intent on sailing up it and doing as they pleased.
Looking down the Forth towards Inchkeith in the distance in 1791, by David Allan.
A panic spreads through Edinburgh and Leith. The moneyed classes secure their goods and flee the city for their estates. The banks are locked up, the garrison barricade themselves in Edinburgh Castle, the church bells are rung and “neither a carriage nor a horse [was] to be seen“. Leith’s fortifications, the great Marian walls and the Cromwellian citadel are decrepit, having been partially slighted and then left to the elements and those intent on pilfering the masonry for building material. A more fundamental problem is that they were never designed to offer defence from seaward, but from landward. But the enterprising folk of Leith try to mount a defence of sorts as best they can. Three spare old cannon were retrieved from the Naval Victualling Yard on Constitution Street and manhandled along to the walls of the Citadel.
The remains of the citadel do at least provide something of a raised firing platform to cover the mouth of the harbour, but this battery was “extremely perilous to those who worked it“. Edinburgh sent down a couple more old cannon and gunners from the castle and these were posted near Newhaven with small arms were handed out to the Incorporated Trades of Leith. With this meagre defence, the town battened down the hatches and awaited its fate.
But the folk of Kirkcaldy, on the opposite shore of the Forth, take an alternative approach to defence. They follow their minister, the Reverend Robert Shirra, down to the sea and begin to pray for almighty intervention.
The Reverend Robert Shirra by George Watson. © Kirkcaldy Galleries
Now deer Lord, dinna ye think it a shame for ye to send this vile piret to rob our folk o Kirkcaldy; for ye ken they’re puir enow already, and hae naething to spaire
Shirra’s sermon against John Paul Jones (translated, “Now dear Lord, don’t you think it a shame for you to send this vile pirate to rob our folk of Kirkcaldy; for you know they are poor enough already and have nothing to spare”)
And would you know the almighty happened to be listening? For no sooner had Kirkcaldy prayed for salvation than, in the words of John Paul Jones, “a very severe gale of wind came on, and being directly contrary obliged me to bear away after having in vain endeavoured for some time to withstand its violence“.
“Inchkeith on the Forth in a Fresh Gale”. Ships in Leith Roads would shelter in the lee of the island from a gale. John Gabriel Stedman, 1781. CC-by-SA National Galleries Scotland
As the wind blew up, JPJ’s ships were not yet in the shelter of Leith Roads in the lee of Inchkeith island where they could ride out the storm, so despite being “in a cannon’s shot of the town” they were obliged to follow the wind back out to sea. In the process, the ship Friendship they had taken in prize was lost. The little fleet was blown straight out of the Firth and down the east coast. Edinburgh, Leith and Kirkcaldy have been saved!
A week later the Royal Navy finally encounters JPJ off Flamborough Head when he runs into a convoy of merchant ships under their protection and a somewhat scrappy and confused battle takes place. In the course of the action, the Bonhomme Richard is damaged so heavily that she will sink the next day, but JPJ in return manages to capture the British flagship HMS Serapis and takes her instead.
The Battle of Flamborough Head by Richard Paton, 1780. HMS Serapis is in the foreground with “Bonhomme Richard” behind.
The outcome of the battle is still hotly debated; JPJ and the Americans can claim another embarrassing Royal Navy scalp, in sight of British soil and once again they have failed to stop JPJ. But the merchant convoy – the real prize – has slipped away unharmed. However that is a somewhat hollow strategic victory for the Royal Navy. Once Again, the Americans press have their hero and the British their villain.
John Paul Jones the Hero.John Paul Jones the CorsairHeroes and Villains; Two different portraits of John Paul Jones at Flamborough Head.
After the battle, JPJ wants to head for France, but his subordinates insist they follow orders and head for the neutral Dutch island of Texel in the United Provinces. A tricky diplomatic incident ensues as they have lost the Continental Navy’s flags when Bonhomme Richard went down, and couldn’t fly the Royal Navy’s ensigns from the Serapis and so were technically operating under no flag. This allowes the British to claim that they were pirates. So, based on only a written description, (“colors should be white, red, and blue alternately to thirteen… [with a] blue field with thirteen stars… in the canton“) JPJ had his men run up a new – and rather unconventional – Continental Navy flag. The Dutch dutifully checked that the flag matched the description (they were very unlikely to know what the flag of an American warship should look like as they’d probably never seen one) and entered it with a sketch in their records to make it official.
The “John Paul Jones” or “Serapis” Flag.
With its 8-pointed stars and irregular groupings of red/white/blue tricolour stripes, the “Serapis flag” is unique, the true work of a sailor handy with needle and thread and not someone versed in the rigid conventions of vexilology. John Paul Jones’ wacky flag was enough to save him from international charges of piracy and now takes pride of place on the coat of arms of the US warships that have taken his name.
Coat of Arms of the US Navy Destroyer John Paul Jones, featuring the “Serapis Flag” on the left and a likeness of JPJ
Back in Leith, plans were immediately drawn up for a new artillery fort to protect the port and the city of Edinburgh behind from the sea. These were drawn up by local celebrated architect James Craig – who laid out Edinburgh first New Town – despite him having no background in military engineering. The fort and the land on which it was built were provided “at the expense of the citizens of Edinburgh and Leith“. It was a fairly straightforward defensive structure, a half-moon battery of cannon facing out to sea, protected by a perimeter ditch, low masonry wall and a large earthen glacis heaped up infront of it to seeward. To the landward there is were a pair of blockhouse corner bastions to protect it from rear assaults. The Fort’s battery of guns covered the navigable channel of the approach to the Port of Leith.
One of Craig’s original drawings. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
So there you have it, the tale of the lad from Kirkcudbrightshire that the Royal Navy couldn’t sink, who tried to capture the Earl of Selkirk, who put the willies up the good folk of Edinburgh and Leith, who rocked the vexilogical world but who could not overcome a Kirk minister and the weather. Oh, and how this modern street on the site of Leith Fort got its name:
John Paul Jones View, Leith Fort council housing. © Self
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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret

#firthofforth #fortifications #leith #military #naval #royalnavy
clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 @[email protected] · 2022-02-22 · 17:56 UTC

CW: long quote -- pluspora closing down in a month as the admin passed away unexpectedly

♲ @[email protected]:
Dear #Pluspora users,

It is with a heavy heart that we come to you with this post. As many of you already know, our resident IT admin, David Theiry, passed away suddenly. It has been a huge loss to his family and to the Pluspora family as well.

With David’s passing the Pluspora pod will also be going away. His passing essentially prevents us from maintaining the site as it is today. Nathan and I looked at several possibilities. We considered a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A would have been nice, but unfortunately didn’t work out. Special thanks to those who offered to step up and replace the work David did after his passing, but this is just something no one can fix. David was truly irreplaceable, in many ways, Pluspora being only one of them.
Here are some details you need to know:
The site is slated to go offline by the end of March but we encourage everyone to backup their data by Feb 28th and make an alternate diaspora account as soon as possible, due to instability within the pod. All pod data will be deleted from the server when the pod goes offline and be non-retrievable.

If you go into your Account settings, you can export a backup copy of your data. We recommend you do this, if you want to hang onto the content you have posted on Pluspora over the years. Go to Settings and scroll down to Export Data headings. Please download your data by February 28, as we cannot guarantee it will be retrievable during March.

VERY IMPORTANT: The daily #Checkin will continue on Diaspora for now. Su Ann and her team of mods have a backup plan to keep running on Diaspora without the Pluspora pod. That may change in the future, but just know that it won't go away when the Pluspora pod does. If you have experienced this community, please check it out by seraching the hashtage #Checkin.
Plan B details

Plan B was acknowledging there was no real path forward with the Pluspora pod, but that we would try to find a few options where we could go together after Pluspora goes offline. Please let us know via comments which of the following you would be most interested in pursuing. Remember, it's not one or the other, you can choose several options and see what sticks. Nathan and I don't want to leave anyone feeling stranded or left behind due to these unforseen and sudden tragic circumstances.
A new and exciting Pluspora community on Mighty Networks. Nathan and I have been exploring the possibility of continuing the Pluspora community as a whole on Mighty Networks which is a social network platform for communities. Nathan and I would financially and technically support this platform and are currently building this space for Pluspora and other users interested in continuing the Google Plus tradition and spirit of community. We’d love everyone’s feedback, as this is a new opportunity to make some changes. More details to follow. (Side note: there are communities and you can edit posts!). We welcome anyone who wants to pitch in.
Other options for Pluspora users
Twitter Community for Pluspora users. Nathan reached out to Twitter and they have given him early access to create a Twitter Community -- it’s similar to a Google+ Community. Twitter Communities is in early stages for Twitter and it’s a great chance for us Google+ and #PlusporaRefugees to give some good feedback on future features. And a great way to reconnect with Pluspora folks. Nathan and I will be mods of the Community starting out, so you can catch us there. There will be lots of potential for how to use the Community and feedback will be welcome. There’s loads of potential. Plus, a lot of Google+ refugees are already on Twitter, so it’s a good time to reconnect. Use the following tweet to join: twitter.com/babylontales/statu…

Migrating to another Diaspora pod. As you likely know, Pluspora is just a pod or instance in the Diaspora fediverse. Feel free to look at other pods and consider creating a new account on one of them. For a lot of you, Pluspora was your introduction to Diaspora and the fediverse. It doesn’t have to be your last. Feel free to give pods you like a shout out in the comments.

Mastodon is a Twitter-like fediverse platform. Mastodon is a great alternative to Diaspora that keeps you in the fediverse. Unlike Diaspora though, Mastodon takes most of its design choices from Twitter. It is very much a micro-blogging format. It also uses instances and is a lot of fun. It also has many mobile apps, unlike Diaspora.

Pillowfort.social is a Tumblr alternative. If you want to pivot to something different, but don’t want to go to the major players like Facebook and Twitter, there’s Pillowfort. It rose up after Tumblr dropped NSFW content (like Diaspora, Pillowfort also allows NSFW content). It is currently in beta and requires a one-time fee of $5 to join, this helps pay for their upkeep -- they have no ads. It has Communities, which I know is something we all missed from Google+.
Please feel free to make other suggestions in the comments. The community belongs to everyone, and these are just suggestions that we came up with. There definitely needs to be discussion and support for everyone.
The ark sets sail again.
Conclusion

We are also sending this information out via email to a lot of you. Not as many as we would have liked, because cataloging email addresses from Diaspora is a time-consuming process. David and I never wanted to spam anyone with emails, so we didn't really create a database proactively. Nathan and I have spent many tedious hours manually filtering through as many active users from the past several years to send out this notice to. We won’t hit everyone’s inbox and for some of you it may go to your junk folder. But we wanted to reach out to as many folks as possible about this, especially those who were active and had content that needed to be exported.

That said, it would help us tremendously if you submitted your email address to us here: forms.gle/HXvHsAFTcvY5JM7A9.
We will NOT spam you or send anything more than the alerts about closing of the pod, and the what comes next, if you ware interested in knowing.

Please share this post. Thank you all for keeping the community spirit alive for as long as you have. I truly hope we can continue in some way. I have no attachment to any particular outcome, save that we aren't torn apart again.
❤

Di

#checkin #pluspora #plusporarefugees
Craig Constantine @[email protected] · 2018-03-10 · 15:00 UTC

Heating with math

Something a little different today: I’ve been considering switching to heating with gas and I recently ran some numbers.
tl;dr: I will be continuing to heat with solid fuel.
Preamble: We have already deeply insulated our attic, upgraded insulation in the walls which were opened during some remodeling, and replaced all windows and doors with modern versions. (Our house was originally built in 1954.) This is the obvious first place to begin improving heating your home.
Electricity: My electricity costs $0.0758 per kWh. I can basically turn on my electric baseboard heaters and this is what I’d pay (per kWh) to heat our house.
Methane: This is the proper way to heat a home in northern climates. Unfortunately, “street gas” is not present in my neighborhood. One block over, yes, here, no. They would install it for me… if I’m willing to pay the entire cost to rip up the street and put in the gas main.
Propane: Chemistry geeks know that propane has about 12% less energy per molecule compared to methane. But generally speaking, appliances (my gas cooking stove, a gas heating appliance I would need to buy/install) can be adjusted to burn either fuel. Anyway. I already have a small propane tank that serves my cooking stove, so I would “just” need a larger tank — possibly MUCH larger, possibly so large that safety ordinances would require me to put it underground. Anyway. My propane costs me $5.999/gal — if you know about petroleum, this is an incomprehensibly high number. Meanwhile, 1 gal propane = 27kWhr of energy. And a gas heater (I’m imagining replacing my wood stove with an appliance that sits in the same space) is effectively 100% efficient at turning that gas into heat. So simple math shows that propane would cost me $0.222/KWh — about THREE times the cost of electricity.
Firewood: This is MUCH harder to compute. First off, I have to estimate how much energy is available in the wood I’m burning; that’s affected by species of wood, and how it’s seasoned and stored (because the MORE water in the wood, the more heat is “lost” to vaporize that water and send it away up the chimney.) Some factors to consider: Where I live, there are several readily available “fuel” species of trees that are sustainably available. I’ve found a reputable supplier who is not hauling it long distances and provides me the right sizes etc for what I want. I also have the absolute best imaginable way of storing the wood in “cribs” that expose it to air drying while having it under cover.
So I’m guessing 20 million BTU per cord. (A cord is a stacked, pile 4 feet tall, with a foot print of 4×8 feet. Technically, it’s a pile of 4-foot LONG logs, 4 feet high and 8 feet wide on the ground. A true wood heating system is a separate unit outside that is meant to take 4 foot long logs. I purchase ~16″ pieces split, which still makes the 4×8 foot print computable. I digress.) Good fuel species can be up to 30MBTU/cord. So I’m being conservative with 20.
20M BTU is 5,861 KWh. I pay $300 per cord (fellow Pennsylvanians just twitched because that is pretty expensive — 225 or 250 is typical — but this is excellent wood species, all cut and split to the correct sizes for stove fuel, delivered early in the season, and dumped exactly where I want it. As usual, I digress. So math happens leading to $0.0512 / KWh. Even if I figure-in that the wood stove is only 80% efficient (we have a great stove made in Scandinavia which really does exceed 80% efficiency when operated correctly), that only bumps the cost up to $0.0639 / KWh.
Update in 2019: My electricity costs $0.07039 per KWh. (That’s down about 1/2 cent.) I’ve a new firewood supplier, with the price down to $225 per cord. That’s $0.038 / KWh, and still only $0.048 / KWh at 80% stove efficiency.
And finally some references…
http://www.propane101.com/propanevselectricity.htm
http://worldforestindustries.com/forest-biofuel/firewood/firewood-btu-ratings/
ɕ
#Fire #Math #Writing

#fire #math #writing
Professional Moron @[email protected] · 2026-03-22 · 16:00 UTC
Creature Kitchen: Lots to Love in Charming Indie Gem 🦨

Creature Kitchen is a great fun cosy/horror cooking simulator. In this one, it’s your job to make friends with animals and feed them their favourite food. All to the tune of a cabin in the woods spooky type deal.
The game is by indie dev The Rat Zone (who runs a gloriously retro 90s style website). It’s a cheap one (£5), yet offers several hours of gameplay with lots of charming guffawing to be had. We love it!
TREMBLE in Horror (and cook food) in Creature Kitchen
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U8V5RcFSqs?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
This game launched in February 2026 and has had rave reviews on Steam.
The closest game we can think to this one is Metroidvania classic Animal Well (2024). It doesn’t have any cooking in it, but there’s the same animal-based creepy horror vibe. Plus, it isn’t at all scary (it just maintains a joke horror façade about it) as all the animals you meet are friendly.
Creature Kitchen is entirely its own thing, though, with lots of low-fi graphical cooking and exploration.
The whole THRUST of the game is to wander around in a creepy forest (where you love in a cabin), meet cute animals, source ingredients, and make your new animal friends food. Here it is in action.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2omfPJoP8eE?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
With around two hours of gameplay, Creature Kitchen never outstays its welcome. It’s just a fun, pick up and play blast you can have fun with one morning, afternoon, or evening. It’s all just very chilled out.
In an amusing blog post on The Rat Zone site (So uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh) from the 25th February, the devs noted this:
“We just want to reiterate that the reception to our funny animal game and the new influx of RAT FOLLOWERS has exceeded our wildest expectations. We started this collective 3(wow) years ago mainly as an outlet for a group of friends to hang out and create things together, and i guess we never expected our stuff to resonate with so so many of you. For now this is still technically a side gig for all of us, but your collective psionic energy will motivate us to make 1000 GAMEs. And each will be terrible/bad in a completely unique way!!”
It’s all part of the reason why we love indie games. We’re not sure who The Rat Zone is and who’s behind it all as the team has kept things secret. But what was supposed to just be a bit of fun for them has blown up with the game being a cult hit.
Which is fantabulous. It may only be two hours long, but Creature Kitchen is chilled out fun and we had a blast with it. Innit.
Creature Kitchen’s Lovely Little Soundtrack
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBrYF8207qI?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
The Rat Zone has kindly made the game’s great soundtrack available for free online. The music is by a whole bunch of artists. If you’re on Steam, you can download it all there (Creature Kitchen Soundtrack).
Someone called “ashfyre” is listed as the artist, but other mentions for pieces include:
- The Daydreamer by Session 0
- Really Bad by ‘AbsoluteGoob’
- Trapped by Caleb Klomparens
- Creature Hotline by Caleb Klomparens
- Feed the Creatures by ‘CocoaBeanz’
- The M.i.C – Instrumental by ‘Spikemasc’
- Snaps and Claps by Wesley Lippard
The result is chilled out ambience with all sorts of different genres. But we do like these relaxed guitar focussed ones the most.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfVeDP5iFaU?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
All the pieces are very short, most don’t last for more than a minute. But it’s good stuff and adds a lot of relevant atmosphere to what is a unique, very enjoyable gaming experience.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS-7I6_zMxY?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407] #Animals #Cooking #cosy #CreatureKitchen #Cute #Entertainment #Fun #gaming #Horror #IndieGames #Lifestyle #TheRatZone
#animals #cooking #cosy #creaturekitchen #cute #entertainment
Professional Moron @[email protected] · 2026-03-22 · 16:00 UTC
Creature Kitchen: Lots to Love in Charming Indie Gem 🦨

Creature Kitchen is a great fun cosy/horror cooking simulator. In this one, it’s your job to make friends with animals and feed them their favourite food. All to the tune of a cabin in the woods spooky type deal.
The game is by indie dev The Rat Zone (who runs a gloriously retro 90s style website). It’s a cheap one (£5), yet offers several hours of gameplay with lots of charming guffawing to be had. We love it!
TREMBLE in Horror (and cook food) in Creature Kitchen
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U8V5RcFSqs?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
This game launched in February 2026 and has had rave reviews on Steam.
The closest game we can think to this one is Metroidvania classic Animal Well (2024). It doesn’t have any cooking in it, but there’s the same animal-based creepy horror vibe. Plus, it isn’t at all scary (it just maintains a joke horror façade about it) as all the animals you meet are friendly.
Creature Kitchen is entirely its own thing, though, with lots of low-fi graphical cooking and exploration.
The whole THRUST of the game is to wander around in a creepy forest (where you love in a cabin), meet cute animals, source ingredients, and make your new animal friends food. Here it is in action.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2omfPJoP8eE?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
With around two hours of gameplay, Creature Kitchen never outstays its welcome. It’s just a fun, pick up and play blast you can have fun with one morning, afternoon, or evening. It’s all just very chilled out.
In an amusing blog post on The Rat Zone site (So uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh) from the 25th February, the devs noted this:
“We just want to reiterate that the reception to our funny animal game and the new influx of RAT FOLLOWERS has exceeded our wildest expectations. We started this collective 3(wow) years ago mainly as an outlet for a group of friends to hang out and create things together, and i guess we never expected our stuff to resonate with so so many of you. For now this is still technically a side gig for all of us, but your collective psionic energy will motivate us to make 1000 GAMEs. And each will be terrible/bad in a completely unique way!!”
It’s all part of the reason why we love indie games. We’re not sure who The Rat Zone is and who’s behind it all as the team has kept things secret. But what was supposed to just be a bit of fun for them has blown up with the game being a cult hit.
Which is fantabulous. It may only be two hours long, but Creature Kitchen is chilled out fun and we had a blast with it. Innit.
Creature Kitchen’s Lovely Little Soundtrack
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBrYF8207qI?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
The Rat Zone has kindly made the game’s great soundtrack available for free online. The music is by a whole bunch of artists. If you’re on Steam, you can download it all there (Creature Kitchen Soundtrack).
Someone called “ashfyre” is listed as the artist, but other mentions for pieces include:
- The Daydreamer by Session 0
- Really Bad by ‘AbsoluteGoob’
- Trapped by Caleb Klomparens
- Creature Hotline by Caleb Klomparens
- Feed the Creatures by ‘CocoaBeanz’
- The M.i.C – Instrumental by ‘Spikemasc’
- Snaps and Claps by Wesley Lippard
The result is chilled out ambience with all sorts of different genres. But we do like these relaxed guitar focussed ones the most.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfVeDP5iFaU?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
All the pieces are very short, most don’t last for more than a minute. But it’s good stuff and adds a lot of relevant atmosphere to what is a unique, very enjoyable gaming experience.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS-7I6_zMxY?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407] #Animals #Cooking #cosy #CreatureKitchen #Cute #Entertainment #Fun #gaming #Horror #IndieGames #Lifestyle #TheRatZone
#animals #cooking #cosy #creaturekitchen #cute #entertainment
Professional Moron @[email protected] · 2026-03-22 · 16:00 UTC
Creature Kitchen: Lots to Love in Charming Indie Gem 🦨

Creature Kitchen is a great fun cosy/horror cooking simulator. In this one, it’s your job to make friends with animals and feed them their favourite food. All to the tune of a cabin in the woods spooky type deal.
The game is by indie dev The Rat Zone (who runs a gloriously retro 90s style website). It’s a cheap one (£5), yet offers several hours of gameplay with lots of charming guffawing to be had. We love it!
TREMBLE in Horror (and cook food) in Creature Kitchen
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U8V5RcFSqs?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
This game launched in February 2026 and has had rave reviews on Steam.
The closest game we can think to this one is Metroidvania classic Animal Well (2024). It doesn’t have any cooking in it, but there’s the same animal-based creepy horror vibe. Plus, it isn’t at all scary (it just maintains a joke horror façade about it) as all the animals you meet are friendly.
Creature Kitchen is entirely its own thing, though, with lots of low-fi graphical cooking and exploration.
The whole THRUST of the game is to wander around in a creepy forest (where you love in a cabin), meet cute animals, source ingredients, and make your new animal friends food. Here it is in action.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2omfPJoP8eE?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
With around two hours of gameplay, Creature Kitchen never outstays its welcome. It’s just a fun, pick up and play blast you can have fun with one morning, afternoon, or evening. It’s all just very chilled out.
In an amusing blog post on The Rat Zone site (So uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh) from the 25th February, the devs noted this:
“We just want to reiterate that the reception to our funny animal game and the new influx of RAT FOLLOWERS has exceeded our wildest expectations. We started this collective 3(wow) years ago mainly as an outlet for a group of friends to hang out and create things together, and i guess we never expected our stuff to resonate with so so many of you. For now this is still technically a side gig for all of us, but your collective psionic energy will motivate us to make 1000 GAMEs. And each will be terrible/bad in a completely unique way!!”
It’s all part of the reason why we love indie games. We’re not sure who The Rat Zone is and who’s behind it all as the team has kept things secret. But what was supposed to just be a bit of fun for them has blown up with the game being a cult hit.
Which is fantabulous. It may only be two hours long, but Creature Kitchen is chilled out fun and we had a blast with it. Innit.
Creature Kitchen’s Lovely Little Soundtrack
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBrYF8207qI?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
The Rat Zone has kindly made the game’s great soundtrack available for free online. The music is by a whole bunch of artists. If you’re on Steam, you can download it all there (Creature Kitchen Soundtrack).
Someone called “ashfyre” is listed as the artist, but other mentions for pieces include:
- The Daydreamer by Session 0
- Really Bad by ‘AbsoluteGoob’
- Trapped by Caleb Klomparens
- Creature Hotline by Caleb Klomparens
- Feed the Creatures by ‘CocoaBeanz’
- The M.i.C – Instrumental by ‘Spikemasc’
- Snaps and Claps by Wesley Lippard
The result is chilled out ambience with all sorts of different genres. But we do like these relaxed guitar focussed ones the most.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfVeDP5iFaU?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
All the pieces are very short, most don’t last for more than a minute. But it’s good stuff and adds a lot of relevant atmosphere to what is a unique, very enjoyable gaming experience.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS-7I6_zMxY?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407] #Animals #Cooking #cosy #CreatureKitchen #Cute #Entertainment #Fun #gaming #Horror #IndieGames #Lifestyle #TheRatZone
#animals #cooking #cosy #creaturekitchen #cute #entertainment
Professional Moron @[email protected] · 2026-03-22 · 16:00 UTC
Creature Kitchen: Lots to Love in Charming Indie Gem 🦨

Creature Kitchen is a great fun cosy/horror cooking simulator. In this one, it’s your job to make friends with animals and feed them their favourite food. All to the tune of a cabin in the woods spooky type deal.
The game is by indie dev The Rat Zone (who runs a gloriously retro 90s style website). It’s a cheap one (£5), yet offers several hours of gameplay with lots of charming guffawing to be had. We love it!
TREMBLE in Horror (and cook food) in Creature Kitchen
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U8V5RcFSqs?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
This game launched in February 2026 and has had rave reviews on Steam.
The closest game we can think to this one is Metroidvania classic Animal Well (2024). It doesn’t have any cooking in it, but there’s the same animal-based creepy horror vibe. Plus, it isn’t at all scary (it just maintains a joke horror façade about it) as all the animals you meet are friendly.
Creature Kitchen is entirely its own thing, though, with lots of low-fi graphical cooking and exploration.
The whole THRUST of the game is to wander around in a creepy forest (where you love in a cabin), meet cute animals, source ingredients, and make your new animal friends food. Here it is in action.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2omfPJoP8eE?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
With around two hours of gameplay, Creature Kitchen never outstays its welcome. It’s just a fun, pick up and play blast you can have fun with one morning, afternoon, or evening. It’s all just very chilled out.
In an amusing blog post on The Rat Zone site (So uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh) from the 25th February, the devs noted this:
“We just want to reiterate that the reception to our funny animal game and the new influx of RAT FOLLOWERS has exceeded our wildest expectations. We started this collective 3(wow) years ago mainly as an outlet for a group of friends to hang out and create things together, and i guess we never expected our stuff to resonate with so so many of you. For now this is still technically a side gig for all of us, but your collective psionic energy will motivate us to make 1000 GAMEs. And each will be terrible/bad in a completely unique way!!”
It’s all part of the reason why we love indie games. We’re not sure who The Rat Zone is and who’s behind it all as the team has kept things secret. But what was supposed to just be a bit of fun for them has blown up with the game being a cult hit.
Which is fantabulous. It may only be two hours long, but Creature Kitchen is chilled out fun and we had a blast with it. Innit.
Creature Kitchen’s Lovely Little Soundtrack
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBrYF8207qI?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
The Rat Zone has kindly made the game’s great soundtrack available for free online. The music is by a whole bunch of artists. If you’re on Steam, you can download it all there (Creature Kitchen Soundtrack).
Someone called “ashfyre” is listed as the artist, but other mentions for pieces include:
- The Daydreamer by Session 0
- Really Bad by ‘AbsoluteGoob’
- Trapped by Caleb Klomparens
- Creature Hotline by Caleb Klomparens
- Feed the Creatures by ‘CocoaBeanz’
- The M.i.C – Instrumental by ‘Spikemasc’
- Snaps and Claps by Wesley Lippard
The result is chilled out ambience with all sorts of different genres. But we do like these relaxed guitar focussed ones the most.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfVeDP5iFaU?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
All the pieces are very short, most don’t last for more than a minute. But it’s good stuff and adds a lot of relevant atmosphere to what is a unique, very enjoyable gaming experience.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS-7I6_zMxY?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407] #Animals #Cooking #cosy #CreatureKitchen #Cute #Entertainment #Fun #gaming #Horror #IndieGames #Lifestyle #TheRatZone
#theratzone #lifestyle #indiegames #horror #gaming #fun
Professional Moron @[email protected] · 2026-03-22 · 16:00 UTC
Creature Kitchen: Lots to Love in Charming Indie Gem 🦨

