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The thread about a Leith “Beggar’s Badge”; when the Scottish state sanctioned begging as a privilege for a select few
This thread was originally written and published in December 2020.
Today’s Auction House Artefact is this Leith beggar’s badge or token. It is inscribed on the front with an earlier version of the emblem from the Burgh coat of arms and motto Persevere. The date 1565 which refers to the date of Mary Queen of Scots writing permission for Leith to erect its Tolbooth, and on the back with “Leith Poor No. 10.” It’s not date stamped, but I would wager this is from the second half of the 19th century, given the better quality of the token, the style of the crest and the fact the Persevere motto does not appear in use until around the 1860s.
Front and rear of a Leith beggar’s badge. Move the slider to reveal each face.“The growth of a large class of beggars in medieval times led to the necessity for limiting the numbers of those
Jacques Callot, Family of Beggars, 17th century. CC-by-NC National Galleries Scotland
officially entitled to beg“. This was put into Scottish law by an Act of Parliament as early as 1424. Only those with a badge were allowed to beg, and it had to be worn on outer clothing. Begging was seen as a privilege for certain “deserving poor” and restricted to such charitable cases as widows, the aged or those with disabilities or injuries that precluded them from working.Anyone found begging without a badge was liable to be dealt with severely by vagrancy laws. Sheriffs would round up “masterless men” and arrest them – these might itinerants such as wood or wool gatherers. They would be given 40 days to find a master or craft, under pain of either imprisonment, banishment from the county (which may involve the hand being branded) or being sent into bonded labour such as coal mining or salt panning. “Egyptians” (gypsies) were in particular persecuted, being banished from Scotland if they did not renounce their itinerant ways. Landowners and heritors in the 17th and 18th century were subject to a tax called “Vagabond Money”, which was to pay for the employment of vagrants as labourers. The words vagabond and vagrant both come from the Latin vagari, to wander.
Parishes and burghs all over Scotland issued these badges, as they were responsible for the maintenance of their own poor. It allowed the bearer to beg in the burgh or parish that issued it, and protected them from the force of the vagrancy laws. The parishes and burghs were resentful of having to support “idle beggars” or “sturdy beggars” from other areas, and so wanted to be able to identify their own. Begging was thus an official and strictly controlled activity.
A blind beggar in Edinburgh, c. 1750. Sketch by Paul Sandby. © Trustees of the British Museum, Nn,6.35Beggar’s badges were generally lead, pewter, copper or some other easily cast, cheap metal. Stone and pasteboard are also recorded. Not many survive, they usually have a serial number. Dates are less common and the holder’s name is almost never seen. There are at least four further Leith badges in public collections. The National Museum of Scotland lists three. Two are shown below, the third is described as “A lead circle, featuring the arms of Leith, similar to the one at the start of the thread, numbered No. 9“:
A lead oval, featuring the arms of Leith (below left), numbered No. 5A clipped lead oblong from from the 18th century, one round and one oval, numbered No. 7 (below right)I believe the Hunterian collection in Glasgow has a No. 4. And there are a wide range of other designs from across Scotland. Interestingly, as far as I’m aware no tokens from the 2 largest burghs (Edinburgh and Glasgow) are known to survive, this may be because they were melted down and recycled whenever they were renewed.
18th century Tokens from Adrrossan, Ayr, Alves, Conveth, Coupar Angus, Crieff, Croy and ellon.The other authority which could issue beggar’s token was the Crown. Such “King’s Bedesmen” were first appointed by King James VI. They were commonly known as Blue Gowns, on account of the official cloak that they were issued with, or Jockies. They had a lodge house outside the city of Edinburgh; the Jockies Lodge – this is where the neighbourhood of Jock’s Lodge takes its name from. Every birthday of the reigning monarch, each Jockie received a new cloak, their tin badge with the motto “pass and repass“, a Scots shilling for every year of the monarch’s age and their dinner. “Pass and repass” referred to the holder being allowed to pass freely through the land, not being subject to the local begging laws and being charged with vagrancy. The artist David Allan sketched many of the common folk of Edinburgh in the 1780s, including a blue-cloaked and badged Bedesman. Paul Sandby, whose work in the city in the 1750s clearly influenced Allan also drew numerous beggars and vagrants, and frequently colours their coats blue.
A late 18th century illustration of a Jockie. Note his blue cloak and badge. His clothing marks him out as a former soldier, and his missing leg is probably why he was given the beggar’s “privilege”.Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.