Creature Kitchen is a great fun cosy/horror cooking simulator. In this one, it’s your job to make friends with animals and feed them their favourite food. All to the tune of a cabin in the woods spooky type deal.
The game is by indie dev The Rat Zone (who runs a gloriously retro 90s style website). It’s a cheap one (£5), yet offers several hours of gameplay with lots of charming guffawing to be had. We love it!
TREMBLE in Horror (and cook food) in Creature Kitchen
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U8V5RcFSqs?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
This game launched in February 2026 and has had rave reviews on Steam.
The closest game we can think to this one is Metroidvania classic Animal Well (2024). It doesn’t have any cooking in it, but there’s the same animal-based creepy horror vibe. Plus, it isn’t at all scary (it just maintains a joke horror façade about it) as all the animals you meet are friendly.
Creature Kitchen is entirely its own thing, though, with lots of low-fi graphical cooking and exploration.
The whole THRUST of the game is to wander around in a creepy forest (where you love in a cabin), meet cute animals, source ingredients, and make your new animal friends food. Here it is in action.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2omfPJoP8eE?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
With around two hours of gameplay, Creature Kitchen never outstays its welcome. It’s just a fun, pick up and play blast you can have fun with one morning, afternoon, or evening. It’s all just very chilled out.
In an amusing blog post on The Rat Zone site (So uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh) from the 25th February, the devs noted this:
“We just want to reiterate that the reception to our funny animal game and the new influx of RAT FOLLOWERS has exceeded our wildest expectations. We started this collective 3(wow) years ago mainly as an outlet for a group of friends to hang out and create things together, and i guess we never expected our stuff to resonate with so so many of you. For now this is still technically a side gig for all of us, but your collective psionic energy will motivate us to make 1000 GAMEs. And each will be terrible/bad in a completely unique way!!”
It’s all part of the reason why we love indie games. We’re not sure who The Rat Zone is and who’s behind it all as the team has kept things secret. But what was supposed to just be a bit of fun for them has blown up with the game being a cult hit.
Which is fantabulous. It may only be two hours long, but Creature Kitchen is chilled out fun and we had a blast with it. Innit.
Creature Kitchen’s Lovely Little Soundtrack
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBrYF8207qI?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
The Rat Zone has kindly made the game’s great soundtrack available for free online. The music is by a whole bunch of artists. If you’re on Steam, you can download it all there (Creature Kitchen Soundtrack).
Someone called “ashfyre” is listed as the artist, but other mentions for pieces include:
- The Daydreamer by Session 0
- Really Bad by ‘AbsoluteGoob’
- Trapped by Caleb Klomparens
- Creature Hotline by Caleb Klomparens
- Feed the Creatures by ‘CocoaBeanz’
- The M.i.C – Instrumental by ‘Spikemasc’
- Snaps and Claps by Wesley Lippard
The result is chilled out ambience with all sorts of different genres. But we do like these relaxed guitar focussed ones the most.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfVeDP5iFaU?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407]
All the pieces are very short, most don’t last for more than a minute. But it’s good stuff and adds a lot of relevant atmosphere to what is a unique, very enjoyable gaming experience.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS-7I6_zMxY?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=723&h=407] #Animals #Cooking #cosy #CreatureKitchen #Cute #Entertainment #Fun #gaming #Horror #IndieGames #Lifestyle #TheRatZone
#animals #cooking #cosy #creaturekitchen #cute #entertainment
Baddie Book Reviews @[email protected] · 2026-03-22 · 21:31 UTC

When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy

Hello beautiful people! Welcome to a new review! For this review, I get into horror writer Nat Cassidy’s creepy and hard-to-put-down book, When the Wolf Comes Home. While not the first of his reads I have picked up, I really enjoyed this one and found it to be unique, scary, and riveting. It made me really look forward to checking out more of his books in the future.
Main Characters
Jess: Our main girl and, honestly, one of my favourite parts of this book, she’s messy, flawed, and emotional. Her empathy drives a lot of her decisions, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. When Jess meets the boy, she is brought into a horror scene she never expected. In an attempt to save him, she is pushed to intense limits and is forced to put herself in danger to try and help save the day.
The boy: Running away from a monster, the boy crosses paths with Jess, and is forced to face his fears in no way a child ever should, but he also has much more control than we may suspect.
Cookie: Jess’s mother, who, while maybe not always the best mom, pulls through for her daughter when it’s needed the most.
The man: The boy’s father, who follows Jess and him in an attempt to get him back, however, follows at a distance due to the danger that follows his son.
My Review
As mentioned before, I’ve checked out some of Nat Cassidy’s other books and found them to be scary, but extremely enjoyable. When the Wolf Comes Home is an action-filled, thrilling novel, filled with horror and some people’s worst nightmares. The characters are enjoyable (and sometimes aggravating), but the plot itself is unique, and unlike anything I’ve ever dived into before. I gave it an 8/10 rating overall and am looking forward to diving into more of Cassidy’s spooky tales in the future.
The story follows Jess as she gets pulled into a deeply unsettling and increasingly terrifying situation involving a young boy and something not quite right. What starts as concern quickly turns into something much darker, with reality bending in ways that feel both surreal and way too real at the same time. As things escalate, the book leans hard into fear, what it does to us, how it changes us, and the choices we make when we’re pushed to our limits. Jess is forced to fight her greatest fears to protect the boy, but she also questions if she can really protect him from himself, or the realities of his world. The boy must question if he can fight off the monsters that haunt him, or crumble to the fear of his reality and what is chasing him.
As mentioned before, I’ve checked out other books of Cassidy’s, and when When the Wolf Comes Home came across my way, I knew I had to check it out. I saw lots of positive reviews and felt like it lived up to the hype for sure. This book is so unique. Like, genuinely nothing I’ve read before. The plot is wild in a way that somehow still works and makes sense, and I was completely locked in watching it unfold. The creativity here is insane, and the way everything comes together? So satisfying. It’s heartbreaking at different points, intense in others, but also loving and sweet in others. It has its gory parts, and some areas are a bit harder to stomach, but if you read lots of horror like I do, it’s really nothing crazy.
It’s fast-paced, emotional, and straight-up creepy. Not just surface-level scary, either, it gets under your skin. The kind of book where you feel uneasy even when nothing is technically happening because you are just waiting for that other shoe to drop. What really stood out to me is how much it focuses on fear. Not just the classic there’s something scary chasing you theme, but how fear actually changes people. The decisions, the reactions, the spiral, it all felt very intentional and honestly a little too real at times.
Jess carried this book for me. I loved her. She’s not perfect, and that’s exactly why she works so well. Her empathy, even when it complicates things, made everything hit harder emotionally. And yeah, the kid can be annoying, but in a way that makes sense. He’s a child dealing with trauma, and the book doesn’t shy away from that. If anything, it adds to the emotional weight.
This is not a feel-good book. Like, at all. My heart hurt more than once. But it’s a damn good one.
I had such a good time with this, and it definitely solidified that I need to keep reading more from Nat Cassidy.
Has anyone else checked out When the Wolf Comes Home, or any other of Nat Cassidy’s reads? What did you think, and what others would you recommend?
Thank you for checking out this review! I hope you enjoyed! Feel free to subscribe to the page on the bottom of the site to be one of the first to know when I post a new review.
#bookReview #horrorBookReview #thrillerBookReview #bookBlogger #books #bookLover #fictionBooks #fictionBookReview #Fiction #BookBlog #ThrillerBooks #HorrorBook #BookReviewPage #HorrorBooks #HorrorBookReader #ThrillerBook #BookBlogs #BookReviews #Review #Reading #BookReader #BookPosts #BookRecommendations #HorrorBookReviews #HorrorNovels #Reader #Book #Recommendations #BookPost #Horror #BookOpinion #BookBlogging #WhenTheWolfComesHome #NatCassidy #WhenTheWolfComesHomeByNatCassidy #NatCassidyReview #WhenTheWolfComesHomeReview

#whenthewolfcomeshomereview #natcassidyreview #whenthewolfcomeshomebynatcassidy #natcassidy #whenthewolfcomeshome #bookblogging
Baddie Book Reviews @[email protected] · 2026-03-22 · 21:31 UTC

When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy

Hello beautiful people! Welcome to a new review! For this review, I get into horror writer Nat Cassidy’s creepy and hard-to-put-down book, When the Wolf Comes Home. While not the first of his reads I have picked up, I really enjoyed this one and found it to be unique, scary, and riveting. It made me really look forward to checking out more of his books in the future.
Main Characters
Jess: Our main girl and, honestly, one of my favourite parts of this book, she’s messy, flawed, and emotional. Her empathy drives a lot of her decisions, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. When Jess meets the boy, she is brought into a horror scene she never expected. In an attempt to save him, she is pushed to intense limits and is forced to put herself in danger to try and help save the day.
The boy: Running away from a monster, the boy crosses paths with Jess, and is forced to face his fears in no way a child ever should, but he also has much more control than we may suspect.
Cookie: Jess’s mother, who, while maybe not always the best mom, pulls through for her daughter when it’s needed the most.
The man: The boy’s father, who follows Jess and him in an attempt to get him back, however, follows at a distance due to the danger that follows his son.
My Review
As mentioned before, I’ve checked out some of Nat Cassidy’s other books and found them to be scary, but extremely enjoyable. When the Wolf Comes Home is an action-filled, thrilling novel, filled with horror and some people’s worst nightmares. The characters are enjoyable (and sometimes aggravating), but the plot itself is unique, and unlike anything I’ve ever dived into before. I gave it an 8/10 rating overall and am looking forward to diving into more of Cassidy’s spooky tales in the future.
The story follows Jess as she gets pulled into a deeply unsettling and increasingly terrifying situation involving a young boy and something not quite right. What starts as concern quickly turns into something much darker, with reality bending in ways that feel both surreal and way too real at the same time. As things escalate, the book leans hard into fear, what it does to us, how it changes us, and the choices we make when we’re pushed to our limits. Jess is forced to fight her greatest fears to protect the boy, but she also questions if she can really protect him from himself, or the realities of his world. The boy must question if he can fight off the monsters that haunt him, or crumble to the fear of his reality and what is chasing him.
As mentioned before, I’ve checked out other books of Cassidy’s, and when When the Wolf Comes Home came across my way, I knew I had to check it out. I saw lots of positive reviews and felt like it lived up to the hype for sure. This book is so unique. Like, genuinely nothing I’ve read before. The plot is wild in a way that somehow still works and makes sense, and I was completely locked in watching it unfold. The creativity here is insane, and the way everything comes together? So satisfying. It’s heartbreaking at different points, intense in others, but also loving and sweet in others. It has its gory parts, and some areas are a bit harder to stomach, but if you read lots of horror like I do, it’s really nothing crazy.
It’s fast-paced, emotional, and straight-up creepy. Not just surface-level scary, either, it gets under your skin. The kind of book where you feel uneasy even when nothing is technically happening because you are just waiting for that other shoe to drop. What really stood out to me is how much it focuses on fear. Not just the classic there’s something scary chasing you theme, but how fear actually changes people. The decisions, the reactions, the spiral, it all felt very intentional and honestly a little too real at times.
Jess carried this book for me. I loved her. She’s not perfect, and that’s exactly why she works so well. Her empathy, even when it complicates things, made everything hit harder emotionally. And yeah, the kid can be annoying, but in a way that makes sense. He’s a child dealing with trauma, and the book doesn’t shy away from that. If anything, it adds to the emotional weight.
This is not a feel-good book. Like, at all. My heart hurt more than once. But it’s a damn good one.
I had such a good time with this, and it definitely solidified that I need to keep reading more from Nat Cassidy.
Has anyone else checked out When the Wolf Comes Home, or any other of Nat Cassidy’s reads? What did you think, and what others would you recommend?
Thank you for checking out this review! I hope you enjoyed! Feel free to subscribe to the page on the bottom of the site to be one of the first to know when I post a new review.
#Book #BookBlog #bookBlogger #BookBlogging #BookBlogs #bookLover #BookOpinion #BookPost #BookPosts #BookReader #BookRecommendations #bookReview #BookReviewPage #BookReviews #books #Fiction #fictionBookReview #fictionBooks #Horror #HorrorBook #HorrorBookReader #horrorBookReview #HorrorBookReviews #HorrorBooks #HorrorNovels #NatCassidy #NatCassidyReview #Reader #Reading #Recommendations #Review #ThrillerBook #thrillerBookReview #ThrillerBooks #WhenTheWolfComesHome #WhenTheWolfComesHomeByNatCassidy #WhenTheWolfComesHomeReview

#book #bookblog #bookblogger #bookblogging #bookblogs #booklover
Professional Moron @[email protected] · 2026-05-13 · 16:00 UTC

Das Boot: The Limit of Human Endurance in The Boat 🌊

Wolfgang Petersen’s claustrophobic classic Das Boot (The Boat) remains one of West Germany’s most famous films. It was adapted from Lothar-Günther Buchheim’s 1973 semi-autobiographical book.
Set during WWII, the story follows the German submarine U-96 and the difficulties its crew faces. A relentlessly bleak film, it holds a clear anti-war message alongside several Nazi characters clearly having reached a point of total disdain for the regime. Timely, then, and still a very impressive film.
The Very Strong Anti-War Message of Das Boot

Interesting starting point, but Lothar-Günther Buchheim (1918-2007) didn’t make much of the film adaptation. He felt it didn’t properly convey his book’s anti-war message.
Our first viewing of the film wasn’t that at all. It has very clear anti-war messages and the bleakness of its ending alone makes that abundantly obvious. Not a big spoiler here, but after some horrendous ordeals out at sea the U-96 crew is all blown to smithereens by the Royal Air Force. On Christmas Eve when back on land.
What’s impressive about the film is how it portrays the ship’s crew. Although Nazi members, some have clear anti-Hitler stances, such as Kapitänleutnant Philipp Thomsen (Otto Sander). Suffering PTSD and a clear raging alcoholic, he mocks Hitler during a party.

And if that seems like too convincing a bit of drunk acting, it’s because Sander was very drunk when he filmed it. Method acting.
Another cynic is the submarine’s Kapitänleutnant (Jürgen Prochnow) who openly mocks Nazi state messages and propaganda. His crew also just come across as desperate, trapped in the submarine whilst being bombed and spending months out at sea.

For viewers, Das Boot is a psychological onslaught. Seeing this in a cinema must have been draining, but the message is very clear. At 149 minutes, you don’t get any room to breathe.
There are the tense conflicts in confined quarters, flooding, and then the long periods of intense boredom for the crew. And as the viewer, you live through all that and feel the cold, sweat, and tears.
PTSD kicks in for several crew members. With Kapitänleutnant fighting to uphold morale as his belief in the war effort dwindles. All of which builds to a crushing conclusion of total nihilistic defeat—all the suffering, for nothing.
Yes, then, not an uplifting film in any respect.
But a technically very impressive one, with a very convincing set of actors. And as you can read below, they were so convincing as they genuinely had to endure a hellish time of it.
The Production of Das Boot

This was a major West German production involving the studios Bavaria Film, Radiant Film, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, and SWR Fernsehen. They cobbled together the impressive budget of DM 32 million (€17.4 million in 2021 cash).
The film was a hit, too, making a 2025 equivalent of $283 million.
Production initially began in 1976 with Robert Redford involved in the project as Kapitänleutnant. But then the effort was cancelled, before being picked up to become the most expensive German film of its day (only beaten in expensive come 2006).
Rutger Hauer was also offered the lead role, but chose instead a role in a certain film called Blade Runner (1982).
Filming took 12 months and was chaotic and gruelling, with most of Das Boot shot in sequence (unlike most other films). This meant beard growth and weight loss is very real in the film, alongside the increasingly haggard looking actors.
The actors were warned to avoid sunlight as much as possible. The guys do end up looking very pallid by mid-way into the film and that’s why.
For scenes inside the submarine, a giant mock-up was created for the actors to do their thing in. Crew members would shake it, rock it, and tilt the shell at angles.
The director’s obsessive approach paid off with critical and commercial success.
It got six Oscar nominations, too, but didn’t win any. On the plus side, he did win the German Film Award for Best Film. All good going, even if the book’s author didn’t rate the work.
#antiWar #Cinema #DasBoot #Films #History #LotharGüntherBuchheim #Movies #TheBoat #War #WolfgangPetersen #WorldWarII #WWII

#antiwar #cinema #dasboot #films #history #lotharguntherbuchheim
Professional Moron @[email protected] · 2026-05-13 · 16:00 UTC

Das Boot: The Limit of Human Endurance in The Boat 🌊

Wolfgang Petersen’s claustrophobic classic Das Boot (The Boat) remains one of West Germany’s most famous films. It was adapted from Lothar-Günther Buchheim’s 1973 semi-autobiographical book.
Set during WWII, the story follows the German submarine U-96 and the difficulties its crew faces. A relentlessly bleak film, it holds a clear anti-war message alongside several Nazi characters clearly having reached a point of total disdain for the regime. Timely, then, and still a very impressive film.
The Very Strong Anti-War Message of Das Boot

Interesting starting point, but Lothar-Günther Buchheim (1918-2007) didn’t make much of the film adaptation. He felt it didn’t properly convey his book’s anti-war message.
Our first viewing of the film wasn’t that at all. It has very clear anti-war messages and the bleakness of its ending alone makes that abundantly obvious. Not a big spoiler here, but after some horrendous ordeals out at sea the U-96 crew is all blown to smithereens by the Royal Air Force. On Christmas Eve when back on land.
What’s impressive about the film is how it portrays the ship’s crew. Although Nazi members, some have clear anti-Hitler stances, such as Kapitänleutnant Philipp Thomsen (Otto Sander). Suffering PTSD and a clear raging alcoholic, he mocks Hitler during a party.

And if that seems like too convincing a bit of drunk acting, it’s because Sander was very drunk when he filmed it. Method acting.
Another cynic is the submarine’s Kapitänleutnant (Jürgen Prochnow) who openly mocks Nazi state messages and propaganda. His crew also just come across as desperate, trapped in the submarine whilst being bombed and spending months out at sea.

For viewers, Das Boot is a psychological onslaught. Seeing this in a cinema must have been draining, but the message is very clear. At 149 minutes, you don’t get any room to breathe.
There are the tense conflicts in confined quarters, flooding, and then the long periods of intense boredom for the crew. And as the viewer, you live through all that and feel the cold, sweat, and tears.
PTSD kicks in for several crew members. With Kapitänleutnant fighting to uphold morale as his belief in the war effort dwindles. All of which builds to a crushing conclusion of total nihilistic defeat—all the suffering, for nothing.
Yes, then, not an uplifting film in any respect.
But a technically very impressive one, with a very convincing set of actors. And as you can read below, they were so convincing as they genuinely had to endure a hellish time of it.
The Production of Das Boot

This was a major West German production involving the studios Bavaria Film, Radiant Film, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, and SWR Fernsehen. They cobbled together the impressive budget of DM 32 million (€17.4 million in 2021 cash).
The film was a hit, too, making a 2025 equivalent of $283 million.
Production initially began in 1976 with Robert Redford involved in the project as Kapitänleutnant. But then the effort was cancelled, before being picked up to become the most expensive German film of its day (only beaten in expensive come 2006).
Rutger Hauer was also offered the lead role, but chose instead a role in a certain film called Blade Runner (1982).
Filming took 12 months and was chaotic and gruelling, with most of Das Boot shot in sequence (unlike most other films). This meant beard growth and weight loss is very real in the film, alongside the increasingly haggard looking actors.
The actors were warned to avoid sunlight as much as possible. The guys do end up looking very pallid by mid-way into the film and that’s why.
For scenes inside the submarine, a giant mock-up was created for the actors to do their thing in. Crew members would shake it, rock it, and tilt the shell at angles.
The director’s obsessive approach paid off with critical and commercial success.
It got six Oscar nominations, too, but didn’t win any. On the plus side, he did win the German Film Award for Best Film. All good going, even if the book’s author didn’t rate the work.
#antiWar #Cinema #DasBoot #Films #History #LotharGüntherBuchheim #Movies #TheBoat #War #WolfgangPetersen #WorldWarII #WWII

#wwii #worldwarii #wolfgangpetersen #war #theboat #movies
(Roughly) Daily @[email protected] · 2026-04-10 · 08:00 UTC

“I tend to think that most fears about A.I. are best understood as fears about capitalism”*…

Further to Wednesday‘s and yesterday‘s posts (on to other topics again after this, I promise), a powerful piece from Patrick Tanguay (in his always-illuminating Sentiers newsletter).
He begins with a consideration of Peter Wolfendale’s “Geist in the machine“
… Wolfendale argues that the current AI debate recapitulates an 18th-century conflict between mechanism and romanticism. On one side, naive rationalists (Yudkowsky, Bostrom, much of Silicon Valley) assume intelligence is ultimately reducible to calculation; throw enough computing power at the problem and the gap between human and machine closes. On the other, popular romantics (Bender, Noë, many artists) insist that something about human cognition, whether it’s embodiment, meaning, or consciousness, can never be mechanised. Wolfendale finds both positions insufficient. The rationalists reduce difficult choices to optimisation problems, while the romantics bundle distinct capacities into a single vague essence.
His alternative draws on Kant and Hegel. He separates what we loosely call the “soul” into three capacities: wisdom (the metacognitive ability to reformulate problems, not just solve them), creativity (the ability to invent new rules rather than search through existing ones), and autonomy (the capacity to question and revise our own motivations). Current AI systems show glimmers of the first two but lack the third entirely. Wolfendale treats autonomy as the defining feature of personhood: not a hidden essence steering action, but the ongoing process of asking who we want to be and revising our commitments accordingly. Following Hegel he calls this Geist, spirit as self-reflective freedom.
Wolfendale doesn’t ask whether machines can have souls; he argues we should build them, and that the greater risk lies in not doing so. Machines that handle all our meaningful choices without possessing genuine autonomy would sever us from the communities of mutual recognition through which we pursue truth, beauty, and justice. A perfectly optimised servant that satisfies our preferences while leaving us unchanged is, in his phrase, “a slave so abject it masters us.” Most philosophical treatments of AI consciousness end with a verdict on possibility. Wolfendale ends with an ethical imperative: freedom is best preserved by extending it.
I can’t say I agree, unless “we”… end up with a completely different relationship to our technology and capital. However, his argument all the way before then is a worthy reflection, and pairs well with the one below and another from issue No.387. I’m talking about Anil Seth’s The mythology of conscious AI, where he argues that consciousness probably requires biological life and that silicon-based AI is unlikely to achieve it. Seth maps the biological terrain that makes consciousness hard to replicate; Wolfendale maps the philosophical terrain that makes personhood worth pursuing anyway, on entirely different grounds. Seth ends where the interesting problem begins for Wolfendale: even if machines can’t be conscious, the question of whether they can be autonomous persons, capable of self-reflective revision, remains open:
Though GenAI systems can’t usually compete with human creatives on their own, they are increasingly being used as imaginative prosthetics. This symbiosis reveals that what distinguishes human creativity is not the precise range of heuristics embedded in our perceptual systems, but our metacognitive capacity to modulate and combine them in pursuit of novelty. What makes our imaginative processes conscious is our ability to self-consciously intervene in them, deliberately making unusual choices or drawing analogies between disparate tasks. And yet metacognition is nothing on its own. If reason demands revision, new rules must come from somewhere. […]
[Hubert Dreyfus] argues that the comparative robustness of human intelligence lies in our ability to navigate the relationships between factors and determine what matters in any practical situation. He claims that this wouldn’t be possible were it not for our bodies, which shape the range of actions we can perform, and our needs, which unify our various goals and projects into a structured framework. Dreyfus argues that, without bodies and needs, machines will never match us. […]
This is the basic link between self-determination and self-justification. For Hegel, to be free isn’t simply to be oneself – it isn’t enough to play by one’s own rules. We must also be responsive to error, ensuring not just that inconsistencies in our principles and practices are resolved, but that we build frameworks to hold one another mutually accountable. […]
Delegating all our choices to mere automatons risks alienating us from our sources of meaning. If we consume only media optimised for our personal preferences, generated by AIs with no preferences of their own, then we will cease to belong to aesthetic communities in which tastes are assessed, challenged and deepened. We will no longer see ourselves and one another as even passively involved in the pursuit of beauty. Without mutual recognition in science and civic life, we might as easily be estranged from truth and right – told how to think and act by anonymous machines rather than experts we hold to account…
Tanguay then turns to “The Prospect of Butlerian Jihad” by Liam Mullally, in which Mullally uses…
… Herbert’s Dune and the Butlerian Jihad [here] as a lens for what he sees as a growing anti-tech “structure of feeling” (Raymond Williams’s term): the diffuse public unease about AI, enshittification, surveillance, and tech oligarchs that has not yet solidified into coherent politics. The closest thing to a political expression so far is neo-Luddism, which Mullally credits for drawing attention to technological exploitation but finds insufficient. His concern is that the impulse to reject technology wholesale smuggles in essentialist assumptions about human nature, a romantic defence of “pure” humanity against the corruption of machines. He traces this logic back to Samuel Butler’s 1863 essay Darwin Among the Machines, which framed the human-technology relationship as a zero-sum contest for supremacy, and notes that Butler’s framing was “explicitly supremacist,” written from within colonial New Zealand and structured by the same logic of domination it claimed to resist.
The alternative Mullally proposes draws on Bernard Stiegler’s concept of “originary technicity”: the idea that human subjectivity has always been constituted in part by its tools, that there is no pre-technological human to defend. [see here] If that’s right, then opposing technology as such is an “ontological confusion,” a fight against something that is already part of what we are. The real problem is not machines but the economic logic that shapes their development and deployment. Mullally is clear-eyed about this: capital does not have total command over its technologies, and understanding how they work is a precondition for contesting them. He closes by arguing that the anti-tech structure of feeling is “there for the taking,” but only if it can be redirected. The fights ahead are between capital and whatever coalition can form against it, not between humanity and machines. Technology is a terrain in that conflict; abandoning it means losing before the contest begins.
Wolfendale’s Geist in the Machine above arrived at a parallel conclusion from a different direction: where Mullally argues that rejecting technology means defending a false vision of the human, Wolfendale argues that refusing to extend autonomy to machines risks severing us from the self-reflective freedom that makes us persons in the first place. Both reject the romantic position, but for different reasons:
To the extent that neo-Luddites bring critical attention to technology, they are doing useful work. But this anti-tech sentiment frequently cohabitates with something uneasy: the treatment of technology as some abstract and impenetrable evil, and the retreat, against this, into essentialist views of the human. […]
If “humanity” is not a thing-in-itself, but historically, socially and technically mutable, then the sphere of possibility of the human and of our world becomes much broader. Our relationship to the non-human — to technology or to nature — does not need to be one of control, domination and exploitation. […]
As calls for a fight back against technology grow, the left needs to carefully consider what it is advocating for. Are we fighting the exploitation of workers, the hollowing out of culture and the destruction of the earth via technology, or are we rallying in defence of false visions of pure, a-technical humanity? […]
The anti-tech structure of feeling is there for the taking. But if it is to lead anywhere, it must be taken carefully: a fightback against technological exploitation will be found not in the complete rejection of technology, but in the short-circuiting of one kind of technology and the development of another.
As Max Read (scroll down) observes:
… if we understand A.I. as a product of the systems that precede it, I think it’s fair to say ubiquitous A.I.-generated text is “inevitable” in the same way that high-volume blogs were “inevitable” or Facebook fake news pages were “inevitable”: Not because of some “natural” superiority or excellence, but because they follow so directly from the logic of the system out of which they emerge. In this sense A.I. is “inevitable” precisely because it’s not revolutionary…
The question isn’t if we want a relationship with technology; it’s what kind of relationship we want. We’ve always (at least since we’ve been a conscious species) co-existed with, and been shaped by, tools; we’ve always suffered the “friction” of technological transition as we innovate new tools. As yesterday’s post suggested (in its defense of the open web in the face on a voracious attack from powerful LLM companies), “what matters is power“… power to shape the relationship(s) we have with the technologies we use. That power is currently in the hands of a relatively few companies, all concerned above all else with harvesting as much money as they can from “uses” they design to amplify that engagement and ease that monetization. It doesn’t, of course, have to be this way.
We’ve lived under modern capitalism for only a few hundred years, and under the hyper-global, hyper-extractive regime we currently inhabit for only a century-and-a-half or so, during which time, in fits and starts, it has grown ever more rapcious. George Monbiot observed that “like coal, capitalism has brought many benefits. But, like coal, it now causes more harm than good.” And Ursula Le Guin, that “we live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.” In many countries, “divine right” monarchy has been replaced by “constitutional monarchy.” Perhaps it’s time for more of the world to consider “constitutional capitalism.” We could start by learning from the successes and failures of Scandinavia and Europe.
Social media, AI, quantum computing– on being clear as to the real issue: “Geist in the machine & The prospect of Butlerian Jihad,” from @inevernu.bsky.social.
Apposite: “The enclosure of the commons inaugurates a new ecological order. Enclosure did not just physically transfer the control over grasslands from the peasants to the lord. It marked a radical change in the attitudes of society toward the environment.”
(All this said, David Chalmers argues that there’s one possibility that might change everything: “Could a Large Language Model be Conscious?” On the other hand, the ARC Prize Foundation suggests, we have some time: a test they devised for benchmarking agentic intelligence recently found that “humans can solve 100% of the environments, in contrast to frontier AI systems which, as of March 2026, score below 1%”… :)
* Ted Chiang (gift article; see also here and here and here)
###
As we keep our eyes on the prize, we might spare a thought for a man who wrestled with a version of these same issues in the last century, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin; he died on this date in 1955. A Jesuit theologian, philosopher, geologist, and paleontologist, he conceived the idea of the Omega Point (a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which he believed the universe was evolving) and developed Vladimir Vernadsky‘s concept of noosphere. Teilhard took part in the discovery of Peking Man, and wrote on the reconciliation of faith and evolutionary theory. His thinking on both these fronts was censored during his lifetime by the Catholic Church (in particular for its implications for “original sin”); but in 2009, they lifted their ban.