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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret -
I am writing an open #letter to all #political sides as an #introduction to #hope I wish to turn #hurt away from and closer into as such through #affirmative #action accordingly if at all possible.
Let me start out by saying, that I #believe in the #power of real human prayer as #unbound #energy finding its way through us. And in turn, I'm no #religious #person by and large, but I am going to send this #prayer out there anyways because I feel it needs to be #said as is.
This will be a prayer covering several #topics of conversation that I #feel are important and significant enough to relay as one broadcast.
To all #people I #pray that:
You realize living on your own #political #island sounds great in theory, be it on the #left or the #right of the spectrum. Or even at the #top or #bottom of it as well. But being unable to find or care for the #center of it, leaves you #vulnerable to #attack more so than anything else. And that is not a state of things I #desire for you to have to #live by.I pray that:
As #individuals you #collectively and #personally #understand that there are differences between the #perception of how you come across to others, and how others #perceive you in turn. It is okay to have a #difference of opinion, but to be #blind sighted by this, leaves you open to being #weaponized and I do not #wish that for you to have to #experience at all.#sovereignty
I pray that:
You can #recognize how someone wants to be able to experience #respect without having to diverge or divulge your #interest in a #potential #conflict as such. In order for us to be able to #trust each other, we have to #remember how to #treat one another as #equals rather than constantly #competing for #dominance based on denying that there #exists a spectrum of #agreeability at play that we are all apart of.#CommonSense
I pray that:
We keep building upon #frameworks that do not need to become a totally separate #foundation that exists just to serve you. But rather, exist as #modular #blocks that can join and detach from one another as already built #structures full and complete. This way, we are not trying to conflict over what block we have to share space with someone else in prioritizing. Because the entire thing is ours to shape in our own way. And so as a #metaphor, I feel it is #important to attach to the idea of having a sense in common, as opposed to a common sense where applicable, of things that cause us to #fight over how #relevant it is to most of us around the #actual or #planned #change currently in motion.#battles
I pray that:
We are able to tell when to be #still and when to #move upon any #focus that #captivates us in part. Whether it exists as apart of a #whole or not. Doing so will help us make the best #impact #possible for the change we want to make a #reality for the #cause we are #concerned for.And ultimately, I pray that we can move past the blatant need to have an #existential #crisis be on full display at the #crossroads of #agendas being carried out as they are each in turn, #instigated by #georegional #tribalism that serves nobody accept to put #humanity as a whole last, not first, as I intend to do.
All of these things are #real and can be #fixable and #doable as such. And I want to make sure, that this reality does not have a chance to get far out of #control the way it currently has.
For it is #outcomes like this, that #incomes should never have appropriately #manifested into #place that I want to #avoid and keep #preventable from ever #happening again.
To me, I find it very #unfortunate that we are living through #times of such blatant #hardship that should not have to be so unnecessary in today's day and age. For in this latest #protest #style #news #video we see this very inteersection of mounting, preventable #activities #culminating all at once in a display of #violent #behaviour best #repurposed for other #interests in my #opinion acordingly.
#posted by #YouTube #reactor and #media #podcaster #RebelNews
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjT3kK5lHKk
In #America #israel and #Canada or anywhere else in our #world we should not have to worry about #migration #problems at home #effecting the #symptom of #indifference at the #core of #ineffective #deference as such. Rather, if we simply #agree to #adapt our time towards #focusing on the #things we can #bear #witness to as our own #personal #legacy then I say we have done enough for our #community be it or we tied to a particular #faith or not.
I say this, in my own #human name for all it is worth. Because that is who I am now, and if any #guardian #angel believes this to be #true then all I ask, is that you add yours to this prayer and pass it forward.
Thank you for your #attention to this #matter as such. I #appreciate it and you very much for the #blessing that you are.
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From the Notebooks of Jaspera von Kupferthal, Part 1
Highsun 8th 501 NMR
Some friends in the Natural Philosophy Society asked for my research from an expedition I did a few decades back. They are creating a book on the Faerie folk.
My little Cinni is one of the cowriters.
Naturally, I was delighted to share my research on modern agrarian fey culture.