source
#AI #artificialIntelligence #BernardStiegler #ButlerianJihad #capitalism #computing #consolidation #culture #Hegel #history #Kant #LiamMullally #noosphere #OmegaPoint #PatrickTanguay #PeterWolfendale #philosophy #PierreTeilhardDeChardin #socialMedia #Technology #TeilhardDeChardin

#ai #artificialintelligence #bernardstiegler #butlerianjihad #capitalism #computing
Kat Kourbeti @[email protected] · 2026-03-27 · 14:48 UTC
Battle for the Ballot: Best Dramatic Presentation 2026

The two Best Dramatic Presentation categories are among my favourites in the Hugos, because I consume a lot of SFF media and have a lot of thoughts and feelings about them. Since my post last year about why I had wanted Loki S2 to win a Hugo in 2024 (which I was working on for a while but ended up not posting it in time for it to sway anyone), I’ve been toying with the idea of producing more writing around some of my favourite things from each year, in case it helps anybody—least of all me, in getting it all out of my system.
I know I’m posting this with one day to go before nominations (these take so long for me! I must develop a better system for next year 🤔), but I’m really writing this to sound out my own thoughts about the DP categories this year, because it is absolutely bananas with how stacked they both are. There have been some truly great speculative television shows and films, stuff that I’m sure we’ll still be talking about for years to come, and making decisions to boil my favourite media down to just 5 per category—especially given the fiddliness of Long Form and Short Form where TV is concerned, which I’ll get to in a sec—is going to be excruciatingly difficult for me.
So come along on a journey with me as I parse my thoughts, and who knows! Maybe I’ll argue my way to your heart about some of this, or tell you about something you hadn’t heard of before—some of which I’ve already written about before, but I’m getting ahead of myself!
Let me know what your ballot looks like, and if you’re nominating any of the below shows, films, and other dramatic works, or if you’re including other things entirely. I’m curious!
TV series and the Long Form/Short Form debate
A big question for many fen every year is “do I nominate one episode from a TV series that stands on its own or that adequately represents the show in Short Form, or do I nominate the whole season in Long Form because it’s one complete narrative, and isolating one chapter of it would be unfair?”
Understandably, it’s a tough one; when a show inevitably gets votes in both categories, it can lead to headaches for the Hugo Administrating Team as they have to sift through the numbers and ultimately decide which category it should be nominated in1, which I don’t envy at all. But at the same time, as a voter, I have to go with what my heart says and name my favourite episodes in Short Form, regardless of whether I’ve also named the show/season as a whole in Long Form, because if enough others have put that same episode down, then that’s what’ll make it through to the shortlist, and I would want my vote to count towards those totals.
All that to say: if you expected a clear stance from me on this, HA! I’m afraid I don’t have one 😇—and to be perfectly honest, this is exactly the sort of thing where people’s mileage will vary the most.
My personal method of deciding whether to nominate entire TV seasons rather than one specific episode is purely based on ~vibes~, on whether or not I thought the season works better in its totality than through its individual parts, versus cases where one outstanding episode eclipses all the others for me. Not all shows are written the same, of course, and those that favour a longer narrative arc (as a lot of prestige TV does nowadays) tend to find their way on my long form ballot more often than not, as opposed to the more episodic writing that isn’t as popular now but used to be ubiquitous in the pre-streaming era.
Ultimately, you may agree or disagree with me on my reasoning for some of my choices below, whether on the LF/SF question or my actual opinions of the various media, and that’s fair enough. I welcome discussion in the comments, but please keep it civil!
Jump to:
Long Form: Entire TV Seasons
You might see episodes from some of these further down in the episode/short form discussion.

Andor, Season 2+

This is kind of my front-runner among the TV seasons for the Long Form category. Overall, I enjoyed it slightly more than season 1 for a few reasons: first of all, the pacing was much more even, with a little bit more action and intrigue peppered throughout the season as opposed to having several quieter mini-arcs that slowed things down in places; and crucially, there was a lot less dithering from Cassian Andor, our reluctant protagonist, who finally comes into his own as a rebel after being passively tossed about this way and that in the first season. The agency he has in this one makes him much more interesting as a character, and brings him on the same level as other players in the budding rebellion front, like Mon Mothma and Luthen Rael. In fact, with all the different character arcs completed, Andor finally becomes what Rogue One always wanted to be: a testament to the great sacrifices necessary for revolution to take root.
I liked a lot of what went down in this season as tensions continued ramping up between the Empire and the Rebellion; the Ghorman subplot was outstanding, especially with Dedra and Cyril’s journeys as instruments of Imperial oppression and violence, as was Mon Mothma’s arc from quiet resistance financier to full-on political rebel on the run, with her heartbreaking arc where she realises the personal cost of rebellion. None of the individual episodes in season 2 came even close to the intensity or narrative brilliance of One Way Out, which was hands down my favourite episode of season 1, but that’s okay—I think this season works so much better in its totality, that I’ll be happy to nominate it wholesale.
I still need to re-watch Rogue One actually, to see if my (very mid) opinion on it changes at all, but ultimately I’m just really happy this show was made, and that it looked and felt amazing throughout. It’s probably my favourite Star Wars story, period, and I am so chuffed that so much of it was filmed in the UK (in locations I know and visit all the time, including my old workplace!2), and is full of incredibly talented and classically trained British theatre actors who fill the space with their physicality and make their performances memorable even in the smallest of roles3.

Severance, Season 2+

Another really strong contender for this category. If you ask me which TV show might win the LF Hugo between this, Andor, or Pluribus, my money would probably be on Severance, even if I personally prefer Andor thematically and Pluribus cinematically. There’s no doubt Severance is an absolute masterpiece of television—nay, of cinema—and the fact that the most anti-capitalist story of our time is coming directly from the big tech megacorp Apple is an irony that is as delicious as it is hilarious.
Aside from its bonkers world-building (which still has so many unanswered questions!), this season of Severance also dove pretty deep into its characters, whom we only got to know a bit in season 1. I don’t want to get too spoilery here, but there’s a handful of moments in this season that go SO HARD—particularly that one slow episode that everyone else hated for some reason, where we follow Patricia Arquette’s character as she goes to her dingy home town and fills us in on the cult lore around Lumon Industries, and of course the team building episode in which our intrepid heroes actually go outside, but it’s all weird in that trademark Lumon way where nothing really fully makes sense, and it leaves the viewer feeling uncomfortable, like something’s not quite aligned right.
But yeah, the world-building, man. It’s something else. I was glued to my screen and my mind was running a mile a minute trying to join the dots and figure out the answers to the show’s mysteries, much like our heroes consolidate memories refine macrodata—remember, the work is mysterious and important—and the excitement of getting it just before the show confirmed it was super fun. Yet, finally understanding what macrodata refinement is was actually a really tragic moment, and everything that happens after that made my heart break for the innies who are stuck living a half-life they can’t escape, on pain of death.
Ultimately, what I loved the most about the second season of Severance is its staunch anti-capitalist messaging that speaks to the average office worker today regardless of where they may be in the world, because corporate manipulation knows no borders:
- A job is a job, not a family.
- The company you work for does not deserve blind, cult-like loyalty.
- Your life is more than just work, and compartmentalising your work self and your out-of-work self might be a band-aid solution, but it doesn’t really work in the end.
- You are you, with all your complex layers of self, even if your corporate overlords (…or just your line manager 🤐) want you to think otherwise, or to act otherwise so you can fit into their office culture.
- Basically, it’s all dumb, and you deserve to live, not just to survive so you can punch your clock card and get meaningless little bonuses like finger traps or waffle parties.
This relatability is what keeps me hooked, and what I think elevates the show from pretty sci-fi to a classic of our times. It’s definitely got my vote.

Pluribus, Season 1+

God, talk about another cinematic masterpiece. When Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul‘s Vince Gilligan said he was working on a new show (which he was writing specifically for Rhea Seahorn to star in), I was crossing my fingers and my toes that it would be sci-fi, and Pluribus has completely blown my expectations out of the water. Not only does it mark Gilligan’s return to science fiction for the first time since The X-Files, but he brings his now-trademark cinematic visual language to it, full of tight choreography and nuanced subtext through visual and music cues, which is what made BB & BCS so special.
The result is an unnerving combination of horror, absurdist humour, and subtle world-building, centered around a complex character named Carol Sturka, who is one of only a few humans not to join the weird hive mind connection that takes over all other human beings on the planet, and doesn’t want to even entertain the idea. I’ve seen many reviews call her unlikable and unrelatable, and while the first part may be true (I was really tired of her contrarian nature in the first half of the season), I think there’s something more going on here than just a selfish white American woman who expects the world to move just for her.
The thing is, Vince Gilligan does not talk down to his audience; he expects us to keep up and to pick up what he’s putting down, whether that’s subtle digs at the publishing industry (it is truly hilarious to me that the protagonist of this show is an actual romantasy author!), not-so-subtle digs about community building and the harm humanity has done to the planet and to each other (particularly around resource distribution, iykyk), and questions about human nature that we are left to ponder: would you trade world peace for the complete flattening of human culture? Are we capable of retaining what makes us human while not actively harming the world around us, or each other? What is humanity, really, or human nature even?
Big stuff coming from an Apple TV show, once again; should I even be surprised at this point?
I think the long game of this show is going to be Carol’s character development from grumpy selfish miser to someone who genuinely cares about other people—a reverse Walter White, if you will. Gilligan is all about the narrative arc, and he has been known to deliver some of the best narrative arcs in TV ever, even if they take a while to stick the landing. I have faith that he is cooking something we haven’t even yet begun to poke at, if Better Call Saul is any indication, and between the already great writing and the show’s superlative production value, I think Pluribus is going to be a low-key modern classic. Vince has my vote, now and always.

My Hero Academia: The Final Season+

I wrote about this extensively in my Hugo ballot recommendations post a couple of months ago, so I’ll pull a quote from that as to why I loved it so much:
Y’all, what can I say: this has been my favourite anime of the last decade, and the fact it is ending has had me in my feelings for months. I’ve been deeply invested emotionally for many years, watching the simulcasts on the same day as the anime airs in Japan since around season 2, and this last season has been all payoff for almost ten years’ worth of story. Every Saturday from October 4th till December 13th, I tuned in and bawled my eyes out for 20 minutes straight, which for an anime aimed at teenage boys is an absolute feat. Defying every expectation, it stuck the landing for every little story beat, every subplot, and every theme set up over its ten year tenure perfectly, making it one of my absolute favourite stories in the superhero genre.
This is definitely one of those where context is essential, so I don’t think it can be viewed in a vacuum and appreciated to the same extent as having watched all previous seven seasons. You can try, but it wouldn’t be worth it just for the awards. Just watch the show so the ending can hit you like a ton of bricks in the best way possible, even if you miss the deadline. It’s fun, it’s moving, it’s made with so much love for American comics through a uniquely Japanese perspective. I can’t recommend it enough, and it’ll definitely be on my Long Form ballot even if I’m one of ten people who put it there 🤷🏻‍♀️

Honourable mentions/near misses+
- Silo, Season 2: It’s definitely not as tight as season 1, and it was missing some stuff from the books that may well turn up in season 3. For what it’s worth, there’s a lot I enjoyed about this season, but unfortunately it’s simply weaker when Rebecca Ferguson’s Juliette isn’t on screen, and there’s a lot of that unfortunately. I’m certainly looking forward to what season 3 will be adapting, and to see what format that will take, as I think they’re either condensing or axing the second half of book 2 to go straight to the dual narrative of book 3, which I have mixed feelings about.
- Murderbot: I never got into the books because of tonal whiplash (MB’s violence and misanthropy coated in dry humour just didn’t work for me), and while I thought the TV show was a little better in that regard, ultimately I thought the show was just okay. I didn’t actively dislike it, mind, but I watched most of it on a plane ride, didn’t finish it, and haven’t felt like picking it back up since. The story just doesn’t grab me, I think, and I never felt particularly attached to or compelled by any of the characters… and I’m okay with that 🤷🏻‍♀️. Not everything is for everyone! I expect it’ll be mass-nominated by all the book fans anyway based on the online discourse I’ve seen, so it won’t miss my vote.
- Invasion, Season 3: I didn’t even know this was out, lmao! I was deeply invested while watching seasons 1 and 2 (even though I disliked quite a few of the characters), but as soon as I was done with it I promptly forgot about it—and Apple TV didn’t even let me know that it was back on. Whomst can I shake until they fix the marketing situation over there?! Christ on a cracker!
- Stranger Things, Season 5: To my own surprise, I didn’t like this season nearly as much as season 4, let alone season 1, and so I will not be considering it for the Long Form category (including the last episode, which would qualify under Long Form on its own due to being 128 MINUTES LONG 🙄). It’s turned out to be one of those things where, while I enjoyed it a fair bit in the moment, the longer I think about it the more my feelings about it seem to change, and the ending has left me a bit… conflicted, shall we say. But it did have some great episodes in the middle especially, so I will consider a couple of them in the Short Form category.
Long Form: Films

Sinners+

This was probably my favourite SFF film of last year. Not only is it atmospheric, fun, and lush with cross-border folkloric world-building (Hoodoo magic and Irish vampires?! yes please!), but the story touches so many themes that a regular popcorn movie won’t even veer towards, and it does so brilliantly.
All the many layers of the Black and POC experience in the South during the Prohibition era (and beyond) are crystallised in the character arc of each ensemble cast member, with some absolutely outstanding performances by Hailee Steinfeld (whose character Mary is biracial, and torn between safety and belonging), Michael B. Jordan (who plays identical twins Smoke and Stack so well he walked away with an Oscar for it), and Wunmi Mosaku in particular as Smoke’s wife Annie (she’s such an underrated performer, but I’m so glad to see her actually flex her acting skills after her appearance in Loki). We’re talking themes like the push and pull of religion and its role in both keeping communities together and also oppressing them, the safety of BIPOC in a white supremacist society, and even the immigrant experience… the truth is your average blockbuster would never—but this is Ryan Coogler, and he won’t sugar-coat things for a mainstream audience, instead telling a story only he could tell, filled with truth, complexity, and nuance, something I really wish more filmmakers would embrace nowadays.
The film’s protagonist, Sammie (Miles Caton) has a preternatural gift with music, and the plot revolves around a juke joint Smoke and Stack put together, and the connection that music can create across time and even culture—with a wonderful supernatural twist.
One of my favourite moments is when the villain Remmick (an immortal Irish vampire played by Jack O’Connell) turns up at their juke joint and cries with joy at the emotions Sammie’s music has brought him after years of numbness. He talks about his own experience of colonialism at the hands of the British Empire and the subsequent erasure of Irish culture through the centuries, which is a very real thing—but he’s also a predator who has been making his way through the land trying to trap people and turn them into vampires, chased away by indigenous people who could tell he was a monster before attacking a couple who are Klan members. It’s clear that he doesn’t want Sammie’s music in order to connect people, but to use it as a tool on his quest to propagate a vampire race, and that seemingly sweet moment of connection is exposed as the performative allyship that it is.
There are some phenomenal action sequences too, with the last third of the film keeping me on the edge of my IMAX seat4. Genuinely, this film was such a breath of fresh air: delightfully complex but also fun, in ways that cinema just doesn’t dare to be right now. I was sad they didn’t win all the awards they were up for, but perhaps we can give it a Hugo instead.

Frankenstein+
©️ Netflix 2025
I have a full review of this here, but basically: the SFF-ness of this is lush, as expected from a Guillermo Del Toro movie, and for the most part it works well as an adaptation of the book. As I mention in my other post, it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the NT’s theatre adaptation, which I still consider the ultimate version of this story, but it does similar things with the characters as Penny Dreadful, which is my runner-up favourite, save for the very end, and it’s that ending that makes the whole thing fall short for me, unfortunately.
To quote myself:
Why do we sing sad songs, when we know their ending is unhappy? When our instinctual yearning for a happy ending is met with the inevitability of human flaws getting in the way, that emotional release we experience is what my ancestors called catharsis. As the audience we accept that because of who these characters are, they would always make these choices and lead the story to the same outcome, time and again, even though we’d like them to change, to choose better, so they can be happy in the end.
What makes Frankenstein compelling in any iteration is its core conflict: Victor’s refusal to acknowledge the Creature as human, despite the fact that the Creature is deeply human, as much as his creator would like to think otherwise. We are invited to empathise with the Creature’s plight, to see how he thinks and feels, how he desires things we all do: safety, friendship, love. Victor is incapable of recognising this, and so the two clash eternally. Such is the tragedy, and no matter what minor changes are made to it, the good adaptations always recognise the impasse between the two at the end. It’s what makes the story tick.
My ultimate issue with the way Del Toro chose to end his adaptation of Frankenstein is that it ultimately robs us of our deserved catharsis by artificially resolving the incontrovertible stalemate between the two leads, giving us a happy(ish) ending in which Victor, at death’s door, forgives the Creature for the violence and destruction he’s wrought, apologises for what he did to him, and urges him to live on, free of guilt, yet completely alone. The Creature then walks off into the Arctic sunrise, liberated from his vendetta yet devastated at losing his creator.
It’s a lovely thought in principle, a Del Toro-ism about accepting one’s nature and walking away from one’s painful past, and if it were an original story without baggage I’d be all for it—after all, The Shape of Water had similar, pro-monster themes of letting go of trying to fit into a world that won’t accept you anyway, and I ate that up voraciously. But here, in taking a tragedy that is so classic and ingrained, loading it with a bunch of new traumas and subplots, and then resolving it all with a little monologue, the ending robs the story of its true conclusion, fundamentally missing the point of the source text, and doing a disservice both to Victor and the Creature.
I still think it’s a strong contender in the category, and definitely one of my favourite SFF movies I saw last year, despite my issues with it. However, given all my favourite TV shows above, I think I might eschew giving this one of my ballot spots, but I won’t be disappointed to see it on the final ballot, should it make it through.

Thunderbolts*+

I loved this movie A LOT, you guys, and it made me very sad that it flopped at the box office. I don’t blame people for being fatigued with Marvel’s mediocre superhero slop, but they should have given this movie a chance at the very least, because it might not have been the movie we wanted, but it was definitely the movie we needed right now.
(c) Disney/Marvel Studios, 2025
I was very surprised with how deep it went into the trauma our various superheroes and anti-heroes have sustained through their previous adventures, and the level of empathy with which it treated them all:
- Yelena Belova, the last surviving Black Widow5, starts off depressed and morose, aimless, dissatisfied with running around and blowing things up for people with nothing to show for it except a path of destruction.
- Her and Natasha Romanoff’s father figure, Alexei Shostakov, is facing the music that his “Red Star” superhero persona is nothing but a figment of a bygone era, and is living a meagre life as a limo driver while reminiscing about his glory days.
- John Walker, the temporary Captain America replacement later dubbed “U.S. Agent”, is dealing with guilt after slaughtering innocent bystanders using Cap’s vibranium shield during the events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, all while struggling through early parenthood.
- The Winter Soldier—Bucky Barnes—is running for office, in an attempt to turn his newfound and shaky inner peace into something productive. Yet, something keeps niggling at him about the power vacuum left in the wake of the Avengers disappearing, and he can’t help but get involved in ways political candidates really shouldn’t. See: taking a huge machine gun and riding a motorbike out to the desert to find out who is behind these shenanigans. Tut tut, Mr Congressman.
- Oh, there’s also Ava Star/Ghost from Ant-Man and the Wasp, probably my least favourite Marvel movie to date, whom I completely forgot about before watching this movie and while writing this review. Oops! Her thing is that she is constantly phasing in and out of a solid existence, and she has to keep shouting about how traumatised she is with no need for subtext because they know we’ve all forgotten about her and need to be reminded of her struggles. Normally I’d be mad at that, but they are not wrong this time 😅
And then, there’s Bob.
(c) Disney/Marvel, 2025
Bob is a new guy, recruited to be experimented on in hopes of becoming a superhero. He seems normal, average even, and he reluctantly joins our motley crew as they escape from a trap set by their employer—but under the surface he carries a deep wound, a gash that opens up to swallow him whole and turns him into The Void, his mysterious alter ego who awakens when Bob’s absolutely OTT superpowers kick in. The rest, as they say, is plot.
There’s a lot of (predictably dark) humour in this, and I was surprised with how much I liked these characters once they were given enough room to be protagonists, rather than minor antagonists in someone else’s story. While they haphazardly join forces into a makeshift team, their trauma is taken seriously, coalescing into the film’s climactic battle that pits the reluctant heroes against The Void, who weaponises each of their subconscious against them. The Void is Depression, by any other name—it’s the dark voice inside that tells each of our anti-heroes that they are worthless, unlovable, guilty, and alone. In order to beat him they have to reach out with empathy to themselves first and then to each other, and literally hold each other in a tight embrace as a reminder that they are not alone. What wins the day is friendship, empathy, and love, not unlike the last season of My Hero Academia, which I also loved last year, or Superman, which I’m about to get into below.
I cried BUCKETS while watching Thunderbolts* in the UK’s largest IMAX screen alongside my Bucky Barnes-obsessed friend, who has since made this film her entire personality (affectionate), and honestly, I’ve also been thinking about it ever since. Again, it’s a delightful little irony that the megalithic Disney/MCU would come out with a narrative so introspective and empathetic, especially at a time that loneliness and isolation is rampant among the film’s core audience of young men. I really hope that watching this film inspired people to reach out and be less alone in their struggles, and that the financial hit Disney took with it won’t keep us from seeing more of these characters in the future.
Also! A fun fact I noticed while listening to the soundtrack was that the film’s main theme is a reversed version of the main Avengers theme; just listen to the first few seconds of both themes and you’ll hear it:

https://youtu.be/inP7DDlxsDY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Jzgp1jNiQ

Superman+

A good Superman movie?? In this economy?? Hallelujah!
I love a lot about what this film does with the core Superman premise. It gets Clark right, down to his farm boy roots and dorky kindness. It gets Superman right: his power isn’t unbeatable, and it isn’t even the most powerful thing about him (spoiler: it’s the dorky kindness). It gets Lex Luthor right—especially for our times—by having him be a smart but petty tech billionaire with an overinflated ego, someone who funds an invasion and even starts a pocket dimension on a whim, without once thinking of the consequences. It even gets Jimmy Olsen right simply by bringing him out of the margins where he’s been relegated for the last several Superman adaptations—and it’s actually really funny that he’s the one guy with the most game in this film, and that that’s how he gets to help out.
The structure of the film is an absolute delight, too. From the very start, we are thrown into the midst of a losing fight for Superman, which is a bold choice, as is having Clark’s relationship with Lois Lane already set up (and she even knows about him being Superman!). We don’t spend any time whatsoever on origin stories, budding relationship exploration, or long-winded exposition—we simply hit the ground running, and find out the particulars as we go along. It is assumed we know who Superman is, because… we all know who Superman is. And the themes around identity, responsibility, community, and how we should treat each other are laid bare without pretence, very directly speaking to the audience about contemporary problems we’re all facing day to day. It’s a genuine breath of fresh air not to be treated like an idiot, frankly.
There are a couple of things I don’t like about it though. For one, the film feels very busy, with so many characters and subplots and easter eggs thrown in, that if you blink you’ll definitely miss something. Relatedly, not all of those characters or subplots are treated equally, because there simply isn’t enough screen time to go around for everything. So the Justice Friends get the short shrift, as do Papa and Mama Kent, as does Krypton6, so that we can focus on the personal and political stakes that Clark/Superman has to overcome.
This is another superhero story with empathy at its heart, where the answer to even the most cosmic problems is… just be kind. Kindness is punk rock. As one of my favourite YouTube video essayists put it, this Superman is the American hero we desperately need right now. Someone who will stand up for what’s right even when the rest of the world tells him not to, someone with an unshakeable moral compass that only points to goodness. Watch that whole video actually, Dove does such a fantastic job analysing the cultural geography that plays into this film, and how it all ties together to bring us this ray of f*cking sunshine:
All this to say, I love that James Gunn can make a superhero movie that aims to appeal broadly but doesn’t feel like it panders to the lowest available denominator, and that he had the guts to (a) make the story feel relevant to our current times, what with all the invasions/”wars” going on right now that are purely happening for profit and that no one is doing anything to stop 🙄, and (b) leave us with a message of hope, that we can imagine a kinder world and that we can be the instruments of making that vision a reality. That kindness can be punk rock.
Dare I say, this was the movie that made me go, “huh, maybe the genre isn’t dead yet”, which… please, let it not be dead, I really like superheroes!