Field Notes from an Expedition to Brugh na Ciorcal
Blossombud 10th 470 NMR
I have finished settling into my research blind outside Brugh Na Ciorcal. I found a suitably large hole in an oak tree to serve as my camp, although I am questioning my decision to disguise myself as a robin as I use my beak to write these words. It might be worth relocating to somewhere where a creature that could hold a pen could conveniently dwell. Ugh, I am getting distracted again.
An aerial inspection revealed that the village of Brugh Na Ciorcal is an almost unremarkable average specimen of Fey Enclave except for its location. It is located in the crook of a bend of Gilline Run river (although the locals most certainly do not use that name. Inquire about that at a later date). The village is roughly 1000 feet in diameter as the robin flies, which is rather large for a fey settlement, and is surrounded on 3 sides by the river (did the inhabitants change the river’s course?). The village is perfectly circular, elevated roughly 20 feet above the surrounding terrain and surrounded by an earthen berm about 7 feet high and a ditch 4 feet deep on the landward side. The entrance is flanked by a pair of unusual-looking standing stones, perfectly square columns, definitely fey-related from the spiraling markings, but they look older than the village.
The village itself consists of 120 faerie burrow houses, or brughs, of various sizes, arranged in the typical concentric-ring layout connected by spiraling paths. At the center is a large circular green with expected Fey paganism standing stones and an altar. Surrounding the green is a larger brugh which is almost certainly the headman’s dwelling, what looks like an alehouse, a general store (A rarity in a Faerie enclave, possibly a sign of outside trade), and several larger brughs which likely belong to the headman’s favorite lackeys or druids.
Outside the village for another mile or so on both sides of the river is another spiral, this one made up of paths through enclosures, orchards, and gardens enclosed by wild but trimmed hedges. The majority of these were gardens of semi-wild vegetables and fruit trees. However, I was surprised to see a plowed field at the very outskirts of the clearing and what, to my bird tongue, tasted like common wheat. They obviously were planting the stuff because a youth with a stick chased me away. The presence of domesticated crops certainly raises my eyebrows, and this might suggest a larger societal drift towards baseline mortality in the same region.
Tomorrow I will attempt a full census. This will require either a change in form or a more creative approach; robins, as it turns out, are not inconspicuous when taking notes.
Blossombud 11th
I am so tired.
I have completed my census of the Brugh Na Ciorcal, having changed my shape no less than fourteen times to get into every nook and cranny. This was, in retrospect, excessive.
I assume that none of the residents noticed me, except for the pets.
Note to self: scout villages for cats and dogs before transforming into a mouse, shrew, or bird.
Secondary note: Dogs are enthusiastic; cats are methodical
For the most part, this village’s population is utterly average except for a few deviations.
The village population stands at approximately 650 individuals—give or take a handful, as counting while being chased out of a burrow is imprecise work.
The largest group consists of satyrs and satyrkin (195), followed by a substantial goblinoid population (130) and a notable number of centaurs (95). This distribution is not unusual in isolation, but the balance between them feels… deliberate. I cannot yet say why.
The remaining population comprises smaller fey species (25), various others (30), and individuals of mixed or unclear lineage (65).
Of particular interest is the presence of 15 Fomorians. Their integration level remains unclear. I did not observe them in communal clusters, nor entirely apart. They occupy an uncomfortable middle, which may be more telling than either extreme.
There are 180 children, 115 adolescents, 250 adults, 90 elders, and 15 who are… significantly older than the rest. I am uncertain whether to classify the latter as elders or as something else entirely.
Most of the population (roughly 70%) are farmers and herdsmen working the fields, which aligns with my earlier observations regarding their agricultural tendencies.
Of the remainder, 95 are craftsmen and artisans, suggesting a healthy internal economy. Seven serve as resident druids, with fifteen apprentices—an unusually robust druidic presence for a settlement of this size, though perhaps necessary given the mixed population.
Twenty (mostly the doddering ancients) appear to be unemployed, though I suspect this is a matter of perspective rather than reality.
25 make up the household of Sir Eochaid, the middle-aged centaur who serves as the village’s chief.
The reminder consists of the goblins of the Fòlais’ family, who run the trading post, and Giorsail, a young hobgoblin hedge witch and diviner who seems to serve as an advisor to Sir Eochaid (This is… highly irregular. A non-druid serving as advisor to a village chief suggests either a breakdown in traditional authority or an adaptation I do not yet understand. I will investigate further.)
The village has 2000 sheep, 30 geese, 20 donkeys, innumerable cats, and a few dogs.