Honourable mentions/near misses+
- Mickey 17: I enjoyed this a lot, particularly for its world-building and Robert Pattinson’s performance. Unfortunately I think the Bong Joon-Ho-ness of it all kind of undercuts the story in favour of very on-the-nose political commentary, which was fun in the moment but in retrospect kinda leaves me a bit… “meh!”, probably because the current climate is so much worse than when this movie was made, and making fun of things/people just isn’t enough right now. So I don’t think this will be getting one of my spots, but it’s still totally worth seeing, if you haven’t!
- Fantastic Four – First Steps: I also enjoyed this a lot, especially in light of B-Mask’s excellent Fantastic Four video from a few years back which explained the classic comics and got me up to speed on the characters. It’s an honest-to-God decent, good Marvel movie, which as I keep saying is a rare sight these days, but that being said… I liked the stuff I talked about up top way more than this one, not to mention the TV seasons, so I just think it gets edged out by the competition.
- Hamnet: Technically an SFF movie! The trailer had me weeping, but the movie left me cold somehow, perhaps because it’s a little too obvious in its attempts to make people cry (Mark Kermode said it best! The bit with the song at the very end irked me too because I recognised it, and the moment was actually completely ruined for me.) It does have some wonderful and atmospheric visuals where it comes to the speculative aspect of it, and the soundtrack by Max Richter is predictably phenomenal (if only they’d used his original song for the climactic ending of the film!!), but it just didn’t move me in the ways I thought it would, so it’s a miss.
The “I haven’t seen these yet” caveat+
- K-Pop Demon Hunters: Yes, I know, somehow, I still haven’t seen this movie. I’m assuming it’ll get nominated to high heaven, so I’ll watch it ahead of voting, I promise.
- Weapons: I’ve heard fantastic things about this, and my husband is a big WKUK fan, so I might be watching this soon and revising my thoughts.
- Wicked: For Good: I liked the first film well enough, and I hear that a LOT happens in the second half of the musical, so I’m tentatively putting this on a hold list until I watch it. I don’t know if it would edge out any of my favourites, realistically speaking, but I suppose there is always room for surprises!
Long Form: Non-Film/TV
B-Mask’s “The REAL Thunderbolts Story: Marvel’s Greatest Scam“*
This is a 2.5 hour love letter to comics, and the first in a five-part series that tells the story of the real Thunderbolts from the comic books (a team that bears very little resemblance to the one portrayed in the recent MCU film discussed above). It features complex animations drawing from the original comic book art, as well as a full cast of voice actors bringing the characters to life with their performances.
* I’m personally torn on whether this would qualify for BDP-LF or BRW (seeing as it is technically a fanwork, and not an original work), but either way it is nothing short of a masterpiece—I wrote more about it in my 2025 underrated Hugo picks post, if you’re interested.

Short Form: TV Episodes
A caveat: my reasoning around nominating a particular episode is kind of like nominating my favourite chapter of a novel. Especially with how a lot of the prestige TV shows are made nowadays, individual episodes function as chapters in a longer story, so they have to be considered in the context of the wider narrative they’re a part of. If they are from a second, third, or even last season of a long-running show, even more so.
Also—and this might be a slightly spicy take—I personally don’t like that a lot of Hugo voters seem to only watch the individual episodes on the eventual shortlist without any context, and then complain that they didn’t get what was going on. That’s because context matters, and while I understand that it would take a lot of time to watch an entire season (or even several!) to be able to appreciate a single episode… if you want your vote to be informed, that’s the job, innit?
This has happened several times to me, where there’s an episode on the shortlist from a show I don’t watch (and have no intention of watching—sorry Lower Decks), so I just skip it and don’t put it in my ballot at the end, or rank it below my own favourites. I do the same with sequels to books I haven’t read, out of respect for the work itself as well as its author, but that’s just me I guess! 🤷🏻‍♀️
Anyway, here are some thoughts about my favourite episodes of speculative TV from this year, under spoiler tags for obvious reasons.

Two episodes from Stranger Things, Season 5+

‘Chapter Four: Sorcerer’

I loved, loved, loved this episode. The moment Will uses his new power… it gave me goosebumps, it was so good—and the fight sequence in front of the gate to the Upside Down is incredible. Rather than the writing, though, I want to praise the actors’ performances and the work of the crew who worked on the practical effects, stunts, and complicated cinematography in this episode. Especially given more recent revelations about how the Duffers went into production with season 5 without having ironed out the ending, and the stress that added to the poor production crew, I think any flowers should really be going to them for making such an outstanding piece of TV despite the challenges.

‘Chapter Six: Escape from Camazotz’

Yes, the scene in this photo feels a little ludicrously long considering they’re both on the run and about to be caught by the Big Bad, but I loved the heart of this relationship and the character development for both Holly and Max in this episode. I had also seen the Stranger Things play in London a couple of years back, and this episode eliminated the issues I had with the world-building in that, which at first had seemed to contradict the revelations in season 4 about Vecna/Henry Creel’s agency as a villain and his role in shaping the Upside Down… I was glad to see that in fact all the loose threads from the various seasons did connect, and that the strands from the play were relevant too.

Various episodes from Severance, Season 2+

S2E4: ‘Woe’s Hollow’

I mentioned this episode in my discussion of the series earlier, but let me get into it here: this is one of the best episodes of TV ever made, period, and I will fight you on this. I don’t know if it would stand alone in any capacity, considering the weird tone is already a lot to deal with and there’s a lot of plot and character interaction that picks up from where the last season left off, not to mention a big-time betrayal that ends up echoing through the rest of season 2.
I spent a good chunk of the beginning wondering if this was a simulator or a dream sequence because it didn’t fully make sense for our protagonists to be outside the Lumon offices, and the uncanny doppelgangers guiding them through the forest seemed almost dreamlike, but the reality was much more sinister in the end, which tracks. If there’s a single episode from this show I’d nominate, it’d be this one.

S2E8: ‘Sweet Vitriol’

People hate this episode because it’s slow and follows an unlikeable antagonist whom we are invited to empathise with, and that’s precisely the reason I like it. First of all, we get way more insight into the Lumon cult corporation from Harmony Cobel, who ostensibly grew up in the cult and has invested her whole life into the company’s welfare. This is also where we begin to see cracks form in her resolve as an antagonist, as she has realised that the company sees her as an expendable cog despite her lifelong investment and dedication, and so she decides to fight them, to prove that this little cog is actually so important, it might well bring the whole house down.
It’s interesting also for thematic reasons, outside of the show’s world. On an individual level, the image of someone who grew up in poverty while idolising a particular company, then making their entire life revolve around it so as to gain favour and socioeconomic mobility, gaining that and then losing it when the company no longer sees them as valuable, is unfortunately too relatable. So is seeing a small town that once had its own industry and community be taken over by a mega corporation and become completely dependent on it, eventually falling into destitution once the corporation pulls their activities out of the town. The actual commentary here is silent, but extremely powerful.
I don’t think Cobel’s about-turn is enough to fully make her an anti-hero, but I really enjoyed this episode for all the insight it gave us both into her and the world of Severance outside of Lumon HQ.

S2E10: ‘Cold Harbor’

There is a strong argument to be made that the season two finale is absolutely worth a nomination as well, making this a really tough choice. Two seasons’ worth of mystery solving and internal corporate espionage culminate in this one-hour episode where our protagonists clash with one another and with the antagonists, and it’s just adrenaline all the way down.
Some spoilery thoughts here.
While the big questions have been answered (where is Mark’s wife? what is Cold Harbor? what are they doing with all those sheep?), so many more remain. Is there a way to save the innies at all, if Lumon ends up falling? Can Mark S. and Helly R. ever hope to have a life outside these walls? And what happens to Gemma now that she’s out, even though she has 24 distinct, hand-crafted personalities inside her?
There’s actually a great take I hadn’t come across before I sat down to write this, and that is that the finale actually inverts the Orpheus & Eurydice narrative of Mark and Gemma, by having Mark’s innie actually choose to stay behind in Lumon so he can be with Helly. It’s less of a lack of faith and more of a conscious decision, which perhaps makes it even more tragic as Gemma watches her husband (sort of) run toward danger and another woman, leaving her alone at the exit, screaming for him to come back.
Having written about the other episodes already, I do think ep4 is a stronger contender purely from a craft/vibes standpoint, whereas the finale is more typical in many ways, as it focuses on exposition and plot and is faster paced. YMMV here, for sure, but I’m inclined to pick ep4 over this one, now that I think about it.

Two episodes from Pluribus, Season 1+

Episode 1: “We is Us”

It’s not often that a TV pilot stands on its own two feet well. It’s even less common for the film-making to be so good that one must gasp in awe at the choreography, cinematography, and editing, multiple times throughout the course of the episode. One of my biggest peeves is when a TV pilot is so mired in exposition that there is no room for characters or atmosphere until the next episode because they simply have to give you the setup quickly—it ends up feeling flat and boring and frankly, it puts me off more than it entices me to keep watching until it gets better.7
Well, this episode does none of that.
Gilligan’s forte is silent scenes that actually speak volumes. There is so much storytelling in this episode that has no words; we watch an intergalactic viral hive mind sequence take over the Earth in perfectly synchronised movement, and the storytelling is in the silence, the perfect unison, and the eerie smiles as the hive mind consciousness flattens the individuals inside. A lesser writer would put exposition in dialogue, possibly giving too much information for where we are in the story, but Gilligan knows that less is more. We get just enough to hook us in, and the rest is pure atmosphere and of course, character.
Carol is introduced as a grumpy romantasy author, a lesbian in a loving relationship who constantly finds reasons to be miserable, much to her partner’s chagrin. When the hive mind sequence is spread via planes in the air, Carol loses her partner, and simultaneously the world. The panic that ensues is completely understandable, and it gets worse at every turn as she is met with more and more hive mind people, but no one else like her. What a place for a pilot to leave us in! Aren’t you hooked just by reading this?? GO WATCH THIS SHOW!

Episode 7: “The Gap”

The title refers to a real place that Manousos (pictured) has to cross, but also I suppose to the gap between Carol and others at this point in the show. This is another masterfully crafted episode with a dual narrative point of view, where Carol continues her life in Albuquerque while Manousos is making his slow way up through South and Central America towards Carol, crossing cities, climbing mountains, and trudging through thick, treacherous jungles, all while refusing the hive mind’s help at every opportunity.
Some spoilery thoughts here.
At first, it’s admirable; he won’t even take gas without paying for it somehow, even though everything he comes across is at his disposal. Soon enough, however, his steadfastness turns into stubbornness that does more harm to him than good. When he gets seriously injured in the jungle (something that was completely preventable, had he accepted the hive mind’s help and transited through safer means),
Meanwhile, Carol stoically endures complete and total isolation for a long time as a result of the hive mind evacuating the whole metro area of Albuquerque, which happened when Carol hurt one of them (and by extension, all of them) quite badly while trying to find answers. She is given resources and sustenance remotely, and for a while enjoys her peaceful environment, going around town and doing whatever she feels like… until she finally cracks under the pressure of extreme loneliness, and asks the hive mind to come back.
It’s an incredibly powerful moment actually, seeing someone as stubborn sturdy as Carol finally admit that she can’t live her whole life completely cut off from other people, even though she hates the hive mind on principle, and can’t wrap her mind around accepting this status quo. In fairness, she makes it to about a month and a half, which is pretty long, but her isolation was also so complete that there were zero people around her for that whole time—an unfathomable experience that’s so well depicted on screen. I personally love the rooftop golf scene as an example of how utterly devoid of people the landscape is, a mundane sort of post-apocalyptic image.
This is probably my favourite episode in season 1, and even think it could be presented without context and still mostly work alright for new viewers… Though I’d still hope that people would watch the whole season anyway. If I had to pick one episode to represent the series as a whole, I’d say it’s this one.

Short Form: Non-TV
‘Songs No One Will Hear’ by Arjen Lucassen (music album)
I wrote a fair amount about this pre-apocalyptic concept album in my underrated Hugo recommendations post; here’s a snippet:
The result is an album that grapples with the essence of the human condition (something Lucassen is very adept at), asking what makes life worth living from the perspectives of a bunch of different characters as they try to come to terms with the impending end of the world—including those who think it’s all a hoax, those who embrace it, and those who rage against the dying of the light. It straddles a weird and fun line between diegetic/in-world music that’s on the radio and telling the story as a sung-through musical, which is a little different than what you might expect, particularly for a progressive rock album. But that’s the Arjen Lucassen guarantee: big questions, big emotions, and a sound that isn’t afraid to change dramatically when necessary, even mid-song. Full of theatricality, Songs No One Will Hear is in some ways very similar to Lucassen’s Ayreon albums, but retains its own identity both musically and thematically.
We’ve been known to nominate SFF music albums when they arise, and on occasion those musicians have even responded to being recognised by fandom—seeing Clipping live in Helsinki was fun!—so this wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility, though perhaps it is a bit of a left field suggestion for most Hugo voters as a progressive rock concept album.
While he’s extremely popular in his own niche, most of Lucassen’s fans aren’t in SF fandom and vice versa, something that I would love to help shift by talking about his work more to Hugo voters and talking to Ayreon/Lucassen fans more about joining our community and coming to Worldcon, especially as the next few years are looking quite international. Lucassen’s very obvious Golden Age influences are bound to have pointed many of his fans to the genre, so the bridge is already half-built.
I’m sure that I’ll be one of very few people longlisting this album, but 🤷🏻‍♀️! I really think If you see just a single, solitary vote for it in the full data, know that it was me!

Footnotes
1. Per the WSFS Constitution, clauses 3.8.2 and 3.8.3. ↩︎
2. In addition to the more fannish post I linked above, I found another really cool essay about the Barbican as Coruscant from an architect who works in film and TV. ↩︎
3. A special shoutout to Joshua James, who played the doctor who tortured Bix Caleen with the sounds of distant massacres; I’ve been a huge fan of his ever since I saw him in Treasure Island at the National Theatre back in 2015 or so, and make a point to see him in every play he’s in when I can. He had a stint as Dr Brenner in Stranger Things: The First Shadow recently which I unfortunately missed, but I bet he was perfect! ↩︎
4. I’d like to thank Octothorpe’s Alison Scott for her recommendation to see the film in an IMAX theatre, as the experience was truly spectacular. ↩︎
5. There is another Black Widow character played by Olga Kurilenko who turns up for literally five minutes, but she is so not present in the rest of the film that I’m not even going to go into it. If it weren’t for Yelena and Alexei, I’d say that movie had zero lasting impact on the MCU, given how late into Natasha’s journey we got it (literally after she was canonically killed off), lol (sarcastic). ↩︎
6. I still don’t know how to feel about the plot twist around Krypton and Clark’s biological parents, brief as it was. I think it is intended to maximise the contrast between where Clark hails from and where he grew up and how that affected his identity, and the discomfort it creates is probably very intentional from Gunn. ↩︎
7. I call this “pilot syndrome”, and it’s one of my least favourite phenomena in media. ↩︎
#andor #anime #arjenLucassen #bMask #bestDramaticPresentation #frankenstein #hugoAwards #marvel #movies #myHeroAcademia #pluribus #severance #sinners #strangerThings #streamingMedia #superheroes #superman #television #thunderbolts
#andor #anime #arjenlucassen #bmask #bestdramaticpresentation #frankenstein
Bryan King @[email protected] · 2026-02-19 · 12:30 UTC
I’ve Spent My Whole Life Refusing to Break, and It’s Slowly Breaking Everything I Love

8,993 words, 48 minutes read time.
They call me “the rock” at work.
At first, I thought it was a joke. Some intern started it during a brutal deadline last year. Half our team was losing it, one guy had a full-on meltdown in the stairwell, and I just… didn’t. I stayed late, knocked out my part, kept my voice even, answered questions, didn’t yell. Next day in standup, the intern goes, “Ask the rock, he never cracks,” and everyone laughed.
But it stuck.
Now my manager calls me that. “Put it on Matt’s plate, he’s a rock.” People say it like a compliment. Like it’s this badge of honor, being the guy who doesn’t flinch, doesn’t cry, doesn’t panic.
I pretended I didn’t like it. “C’mon, I’m just doing my job.” But I liked it. A lot. It felt like proof I’d finally escaped where I came from.
Growing up, the only thing worse than being poor in our neighborhood was being soft. I remember one time, I was probably eight or nine, playing basketball in the driveway, and I tripped. Scraped my knee so bad the skin just peeled back. I started crying, like loud ugly kid-crying—snot, hiccups, the works.
My dad walked out, looked at me, then at my knee, then back at me.
“You done?” he said.
“It hurts,” I blubbered.
He shook his head. “It’s a scrape, not a bullet. Stop crying, be a man.”
He went back inside. That phrase seared itself into my brain: Stop crying, be a man. I stopped crying. Not just that day. In general.
Whole life since then has been me trying to prove I listened.
So yeah, “the rock” fits.
What nobody at the office knows is I had to lock myself in a stall in the men’s room last week because my heart was racing so hard I thought I might pass out. I sat on the toilet lid, head in my hands, breathing like a woman in labor, trying not to make a sound because God forbid someone hears me having a panic attack.
Rocks don’t hyperventilate in bathroom stalls.
But that’s kind of my thing: feel something, shove it down, slap a lid on it, move on. I’m a professional at it now.
Church people call it “being strong.” Clinical people call it “emotional repression.” I just call it survival.
My wife, Emily, calls it “shutting down.” She says it calmly, like she’s reading a weather report, but her eyes get that glossy look that tells me I’m supposed to say something deep right there. I never do. I go for safe. Joke. Change the subject. Or pull the nuclear option: “I’m just tired, can we not do this right now?”
Which is basically our marriage in twelve words.
We’ve been married nine years. We have a seven-year-old daughter, Lily, who looks exactly like Emily except with my eyebrows, which feels unfair to her, but whatever. We met in college at some Christian campus thing I only went to because there were free burritos. She saw through most of my crap from day one, which I think is why I married her and also why I can’t stand her sometimes.
She’s a feeler. Like, professionally. She does counseling with teens at a nonprofit. She comes home wrecked from some kid’s story and wants to sit on the couch and process it for an hour. She cries at TV commercials. She said “I feel” more in the first month I knew her than my dad probably has in his entire life.
First time she cried in front of me, I freaked out internally. Panic, sirens, red lights. Externally, I was smooth. I put my arm around her, said all the right words. I didn’t know what I was doing, but she looked at me like I’d just parted the Red Sea. “I feel safe with you,” she said.
I should’ve told her then: “I don’t do feelings. I just do rescue.” But I liked being the safe guy. The rock.
Now, nine years in, that “safe” guy has turned into something else. A wall. A locked door. A black hole.
She sits at our kitchen table some Tuesday night, wine glass in hand, staring at me over a half-eaten plate of chicken and rice.
“You’re not here,” she says. “I mean, you’re physically here, but you’re not here.”
“I’m literally sitting right in front of you,” I say, stabbing a piece of chicken. “What do you want, a hologram?”
She doesn’t laugh. “Matt, I’m serious. I don’t know what you’re feeling. Ever. I don’t know when you’re scared. Or angry. Or sad. I can’t read you anymore. It’s like there’s this glass wall. I can see you, but I can’t reach you.”
I chew slowly to give myself time. Classic tactic. Delay, defuse, divert.
“I’m just tired,” I say. “Work’s a lot. Dad’s situation’s a lot. This is just… a season.”
Her jaw tightens at the word “season.” She hates Christian clichés, and I use them like shields.
“You said that last year,” she says. “And the year before. ‘It’s just a season.’ When does this season end, Matt? When you burn out? When we’re divorced? When Lily’s grown and doesn’t even bother to call you?”
“Wow,” I say, forcing a laugh. “Okay, that escalated.”
That’s another move: if I make her feel dramatic, I get to feel sane.
She takes a breath, looks down at the table. “I’m asking you to let me in,” she says, softer. “Talk to me. Tell me when you’re drowning instead of pretending you’re fine. You don’t have to be the rock, Matt. Not with me.”
There’s this moment where I actually feel it—the opening, the offer. Like a crack in the armor. I could tell her about the bathroom stall. About how sometimes at two in the morning my heart’s pounding like I’m on mile ten of a run and I can’t sleep, so I scroll my phone until my eyes burn. About the weird chest tightness that makes me think of my dad in the hospital, tubes and machines and beeping, and how I’m still that kid in the driveway trying not to cry.
I even start to say it. “Sometimes at work I—”
The words get stuck in my throat. There’s this primal shame that hits like a wave. If I say it out loud, it’s real. If she hears it, she’ll see I’m not a rock. I’m a scared dude in a grown man’s clothes with a half-charged iPhone and a Bible app he barely opens.
I clear my throat. “Sometimes at work I just need to, like, zone out, you know? Nothing crazy. I just power through.”
She watches me. She knows I pulled up right before the truth. I can see it in her eyes, that flash of disappointment before she buries it. She nods like she’s trying to accept the crumbs.
“Maybe we should go to counseling,” she says.
And there it is. The one word I refuse to let into my story.
“We’re not that bad,” I say, way too fast. “Counseling’s for people who are… like… actually falling apart. We’re just in a stressful patch. Money’s tight, work’s nuts, your job is heavy, my dad almost died. We don’t need to pay someone a hundred and fifty bucks an hour to tell us what we already know.”
“That’s not what counseling is,” she says.
I shrug. “You’re a counselor, obviously you’re pro-counseling. But I—what would I even say? ‘Hi, I’m Matt, things are fine, my wife just wants me to cry more’?”
She closes her eyes like my words physically hurt. “This isn’t about crying,” she says. “This is about you. Letting. Me. See. You.”
“I married you, didn’t I?” I say. “You see me. This is me.”
That’s the line I always throw out when I want to shut the conversation down—“This is just who I am.” It sounds like honesty, like self-awareness, but really it’s defense. A way of saying, “I’m not changing.”
She stares at me for a long time. Then she gets up, takes her plate to the sink without another word.
I tell myself she’s being emotional. That she’ll calm down. That it’s not that bad. That I’m not that bad.
That night, after she goes to bed, I sit on the couch with my laptop. I tell myself I’m going to do a little work, get ahead of tomorrow. Ten minutes in, I’m already opening a second browser window.
It’s funny how my brain knows the path without thinking. A couple keystrokes, a few clicks, and there it is: curated, pixel-perfect nakedness. I scroll, numb. That’s really what it is. Not lust so much as anesthesia. My own private pharmacy.
I justify it. I’m not sleeping with anyone else. I’m not on Tinder. I’m not at a bar hitting on girls who call me “sir.” This is safe. It’s victimless. It’s just… stress relief. And if I ever tried to talk to Emily about how I actually feel, I’d probably scare her. This way, I take care of it myself.
Self-sufficiency, right? That’s what being a man is. Handle your own crap.
I close the laptop an hour later feeling gross, but the guilt is dull. Familiar. Easy to ignore. I tiptoe into the bedroom. She’s already turned away from my side, curled in a C-shape near the edge. I slide into bed, careful not to touch her too much, in case she wants space. Or in case she doesn’t, because if she turns toward me, I might have to be present.
In the dark, my phone buzzes on the nightstand. I check it. It’s Marcus.
You good, man?
Marcus is my one semi-real friend from church. Taller than me, quieter. Used to be a cop, now does security at a hospital. He’s the kind of guy who actually listens when you talk. Like, fully. It’s unnerving.
He’s the only one who’s ever looked me in the eye and asked, “How’s your heart?” without smirking. I laughed when he said it the first time. “Bro, what are we, in a Nicholas Sparks movie?” He smiled, but he didn’t take it back.
I stare at his text for a second. My thumb hovers over the keyboard.
I’m fine, just tired, I type.
I delete “just tired.” It sounds weak. I send: I’m good. Busy with work. You?
The truth would be: I’m not sleeping, my wife wants to send me to counseling like I’m broken, I spent an hour watching porn to avoid feeling anything, and my chest hurts more days than not. Also sometimes I want to just drive until I run out of gas and start over somewhere no one knows I’m supposed to be “the rock.”
He replies: Same. Let’s grab lunch this week. Been thinking about you.
Cool, I send. Let me know when.
I set my phone down and roll onto my back, staring at the ceiling in the dark. Some random verse I half-remember from a sermon floats through my brain: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.”
I snort quietly. I’m not brokenhearted. I’m just busy.
Work does not care about your feelings. My manager, Jeff, cares about deliverables and client satisfaction scores and how many hours the team can bill without triggering HR. There’s a massive software deployment next month. If we nail it, it’s big for the company. If we blow it, we lose a multi-million-dollar client. No pressure.
We shuffle into the conference room for yet another war room meeting. Screens everywhere, coffee cups, people with that glazed “I’ve been on Zoom for 12 hours” look in their eyes.
Jeff slaps my back. “How’s my rock?” he says, grinning.
“Ready to roll,” I say.
“Good, because if this thing slips again, I’m gonna have to start sacrificing junior devs to the client gods.”
Everyone laughs. I do too, even as that familiar tightness creeps into my chest. I tell myself it’s just caffeine. I’ve had three coffees and a Red Bull. Anyone’s heart would pound.
Halfway through the meeting, someone mentions layoffs. Not directly, but hints. “If this doesn’t go well, upper management’s gonna be asking hard questions.” Translation: people will get cut. People like me. People like the guy who had a meltdown in the stairwell last year and mysteriously “transitioned to new opportunities” two months later.
Rocks don’t get laid off. Weak links do. If I crack, I’m a liability.
My phone buzzes. It’s a text from my mom: Dad had another episode. Doctors want to run more tests. Can you come by tonight?
I swallow, staring at the message.
You okay? Jeff says, noticing my face.
“Yeah,” I say quickly. “Family stuff. I’m good.”
I tuck it away. Mental note: hospital. Later. After being the rock at work, I get to be the rock for my mom. Then maybe, if I have any energy left, I’ll toss Emily a pebble and call it connection.
During a break, I slip into the men’s room. I splash water on my face. As I look up, my reflection stares back at me. Thirty-six, a little more gray at the temples than I’d like, dark circles under my eyes. But my expression is neutral. Controlled. Rock-solid. You’d never know that inside, there’s this constant hum of static.
My chest tightens again. The room tilts for a second. I grab the edge of the sink.
Not now. Not here.
I duck into a stall before anyone walks in, sit on the lid, elbows on my knees, hands over my face. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. I count my breaths. I feel ridiculous, a grown man hiding in a toilet cubicle trying not to pass out.
Somewhere behind the stall door I hear my dad’s voice: Stop crying, be a man.
“I’m not crying,” I mutter. “I’m breathing.”
Same thing, really. Trying to keep the dam from breaking.
I think, briefly, of all the verses I’ve heard about not being afraid. “Do not be anxious about anything.” “Fear not.” “The Lord is my rock.” It’s funny how I’ve basically replaced God with my own chest. My own calm face. Like, I’m my own Lord and rock. That’s not how I’d say it out loud, but that’s how I live.
After work, I swing by the hospital. Dad’s sitting up in bed, watching some game show with the sound off, wires stuck to his chest. Mom’s in the chair by the window, hands folded, Bible open but unread on her lap.
“Hey,” I say, stepping in. “How’s the party?”
Dad grunts. “Food sucks.”
“That’s how you know it’s a real hospital,” I say. “If they start serving steak, you should worry.”
He smirks. Mom gives me a tired smile. I do the thing I always do in hard rooms: crack jokes, keep it light, distract from the elephant.
“How you feeling?” I ask, even though I can read the chart as well as he can.
“Old,” he says. “Doctors say it’s not as bad as last time. Just gotta ‘take it easy.’ Whatever that means.”
“You gonna listen?” I ask.
He snorts. We both know he won’t. Men in my family don’t “take it easy.” We work until something breaks, then we duct tape it and keep going.
Mom looks at me like she wants to say something spiritual. She’s the only one in our family who does feelings out loud, but years married to my dad trained her to make them small.
“Been praying Psalm 34,” she says softly. “You know that one, honey? ‘The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.’”
She says it like it’s comfort, a warm blanket. I hear it like an accusation. Brokenhearted? Crushed? That’s not allowed. Not for men like us. We’re not brokenhearted, we’re just… busy. Tired. Overworked. Slightly malfunctioning machines.
“I like the one about ‘those who don’t work don’t eat,’” Dad says. “Keeps you honest.”
I laugh, grateful for the deflection.
Mom sighs. “Your father,” she says, half-affection, half-frustration.
On the drive home, the verse keeps replaying in my head. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.” If that’s true, then what does that mean for me? Because most days, God feels about as close as the moon. Beautiful, in theory. Useless, in practice.
Maybe the problem is I’m not brokenhearted enough. Or maybe that’s just another way to blame myself for something I don’t understand.
Thursday night is men’s group. I go mostly because it looks good. A married Christian dad who skips men’s group raises eyebrows. A married Christian dad who shows up, brings chips, cracks jokes, and nods thoughtfully during prayer requests gets approved.
We meet in the church basement, twelve guys in folding chairs in a sad circle under fluorescent lights that make everyone look tired and slightly dead. There’s the usual spread: chips, store-brand cookies, a veggie tray no one touches, and a big pot of coffee because apparently we’re all eighty.
Our leader, Dan, is a big guy with a beard that makes him look like a gentle lumberjack. He opens in prayer, then reads a short passage.
“Tonight,” he says, “I thought we’d just… be honest. No study guide. No video. Just us, talking about what’s real.”
That sentence alone makes my skin itch.
He reads Psalm 34:18. Of course. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
I feel it in my chest, right where the anxiety sits. The words are like a hand hovering over a bruise.
Dan looks around. “Who here would say they feel brokenhearted right now?” he asks. “Crushed in spirit? Not in theory. Right now.”
One guy laughs nervously. A couple shift in their chairs. I take a sip of coffee to buy time. No way I’m raising my hand. Brokenhearted is for widowers and addicts and cancer patients. Not white-collar project managers with upgraded iPhones and a leased SUV.
To my left, Jason clears his throat. He’s usually one of the louder guys, all stories about sports and his glory days playing college ball. Tonight, he looks smaller.
“I, uh…” He stares at the floor. His voice cracks. “My wife left last month. Took the kids. I haven’t told anyone ’cause… I’m embarrassed, I guess. I feel like I failed. I’ve been using porn for years. Said I’d stop a hundred times. Didn’t. She found stuff on my phone and just… had enough.”
The room goes quiet. My stomach twists. I keep my face still.
He keeps talking, words spilling now. “I always thought I had it under control, you know? Like, it was my thing. My stress relief. Better than cheating. That’s what I told myself. But she said it was cheating. She said I was choosing pixels over her. I don’t even… I don’t know how to live in my own skin right now. I feel… crushed. I don’t know how else to say it.”
Tears slide down his face. Full-grown man, shoulders shaking, crying in a church basement under bad lighting. Every alarm in my body goes off. Run. Joke. Change the subject.
Instead, something weird happens. Dan gets up, walks over, puts a hand on his shoulder. Another guy kneels and starts praying softly, nothing fancy, just, “God, be close. Help him.” No one mocks. No one rolls their eyes. A couple other guys are wiping their faces too.
I feel this pressure rising in my throat. It scares me more than any panic attack.
This could be you, a voice in my head whispers. You could talk. You could tell them about the stall, the late nights, the way your wife looks at you like a stranger. You could say you’re not okay. You could stop playing the rock.
I picture it for a second. Me, opening my mouth, saying, “Guys, I’m not fine. I’m addicted to being okay. And to porn. And to people thinking I have it together. My wife wants to leave and it’s mostly my fault.” I imagine their faces, their hands on my shoulder, the prayers. I imagine God feeling near instead of abstract.
My heart starts hammering. My palms sweat. My knee bounces.
Dan looks around. “Anybody else?” he says gently. “You don’t have to share. But if you want to, this is a safe place.”
Everyone’s eyes are suddenly the most interesting thing in the room. Shoelaces. Coffee cups. The scuffed tile. No one wants to be next.
I clear my throat.
“I mean…” I say, forcing a smirk. “My biggest sin is I eat too many carbs. So, uh, pray for me, guys.”
A few chuckle. The tension breaks a little. Dan gives me a half-smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
Inside, I want to punch myself. That was my out. My shot. I could have been honest. Instead, I threw a joke at the most honest moment I’ve seen in years like a grenade.
The rest of the night passes in a blur of surface-level shares. Work stress. Kids. “I should read my Bible more.” I mumble something about being busy. When we close in prayer, I mumble a safe Christian phrase: “God, thank you that you’re strong when we’re weak.” It sounds holy. It’s a lie coming from my mouth.
After group, as we’re heading to our cars, Marcus falls into step beside me.
“You okay?” he asks.
“I’m good,” I say automatically. “That was… heavy, huh?”
He studies me. “Yeah. But good heavy.” He pauses. “You sure you’re okay? You were twitchy during prayer.”
“Twitchy?” I scoff. “Bro, I had too much coffee. That’s all.”
He doesn’t push. “If you ever want to talk,” he says, “for real… I’m here. No judgment. None of us are as put-together as we look. You know that, right?”
I shrug, unlock my car. “I’m fine, man. Seriously. Just tired.”
That night, Emily’s on the couch when I get home, laptop closed, TV off. That’s never a good sign.
“How was group?” she asks.
“Good,” I say, dropping my keys in the bowl. “You know. Guys. Bibles. Bad coffee.”
“Did you share anything?” she asks.
I bristle. “What is this, a report card?”
She folds her hands. “I just… you’ve been off. For a while. I was hoping you’d talk to someone.”
“Talked to God,” I say. “That counts, right?”
She does that slow blink that means she’s trying not to explode. “You know what I mean.”
I do. I ignore it. I sit in the chair across from her instead of next to her on the couch. It’s a distance of three feet that feels like thirty miles.
She takes a breath. “I called a counselor,” she says.
Something in me snaps. “You what?”
“I called a counselor,” she repeats, voice shaking slightly but steady. “For us. For our marriage. Her name is—”
“We don’t need—”
“—Sarah Stevens,” she says, talking over me, which she almost never does. “She’s highly recommended. She has experience with couples where one partner is emotionally unavailable.”
“Emotionally unavailable,” I repeat, like it’s a slur.
“That’s what you are, Matt,” she says, and now the tears are in her eyes. “You’re unavailable. I’m married to a ghost. You show up physically, you pay bills, you fix things when they break, but you don’t let me see you. I feel like I’m begging you to be my husband.”
My defenses go up so fast I’m dizzy. “That’s not fair,” I say. “I go to work every day. I come home. I spend time with Lily. I go to church. I go to your family stuff even when I don’t want to. I provide. I don’t cheat. I don’t hit you. I don’t drink myself stupid. I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do and somehow it’s not enough because I don’t sit around talking about my feelings?”
“You don’t talk about anything real,” she says. “Do you know how alone I feel? I would almost rather you scream at me than stay like this. At least then I’d know there’s something in there.”
“That’s insane,” I say, standing up. “You’d rather I scream at you?”
“I’d rather you be honest,” she fires back.
I pace. “Fine. Here’s honest: I don’t want to sit in a room with some stranger and have you list all the ways I suck while she nods and takes notes.”
“That’s not—”
“I’m not doing it,” I say. “I’m not broken. We’re not broken. We’re just stressed.”
“And I’m telling you we are broken,” she says, standing now too, voice rising. “We are so broken, Matt. I’m drowning over here. I lie awake next to you at night and I feel like a widow before I’m even forty.”
The widow line hits harder than I want to admit. My mom in that hospital chair, Bible open, eyes tired. Is that Emily’s future?
I can’t go there. Too much. Shut it down.
“This is drama,” I say, dismissive. “You’re making it worse than it is.”
Her mouth falls open. “Drama,” she repeats. “Okay.”
She walks past me, into the bedroom. I hear drawers opening, the squeak of the closet door. A minute later she comes out with a duffel bag. She starts throwing clothes in it. T-shirts, jeans, underwear, random stuff. No method, just motion.
“What are you doing?” I ask, stomach dropping.
“Going to my sister’s,” she says. “For a while.”
“You’re leaving,” I say, like I can’t process the words.
“I’m not filing for divorce,” she says. “Yet. I’m giving you space. And I’m giving myself a chance to remember what it’s like to breathe.”
“Emily, come on,” I say, moving toward her. “You’re overreacting.”
She stops packing, looks up at me, and laughs. It’s a bitter sound I’ve never heard from her before.
“You keep saying that,” she says. “Anytime I tell you I’m hurting, I’m ‘overreacting.’ Anytime I say we need help, you say I’m ‘making it worse than it is.’ I’m done gaslighting myself into thinking I’m crazy. This is real, Matt. I’m leaving because you already have. You left a long time ago. You’re just… physically present.”
“That’s not fair,” I repeat, because I don’t have any other words.
She zips the bag. “I’m giving you one more chance,” she says, voice trembling. “You call that counselor. You set up an appointment. You show me with actions, not words, that you’re willing to be vulnerable. To let me in. To let anyone in. If you don’t… I don’t know if there’s anything left to save.”
She walks past me, bag over her shoulder. She stops at Lily’s door, pushes it open. Our daughter’s asleep, sprawled sideways, stuffed unicorn under one arm. Emily kisses her forehead, whispers something I can’t hear.
“I’ll bring her back Sunday night,” she says quietly when she returns. “You can have the weekend to… think.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I ask, hating how small my voice sounds.
She meets my eyes. “Stop pretending you’re okay,” she says. “That’d be a start.”
The front door closes behind her. The house is dead quiet.
I stand in the middle of the living room, staring at the door like it might swing back open and she’ll say, “Kidding!” But it doesn’t. She doesn’t.
Instead of collapsing, I do what I always do: I make a list. Dishes. Laundry. Trash. Budget. I straighten the cushions on the couch, because God forbid a pillow be crooked while my marriage implodes.
Later that night, I get a text from Marcus.
Heard Emily and Lily are staying with her sister. You want company?
My heart stutters. News travels fast in church circles.
I stare at the screen. I picture Marcus on my couch, looking at me with those annoyingly kind eyes, asking questions I don’t want to answer. What are you afraid of? How are you really? When did you start disappearing?
I type: Nah man, we’re fine. Just needed some space. Couples fight, you know.
I delete “we’re fine” because even I can’t make my thumbs lie that hard. I send: Just needed some space. All good.
He replies immediately. You sure? I can be there in 15.
I put the phone face down on the coffee table. I pace. I pick it up again.
Come, I type. I delete it.
I’m not sure what I’m more afraid of: him seeing the stack of dirty dishes and empty wrappers that prove I’m not as together as I act, or him seeing through whatever story I spin and calling me on it.
I finally send: I’m good bro. Exhausted. Rain check?
Three dots appear, disappear. Finally: Okay. I’m here if you need me. For real.
I toss the phone onto the couch like it burned me. I grab my laptop instead.
By 1 a.m., the house is dark, the only light the blue glow of my screen. Pop-up after pop-up, tab after tab. My brain is buzzing, my body’s numb. I tell myself it’s better than thinking. Better than feeling. Better than sitting in the silence and hearing my own excuses bounce off the walls.
When I finally crash into bed, the sheets on her side are still warm from when she packed.
The next morning, Lily’s empty room hits me harder than I want to admit. Her bed is made (Emily’s doing), stuffed animals lined up, tiny socks in the hamper. I stand in the doorway, an intruder in my own house.
I go to work like nothing happened. Because that’s what you do. You compartmentalize. You put on the rock mask. You get stuff done.
My performance drops, though. It’s subtle at first. I miss a detail here, forget an email there. Nothing huge. But in this job, death comes by a thousand paper cuts.
A junior dev, Sarah, points out a flaw in my plan in front of the team. Normally, I’d thank her, adjust. Today, raw and sleep-deprived, I snap.
“Maybe if you’d read the full spec before chiming in, you’d understand why we did it this way,” I say, harsher than I mean to.
The room goes quiet. She shrinks back, face flushing. Jeff raises an eyebrow at me.
“Let’s take this offline,” he says.
After the meeting, he pulls me into his office.
“You good?” he asks.
“I’m fine,” I say automatically.
He leans back, folds his arms. “Look, I don’t need to know your personal business. But you bit Sarah’s head off in there. That’s not like you.”
“Sorry,” I say. “Just… a lot going on at home.”
“Take a day,” he says. “Or a few. Whatever you need. This project’s important, but not as important as you not burning out.”
The irony of my boss telling me not to burn out while I’m actively burning out isn’t lost on me.
“I’m good,” I repeat. “I just need to focus.”
He studies me for a second. “You know,” he says slowly, “you don’t always have to be the rock.”
I actually laugh. “You started that, remember?”
He smiles. “Yeah. Turns out sometimes rocks crack. Just… don’t wait until you blow up to tell someone you’re drowning, okay?”
Everyone keeps using the same metaphors. Drowning. Burning out. Breaking. I keep dodging them like bullets in a video game. If I just keep moving, they can’t hit me.
Days blur. Emily and I text logistics about Lily. Pickup times, homework, dentist appointments. Nothing real. It’s like running a small business together instead of a marriage.
One Friday, I’m supposed to pick up Lily at four for her school’s little talent show thing. She’s been practicing a silly dance for weeks, making me watch it every night I had the energy to pretend I was watching. “You’re coming, right, Daddy?” she asked. “You promise?” I promised.
Friday afternoon, I’m sitting at my desk, headphones in, trying to yank my brain through a spreadsheet, when a familiar tightness clamps my chest. I take a breath. Another. It doesn’t let up. My vision goes a little fuzzy at the edges.
I check the clock. 3:50. If I leave now, I can make it.
I tell myself: Just one more email. Just fix this one thing. Then go.
I look up again and it’s 4:27.
“Crap,” I say aloud, ripping my headphones off. I grab my bag, half-run to the elevator, curse at the slow doors, sprint to my car.
On the drive, my phone buzzes with texts. I don’t check them. I don’t want to see.
I pull into the school lot at 4:58, heart pounding. I jog toward the auditorium. It’s emptying. Parents filing out, kids with glitter on their faces and handmade certificates.
Emily stands near the doors with Lily. Lily’s in a sparkly shirt, hair in two lopsided pigtails, holding a crumpled ribbon. Her eyes are red. When she sees me, her face does this thing—lights up, then falters, like she’s trying to decide whether to be happy or mad.
“Hey!” I say, forcing cheer. “I’m so sorry, traffic was—”
“Traffic?” Emily says, voice flat. “Show started at four.”
“I know, I just—work ran late and—”
“You promised,” Lily says quietly. That hurts way worse than Emily’s tone.
“I know, bug,” I say, kneeling. “I’m sorry. How’d it go?”
“Fine,” she says, shrugging, looking at her shoes. The word is a knife. It’s my own word coming back to kill me. I’m fine. We’re fine. Everything’s fine.
“Mom filmed it,” she adds. “You can watch it later.”
It’s an offer. A consolation prize. I hate myself for being the kind of dad who has to watch his daughter’s life on a screen because he can’t show up when it counts.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’d love to.”
Emily just looks at me. No lecture. Somehow, that’s worse.
On the drive back to my place, Lily hums a bit of her song in the backseat. I grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles go white. I want to cry. The feeling is so foreign it scares me. I swallow it. It goes down like a rock.
That night, after I drop Lily back at her aunt’s, I sit in my dark living room alone. The quiet isn’t peaceful. It’s accusatory.
On the coffee table, my Bible sits under a pile of mail. I don’t remember the last time I opened it for me, not for a group or to find a verse to toss at someone else.
I push the mail aside, flip it open randomly. It lands in Psalms. My eyes fall on familiar words like they’re highlighted just for me:
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
No escape this time. No sermon. No small group. Just me and a sentence that won’t shut up.
I stare at the page until the letters blur. Something in my chest finally gives. Not a big cinematic break, just a tiny hairline crack.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Fine. I’m… not okay.”
The words feel like ripping duct tape off my soul. My throat burns. My eyes sting. My body, not used to this, fights it. But my arms suddenly feel too heavy to hold up. I slide off the couch onto my knees without meaning to, Bible still open on the cushion.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I mutter. “I don’t know how to be… brokenhearted. Or whatever. I don’t know how to…” I wave a hand vaguely, like God needs me to pantomime emotions.
Tears spill over. Real ones. First time in… I honestly can’t remember. Maybe when Lily was born. Maybe before that.
It feels… ridiculous. A grown man, kneeling by his IKEA couch, crying into old carpet. I half-expect lightning to strike or a worship band to appear in my hallway. Instead, it’s just me and my ragged breathing and an almost-tangible sense that something—Someone—is near.
For a second, I actually feel it. Like a warm weight on my shoulders. An invisible Presence sitting in the mess with me. Not fixing it. Just… close. The verse slams into my chest again: The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.
Maybe this is what they mean. Maybe all the sermons and testimonies and emotional people with their arms raised weren’t just making it up. Maybe God actually shows up in the raw places. Not the polished, rehearsed testimonies, but the ugly middle.
“Okay,” I whisper again. “I’m scared. Is that what you want me to say? I’m scared my dad’s gonna die and I won’t know how to grieve. I’m scared my wife’s never coming back. I’m scared I’ve already ruined my daughter’s life. I’m scared if people see how weak I am they’ll lose respect for me. I’m scared you’re not actually here and I’m just talking to my furniture.”
It all comes out in a rush. Confession, sort of. Not the respectable kind you share in group. The embarrassing kind.
For about thirty seconds, it feels like the safest place in the world.
Then, just as quickly, another voice kicks in. Not literal, not demonic, just… me. The old script.
Stop crying, be a man.
Crying won’t fix your marriage. Emotions won’t get you a raise. Vulnerability won’t put food on the table. You’re kneeling on a stained carpet, talking to someone you can’t see, while your actual life is on fire. Get up. Be practical. Make a plan. God helps those who help themselves. (Which, by the way, isn’t in the Bible, but I quote it like it is.)
I scrub my face with my hands, annoyed at the dampness. The Presence I felt a moment ago suddenly feels distant again. Or maybe I just pushed it away.
“Yeah, okay,” I say out loud, like I’m closing a meeting. “That was… something.”
I stand up, legs stiff. The room looks the same. Couch. TV. Empty picture hooks where our family photo used to hang before Emily took it. No angels. No burning bush. Just my stupid, beating heart and the hum of the fridge.
My phone buzzes on the table. It’s a notification from some Bible app I downloaded months ago and never use: “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. – Psalm 147:3”
The timing is creepy. Or perfect. Or both.
I hover over the notification, feel the temptation to sink back down, to lean in, to actually let myself be wounded in front of God. To admit that I’m not just “off” or “tired” but actually… broken.
Instead, I swipe the notification away.
“I don’t have time to fall apart,” I mutter.
I open a browser and type the same old sites into the search bar. The algorithm knows me well. It feeds me what I want: distraction. Control. A world where nakedness is scripted and no one expects anything from me.
Later, in bed, I stare at the ceiling and tell myself I’ll call the counselor tomorrow. Or the day after. Or after this project. Or after Dad’s next appointment. Or after Emily gives me another ultimatum. There will always be a better time to be honest than now.
Months pass.
The project at work launches. It’s not a disaster, but it’s not the triumph it could’ve been. My performance review is “meets expectations” with a few pointed notes about “needing to delegate better” and “watching interpersonal tone under stress.” Translation: You’re slipping, man.
I don’t get fired. I also don’t get the promotion I’d been quietly gunning for. Jeff gives the lead on the next big project to Sarah—the junior dev I snapped at.
“She’s showed a lot of initiative,” he tells me in his office. “And you, honestly… you seem like you’ve got a lot on your plate. Thought this might be a good time for you to take a step back, catch your breath.”
Step back. Catch my breath. It’s like there’s this conspiracy in the universe to get me to stop pretending I’m okay.
I nod, say the right things. “Totally understand. Happy for her.” Inside, I feel humiliated. Replaced. Useless.
I don’t tell Emily. We barely talk beyond logistics anyway. The counselor’s number is still on a sticky note on my fridge. I move it occasionally when I wipe the counters. I’ve memorized the digits without ever dialing.
Lily spends every other weekend with me. We do what I think dads are supposed to do. We go to the park. We get ice cream. We watch movies. I make sure she’s buckled in right and that she brushes her teeth. I tell myself that’s enough. That love is mostly showing up and making sure they don’t die.
But sometimes, when she’s coloring at the table or building something with Legos on the floor, she’ll look up and just… watch me. Like she’s trying to figure out something she doesn’t have the words for yet.
One Sunday, as I’m dropping her back at her aunt’s place, she hugs me tighter than usual.
“Daddy?” she says into my shirt.
“Yeah, bug?”
“Are you sad?”
The question catches me off guard. I pull back, look at her small face. Her eyes are big, searching.
“Why do you ask?” I say.
“You look sad,” she says simply. “And Mommy looks sad. And Aunt Claire says it’s okay to be sad. But you always say you’re fine.”
The word stings again. Fine. My mask.
“I’m okay,” I say automatically.
She tilts her head. “It’s okay if you’re sad,” she says. “I won’t be scared.”
I should say it. Right there. To my seven-year-old. “Yeah, I’m sad. I miss you when you’re not here. I miss Mommy. I’m scared I messed up.” That would be vulnerability. Not oversharing, just honesty.
Instead, I pat her shoulder. “Don’t worry about me, kiddo,” I say. “That’s my job. To worry about you. You just be a kid, okay?”
She nods slowly, like she’s filing away data for later. “Okay,” she says. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I say, and it’s the one thing I’m absolutely sure of.
After she runs inside, I sit in my car and grip the steering wheel. I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, staring down at a body of water that might save me or drown me. The jump is admitting weakness. The cliff is made of all the years I spent being told that men don’t cry, don’t talk, don’t crack.
I don’t jump.
Instead, I drive to church.
It’s easier to go when I don’t have Emily giving me side-eye during worship because I’m scrolling my phone under the seat. I can just show up, say hi to people, drink bad coffee, sing words I barely think about, nod through another sermon about some aspect of the Christian life I’m supposedly living.
Today, though, the pastor does something different. He doesn’t preach. He brings a guy up to share his story.
The guy is in his forties, shaved head, tattoos, looks like he could bench-press me. He takes the mic, clears his throat.
“I used to think being a man meant never showing weakness,” he says. My spine goes rigid. “My dad was old-school. ‘Quit crying, tough it out,’ that kind of thing. I brought that into my marriage, my friendships, even my faith. I believed in Jesus, but I didn’t actually trust Him with anything that made me look bad. Or weak.”
People chuckle. I don’t.
He talks about an affair. About losing his job. About almost losing his kids. Then he talks about the night he finally broke down on his kitchen floor, sobbing, telling God he was done pretending. How Psalm 34:18 popped into his head—“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted”—and how, for the first time, he actually felt it.
“I thought vulnerability would make me lose respect,” he says. “But hiding was what was killing me. My secrets hardened my heart. I was a shell. It wasn’t until I got honest—with God, with my wife, with some guys from this church—that anything changed.”
The sanctuary is dead quiet. People are leaning in. A couple of visibly tough dudes are wiping their eyes. I sit there, arms crossed, jaw clenched.
He keeps going. “I still struggle with pride. I still want to put on the strong face. But I’ve tasted what it’s like to let people see the cracks. And I’ve tasted what it’s like to have God meet me there, not when I’ve got it together but when I’m a mess. And I’ll tell you this: there’s more life in that than in all the years I spent playing the rock.”
Somewhere deep inside, something in me is nodding. Yes. That. Do that. Say something. Move.
I don’t.
After service, people swarm him. Thank you for sharing. That was powerful. I walk past, give a noncommittal nod. Inside, I’m seething. Not at him. At myself. At the distance between what I know is true and what I’m willing to live.
In the parking lot, my phone buzzes. Marcus again.
How are you really?
There’s that word. Really.
I stand in the cold air, thumb hovering.
I’m falling apart but pretending I’m not, I type. I delete it.
I’m tired, I type. Delete.
I settle on: I’m good. God’s got me.
Even my lies are wrapped in Christianese.
I don’t hit send yet. I stare at the blinking cursor. Beside me, a guy straps his toddler into a car seat, kisses his wife, laughs at something she says. Normal. Messy. Human.
The phrase from the testimony loops in my head: Hiding was what was killing me. My secrets hardened my heart.
I feel my own heart. Not metaphorically. Literally. My chest. It feels… hard. Numb. Like it should hurt more than it does.
Do I want God that close? Close to the brokenhearted sounds nice until you realize it means you have to admit you’re brokenhearted. Not over business, not over some abstract injustice. Over your own life. Your own choices. Your own refusal to be weak.
I could tell Marcus. Right now. I could say, “I’m not okay. Can we talk?” He’d answer. He’d show up. I know he would.
Instead, I backspace my half-typed message.
I send him a thumbs-up emoji.
That’s my spiritual state in one tiny yellow hand.
I get in my car, close the door, and the world goes quiet again. Just me, the dashboard, the buzz of the engine.
I think about Psalm 34:18. I think about my mom in that hospital chair, whispering it over my dad. I think about Emily at the kitchen table, begging me to let her in. I think about Lily asking if I’m sad and promising she wouldn’t be scared.
I think about the night on my knees by the couch, the fleeting sense that God was actually, tangibly near when I finally let something crack.
And I think about how fast I slammed that door shut.
That’s the thing no one tells you about vulnerability. You can get a glimpse of it, taste it for thirty seconds, and still decide you’d rather be alone in a locked room than risk anyone seeing you naked in your soul.
So that’s where I am.
In the car. In the locked room. Playing the part I’ve played my whole life.
The rock.
From the outside, I still look solid. Steady job. Decent clothes. Church attendance. A few Bible verses I can quote if needed. A daughter who still hugs me. A wife who hasn’t technically divorced me… yet.
Inside, I know the truth.
I’m not a rock. I’m a man-shaped shell built around a frightened kid who learned early that tears equal weakness and weakness equals rejection. I never unlearned it. I baptized it, gave it Bible verses, dressed it up in productivity and moral respectability.
Maybe one day I’ll break for real. Call the counselor. Call Marcus. Call out to God and not shut Him down when He shows up. Maybe I’ll finally let someone see how much I’m not okay and discover that maybe—just maybe—weakness isn’t the end of my story but the door to something like real strength.
But today?
Today I turn the key in the ignition, watch my reflection in the rearview mirror as I back out. My face is calm. Controlled. Unreadable.
Ask anyone who sees me drive away how I’m doing, and they’ll say the same thing.
He’s good. He’s strong. He’s the rock.
They’d be half right.
The other half?
The rock is crumbling. And I’m the only one who can hear it.
Author’s Note
I wrote this story because “I’m fine” has become one of the most dangerous lies men tell.
Not because everything has to turn into a group-therapy overshare, but because a lot of us have learned that being a man means one thing above all: don’t crack. Don’t cry. Don’t need. Don’t ask for help. Just keep performing—at work, at home, at church—and hope nobody notices how much of it is duct tape and denial.
Matt is fictional, but the patterns are not. The late-night anxiety. The quiet porn habit as a pressure valve. The marriage that looks stable from the outside but is running on fumes. The way “being strong” becomes a way to avoid being known. I didn’t want to write a neat testimony with a bow at the end. I wanted to sit in that awful in-between space where a man knows he’s not okay and still chooses to keep hiding.
If you picked up on the tension around Psalm 34:18—“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit”—that was intentional. The verse is there like a constant background noise in Matt’s life. He hears it from his mom, at church, in group, on his Bible app. The problem isn’t that God is silent; it’s that Matt refuses to be the kind of man that verse is written for: brokenhearted, crushed, honest.
Underneath all the details, this story is about fear of vulnerability:
- Fear of losing respect if you admit weakness
- Fear of not knowing what to do with your own emotions if you stop stuffing them
- Fear that if you open up to God or other men, you’ll be met with judgment or awkward silence instead of real presence
The tragedy for Matt isn’t a dramatic car crash or public scandal. It’s the slow erosion of his soul and relationships because he clings to the image of “the rock” more than he clings to God or the people who actually love him. He gets glimpses of another way—a raw confession at men’s group, a quiet moment on the carpet where he finally lets himself cry, a daughter asking if he’s sad—and he still pulls back. That’s the haunting part. Nothing changes… and yet everything is slowly falling apart.
If this story resonated with you at all, even uncomfortably, that’s kind of the point. Not to shame you, not to diagnose you, and definitely not to tell you what you “have to” do. Just to hold up a mirror of what it actually looks like when hiding becomes a lifestyle.
Some men crash hard and obvious. Others, like Matt, just slowly harden. Their job title still works. Their faith still has all the right words. Their family still posts decent photos. But the inside is hollow. And the thing about hollowness is that it echoes. It haunts.
The core idea behind this whole series is simple and costly: Vulnerability is not an optional add-on to the Christian life or to healthy masculinity. It’s the doorway. To real brotherhood. To actual intimacy in marriage. To a faith that’s more than performance. To experiencing the God who is “close to the brokenhearted,” not to the perfectly put-together.
What you do with that is up to you. This story doesn’t end with Matt calling the counselor or breaking down in front of Marcus or sprinting back to Emily with a grand apology. It stops where a lot of men actually are: still in the car, still saying “I’m good,” still sending a thumbs-up emoji instead of telling the truth.
If anything in you recognized yourself in that final scene, don’t rush past it. Sit with the discomfort. Ask yourself, honestly, where you’re playing “the rock” and what it’s costing you. And if you decide to talk to God, or to a friend, or to a counselor about it—that’s your story. Not Matt’s. And it doesn’t have to end the way his does.
Call to Action
If this story struck a chord, don’t just scroll on. Join the brotherhood—men learning to build, not borrow, their strength. Subscribe for more stories like this, drop a comment about where you’re growing, or reach out and tell me what you’re working toward. Let’s grow together.