The whole village is unified in its dress, which consists of woolen kilts and tunics for the men and boys, and woolen dresses for the women and girls, all in a frankly unfortunate tartan pattern that I suspect is meant to signify unity. The only real visible indicators of status among the villagers are the green robes the druids wear over their clothes at all times, and the jewelry clasps, pins, and broaches the chief’s family, household, and top underlings wear, bronze for the servants, silver for the henchmen, and gold for the chief and his family.
Tomorrow I will start observing Sir Eochaid and his household. Hopefully, I will uncover useful data on the villagers’ social structure and customs and maybe get to the bottom of Giorsail’s presence in the village.
Blossombud 15th
It has been difficult to keep from laughing at Eochaid’s household over these last few days—though I am beginning to suspect that doing so would be unkind.
I spent half a week observing the headman and his household as a mouse and had to stifle myself a few times in order to prevent them from noticing the novelty of a laughing rodent.
The family consists of the Patriarch Sir Labhruinn Eochaid the 10th, his wife, Saraid, his sons, Búadach, Luthais, and Torna, his daughters, Samthann, Teafa, Ealga, and Cathach, and the ancient grandmother, Sìonag. Along with these numbers, Saraid was heavy with child and barely able to move from the master bedroom without help.
Sir Labhruinn fancies himself a valiant warlord in the tradition of the knights of the Round Table—or even King Fredrick himself—and strives to live according to what appears to be a deeply sincere, if somewhat misunderstood, ideal of chivalry.
He refers to his Brugh as his castle, even though it is only marginally larger than the second biggest dwelling in the village and consists of only 18 rooms.
The focus of the brugh is a large circular room at its center, which houses the central hearth. Such chambers are universal to all burghs, but Sir Labhruinn uses them as his throne room and the great hall. He spends all days sitting upon a pallet, adjudicating secular matters, listening to counsel from the druids and Giorsail, and receiving reports from the villagers he calls his “men-at-arms,” a term which appears to confer more dignity than responsibility.
This chamber also holds the family’s greatest treasures: a set of bronze centaur armor, a lance, and a sword, all of Faerie design, all heavily enchanted, and several tapestries that supposedly show his ancestors, who, according to him, were famous Faerie knights in one of the fallen Faerie kingdoms.
The other chambers consist of a kitchen, the bedchamber he and Saraid share, the bedrooms for the children, two guest chambers, a bedchamber/workspace for Giorsail, a room for Sìonag, a library, and a nursery. All the rooms were well furnished compared to the rooms in the other brughs in the village, with well-worn, heavy wooden furniture featuring lots of spiral engraving and various personalization. The sleeping chambers featured straw pallets that centaurs seem to prefer.
When not sitting in court, Labhruinn insists on teaching his sons the “art” of knightly warfare. Every day, just after lunch, they go out to the meadow beyond the fields and practice swordcraft, archery, and jousting. I am no swordswoman, but their efforts resembled rehearsal more than practice.
I also discovered the reason for Giorsail’s presence in the household. Apparently, Sir Labhruinn is doing things quite literally by the book. Le Morte d’Arthur, The Errantry of Frederick von Mountainheart, and several other storybooks in the library. They are heavily bookmarked and have multiple underlined sections per page. Giorsail was recruited to be Sir Labhruinn’s own personal “Merlin,” though I am not certain Giorsail agrees with this designation.
I also have to correct my assessment of her ability; despite not being far out of girlhood, she is more than a mere hedgecrafter. Her spellbook suggests at least a modicum of tuition under a proper wizard. She also has the ability to see magic auras around people and things without using spells, a very inconvenient power for my purposes.
However, Giorsail’s presence seems to have disturbed the household’s harmony. Sìonag and Saraid have gotten into multiple nasty arguments with Giorsail over the last few days, including a few at the nightly feasts. I initially misinterpreted Luthais’s interest in Giorsail as romantic. This was incorrect. He appears instead to be drawn to her craft—specifically, to the possibility of becoming something other than what his father intends.
This is the limit of what I can glean through observation alone. To understand this household—and perhaps this village more broadly—I will need to participate. Giorsail’s abilities present a significant complication. I must consider my approach carefully.