D. Bryan King

Sources
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this post are solely those of the author. The information provided is based on personal research, experience, and understanding of the subject matter at the time of writing. Readers should consult relevant experts or authorities for specific guidance related to their unique situations.

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Ermanno @[email protected] · 2020-07-18 · 21:35 UTC

CW: The police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were sparks that reignited smoldering fury against authorities across the globe. One of the most watched locations has been Seattle, where protestors barricaded off a cop-free zone, drawing outsize attention and, in the process, forming a new case study in the uses of technology both to […]

♲ @[email protected]:
For Seattle’s cop-free protest zone, tech is both a revolutionary asset and disastrous liability
The police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were sparks that reignited smoldering fury against authorities across the globe. One of the most watched locations has been Seattle, where protestors barricaded off a cop-free zone, drawing outsize attention and, in the process, forming a new case study in the uses of technology both to advance a cause and to drown it in disinformation.

From the actual recording of Floyd’s killing and the protests and riots that followed, to documenting the police’s brutal response and sudden withdrawal, to the establishment of and widespread commentary on an improvised community, technology has played a crucial role throughout. But to center things properly, it is how people are using technology, not the technology itself, that has become more important.

More than ever before, information truly is power, and imbalances in who holds that power have been both reinforced and challenged in the course of events here. It’s heartening to see live streaming and instant distribution of video lead to accountability, but it’s also sickening to see deliberate campaigns to manipulate and subvert reality — and I say reality because it’s what I’ve seen with my own eyes. As a brief preamble, I should disclose some things.

First, I support the causes being advanced by protestors in Seattle. It would be useless to deny that I have taken sides here — partly because claims of objectivity are little more than a fig leaf for editorial decisions in matters of grave injustice and obvious abuses of power; but my presence at the protests has unavoidably been documented whether I like it or not, so there’s no sense in denying it.

Because second, I live on Capitol Hill, just blocks away from the zone. I’ve been eyewitness to important events, (with a built-in tech angle at that) and it would be irresponsible for me not to use the privilege of this platform to share aspects of them that have been only sporadically covered.

And third, these protests have been organized and led by people of color, and I am a white guy who, comparatively, has only barely taken part. On issues of race, policing, and inclusion I will defer to others better equipped to educate: writers like Ijeoma Oluo (whom we recently interviewed), researchers like Joy Buolamwini, and publications like Blavity.

With that out of the way, this article will focus on three topics: The collection and use of digital media on both sides of police clashes; the use of social media and battle of information versus disinformation in the cop-free zone; and the emergence of live streaming as an indispensable medium for this and future movements.
A matter of perspective

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Image Credits: JASON REDMOND/AFP / Getty Images

The initial protests in Seattle in late May, which devolved in some locations into riots involving the despoliation and destruction of police cruisers (somehow left unattended and filled with weapons), are difficult to track because they were full of movement and chaos. But they were thoroughly, if haphazardly, documented by attendees with the presence of mind to record what they were seeing.

It’s telling that there has been little or no attempt at a counter-narrative from Seattle authorities when their officers were repeatedly (and continually as of this writing) filmed employing plainly excessive force against unarmed, often unresisting protestors, or indiscriminately firing tear gas, pepper spray, and flashbangs into crowds. One woman’s heart stopped three times after being struck by a blast ball that appeared to be deliberately aimed at her, while thousands watched.

Where, one wonders, is the exonerating footage from the police side showing the protestors being described as aggressive, or non-compliant, or whatever key words officers use to justify brutality during a melee of their own creation? And yet the police are at a loss. Presented with innumerable examples of bad behavior, the force seems to have decided day after day to stand fast and let it blow over.

But it’s hard to do that when you have something like a video going viral of a child who’s been maced:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/uKdqmBN744U?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

This image, which came to represent the Seattle PD’s inhumane treatment of protestors (they stand by wielding batons as the crying kid is treated), was taken by a local named Evan Hreha. It’s hard to erase such a powerful image — so they arrested him.

Hreha was arrested a week later by a dozen officers and booked into jail for, supposedly, pointing a laser at police. It hardly needs to be said that this account strains credibility. For one thing, Hreha says he was running a hot dog stand with friends at the time of the alleged offense. But it is absurd that police would or could identify one person in a crowd at a distance, then investigate and arrest them — for anything, let alone a fleeting non-violent laser use. And it just happens to be the man behind a viral video that makes the cops look bad.

This seems to be plainly a case of retaliation, but the police have made themselves unaccountable by controlling the information available. I contacted the records department to ask for anything related to the investigation and arrest of Hreha (among others), but it will be months before the police will release anything, if indeed they ever do.

Hreha was released two days later with no charges filed. But the chilling effect of intimidating someone who caught police in an act of brutality on camera had been accomplished. The officer who maced the kid, incidentally, has yet to be officially identified or disciplined.
Does tech have the guts to deploy its resources against police brutality?
https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/09/does-tech-have-the-guts-to-deploy-its-resources-against-police-brutality/embed/#?secret=gdf5qC5tCH

This is exemplary of the power imbalance in conflicts of this type: On one side, voluminous documentation from people on the ground that is disorganized and difficult to bring to bear; on the other, documentation that is carefully organized and tightly controlled, allowing the exertion of authority using that control as leverage. Police have also begun the process of repurposing news and protestor footage for their own purposes.

But this story doesn’t always play out the way the cops would prefer.

In the first week of June, protestors were marching up Pine to confront the police for this and other acts, after which they would have, like many similar protests, moved on to rally in Volunteer Park and then gone home, to do it again another day. But police blocked them at 11th and Pine with a barricade and line of police in riot gear.

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SEATTLE, WA – JUNE 08: A person holds flowers as demonstrators clash with police near the Seattle Police Departments East Precinct shortly after midnight on June 8, 2020 in Seattle, Washington.

The group did not disperse as ordered, saying they would stay and protest peacefully until the police moved out of the way. Predictably, when curfew came, the police were liberal in their deployment of tear gas and flashbangs, causing serious harm to some protestors and terror across the entire neighborhood. This continued and grew in intensity for several days and nights. (In many cities these clashes are ongoing.)

The justification for using their “less lethal” tools with such gusto was predictable: The crowd was violent, throwing bricks and even improvised explosives at officers. But these claims were repeatedly and firmly dismantled, because these encounters were filmed in high definition from multiple angles, practically from start to finish.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/D5sQt_bQS4A?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

One particularly revealing video was shot by a person on a roof directly over the barriers. It quite clearly shows a peaceful crowd chanting and definitely not throwing rocks and bottles. Anyone can review it and see that there was not only no violence on the part of protestors, but that the flashpoint moment occurred (documented in other videos as well) when a cop tore a now-famous pink umbrella from the grip of a person, who in offering any resistance provided the excuse for the police to retaliate — indiscriminately and utterly disproportionately.

Huge volumes of evidence of police brutality have resulted almost solely from the oft-mocked habit of young people to always have their phone in hand. (We’re not far from the always-recording situation I posited nearly 10 years ago.)

“They picked the wrong generation to pull this shit on,” said TK, a protest organizer I spoke with. “Because governments didn’t create this power — this was created by normal, regular-smegular people just like all of us. The only people that can stop it is the people that created it.”

Rarely have the police released images or footage of their own, and when they do it is often a brutal self-own. They posted images of the aforementioned “improvised explosive” on Twitter shortly after one group assault on protestors, and within seconds people had pointed out it was a prayer candle, probably from a nearby memorial smashed during the melee. The police revised their reference to it as an “incendiary device,” which, while technically true, exposes the type of willful obscuration of the truth that was frequently to be found in the department’s communications.

Following another incident, body cam footage was released to support the narrative that a “violent crowd” had prevented the police from reaching a shooting victim in the protest zone and were therefore culpable in his death. People soon pointed out that timestamps visible in the video show that the cops arrived 20 minutes after the shooting, and after the victim had been taken to the hospital in a private car — because EMTs (for good reason) would not enter the scene before police secured it.
We now know that the public statement put out by Seattle Police following the shooting at CHOP on Friday night, was mostly fictitious, as revealed by their own bodycam footage. They showed up 10 minutes later than they claim, after the victim had been transported to Harborview. pic.twitter.com/wN62gQxX8c

— Spek the Lawless (@spekulation) June 22, 2020

When the police chief made claims of rape and violence in the protest zone, it was pointed out that the SPD’s own crime reports system showed no such thing. Then her claim that armed gangs were extorting local businesses was quickly put down as well, by the businesses themselves — embarrassingly, the source of that claim was a totally invented account on a right-wing blog. (Ironically, once the police retook the zone, businesses quickly complained that their presence had forced them to close.)

And of course there are the innumerable videos, here as elsewhere, of extreme force being used on unresisting protestors, frequently with the apparently now requisite knee on the neck. These will hopefully prove useful later as counterbalance to police claims, and while officers still obscure their badges and refuse to identify themselves, the quality of the video makes identifying them by other means trivial.
Cops attack peaceful protestors at Broadway and Pine. 5:30pm July 2nd. Dive tackled the kid next to me, put a knee on his neck. Can’t stress enough he did nothing.

Please share.#SeattleProtests #SeattleProtestComm #Seattle pic.twitter.com/mI5DTASEI4

— eli (@sre_li) July 3, 2020

The digital record has resulted in officers, the department and the chief being caught in lie after lie after lie. These are not misunderstandings or honest mistakes but misrepresentations deliberately crafted to discredit protestors and shield the department. It’s clear that if others were not carefully documenting every encounter, and critically investigating police statements and evidence, the lies would have shortly become the only, and therefore the true, record of what happened.

What I’ve described took place in Seattle, but others have compiled abuses in L.A., New York, Portland, and Chicago — where cops have just been caught in another type of large-scale manipulation of the record.

Now in many cities these departments are facing cuts or total defunding, as much as the result of their failure to successfully falsify the narrative as their more fundamental failures as institutions.

“This generation is not dumb, as much as they want to believe that. ‘You guys are just a bunch of dumb kids.’ Okay, well, this bunch of dumb kids is about to get the city to take half of your budget,” said TK. “So we ain’t that dumb, apparently.”

A last example of the power of social media in the pursuit of problematic police came late in the writing of this piece. After two protestors were struck and one killed on a closed highway after a driver circumvented police barriers, a detective from the King county Sheriff’s office made several brutally offensive posts on Facebook — public ones.

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These were spotted by concerned citizens, who took screenshots not just of the content but also the list of people who had liked or commented positively on the posts, looking them up, as well. This proved to be a shrewd tactic, for when the posts began to make waves online, Brown’s entire Facebook page was deleted.

Turns out Detective Brown is not only Governor Jay Inslee’s cousin, but reportedly also the head of county executive Dow Constantine’s security detail and his sometime driver; a 40-year veteran of the force who has been accused of abusive behavior before. Within 48 hours Detective Brown was on leave and being investigated. One hopes that the officers and public officials who publicly endorsed Brown’s behavior will soon be confronted, as well. But how quickly this avenue of recourse would have disappeared had they been tipped off.

Keeping the cops honest is a welcome application of what might be termed citizen forensics, but social media would soon provide a counter-example of technology being deployed to discredit the protestors and mislead millions.
In the Zone

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A rally at the cop-free zone on Capitol Hill on June 10.

Believe it or not, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone wasn’t anyone’s idea.

The now infamous cop-free area barricaded off by protestors has been profiled frequently and, almost without exception, incompletely and inaccurately, in mainstream news and on social media. It’s an instructive but deeply frustrating example of how, as the old saying goes, “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.”

A very brief origin story is as follows: On June 8, following a particularly violent yet ultimately unsuccessful attempt to purge the area of protestors the previous night, the police abruptly announced they would be leaving the East Precinct building, taking all valuables, weapons, and sensitive documents with them.

Protestors were astonished. They had not asked for this and had no reason to — their demands were about defunding the police, investing in the community, and releasing jailed protestors. Incredibly, even now no one has taken responsibility for ordering the abandonment; the mayor and police chief have both denied doing so. But abandon it, they did.

Protestors immediately continued marching, some continuing to Volunteer Park and others remaining behind, citing the need to protect the precinct from anyone who might want to damage it, for days on end if necessary and at all hours. If you’re skeptical, remember: This is all on video. People learned early on that many people only believe what they have seen, and even then only sometimes.

Since a car had nearly plowed through protestors the previous day and the driver actually shot someone (before being gently taken into custody by police), and hearing reports of right-wing agitators in the area, the protestors redeployed the barriers to make a safe zone at the ends of nearby streets. Someone spray painted “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” on one, inadvertently branding the whole movement.
‘Welcome to Free Capitol Hill’ — Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone forms around emptied East Precinct — UPDATE
https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2020/06/welcome-to-free-capitol-hill-capitol-hill-autonomous-zone-forms-around-emptied-east-precinct/embed/#?secret=qUJTj18w53

What followed in the CHAZ (later the CHOP) was several days and nights of compelling events, speakers and tributes to lost lives, attended by thousands, including myself.

But what followed online was a nonstop deluge of wild exaggerations, manipulated media, racist vitriol and, of course, innumerable death threats. It would be impossible to list even a fraction of the information online that I could contradict with what I saw with my own eyes, but here are a few examples.

The most glaring one has to be, of course, Fox News photoshopping a gunman into multiple unrelated scenes of destruction and dishonestly using those as evidence of chaos in the zone. This was done so poorly it would be comical if it were not part of a larger, continuing narrative seeking to discredit the protests and zone as an antifa-run separatist state.

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One of the images run by Fox News, a combination of one by David Ryder (whose photos for Getty illustrate this piece) with two by Karen Ducey.

The separatist narrative, which persists even today, was invented and amplified by lazy or traffic-hungry outlets and pundits with little evidence besides the tongue-in-cheek name.

There was not always the need to invent controversial imagery (indeed, the gunman Fox used really existed). Video of one person handing out rifles to his crew quickly made the rounds and, combined with the police chief’s irresponsible rumor-mongering, word of a “warlord” emerged.

Without getting into the complex and largely improvisational politics of the zone, this character and his heavily armed presence were generally not approved of. But for the weeks following this event I saw the image, his name and the warlord trope posted thousands of times, coming up every single day.

It’s tempting to say it’s hard to misconstrue a guy distributing assault rifles from the back of his car. But it is testament to the fractured narrative presented online that crucial context was almost always left out or substituted by falsehoods. Not only had a gunman actually shot a protestor after driving his car into the crowd the previous day, but at the very moment of the video, the police were suspected to have been engaged in a disinformation campaign intended to provoke conflict.

Public police scanner frequencies that night (which it was known protestors were monitoring) were full of reports of a group of 20-30 armed “Proud Boys” (a far-right group) moving toward the protest zone. Bike police on scanners said they followed the group for blocks, asked where they were headed (the CHAZ), tried to dissuade them from going there, and eventually reported that they spontaneously dispersed before reaching their destination.

Now, a large group of armed men working their way up from Downtown to Capitol Hill would be a rather conspicuous sight even in those days when record numbers of armed men walked the streets. Yet none of the thousands of protestors and allies spread throughout the city watching for them saw anything matching that description during or after. No communications from known Proud Boys (some of whom would in fact show up later to attack a protestor on video) indicated a presence. More directly, police descriptions of the group crossing certain intersections were contradicted by live traffic cameras showing those intersections, which showed no such thing.

But once again the apparent police intention of provocation via misinformation had been achieved. People at the CHAZ, already justifiably worried about violence, were put on high alert and armed themselves, producing a spectacle that even now persists on social media as a way to paint the entire protest with one brush.

The repeated amplification of individual images had some troubling commonalities, in particular the barely veiled parlance of racism. People in the protest zone and especially Black men, images of whom frequently accompanied these tweets and other posts, were invariably described as “thugs,” “savages,” “animals,” “feral,” and all the rest. Tellingly, those employing this vile lexicon were seldom Seattle or Capitol Hill residents; Twitter is very efficient at importing hate.

Indeed it did not take long for the CHAZ, having achieved the dubious distinction of attracting what is called national interest, to become the target of coordinated interference, harassment and disinformation campaigns by people all over the country. The resulting mess is a concise illustration of the incredible promise and complete inadequacy of online platforms in times like these.

The number of people and groups involved in these protests had made Twitter, with its accessibility and relative permanence, an invaluable tool for the dissemination of important information. While private groups on Signal, WhatsApp and Discord were also used, it was clearly better for things like police positioning, march updates, attacks on protestors and other crucial live communications to make the information as prominent and public as possible.
“There was a lot of momentum being built up, people learning and educating themselves. So this was the chance to finally put everything we’d learned into action.”

TK and her fellow organizer Tatii explained that social media was at the heart of their work, though the end result of taking to the streets was always the ultimate goal.

“Social media is a huge part because without it, we can’t do shit,” Tatii said bluntly. “When it comes to finding the information that we need and finding resources to help Black people, all of that is through technology. That’s how we network with people, that’s how people reach out to us. That’s how we get people telling us about police scanners. There are a lot of group chats, like with our medics, our car brigade, our bike brigade. It’s all through social media.”

“Scouts let us know if like there’s 30 bike cops coming down Broadway. It’s crucial when you are trying to strategically plan around that type of stuff, to keep from being cornered and boxed in,” said TK.

“At least on the Black side of social media, it’s constantly been talked about, Black Lives Matter,” added Tatii. “There was a lot of momentum being built up, people learning and educating themselves. So this was the chance to finally put everything we’d learned into action.”

It’s easy to take Twitter for granted, so we should be sure to give the platform due credit for the fundamental capability it provides. Many I’ve spoken to here emphasized that they trusted what they read from accounts with a verifiable track record more than what they saw in the perennially out-of-date local news. In fact, as Tatii and TK noted, many of their fellow organizers came to Seattle specifically to learn for themselves the truth behind mainstream reports that didn’t pass a gut test.

But the choice to publicly organize via hashtag, for all that it made important information available quickly to as many people as possible, had two major consequences.

First, it fragmented that information almost to the point of usability: One never knew whether it was #seattleprotest or #seattleprotests, #seattleprotestcomms, #seatleprotest (yes), plain old #seattle, #defundSPD, or a handful of others. This was only exacerbated with the creation of the CHAZ, which birthed a dozen new hashtags of varying quality and population. Instagram provided powerful amplification effects but little verification or network building.

Twitter also exposed this stream of important information to eager antagonists across the country, who flooded those hashtags with abuse and misinformation. Posts with images from other or past protests were used to mislead or misrepresent the present ones, and pictures of police around the area from other times were used in an attempt to spook those who had learned to be wary of SPD’s presence. Fake names and events were publicized, fake demands issued and met, and fake accounts claiming to represent protestors or the zone.

techcrunch.com/wp-content/uplo…
This post, though seen by many, was heeded by few.

The ownership of one particular account was hotly contested, and confused by such tantalizing hints as it following Huawei leadership (you can imagine the theories this spawned), and for an “official” statement ending with what appeared to be a few stray pixels from a Biden presidential campaign graphic.

Later, when attempting to provoke a “mission accomplished”-style early exit from the zone after the Mayor cut million from the police budget, the account exhorted its readers to vote for Biden. Needless to say this was not among the commonly agreed-upon demands or positions of the protests. Unless whoever was behind this strange yet prominent account exposes themselves, we may never know if it was a government plant, an agent provocateur or a practical joker, or what their intentions really are.

The enduring, chaotogenic myth that the CHAZ was an attempt to secede and form a socialist, anarchist utopia led to rebranding efforts. The misconception had become so widespread that it was decided to “officially” (as far as that concept existed in the space) change the name to the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest — then, noting the fact that Seattle itself is an “occupation” of native land, change the O to Organized.

This led to a further fragmentation of information channels: No one on the ground wanted to use #CHAZ and its relatives because it was no longer what organizers wanted to call it. But the name had entered the common parlance. So posts now needed to be #CHAZ, #CHOP, #CHOPCHAZ, and others like #CHAZSeattle and so on. It became very difficult to track an event — be it positive, like a march or speaker, or negative, like a fight or shooting — never knowing where to look or how to parse the information there.

It’s hard to overstate how effective the fractured narrative and opposing efforts were at shaping the national and global understanding of events surrounding these protests.

As they say you can never step into the same river twice, so it was on social media around the protest and the zone. The ever-shifting flow of Twitter sometimes produced absolutely vital data unavailable anywhere else, but always polluted with incomplete or premature judgments, ignorance, racism and false reports.

When I asked what digital tools were needed to better organize and avoid interference, protestors I spoke with generally said some sort of centralization and interoperability. Being able to colocate multiple feeds, authors, videos, images and static links in a dynamic, accessible way would save them huge amounts of time and effort. Certainly it would have helped to alleviate some of the problems noted above.
Stream of conscience

“Live streaming and having our phones out every single day is our best form of self defense.”
Despite the shortcomings of social media at large, one digital medium that has proven itself truly indispensable to this protest and others to come is live streaming.
Although the technology has risen to mainstream popularity as a new form of passive entertainment on Twitch and other live platforms, it quickly became clear that it was the technology of choice for documenting these and other protests and social movements.

As TK put it: “People are visual learners; until they see it for themselves they don’t really believe it. And when it’s live, it’s live. You’re not seeing the cut, clipped and edited version. You can’t dispute what you see in raw live footage. You can’t ignore it.”

In Seattle, two people have become familiar faces, or voices, as they have doggedly documented every step of the protests this way, from before the CHOP to well after: Omari Salisbury and Joey Wieser.

techcrunch.com/wp-content/uplo…
Image Credits: Jake Gravbot

Salisbury runs Converge Media, an independent web-distributed news organization. He comes from a broadcast and networking background, and when the CHOP emerged literally outside his doorstep — the studio door opened onto the police line before officers left — he took the opportunity to share the story, as objectively as possible. To him, the only tool that fit the bill was live streaming.

“The viewer needs to be able to see the context, because if the viewer can’t see the context, then it becomes something else,” he said. “People appreciate us because the stream is long, we keep the camera there and we let people make their own decisions.”

He was there not just for the controversial or terrifying moments, like clashes between provocateurs and protestors, or the shootings that occurred later on, but for the huge number of peaceful hours when people would share their own experiences at Salisbury’s prompting. The result is an incredibly valuable archive of hundreds of hours of live footage, ground truth from inside the zone that has been watched by millions.

Joey Wieser has no media background, but rather just a passing familiarity with the systems and social media methods that can grab people’s attention. Yet his stream came to be relied on by many, and the events he captured also racked up millions of views, simply because he decided to take advantage of the tools at his disposal.
“It's not that we don't have umbrellas. We just never met a storm worthy of one.

Until this week.” -Seattle pic.twitter.com/STGnwIc3sZ

— Joey Wieser (@itsjosephryan) June 8, 2020

“Live streaming and having our phones out every single day is our best form of self defense. Every day that I walk out my doorstep, I hold my phone as if it is my ultimate shield, my ultimate weapon,” he said. “Without it, I feel like I don’t have a role in this movement. It’s not like I’m some prolific live streamer, or that I know what Black communities need best. I’m just some white guy and I happen to work in tech. Having an understanding of what social media best practices look like, understanding analytics and social amplification — that combined with my community activism allowed me to come out here and do this.”

For Wieser, having the right connections or network was less important than being in the right place at the right time, even if it put him in danger. (He and Omari were both tear gassed multiple times and near shootings and other altercations.)

“I think it really puts the viewer at home in the driver’s seat,” he said. “Because they’re able to not only watch an uninterrupted stream, but to engage and have a real live conversation with somebody that’s there on the ground. You know, they can say, hey, turn to the left. What was that? It’s a participatory experience in a way watching the news doesn’t allow.”

One such incident I saw play out almost defies belief. Wieser was streaming the protest when a truck blasted through, nearly hitting several people. Minutes later, a person watching the stream was surprised when that very truck pulled up outside their apartment — it was their DoorDash driver, who announced proudly that they had just run down some protestors. (The driver’s plates and info were quickly sent through the proper channels.)
THE PLOT THICKENS: The man in this truck is a driver for @DoorDash and was making a delivery. The customer was literally watching the livestream as the silver truck pulled up outside their home. pic.twitter.com/di1eI9bQjE

— Joey Wieser (@itsjosephryan) July 1, 2020

Being a two-way medium, it provides new opportunities for interference as well as engagement. Both Salisbury and Wieser experienced repeated attempts to pollute their comment sections or attack them personally.

“It’s not lost on me that this amplification can be used against us, but I think one of the important things about live streaming is that you can inject your own narrative, rather than let it be to the whim of, you know, Fox News or Sinclair,” said Wieser. “Regardless of whether or not the trolls take it over in the comment sections or in the hashtags, if you’re actually listening to the content, and if you’ve got someone out here who has the right heart and the right passion and the right analysis, you can reclaim that narrative.”
“The citizen journalist has always existed. They just never had the tools to be on equal footing with national news.”
Salisbury, for his part, expressed that it is not always sufficient to simply document — one has to report, and that’s what he does.
“People rock with me because just turning on the camera and streaming, it’s not enough. Knowing the history of Seattle, the history of the neighborhood, understanding political positions… and you got to put paint where it ain’t, you know what I’m saying? The citizen journalist has always existed. They just never had the tools to be on equal footing with national news,” he said.

“People underestimate the tech that’s out there, especially the free stuff,” he continued. “I know people have their views about platforms and privacy. And I think that’s a different discussion. But I will say that what’s going on here allows for citizen journalists to touch the world. I used to build OTT and streaming platforms in Europe and across Africa. So understanding the actual technology that goes into this, man, I really don’t take no stream for granted. I’ve got people in Australia who’ve been on since day one. What if I had to cultivate that through my own contacts, do my own server, do my own everything? How would I reach them? It doesn’t work that way.”

He credits live streaming with putting pressure on local and national outlets to up their game, as well — being showed up by one person with a phone doesn’t look good for a major news organization.

“Citizen journalists and streamers came out here and forced the local media to change their whole game,” he said. “I mean, a guy with a cell phone didn’t get no respect back in the day. But I had my interviews with the mayor before anybody, my interviews with Chief Best before anybody. You see what I’m saying? I’m just a guy with a phone. Now the Seattle Times has a streamer out here. This situation has made the media adapt new technology.”

While live broadcasts have been part of local and national news for decades, it was in truth a totally different medium. But it’s now difficult to imagine coverage of events like these without modern live streaming, and legacy media have begun to recognize that. Technology has always been a double-edged sword. The events in Seattle and across the country have illustrated this powerfully, and it seems unarguable that whatever happens in terms of policy and politics, the nature of protesting and the power dynamic that has defined it for decades has begun to change.

Ultimately, though, the power does not belong to the tech, but to the people.

“Technology plays a big part in all this, but I’m gonna be real with you, what you need is more old fashioned beating your feet to the streets,” concluded TK. “It’s not that the technology is insufficient, but that people are choosing not to use technology to understand.

“We’ve proven it time and time again that the only ones that really got our back is us.”

feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Techc… feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Techc… feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Techc… feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Techc… feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Techc… feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/Techc…
techcrunch.com/2020/07/18/for-…

#seattle #chaz #seattleprotest #seattleprotests #seattleprotestcomms #seatleprotest
We Have Issues @[email protected] · 2026-05-12 · 07:35 UTC

Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) – Review

By the end of the 80s, Studio Ghibli was cooking, creatively speaking, but was still finding it tough to get the appropriate amount of traction at the box office. While disscussing something as crass as money when dealing with the type of creative alchemy that have given audiences back to back movies that casually enriched the soul, the simple fact of the matter is, Ghibli was still in its relative infancy and anime had yet to make that relentless, worldwide breakout that still wouldn’t occur for a few couple of years yet. However, with Kiki’s Delivery Service, the studio would finally enjoy financial success to go with the fact that in under a decade, they’d been doling out straight-up masterpieces while other animation houses (cough * Disney * cough) had noticably struggled during the decade.
Let’s not forget that Ghibli released both My Neighbour Totoro and Grave Of The Fireflies in the same year, a feat that showed the emotional dexterity of filmmakers who delivered polar opposite assaults on our emotional well-being. But what did it take to help the house of Totoro get flush? Nothing much, just a thirteen year-old witch and a flying broom.
In a world where witches live alongside humans in harmony despite being relatively rare, we meet Kiki, a thirteen year-old girl who decides its time for her to attempt the tradition all witches her age must do – leave home and live an independent life for a year. While that seems a little much to ask any child, Kiki not only is kind and resourceful, but she has the ability to soar through the sky on her broom and has Jiji, her feline familiar, to keep her company. However, after leaving home she soon encounters a number of minor obstacles such as another, pretentious witch and a rain storm that causes her to first drift off course and then take refuge in a box car until the rain chooses to relent.
However, upon waking up, Kiki finds that she and Jiji have arrived in the city of Koriko and decides to stay and try to make a life for herself – but while she’s enamored of the view of the ocean that she has, her small town upbringing leaves her unprepared for how tough life and lonely can be in a bustling city. Still, the plucky child manages to find a place to live with a kindly woman and her husband who own a bakery and so figures out how to channel her paranormal talents into a form of self employment.
Using her talents of flying on her broomstick, Kiki starts up her own small scale delivery service as she can simply zip across the sky with a parcel and drop it off at it’s destination in no time at all. However, despite the kindness of a lot of her early customers and the constant attention of a local boy named Tombo, Kiki soon finds that forging a life in a big city can be fairly trying and as isolation and depression sets in, she finds that some of her witchy gifts are starting to leave her as the day to day pressures take their toll.
The irony of Ghibli’s first financially successful film being about a thirteen year-old going out and starting her own business isn’t lost on me, but there was always a danger that anything that attempted to follow Isao Takahata’s emotion-flaying Grave Of The Fireflies was going to come across as unbelievably twee – after all, the lethally sad wartime drama had been repeatedly hailed as one of the greatest animated movies ever made and proved to be an unforgettable experience. However, the magic of Hayao Miyazaki is that he’s able to benevolently weaponise things that are ridiculously nice in ways that make even the most basic plots warm your heart. For example, on the surface, My Neighbour Totoro wasn’t really about anything really and just followed the lives of two young girls who were excited about moving house and casually had low-energy adventures with a burly, sleepy forest spirit. And yet, despite having no antagonist, no jokes and no action sequences to speak of, Miyazaki turned such unassuming touch points into genuine chicken soup for the soul.
Well, with Kiki’s Delivery Service pulls off the same trick by adapting Eiko Kadono’s novel into yet another beguiling fantasy that, technically speaking, doesn’t fall back on the majority of animated tropes popular at the time. Once again, Miyazaki shrewdly tells another tale that not only proves that he accurately can put himself (and the viewer) in the shoes of a prepubescent girl encountering the world for the first time, but he impressively doesn’t make it creepy either. On top of this, the movie scatters numerous instances about the film that sees a lot of good advice and protection offered to Kiki by an arry of vastly different, but all equally strong women. From Osono the baker generously giving our heroine a place to stay, to the kindly old women who call Kiki to deliver pies baked with pure love to ungrateful grandchildren on their birthdays, to her encounter with jean-short wearing artist, Ursula who lives in the nearby forest, the young witch is given countless life advice by strong mature women to counteract the rather cold and vapid reaction she gets from girls her own age.
Once again, detailing how rich and glorious the animation is is now starting to feel somewhat redundant, but I’ll still say that no one in animation can animate grass blowing on a strong breeze quite like the hard working scribblers who work under the Ghibli umbrella – and if that looks good, imagine how good the flying stuff looks. Yep, Miyazaki’s documented weakness for all things that fly gets yet another outing, although its amusing that for all the high flying heroines that’s populated his films, Kiki has moments where her broom flying is actually quite ungainly due to external forces or the fact that has to improvise at one moment with a brush.
But for all the dazzling wonder and memorable characters (Jiji the sassy cat is effortlessly the movie’s MVP), once again it’s those deftly buried life lessons that hit the hardest and while Kiki finds that the confidence sapping effects of modern life is draining her powers as depression set in, it’s remarkable that Miyazaki’s simple message of being true to yourself is delivered so organically when other animation houses would probably base an entire six minute musical number about it. Most remarkable of all is the fact that I would argue that Kiki’s Delivery Service actually does low-key fantasy and growing pains even better than My Neighbour Totoro did and while that final rescue sequence seems a little tacked on compared to how organic Ghibli usually is, it makes the likes of Sabrina The Teenage Witch look like purest trash in comparison.
Zipping out from under the emotional heft of Grave Of The Fireflies with yet another delightful flight of fancy, Kiki’s Delivery Service not only cemented Ghibli’s standing at the box office, but delivered yet another overwhelmingly warm cinematic endevor to boot. While the titular witch may not have too many spells of her own, her movie spins more than enough magic to compensate.
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
#1980s #1989 #Fantasy #Animation #Anime #Japan #FilmReview #StudioGhibli #HayaoMiyazaki #KikiSDeliveryService #MinamiTakayama #ReiSakuma #KappeiYamaguchi #KeikoToda

#1980s #fantasy #animation #anime #japan #filmreview
Making Money Real @[email protected] · 2026-05-05 · 03:44 UTC

The Dice Are Always Loaded

Our money is evolving as debt; it represents debt, and at this late date, debt with interest. It has been evolving as debt for 5000 years, and David Graeber explained this evolution in detail.
But evolution does not confer correctness on a definition. Indeed, evolution is a process of trial and error, and the errors are eliminated without mercy.
Money is almost universally regarded as a claim on a nation’s wealth: an idea we share, and this makes sense to us because debt is an idea. Everybody knows what money is.
“It Ain’t What You Don’t Know That Gets You Into Trouble. It’s What You Know for Sure That Just Ain’t So” – Josh Billings.
What if money really represents something else?
If a fisherman and a baker meet on a road and exchange 2 fish for 5 loaves, they are not swapping ideas. If the baker had money, not loaves, the fisherman would not go home to chew on a conjecture offered by someone he’d never met. Money as debt correctly abandons barter as an origin story, just as Graeber explains. It also incorrectly eliminates trade without trust, carelessly abandoning the simplest possible exchange of goods.
“Money is a commodity—and it can be anything—that a society agrees to accept in exchange for every other commodity or service within that society. It ultimately represents the work the holder of the money exchanged with that society to get it.”
Ideas are not subject to the Laws of Thermodynamics; work is.
And if money represents work, it must also be subject to those laws.
And it turns out that the Laws are radically anti-capitalistic.
In The Dice Are Always Loaded, I offer a different understanding of money and ownership. This connects money to the laws of the universe and overturns the money tables in the temple of Mammon. War, Inequality, Overconsumption, Environmental devastation, Planned Obsolescence, and Slavery; all the messes our human societies keep making can be found here.
Most essays about our terrible problems end there and offer no real solutions. After providing the evidence and logic for its definitions, The Dice Are Always Loaded discusses in detail how a functioning human society operates within the laws, from advertising to farming to delivering truthful news to an entire society.
I call the resulting socio-economic system “Mahinism,” because “Mahi” is te Reo Māori for “work.”
To understand better just how disruptive this understanding is, here are the Laws as they apply to money.
First Law: Ownership of anything cannot make money. Conservation of Energy applies.
Second Law: Money cannot be a lasting store of value. Entropy applies.
Consider the business model of a bank: it collects interest on the money it loans to you because it owns the money it lends to you.
Consider the business model of a Landlord, who collects rent without doing work. A society that rejects these things is possible, but it is very different from what we do today.
We are paying people who are not working for their ownership of the things we need to live. As a result, they have massive piles of money with which to purchase Members of Parliament, Senators, Congressmen, Supreme Court Justices, and Presidents. They own our laws, and when that is not sufficient, they buy our news media to ensure we never see the truth.
It needs to stop.
The people in the owning class are not all bad, but “the love of money is the root of all evil” is one of the basic truths of our major religions. The problem is not the people; it is the existence of the massive piles of money and the ease with which they corrupt even the best governments.
The Dice Are Always Loaded draws on many sources, but it was first written by an engineer using only the Laws; that was 15 years ago, and the author cites several previous efforts. It is not the first attempt to correct our error in defining money, but it may be the last chance for human civilization before nature erases our mistake.
=================
This is, technically, the second edition of “Making Money Real.” It exists because self-help books about money are ignored by people who might be interested in dismantling Capitalism. References on this site may include aspects of the first book. This post, however, becomes the anchor for everything else I do.
The book is to be published through “YourBooks” in New Zealand, and through “Draft2Digital” elsewhere in the world. New Zealand gets color printing. Greyscale images for everyone else. I can’t afford fancy.
The errata pages will change over shortly.
#anticapitalism #climate #degrowth #economics #environment #history #marxism #philosophy #politics #society #writing

#anticapitalism #climate #degrowth #economics #environment #history
Azimuth @[email protected] · 2026-01-28 · 02:29 UTC
Tiny Musical Intervals

Music theorists have studied many fractions of the form
2i 3j 5k
that are close to 1. They’re called 5-limit commas. Especially cherished are those that have fairly small exponents—given how close they are to 1. I discussed a bunch here:
• Well temperaments (part 2).
and I explained the tiniest named one, the utterly astounding ‘atom of Kirnberger’, here:
• Well temperaments (part 3).
The atom of Kirnberger equals
2161 · 3-84 · 5-12 ≈ 1.0000088728601397
Two pitches differing by this ratio sound the same to everyone except certain cleverly designed machines. But remarkably, the atom of Kirnberger shows up rather naturally in music—and it was discovered by a student of Bach! Read my article for details.
All this made me want to systematically explore such tiny intervals. Below is a table of them, where I list the best ones: the ones that are closest to 1 for a given complexity. The first eleven have names, and many of them play important roles in music! But beyond that point, all but one remain unnamed—or at least I don’t know their names. That’s because they’re too small to be audible, and—except for one—not even considered to be of great theoretical importance.
I’ll list these numbers in decimal form and also in cents, where we take the logarithm of the number in base 2 and multiply by 1200. (I dislike this blend of base 2, base 10 and base 12, but it’s traditional in music theory.)
Most importantly, I list the monzo of each numbers. This is the vector of exponents: for example, the monzo of
2i 3j 5k
is
[i, j, k]
In case you’re wondering, this term was named after the music theorist Joseph Monzo.
Finally, I list the Tenney height of each number. This is a measure of the number’s complexity: the Tenney height of
2i 3j 5k
is
∣i∣ log2(2) + ∣j∣ log2(3) + ∣k∣ log2(5)
The table below purports to list only 5-limit commas that are close to 1 as possible for a given Tenney height. More precisely, it should list numbers of the form 2i 3j 5k that are > 1 and closer to 1 than any number with smaller Tenney height—except of course for 1 itself.
CentsDecimalNameMonzoTenney height498.041.3333333333just perfect fourth[2, −1, 0]3.6386.311.2500000000just major third[−2, 0, 1]4.3315.641.2000000000just minor third[1, 1, −1]4.9203.911.1250000000major tone[−3, 2, 0]6.2182.401.1111111111minor tone[1, −2, 1]6.5111.731.0666666667diatonic semitone[4, −1, −1]7.970.671.0416666667lesser chromatic semitone[−3, −1, 2]9.221.511.0125000000syntonic comma[−4, 4, −1]12.719.551.0113580247diaschisma[11, −4, −2]22.08.111.0046939300kleisma[−6, −5, 6]27.91.951.0011291504schisma[−15, 8, 1]30.01.381.0007999172unnamed?[38, −2, −15]76.00.861.0004979343unnamed?[1, −27, 18]85.60.571.0003289700unnamed?[−53, 10, 16]106.00.291.0001689086unnamed?[54, −37, 2]117.30.231.0001329015unnamed?[−17, 62, −35]196.50.0471.0000271292unnamed?[−90, −15, 49]227.50.01541.0000088729atom of Kirnberger[161, −84, −12]322.00.01151.0000066317unnamed?[21, 290, −207]961.30.000881.0000005104quark of Baez[−573, 237, 85]1146.0
You’ll see there’s a big increase in Tenney height after the schisma. This is very interesting: it suggests that the schisma is the last ‘useful’ interval. It’s useful only in that it’s the ratio of two musically important commas, the syntonic comma and the Pythagorean comma. Life in music would be simpler if these were equal, and in well-tempered tuning systems it’s common to pretend that they are.
All the intervals in this table up to the schisma were discovered by musicians a long time ago, and they all have standard names! After the schisma, interest drops off dramatically.
The atom of Kirnberger has such amazing properties that it was worth naming. The rest, maybe not. But as you can see, I’ve taken the liberty of naming the smallest interval in the table the ‘quark of Baez’. This is much smaller than all that come before. It’s in bad taste to name things after oneself—indeed this is item 25 on the crackpot index—but I hope it’s allowed as a joke.
I also hope that in the future this is considered my smallest mathematical discovery.
Here is the Python code that should generate the above information. If you’re good at programming, please review it and check it! Someone gave me a gift subscription to Claude, and it (more precisely Opus 4.5) created this code. It seems to make sense, and I’ve checked a bunch of the results, but I don’t know Python.
```
from math import log2

log3 = log2(3)
log5 = log2(5)

commas = []

max_exp_3 = 1200
max_exp_5 = 250

for a3 in range(-max_exp_3, max_exp_3+1):
    for a5 in range(-max_exp_5, max_exp_5+1):
        if a3 == 0 and a5 == 0:
            continue

# Find a2 that minimizes |a2 + a3 * log2(3) + a5 * log2(5)|

        target = -(a3 * log3 + a5 * log5)
        a2 = round(target)
        
        log2_ratio = a2 + a3 * log3 + a5 * log5
        cents = abs(1200 * log2_ratio)
        
        if cents > 0.00001:  # non-trivial
            tenney = abs(a2) + abs(a3) * log3 + abs(a5) * log5
            commas.append((tenney, cents, a2, a3, a5))

# Find Pareto frontier

commas.sort(key=lambda x: x[0])  # sort by Tenney height

frontier = []
best_cents = float('inf')
for c in commas:
    if c[1] < best_cents:
        best_cents = c[1]
        frontier.append(c)

# Print results 

for tenney, cents, a2, a3, a5 in frontier:
    log2_ratio = a2 + a3 * log3 + a5 * log5
    decimal = 2**log2_ratio
    if decimal < 1:
        decimal = 1/decimal
        a2, a3, a5 = -a2, -a3, -a5
    print(f"{cents:.6f} cents | {decimal:.10f} | [{a2}, {a3}, {a5}] | "
          f"Tenney: {tenney:.1f}")
```
Gene Ward Smith
In studying this subject I discovered that tiny 5-limit intervals were studied by Gene Ward Smith, a mathematician I used to see around on sci.math and the like. I never knew he worked on microtonal music! I am sad to hear that he died from COVID-19 in January 2021.
I may just be redoing a tiny part of his work: if anyone can find details, please let me know. In his memory, I’ll conclude with this article from the Xenharmonic Wiki:
Gene Ward Smith (1947–2021) was an American mathematician, music theorist, and composer.
In mathematics, he worked in the areas of Galois theory and Moonshine theory.
In music theory, he introduced wedge products as a way of classifying regular temperaments. In this system, a temperament is specified by means of a wedgie, which may technically be identified as a point on a Grassmannian. He had long drawn attention to the relationship between equal divisions of the octave and the Riemann zeta function.[1][2][3] He early on identified and emphasized free abelian groups of finite rank and their homomorphisms, and it was from that perspective that he contributed to the creation of the regular mapping paradigm.
In the 1970s, Gene experimented with musical compositions using a device with four square-wave voices, whose tuning was very stable and accurate, being controlled by a crystal oscillator. The device in turn was controlled by HP 9800 series desktop computers, initially the HP 9830A, programmed in HP Basic, later the 9845A. Using this, he explored both just intonation with a particular emphasis on groups of transformations, and pajara.
Gene had a basic understanding of the regular mapping paradigm during this period, but it was limited in practice since he was focused on the idea that the next step from meantone should keep some familiar features, and so was interested in tempering out 64/63 in place of 81/80. He knew 7-limit 12 and 22 had tempering out 64/63 and 50/49 in common, and 12 and 27 had tempering out 64/63 and 126/125 in common, and thought these would be logical places to progress to, blending novelty with familiarity. While he never got around to working with augene, he did consider it. For pajara, he found tempering certain JI scales, the 10 and 12 note highschool scales, led to interesting (omnitetrachordal) results, and that there were also closely related symmetric (MOS) scales of size 10 and 12 for pajara; he did some work with these, particularly favoring the pentachordal decatonic scale.
Gene was among the first to consider extending the Tonnetz of Hugo Riemann beyond the 5-limit and hence into higher dimensional lattices. In three dimensions, the hexagonal lattice of 5-limit harmony extends to a lattice of type A3 ~ D3. He is also the first to write music in a number of exotic intonation systems.
Historical interest
• Usenet post from 1990 by Gene Smith on homomorphisms and kernels
• Usenet post from 1995 by Gene Smith on homomorphisms and kernels
See also
• Microtonal music by Gene Ward Smith
• Hypergenesis58 (a scale described by Gene Ward Smith)
References
[1] Rusin, Dave. “Why 12 tones per octave?”
[2] OEIS. Increasingly large peaks of the Riemann zeta function on the critical line: OEIS: A117536.
[3] OEIS. Increasingly large integrals of the Z function between zeros: OEIS: A117538.
#Find
#find
Jupiter Rowland @[email protected] · 2024-10-17 · 22:31 UTC
@Jeffrey D. Stark I know that decision tree, and it doesn't really work for my original images because it's limited to what you'd usually find on professional/commercial static websites or blogs with a very small choice of kinds of images.

Let's take this image as an example here. It was the first image I've described in detail. I'm not going to link to that description because it's hopelessly outdated and probably terribly lacking at only a bit over 13,000 characters, and the image does not have a descriptive alt-text yet. It's an old shame, so-to-speak.

Does the image contain text?

Let's say, what the image shows within its borders has 22 bits of text on it, for any definition of text. This could count as yes.

However, of these 22 bits of text, only three are legible in the image as it is, at the resolution at which I've uploaded it: three times a capital M. As I've said, for any definition of text. The other 19 are so small that they're illegible, or they are so small that they can't be identified as text, or they're so tiny that they're invisible at this resolution. The big black sign in the middle with the yellow writing on it has a tree in front of it.

Is it still a yes because, while it isn't readable, there still is text?

Is it a yes for the three capital Ms?

Is it a no because the text does not show itself as text in this image at this resolution? So technically speaking, with the exception of the three capital Ms, there is no text in this image because where there's text in the original, there's just some blurry mush that does not qualify as text in the image as shown?

Or is it a no because I can't transcribe it anyway if I can't read it? Fun fact: I have transcribed all this text. 100% verbatim. And provided translations for everything that isn't English. So "you can't read it anyway" doesn't count because I can read it.

Now comes the kicker: If we pick yes because there is text in the image, the decision tree implies that it is an image of text and nothing else, and that the image-describing process is over after transcribing the text. This wouldn't even work with an image macro.

Does the image contribute meaning to the current page or context?

Does this question even work in this case?

Let's say the post in question is about the world where the image was taken shutting down soon and my avatar in this world disappearing. Because it was when I first posted this image. It's just meant to be a last farewell.

It doesn't add any extra information. This is not a post in a professional commercial or scientific or technological blog. So, does the image contribute meaning, yes or no?

If so:
- It's not "a simple graphic or a photograph". It's a digital 3-D rendering, and it's anything but simple.
- It's not "a graph or complex piece of information". Complex, yes. But it isn't a graph, and it isn't a piece of information of the kind you'd have on a scientific website.
- I don't think it "shows content that is redundant to real text nearby".
Other options aren't available.

Is the image purely decorative or not intended for users?

That's debatable. On professional websites and blogs, this question may make sense. In social media where nobody adds decorative images to posts, it doesn't. In the Fediverse which has way higher accessibility standards than 𝕏 or Facebook or Tumblr or Threads or Bluesky or LinkedIn, it makes even less sense.

Is the image’s use not listed above or it’s unclear what alt text to provide?

Probably.

The top of the article is already a dead give-away: This guide is not meant for social media. Not for the big commercial silos, and even less for the Fediverse where Mastodon re-defines what makes an image description good. Not even two dozen people in the world use social media that support HTML <img> tags in posts.

While professional Web accessibility experts will throw their hands up into the air in utter outrage over 250 characters of alt-text because it's too long, Mastodon users celebrate alt-text that's four times as long.

So this is a case where a whole bunch of edge-cases unhandled by the WAI meet in one place:
- A situation in which not the audience comes to the content, but the content comes to the audience without the audience necessarily explicitly seeking out this kind of content.
- Social media with possibilities that vastly exceed those of the big commercial silos, especially regarding character count, while at the same time mostly not supporting full HTML.
- An audience which has defined its own accessibility "rules". Including blind or visually-impaired people who do want to know what something in an image looks like, even if the WAI alt-text guidelines forbid describing it.
- Content that has never been taken into consideration by any alt-text/image description guide out there. Ever.
Trying to force this into the WAI or WCAG guidelines is akin to trying to push a square peg into a round hole that was drilled by people who think all pegs are round.

I mean, as you've just seen, I can't even clearly answer any of the questions in the decision tree.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #WebAccessibilityInitiative #WAI #WCAG #A11y #Accessibility
#webaccessibilityinitiative #cwimagedescriptionmeta #imagedescriptionmeta #imagedescriptions #imagedescription #cwfediversemeta
Jupiter Rowland @[email protected] · 2024-10-17 · 22:31 UTC
@Jeffrey D. Stark I know that decision tree, and it doesn't really work for my original images because it's limited to what you'd usually find on professional/commercial static websites or blogs with a very small choice of kinds of images.

Let's take this image as an example here. It was the first image I've described in detail. I'm not going to link to that description because it's hopelessly outdated and probably terribly lacking at only a bit over 13,000 characters, and the image does not have a descriptive alt-text yet. It's an old shame, so-to-speak.

Does the image contain text?

Let's say, what the image shows within its borders has 22 bits of text on it, for any definition of text. This could count as yes.

However, of these 22 bits of text, only three are legible in the image as it is, at the resolution at which I've uploaded it: three times a capital M. As I've said, for any definition of text. The other 19 are so small that they're illegible, or they are so small that they can't be identified as text, or they're so tiny that they're invisible at this resolution. The big black sign in the middle with the yellow writing on it has a tree in front of it.

Is it still a yes because, while it isn't readable, there still is text?

Is it a yes for the three capital Ms?

Is it a no because the text does not show itself as text in this image at this resolution? So technically speaking, with the exception of the three capital Ms, there is no text in this image because where there's text in the original, there's just some blurry mush that does not qualify as text in the image as shown?

Or is it a no because I can't transcribe it anyway if I can't read it? Fun fact: I have transcribed all this text. 100% verbatim. And provided translations for everything that isn't English. So "you can't read it anyway" doesn't count because I can read it.

Now comes the kicker: If we pick yes because there is text in the image, the decision tree implies that it is an image of text and nothing else, and that the image-describing process is over after transcribing the text. This wouldn't even work with an image macro.

Does the image contribute meaning to the current page or context?

Does this question even work in this case?

Let's say the post in question is about the world where the image was taken shutting down soon and my avatar in this world disappearing. Because it was when I first posted this image. It's just meant to be a last farewell.

It doesn't add any extra information. This is not a post in a professional commercial or scientific or technological blog. So, does the image contribute meaning, yes or no?

If so:
- It's not "a simple graphic or a photograph". It's a digital 3-D rendering, and it's anything but simple.
- It's not "a graph or complex piece of information". Complex, yes. But it isn't a graph, and it isn't a piece of information of the kind you'd have on a scientific website.
- I don't think it "shows content that is redundant to real text nearby".
Other options aren't available.

Is the image purely decorative or not intended for users?

That's debatable. On professional websites and blogs, this question may make sense. In social media where nobody adds decorative images to posts, it doesn't. In the Fediverse which has way higher accessibility standards than 𝕏 or Facebook or Tumblr or Threads or Bluesky or LinkedIn, it makes even less sense.

Is the image’s use not listed above or it’s unclear what alt text to provide?

Probably.

The top of the article is already a dead give-away: This guide is not meant for social media. Not for the big commercial silos, and even less for the Fediverse where Mastodon re-defines what makes an image description good. Not even two dozen people in the world use social media that support HTML <img> tags in posts.

While professional Web accessibility experts will throw their hands up into the air in utter outrage over 250 characters of alt-text because it's too long, Mastodon users celebrate alt-text that's four times as long.

So this is a case where a whole bunch of edge-cases unhandled by the WAI meet in one place:
- A situation in which not the audience comes to the content, but the content comes to the audience without the audience necessarily explicitly seeking out this kind of content.
- Social media with possibilities that vastly exceed those of the big commercial silos, especially regarding character count, while at the same time mostly not supporting full HTML.
- An audience which has defined its own accessibility "rules". Including blind or visually-impaired people who do want to know what something in an image looks like, even if the WAI alt-text guidelines forbid describing it.
- Content that has never been taken into consideration by any alt-text/image description guide out there. Ever.
Trying to force this into the WAI or WCAG guidelines is akin to trying to push a square peg into a round hole that was drilled by people who think all pegs are round.

I mean, as you've just seen, I can't even clearly answer any of the questions in the decision tree.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #WebAccessibilityInitiative #WAI #WCAG #A11y #Accessibility
#webaccessibilityinitiative #cwimagedescriptionmeta #imagedescriptionmeta #imagedescriptions #imagedescription #cwfediversemeta
Jupiter Rowland @[email protected] · 2024-10-17 · 22:31 UTC
@Jeffrey D. Stark I know that decision tree, and it doesn't really work for my original images because it's limited to what you'd usually find on professional/commercial static websites or blogs with a very small choice of kinds of images.

Let's take this image as an example here. It was the first image I've described in detail. I'm not going to link to that description because it's hopelessly outdated and probably terribly lacking at only a bit over 13,000 characters, and the image does not have a descriptive alt-text yet. It's an old shame, so-to-speak.

Does the image contain text?

Let's say, what the image shows within its borders has 22 bits of text on it, for any definition of text. This could count as yes.

However, of these 22 bits of text, only three are legible in the image as it is, at the resolution at which I've uploaded it: three times a capital M. As I've said, for any definition of text. The other 19 are so small that they're illegible, or they are so small that they can't be identified as text, or they're so tiny that they're invisible at this resolution. The big black sign in the middle with the yellow writing on it has a tree in front of it.

Is it still a yes because, while it isn't readable, there still is text?

Is it a yes for the three capital Ms?

Is it a no because the text does not show itself as text in this image at this resolution? So technically speaking, with the exception of the three capital Ms, there is no text in this image because where there's text in the original, there's just some blurry mush that does not qualify as text in the image as shown?