#5e #dnd #dungeonsAndDragons #dungeonsDragons #fantasy #Fey #fiction #history #rpg #ttrpg #writing -
Big Town (1994) Review
Contrary to the title shot, there isn’t any lumber to be seen what-so-ever. Plenty of wood though.Released by Plum Productions in 1994, directed by Anthony Spinelli, this is a porn feature film starring the likes of Jon Dough, Rebecca Bardoux, Nikki Sinn, Celeste, Heather Lee, Steve Hatcher, Steven St. Croix, Tina Tyler (Credited as Tina Tedeschi), and Woody Long. A star-studded cast for sure. Anthony Spinelli is a prominent figure in the feature film porno category, having directed a number of hits in the genre, many with notable budgets. A veteran by this time, though it only casually shows in this picture. He knows what he’s doing, he just doesn’t feel like doing it at his best.
The film revolves around the voyeuristic exploits of a bum named Bob, as he walks around the city (the titular “Big Town”) watching people have sex. That’s really all there is to it.
The foible of the main character through which we experience these raunchy jaunts around the “City” (Which are really just re-arranged dingy backdrops), is that he is – or we assume him to be telling the truth – a man of stature who has fallen on hard times. A biochemist who somehow lost everything and his wife left him, and now he rummages through the streets for wine bottles trying to ogle people fucking. Sounds like my kind of guy, to be honest.
That is the cleanest back-alley brick wall I have ever seen in my entire life.The first scene stars the beautiful Rebecca Bardoux, who is fighting over a bottle with Bob. She stole it while he was flagrantly yelling at shadows, giving us the tip-off that he’s not just some random sleazy bum, he’s “Einstein!” (in his own words). He nails the mannerisms of being drunk, unfortunately he is not convincing even superficially as being a drunk in his actual acting. I paid 10 dollars to see a drunk bum fuck Rebecca Bardoux, you could at least TRY to emulate the aftermaths one of the many party ragers I know you’ve ended up wasted and blacked out on the floor from.
The scene itself is rather blunt. He takes his bottle back, they chit-chat briefly and he tells her to suck his cock. But she will NOT do it…Unless he asks nicely. Now damn, why the hell didn’t I think of that? I’m off to the convenience store to try that on the hot cashier always dropping my Juul’s on the floor!
That’s the nicest ass I think I’ve ever seen on a “bum”. Don’t ask what I have to compare it to.The scene itself is rather straight forward; some oral, some vaginal, then we finish with a filthy anal scene. How fitting. The highlight would be the oral scene, which features very intimate close-ups, almost uncomfortable in how it relishes her lips around his cock. We also have a nice close-up shot of them making out. Very oral focused, which is not something I would have assumed.
The dominating lighting for the scene seems to be an overhead key light that gives the whole scene a rather moody, harsh, and dramatic appeal. The only way we can see their faces properly illuminated is if they look upwards, or are laying down, making the whole act feel depraved in a subconscious sort of way, evoking the theme of them being at the very bottom, with the literal spotlight being on them in this moment. Or hell maybe they only had enough money for the one light, fuck if I know.
“I’m so glad we chose this location, right next to the seedy bum-filled alley with the window looking out directly at a brick wall to have sex!”The next scene features the very wasted potential of the amazing Celeste, and Woody Long, who are in a rather interesting scene to shoot for a porno; a long narrow corridor. You honestly do not see that very often. What you see even less often, is a sex scene in a hardcore porno where there is ZERO penetration action. You see some spirited oral action, with Celeste working her face off to try and get him rock hard, but he seemingly was just not able to perform.
The most action we see from him is getting a blowjob, and then working her over with his mouth and a dildo. All the “penetration” we see is implied, with a couple of glimpses showing that he is doing the softcore trick of just dry-humping as we can see a hint of what I believe is his flaccid penis at a couple points, sporadically mixed in with some shots of Bob lingering outside, looking through the window watching these…newlyweds? Party-goers? Who cares, people in fancy clothes “fucking” (emphasis on the quotes).
The scene is bathed in a nice red key light, at one point painting their entire bodies in red, with some white highlights from fill lights, and nice backdrop lighting of yellow and blue creating a scene that screams warm, inviting, and intensely urban.
“Don’t you know it’s illegal to be sexy? Now bend over and let me show you my Night Stick!” – Or something like that.The scene transitions as quickly as possible to the next one with Nikki Sinn and Steve Hatcher, where the dynamic in this vignette is a cop taking a hooker into an alleyway to coerce sex from her.