Or is it a no because I can't transcribe it anyway if I can't read it? Fun fact: I have transcribed all this text. 100% verbatim. And provided translations for everything that isn't English. So "you can't read it anyway" doesn't count because I can read it.

Now comes the kicker: If we pick yes because there is text in the image, the decision tree implies that it is an image of text and nothing else, and that the image-describing process is over after transcribing the text. This wouldn't even work with an image macro.

Does the image contribute meaning to the current page or context?

Does this question even work in this case?

Let's say the post in question is about the world where the image was taken shutting down soon and my avatar in this world disappearing. Because it was when I first posted this image. It's just meant to be a last farewell.

It doesn't add any extra information. This is not a post in a professional commercial or scientific or technological blog. So, does the image contribute meaning, yes or no?

If so:
- It's not "a simple graphic or a photograph". It's a digital 3-D rendering, and it's anything but simple.
- It's not "a graph or complex piece of information". Complex, yes. But it isn't a graph, and it isn't a piece of information of the kind you'd have on a scientific website.
- I don't think it "shows content that is redundant to real text nearby".
Other options aren't available.

Is the image purely decorative or not intended for users?

That's debatable. On professional websites and blogs, this question may make sense. In social media where nobody adds decorative images to posts, it doesn't. In the Fediverse which has way higher accessibility standards than 𝕏 or Facebook or Tumblr or Threads or Bluesky or LinkedIn, it makes even less sense.

Is the image’s use not listed above or it’s unclear what alt text to provide?

Probably.

The top of the article is already a dead give-away: This guide is not meant for social media. Not for the big commercial silos, and even less for the Fediverse where Mastodon re-defines what makes an image description good. Not even two dozen people in the world use social media that support HTML <img> tags in posts.

While professional Web accessibility experts will throw their hands up into the air in utter outrage over 250 characters of alt-text because it's too long, Mastodon users celebrate alt-text that's four times as long.

So this is a case where a whole bunch of edge-cases unhandled by the WAI meet in one place:
- A situation in which not the audience comes to the content, but the content comes to the audience without the audience necessarily explicitly seeking out this kind of content.
- Social media with possibilities that vastly exceed those of the big commercial silos, especially regarding character count, while at the same time mostly not supporting full HTML.
- An audience which has defined its own accessibility "rules". Including blind or visually-impaired people who do want to know what something in an image looks like, even if the WAI alt-text guidelines forbid describing it.
- Content that has never been taken into consideration by any alt-text/image description guide out there. Ever.
Trying to force this into the WAI or WCAG guidelines is akin to trying to push a square peg into a round hole that was drilled by people who think all pegs are round.

I mean, as you've just seen, I can't even clearly answer any of the questions in the decision tree.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #WebAccessibilityInitiative #WAI #WCAG #A11y #Accessibility
#webaccessibilityinitiative #cwimagedescriptionmeta #imagedescriptionmeta #imagedescriptions #imagedescription #cwfediversemeta
Jupiter Rowland @[email protected] · 2024-10-17 · 22:31 UTC
@Jeffrey D. Stark I know that decision tree, and it doesn't really work for my original images because it's limited to what you'd usually find on professional/commercial static websites or blogs with a very small choice of kinds of images.

Let's take this image as an example here. It was the first image I've described in detail. I'm not going to link to that description because it's hopelessly outdated and probably terribly lacking at only a bit over 13,000 characters, and the image does not have a descriptive alt-text yet. It's an old shame, so-to-speak.

Does the image contain text?

Let's say, what the image shows within its borders has 22 bits of text on it, for any definition of text. This could count as yes.

However, of these 22 bits of text, only three are legible in the image as it is, at the resolution at which I've uploaded it: three times a capital M. As I've said, for any definition of text. The other 19 are so small that they're illegible, or they are so small that they can't be identified as text, or they're so tiny that they're invisible at this resolution. The big black sign in the middle with the yellow writing on it has a tree in front of it.

Is it still a yes because, while it isn't readable, there still is text?

Is it a yes for the three capital Ms?

Is it a no because the text does not show itself as text in this image at this resolution? So technically speaking, with the exception of the three capital Ms, there is no text in this image because where there's text in the original, there's just some blurry mush that does not qualify as text in the image as shown?

Or is it a no because I can't transcribe it anyway if I can't read it? Fun fact: I have transcribed all this text. 100% verbatim. And provided translations for everything that isn't English. So "you can't read it anyway" doesn't count because I can read it.

Now comes the kicker: If we pick yes because there is text in the image, the decision tree implies that it is an image of text and nothing else, and that the image-describing process is over after transcribing the text. This wouldn't even work with an image macro.

Does the image contribute meaning to the current page or context?

Does this question even work in this case?

Let's say the post in question is about the world where the image was taken shutting down soon and my avatar in this world disappearing. Because it was when I first posted this image. It's just meant to be a last farewell.

It doesn't add any extra information. This is not a post in a professional commercial or scientific or technological blog. So, does the image contribute meaning, yes or no?

If so:
- It's not "a simple graphic or a photograph". It's a digital 3-D rendering, and it's anything but simple.
- It's not "a graph or complex piece of information". Complex, yes. But it isn't a graph, and it isn't a piece of information of the kind you'd have on a scientific website.
- I don't think it "shows content that is redundant to real text nearby".
Other options aren't available.

Is the image purely decorative or not intended for users?

That's debatable. On professional websites and blogs, this question may make sense. In social media where nobody adds decorative images to posts, it doesn't. In the Fediverse which has way higher accessibility standards than 𝕏 or Facebook or Tumblr or Threads or Bluesky or LinkedIn, it makes even less sense.

Is the image’s use not listed above or it’s unclear what alt text to provide?

Probably.

The top of the article is already a dead give-away: This guide is not meant for social media. Not for the big commercial silos, and even less for the Fediverse where Mastodon re-defines what makes an image description good. Not even two dozen people in the world use social media that support HTML <img> tags in posts.

While professional Web accessibility experts will throw their hands up into the air in utter outrage over 250 characters of alt-text because it's too long, Mastodon users celebrate alt-text that's four times as long.

So this is a case where a whole bunch of edge-cases unhandled by the WAI meet in one place:
- A situation in which not the audience comes to the content, but the content comes to the audience without the audience necessarily explicitly seeking out this kind of content.
- Social media with possibilities that vastly exceed those of the big commercial silos, especially regarding character count, while at the same time mostly not supporting full HTML.
- An audience which has defined its own accessibility "rules". Including blind or visually-impaired people who do want to know what something in an image looks like, even if the WAI alt-text guidelines forbid describing it.
- Content that has never been taken into consideration by any alt-text/image description guide out there. Ever.
Trying to force this into the WAI or WCAG guidelines is akin to trying to push a square peg into a round hole that was drilled by people who think all pegs are round.

I mean, as you've just seen, I can't even clearly answer any of the questions in the decision tree.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #WebAccessibilityInitiative #WAI #WCAG #A11y #Accessibility
#wai #a11y #wcag #long #cwlong #alttext
Jupiter Rowland @[email protected] · 2024-10-17 · 22:31 UTC
@Jeffrey D. Stark I know that decision tree, and it doesn't really work for my original images because it's limited to what you'd usually find on professional/commercial static websites or blogs with a very small choice of kinds of images.

Let's take this image as an example here. It was the first image I've described in detail. I'm not going to link to that description because it's hopelessly outdated and probably terribly lacking at only a bit over 13,000 characters, and the image does not have a descriptive alt-text yet. It's an old shame, so-to-speak.

Does the image contain text?

Let's say, what the image shows within its borders has 22 bits of text on it, for any definition of text. This could count as yes.

However, of these 22 bits of text, only three are legible in the image as it is, at the resolution at which I've uploaded it: three times a capital M. As I've said, for any definition of text. The other 19 are so small that they're illegible, or they are so small that they can't be identified as text, or they're so tiny that they're invisible at this resolution. The big black sign in the middle with the yellow writing on it has a tree in front of it.

Is it still a yes because, while it isn't readable, there still is text?

Is it a yes for the three capital Ms?

Is it a no because the text does not show itself as text in this image at this resolution? So technically speaking, with the exception of the three capital Ms, there is no text in this image because where there's text in the original, there's just some blurry mush that does not qualify as text in the image as shown?

Or is it a no because I can't transcribe it anyway if I can't read it? Fun fact: I have transcribed all this text. 100% verbatim. And provided translations for everything that isn't English. So "you can't read it anyway" doesn't count because I can read it.

Now comes the kicker: If we pick yes because there is text in the image, the decision tree implies that it is an image of text and nothing else, and that the image-describing process is over after transcribing the text. This wouldn't even work with an image macro.

Does the image contribute meaning to the current page or context?

Does this question even work in this case?

Let's say the post in question is about the world where the image was taken shutting down soon and my avatar in this world disappearing. Because it was when I first posted this image. It's just meant to be a last farewell.

It doesn't add any extra information. This is not a post in a professional commercial or scientific or technological blog. So, does the image contribute meaning, yes or no?

If so:
- It's not "a simple graphic or a photograph". It's a digital 3-D rendering, and it's anything but simple.
- It's not "a graph or complex piece of information". Complex, yes. But it isn't a graph, and it isn't a piece of information of the kind you'd have on a scientific website.
- I don't think it "shows content that is redundant to real text nearby".
Other options aren't available.

Is the image purely decorative or not intended for users?

That's debatable. On professional websites and blogs, this question may make sense. In social media where nobody adds decorative images to posts, it doesn't. In the Fediverse which has way higher accessibility standards than 𝕏 or Facebook or Tumblr or Threads or Bluesky or LinkedIn, it makes even less sense.

Is the image’s use not listed above or it’s unclear what alt text to provide?

Probably.

The top of the article is already a dead give-away: This guide is not meant for social media. Not for the big commercial silos, and even less for the Fediverse where Mastodon re-defines what makes an image description good. Not even two dozen people in the world use social media that support HTML <img> tags in posts.

While professional Web accessibility experts will throw their hands up into the air in utter outrage over 250 characters of alt-text because it's too long, Mastodon users celebrate alt-text that's four times as long.

So this is a case where a whole bunch of edge-cases unhandled by the WAI meet in one place:
- A situation in which not the audience comes to the content, but the content comes to the audience without the audience necessarily explicitly seeking out this kind of content.
- Social media with possibilities that vastly exceed those of the big commercial silos, especially regarding character count, while at the same time mostly not supporting full HTML.
- An audience which has defined its own accessibility "rules". Including blind or visually-impaired people who do want to know what something in an image looks like, even if the WAI alt-text guidelines forbid describing it.
- Content that has never been taken into consideration by any alt-text/image description guide out there. Ever.
Trying to force this into the WAI or WCAG guidelines is akin to trying to push a square peg into a round hole that was drilled by people who think all pegs are round.

I mean, as you've just seen, I can't even clearly answer any of the questions in the decision tree.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #WebAccessibilityInitiative #WAI #WCAG #A11y #Accessibility
#webaccessibilityinitiative #cwimagedescriptionmeta #imagedescriptionmeta #imagedescriptions #imagedescription #cwfediversemeta
Creative Splurges @[email protected] · 2026-04-03 · 18:46 UTC

Bluebell Railway: Spring Gala 2026

It’s Easter, which is prime spring gala season in the heritage railway world. Many railways like to run galas at this time of year, running more intensive timetables and bringing in guest locomotives to attract crowds. In previous years, the Bluebell Railway has run what they call a Branch Line gala in the spring, but this year they ran a more general spring gala, presumably to free themselves from working to a ‘branch line’ theme.
Kit ListCanon EOS R6 Mk II Canon EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 L IS USM Canon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 L IS USM Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS USM Canon RF 14-35mm f/4 L IS USM Jump to Gallery
As is now traditional for me at a Bluebell gala, I attended the Friday and Saturday of the event, and would once again mostly be rolling with Sharpthorne Steam and 72B Photography (although our little lineside crew is getting bigger, with both Chailey Stowe and SouthEast Classic Rail now also holders of the orange vest).
We started the weekend at Freshfield Bank, which is also a very popular spot for people on the fence side of the line. There are usually a couple of choices when shooting here: out in the field for a wide shot, or lineside with a more front-on shot. This time out I went for the lineside shot. Although it was a sunny day it was a hazy morning, so I decided to edit this shot in monochrome to cover up the slightly pale colours. The first locomotive was one of the visitors for the event, British Railways standard 4 75069.
1/500sec, f/5.6, ISO 100, 190mm
As has also now become standard, I was shooting in Manual Mode (with auto ISO) and mostly using my 28-300mm “railway lens” for the freedom to shoot both zoomed in (as above) and wide angle (so below).
1/500sec, f/5.6, ISO 160, 35mm
The good thing about spring galas is the weather is still usually good for lovely exhaust.
We headed north to a spot known as Holywell. It’s just south of the s-bend near Waterworks I’m quite partial to. There we readied for the arrival of 75069’s big sister, resident locomotive 73082 Camelot.
1/500sec, f/5.6, ISO 125, 105mm
As I opened up the angle, all the factors aligned for this next shot.
1/500sec, f/5.6, ISO 200, 28mm
Lovely exhaust, beautiful morning light, blue skies, a locomotive perfectly matched to a set of gorgeous rolling stock, and if you’re really picky (and I’m usually not, but I can’t help but notice it) the wheel connecting rod is in the more aesthetically pleasing downward position. I didn’t realise it at the time, but this is probably one of the better shots I got all weekend.
One of the challenges of this gala was that several of the locomotives running would be facing south. There aren’t as many spots to capture a south-facing steam engine working as there are north-facing ones, so it’s harder to get into the right spots. We tried to make it south to shoot 80151 at a decent spot but decided we had ran out of time, so we ended up shooting her coasting.
1/500sec, f/5.6, ISO 160, 100mm
We then travelled by car up to Horsted Keynes and headed north, so shoot the next northbound train, which would be 34059 Sir Archibald Sinclair on a stonking run, come under Horsted House Bridge.
1/500sec, f/5.6, ISO 250, 275mm1/500sec, f/5.6, ISO 250, 65mm
This was one of the best runs of the weekend. My photos don’t really do it justice, but luckily as ever I also took some video too.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWHbkAjDI4N/
We headed north, eventually meeting up with The Southerner who was also out. We trekked up in the general direction of the southern portal of Sharpthorne Tunnel. The idea was to try shooting a locomotive coming out of Courtland Wood. That locomotive ended up being 80151, which as she would be coming bunker-first, made it a little bit of a throwaway shot. It worked quite nicely though – definitely one to try again.
1/500sec, f/5.6, ISO 250, 70mm
We then headed back south a little, to catch 75069 just north of Vaux End Bridge, running through the s-bend where we’d shot Sir Archie on New Year’s Day. With the longer shot, I broke out my bigger 100-500mm telephoto.
1/640sec, f/7.1, ISO 320, 100mm
On the footplate of this locomotive over the weekend was a Bluebell volunteer who originally fired this very engine back in the BR days, making this a nice reunion of man and locomotive. He can be seen on the right of the shot below.
1/640sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200, 100mm
From here, we returned to the car and headed up the line towards Kingscote station. We headed to just south of the station, where we encountered SouthEast Classic Rail, and waited for the other visitor, W8 Freshwater, doubleheading with 72 Fenchurch, to arrive from the south.
1/500sec, f/5, ISO 100, 70mm
The plentiful daffodils also served as an interesting framing device when 75069 went back towards Sheffield Park, tender-first.
1/640sec, f/4, ISO 100, 24mm
We continued south, with the intention of getting into a spot ready for both Fenchurch and Freshwater to come back south, which they’d be doing in a triple header with 80151, facing the right way and hopefully working hard. On the way we met up with Chailey, because that sort of thing seems to happen often when you’re lineside at the moment. In the meantime, we had another run from Sir Archibald Sinclair to enjoy. For this, 72B, SouthEast and myself positioned ourselves north of Birchstone Bridge, whilst Sharpthorne and Chailey headed to the south. Luckily, Archie got signal checked, meaning we actually had some exhaust where we were, unlike the unfortunate pair south of the bridge.
1/640sec, f/4, ISO 160, 50mm
The question then became where to go for the triple header. We ended up scattered across this section of the line. SouthEast and I decided the light would be better slightly north, on an embankment that would also give us a wider angle and some elevation (which is nice for a train pulled by three locomotives). Sharpthorne and Chailey remained south near Birch Farm crossing hoping the engines would be working harder there, and 72B chose somewhere in the middle. In the event, the locos didn’t work particularly hard on this run, so I’m glad I chose to go where I ended up, because at least I got some decent photographs out of it.
1/640sec, f/4, ISO 250, 42mm
With the triple header done, focus shifted back to locomotives facing north, so we headed back to the Horsted Keynes footpath, there to capture 75069. This remains a shot where I prefer to use my bigger telephoto.
1/640sec, f/5, ISO 250, 186mm 1/640sec, f/4.5, ISO 400, 100mm
We then headed to Freshfield Bank for the last trains of the day, the first of which would be Sir Archibald Sinclair, which I elected to shoot lineside, exactly where I’d started the day.
1/640sec, f/4.5, ISO 320, 50mm
The last train we planned to shoot this day would be pulled by Freshwater and Fenchurch, albeit bunker-first. For this, I decided I wanted to head out into the field and get a slow shutter panning shot. Whilst I waited, Camelot came back south, which presented a nice opportunity to further practice the technique (which is to shoot in shutter mode at a speed of 1/25th or thereabouts, and pan smoothly with the locomotive).
1/25sec, f/14, ISO 100, 80mm
Soon Fenchurch and Freshwater arrived.
1/25sec, f/18, ISO 100, 100mm
This run marked the end of the first day of the gala for most of us. Apart from me, because (much like during Giants of Steam the previous October) I stayed on to do a night shoot with Freshwater at Horsted Keynes – although the results of that will be coming in a separate post.

The next morning, for various logistical reasons, I made my own way to the lineside to meet up with 72B and Sharpthorne. The first locomotive was due to be Sir Archibald Sinclair making a light engine movement down to Horsted Keynes to pick up a set of coaches and forms the first service of the day from there. When I entered the lineside at the Tremains foot crossing I decided I didn’t have the time to make it down to Holywell to meet them before the locomotive came up, so instead I positioned myself at Rock Cutting for the light, knowing full well the engine probably wouldn’t be working that hard (there was also another photographer there, so I could check whether I’d missed the run entirely).
1/640sec, f/5, ISO 250, 70mm
It was then safe to head up the line to meet up with Sharpthorne and 72B at Holywell, where we prepared for the next service, which would be 2999 Lady of Legend leading Camelot in a doubleheader. Lady visited the railway for Giants of Steam last October and hasn’t actually left yet, although for whatever reason she hasn’t been in steam for most of that period. Hopefully she’ll be out a bit more over the coming weeks, especially once the bluebells start sprouting.
1/2000sec, f/5, ISO 800, 100mm1/2000sec, f/5, ISO 1000, 28mm
My shooting at 1/2000th was an error. I suspect I knocked a setting somewhere. AAs it didn’t lead to any crazy ISO settings or me missing the shot, it’s not that much of an issue – certainly it didn’t cause as much headache as another settings whoopsie I’d make later in the day.
After this it was back to Freshfield Bank for 75069, where again I decided I wanted to get a panning shot. Unfortunately as it’s so exposed, Freshfield can sometimes be a bit breezy, and on this occasion the wind was blowing towards us, so the exhaust did obscure the locomotive a little bit.
1/25sec, f/32, ISO 100, 70mm
Then it was up to Horsted Keynes, where we headed north with only a vague idea of what we were going to do. In the end we went our separate ways, with 72B heading further north towards Vaux End Bridge and Sharpthorne and I staying near Horsted House Bridge. I wanted to try a shot I’ve been thinking about for a few months, involving looking up at a locomotive as it passes under a bridge, with the exhaust pluming around the arch of the bridge. I had done a couple of test shots in the weeks leading up to the gala, so I had an idea of what I wanted to do and how it would work. Sharpthorne stayed south of the bridge so he wasn’t in my shot, and I sat just north of the bridge with my wide angle lens ready for Sir Archibald Sinclair to arrive. The shot just before the one I was aiming for actually had the engine and her exhaust nicely framed by the arch of the bridge.
1/640sec, f/4, ISO 160, 23mm
But this next one is pretty much the shot I was after.
1/640sec, f/4, ISO 160, 22mm
I’m happy with the result, but it’s not as dramatic as the shot I was visualising. More than anything the exhaust was not as voluminous as I was hoping. I think the next time I try this shot (and try it I will) it’ll need to be somewhere like Leamland Bridge, where locomotives are moving slower and working harder to get moving. It’s the bridge that inspired the shot in the first place, with this run during the New Year’s Day gala. I might also need to wait until winter comes back before giving it a proper go again.
For our next shot we headed down to the footpath north of Horsted Keynes station for another run by Lady of Legend, where we bumped into a bunch of other shooters. This is where I made my second settings-related boo-boo of the weekend. At some point, presumably when I was switching over to my big telephoto (which is my go-to lens for this bit of track), I knocked my camera into Shutter Priority mode, which was still set up for a slow shutter panning shots, and didn’t notice. Some shots came out completely blurry and unusable, as expected. A few, though, came out pretty decent, and a bit different because the exhaust was smoothed out a little, rather than frozen in time.
1/25sec, f/25, ISO 100, 343mm 1/25sec, f/20, ISO 100, 270mm
Although it makes a nice change, I’d definitely have been happier with the shot I was going for, which was capturing the texture in the exhaust. Even so, I’m glad I got something useable and a bit different out of my error.
We then hopped back to Freshfield Bank, where a BR standard doubleheader was in the offing, with standard 4 75069 leading standard 5 Camelot. With a doubleheader such as this, it makes sense to get wide of the track where you can see both locomotives clearly.
1/640sec, f/5, ISO 160, 105mm
Unfortunately the wind was still blowing in the same direction as earlier and so the exhaust started to obscure Camelot.
1/640sec, f/4.5, ISO 125, 65mm
Then it was back in the car to head all the way up to the other end of the line, to photograph a repeat of the previous day’s triple header from Imberhorne Bridge as it departed from East Grinstead. This is another public spot, as linesiders aren’t allowed on the section of track north of Kingscote.
1/640sec, f/5, ISO 200, 100mm
We continued hopping about, this time heading back to Tremains to head to Lindfield Wood. The sun was starting to get a little low so it wasn’t entirely clear how much light would be shining on the next locomotive, which would be Lady of Legend. As it turned out, it wasn’t too bad, but Lady wasn’t working hard when she came through.
1/200sec, f/4.5, ISO 160, 40mm
In this light she looks really nice with the Pullman dining coaches. Only thing this shot is missing is a nice thick exhaust.
We then headed back to Rock Cutting, as both Fenchurch and Freshwater were due to come back south light engine. This spot is usually not bad for locos heading south, but can sometimes be hit and miss, and this time they were taking things easy.
1/640sec, f/4.5, ISO 320, 50mm
At this point, we split up again to shoot the upcoming doubleheader of Camelot and 75069. Sharpthorne headed north back towards Holywell, whereas 72B and I headed south towards the broken bridge. For both groups, timing would be tight.
With the tightness of time, unfortunately 72B and I didn’t pick quite the right spot. Going for a shot through the bridge, sadly the locomotives shut off before they passed through, so we got some nice light, but not much exhaust.
1/640sec, f/4.5, ISO 400, 35mm
For the next train, we moved only a few feet up the track, for 80151 to come back down.
1/640sec, f/5.6, ISO 400, 300mm
Considering I don’t have too many great shots of 80151 the conditions for this run were pretty spot on, with exhaust, clear skies, and lovely golden hour light.
1/640sec, f/4.5, ISO 320, 40mm
You might have also spotted the second exhaust plume in the shots above. This service was top and tailed, with № 65 sitting on the back. The locomotive caught the light nicely too so I made sure to get a shot, and it’s one I can might be able to pass off as an engine going forwards, if I were so inclined.
1/640sec, f/5, ISO 320, 80mm
We then headed south to Freshfield Bank again for our last booked photograph of the day, Sir Archibald Sinclair. Unfortunately she was pulling the metropolitan coach set, which is a very odd pairing. Even so, the golden light was continuing to impress.
1/640sec, f/5.6, ISO 320, 135mm
With that, all our planned shooting for the day was done, and we started walking back to Tremains to meet up with Sharpthorne and head back to Sheffield Park. Inevitably on the way we encountered another locomotive coming the wrong way, but given the light remained lovely shooting it was inevitable.
1/640sec, f/5.6, ISO 400, 24mm
The glint off the tender is lovely, but a little bit blown out. Turns out, it is possible to have too much glint on a locomotive.

Now, this was planned to be the end of my time at the Spring Gala, but unfortunately when we got back to Sheffield Park, the offices were shut and we weren’t able to return our hi viz vests, which necessitated a trip back to Sheffield Park for me on Sunday to return my vest. Of course, I wasn’t about to leave my camera at home, even if I had every intention of being good, and not going lineside (I even handed in my vest as soon as I arrived).
Inevitably, I ended up spending a little bit of time around the station, photographing some of the sights and comings and goings. Firstly, the crew of 75069 were taking on water.
1/1250sec, f/2.8, ISO 100, 70mm
I also had the opportunity to do some of the more abstract railway photography that I just don’t get when lineside shooting running trains.
1/100sec, f/2.8, ISO 100, 45mm 1/100sec, f/4, ISO 100, 39mm
With the venting steam, this shot of the engine cab takes on a lovely atmosphere.
1/1250sec, f/4, ISO 100, 52mm
Soon 75069 backed down into her coaches, giving me a chance to shoot this member of crew watching proceedings. In monochrome it could almost be from 60 years ago. As long as you don’t notice the modern shunting signal.
1/640sec, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500mm
Out near the loco shed, Lady of Legend was sitting steaming away in a siding, complete with The Merchant Venturer headboard.
1/320sec, f/5, ISO 100, 238mm 1/400sec, f/4.5, ISO 100, 135mm
Lady soon moved out behind the loco shed, so I headed in to see the sights. There, Lady was steaming away alongside Fenchurch, also being prepared for the day, and № 65, who had the day off.
1/320sec, f/4, ISO 100, 24mm
Atlantic House was open too, meaning I could pop in and give my regards to the Adams Radial 30583, patiently waiting for her own overhaul (which sadly isn’t any time soon).
1/60sec, f/4, ISO 1600, 35mm
From here I could also see Freshwater getting ready for the day.
1/640sec, f/5, ISO 100, 105mm
As well as a clearer view of Fenchurch and Lady.
1/640sec, f/4, ISO 100, 35mm
Not that it was the most visible, I also got a shot of the current state of 21C123 Blackmoor Vale, whose boiler is off in Devon. This is a locomotive I’m looking forward to seeing back in steam.
1/60sec, f/4, ISO 200, 40mm
I walked back into the engine shed and caught sight of Camelot lined up nicely with the window slats.
1/320sec, f/4, ISO 100, 28mm
I got back out onto the platform in time to see 75069 getting ready to go. She let off a big plume of steam which contrasted nicely against the now blue sky.
1/1600sec, f/4, ISO 100, 28mm
Soon she was off, making a nicely dramatic departure.
1/640sec, f/5.6, ISO 100, 120mm
It after two hectic days of shooting running locomotives, it was nice to spend a calm hour or so watching steam engines shunting about. The perfect way to end the weekend – technically the first gala where I’ve attended all three days. But with the station now quiet, it seemed like the perfect time to head back home.
But since it was gala season, it would only be a week before I was out at another railway, and their own spring gala. But that, obviously, will be another post entirely.
As always, there are a lot of shots that didn’t make the cut above, which are in the gallery below. A video montage of the weekend can be seen on my Instagram account.
#BluebellRailway #Photography #steamRailways #sussex #trains #travel

#bluebellrailway #photography #steamrailways #sussex #trains #travel