This scene is hampered by the fact that Nikki Sinn cannot suck cock at all. She is biting it, flailing her tongue at it, and bobbing up and down on it like she’s trying to stab herself in the throat. This is leveraged though by the fact that she has a fat, dumpy ass. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
If you’re wondering, yes, he splits that ass wide open.The aftermath of this scene has her kissing the cop, and going back to her street corner, as she has a small chit-chat with Bob (which is where we learn he is a biochemist, after a comedic exchange). Bob is trying his hardest not to pass out while listening to the hooker go on and on about loving fucking cops and talking about Sarah Lee cakes. I am not sure if Jon Dough was actually on the verge of falling asleep listening to this dialogue, or if he was acting, but I feel for him. God damn I feel for him going through this scene.
Following that encounter we are introduced to Steven St. Croix, acting as a pimp, and the recently deceased Heather Lee (Rest in Peace, Latina mommy). Now, I am sure there have been greater disparities in acting, but this film does an excellent job inadvertently highlighting the difference between Jon Dough’s acting, and Steven St. Croix’s. Croix is what we like to call “Crossover Talent”, a pornstar who can perform, but also act, and he can act surprisingly well. His portrayal of the pimp is soft, seductive, with a hint of threat that oozes from his two-bit character.
The overhead key light is doing some heavy lifting, but I’m sure he’d be just as seductively imposing without it.Again we are treated to a lot of intensely intimate oral play, although this time the color dominating the scene is not from the key light, but the back light, giving them shimmering blue highlights, making it feel urban but in a more somber, subtly threatening way.
The main draw of this scene is the blowjob. My god the blowjob. Can Heather Lee ever suck a dick, I mean holy shit. The way she uses her mouth makes me think she would almost be better at sucking than she would be at fucking. Of course, we also get some of that too, although with much less fanfare, as they finish in an intense missionary on a soiled grimy mattress.
This all culminates though in the finale, where Bob comes face to face with a woman out of time, who does not know who she is, or where she is, but she sees Bob. Shortly after her introduction, we are led to believe this is Marilyn (Tina Tyler), I.E. Marilyn Monroe, and surely a hallucination.
Even her shitty, breathy Marilyn Monroe impersonation is better than Jon Dough’s drunkard.We get a long-winded monologue about how he is all washed up. She coaxes it out of him after doing a rendition of “Happy Birthday Mr President” in the most stereotypical Marilyn way possible. He was a biochemist, he lost everything, his wife, and he loved her, and so on and so forth.
She convinces him it is not too late to try to get her back, that he can salvage her, somehow, he just has to try. The camera really focuses on Jon’s face for this whole thing, and we get a near 30 second long take purely for dialogue and his acting alone, which is moderately impressive, especially for a porno film, as he waxes poetic about how he misses her, how she felt in his arms. I have absolutely no fucking clue what this is doing in this movie though, since it seemingly comes out of left field in terms of the emotional whiplash, although I guess you could argue there is a seedy, depressing undercurrent running through the film, now starting to get put together about how he misses his wife and his ogling of these other people makes him long for her. You COULD argue that. But it would be incredibly difficult due to the fact that there was zero buildup to it outside of the very first scene, and his brief single sentence worth of lines with the hooker.
So, after his monologue, this long, overly emotional release valve for something that was barely gaining any steam to begin with, what does our protagonist, “Bob”, do? He fucks her, naturally.
My wife…My wife! But how often do you get sucked off by Marilyn Monroe?Listen, when a pretty amnesiac blond woman who thinks she’s Marilyn Monroe walks into your life, you don’t pass up that opportunity blindly, even if she did just convince you to try and get back with your wife. There is a really nice quick-shot of the silhouettes of their shadows fucking against the wall, unfortunately we only get a glimpse of that. This scene plays out very similarly to the previous ones; heavy oral focus, typical fucking.
After fucking Marilyn, Bob “wakes up”, stuck in the same pile of trash he was in at the beginning, the other woman now gone; both the woman at the beginning and the Marilyn impersonator, with what appears to be morning light beaming through a window above from the left-hand side. It leaves you questioning if he imagined all of the sex, just the last girl, or if he simply passed out afterwards and woke up, deciding not to change anything. A surprisingly effective closer for this vignette-based film, and unusually depressing.
Overall, it was decent for a porno in regards to sets, the well-executed focus on oral, and the selection of women; their profiles matching their character types moderately well. However the failure of utilizing Celeste (Arguably the best woman on screen here) to her fullest potential, the shitty performance from Jon Dough, and the rushed scene transitions all drag it down, but not by much. I would say it is worth sticking around for the oral scenes, and if you are a fan of blowjobs this is definitely a great skin-flick, but overall, it manages to fall very slightly short.
4/10
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by theangryfishheadApril 12, 2026April 12, 2026GENRE: Arcade Action / Block BreakerGAME LENGTH: Variable (5 minutes to several hours, depending on your patience, or skill)REPLAYABILITY: HighDIFFICULTY: Desk-smashingly Annoying Released in 1976 in the arcades, this was a – no pun intended – breakout success. It became so popular it spawned an entire genre of imitators, most notably in Japan, with the…
by theangryfishheadNovember 20, 2025November 20, 2025Anatomy of a Weak Argument: A Case Study in Bad Criticism (Featuring SugarPunch)
So, as a joke, a friend of mine posted a link to some youtube essayist criticizing ‘Mortal Kombat X’. “Great!” I think to myself. I am always up for seeing well-informed and nuanced discussions, especially around content that I love. For example, seeing peoples reactions to the 1995 ‘Mortal Kombat’ movie is always interesting because…
by theangryfishheadJune 24, 2025November 20, 2025 #1994 #90S #bigTown #blowjob #celeste #erotic #erotica #feature #fiction #film #flick #heatherLee #movie #Movies #nikkiSinn #oral #porn #rebeccaBardoux #retro #reviews #sex #smut #stevenStCroix #tinaTyler #vintage #woodyLong #writing -
Big Town (1994) Review
Contrary to the title shot, there isn’t any lumber to be seen what-so-ever. Plenty of wood though.Released by Plum Productions in 1994, directed by Anthony Spinelli, this is a porn feature film starring the likes of Jon Dough, Rebecca Bardoux, Nikki Sinn, Celeste, Heather Lee, Steve Hatcher, Steven St. Croix, Tina Tyler (Credited as Tina Tedeschi), and Woody Long. A star-studded cast for sure. Anthony Spinelli is a prominent figure in the feature film porno category, having direct a number of hits in the genre, with notable budgets. A veteran by this time, though it only barely shows in this picture.
The film revolves around the voyeuristic exploits of a bum named Bob, as he walks around the city (which I assume is the titular “Big Town”) watching people have sex. That’s really all there is to it.
The foible of the main character through which we experience these raunchy jaunts around the “City” (Which are really just re-arranged dingy backdrops), is that he is – or we assume him to be telling the truth – a man of stature who has fallen on hard times. A biochemist who somehow lost everything and his wife left him, and now he rummages through the streets for wine bottles trying to ogle people fucking. Sounds like my kind of guy, to be perfectly honest.
That is cleanest back-alley brick wall I have ever seen in my entire life.The first scene stars the beautiful Rebecca Bardoux, who is fighting over a bottle with Bob. She stole it while he was flagrantly yelling at shadows, giving us the tip-off that he’s not just some random sleazy bum, he’s “Einstein!” (in his own words). He nails the mannerisms of being drunk, unfortunately he is not convincing even superficially as being a drunk in his actual acting. I paid 10 dollars to see a drunk bum fuck Rebecca Bardoux, you could at least TRY to emulate the aftermaths one of the many party ragers I know you’ve ended up wasted and blacked out on the floor from.
The scene itself is rather blunt. He takes his bottle back, they chit-chat briefly and he tells her to suck his cock. But she will NOT do it…Unless he asks nicely. Now damn, why the hell didn’t I think of that? I’m off to the convenience store to try that on the hot cashier always dropping my Juul’s on the floor!
That’s the nicest ass I think I’ve ever seen on a “bum”. Don’t ask what I have to compare it to.The scene itself is rather straight forward, some oral, some vaginal, then we finish with a filthy anal scene. How fitting. The highlight would be the oral scene, which features very close, intimate close-ups, almost uncomfortable in how it relishes her lips around his cock. We also have a nice close-up shot of them making out. Very oral focused, which is not something I would have assumed.
The dominating lighting for the scene seems to be an overhead key light that gives the whole scene a rather moody, harsh, and dramatic appeal. The only way we can see their faces properly illuminated is if they look upwards, or are laying down, making the whole act feel depraved in a subconscious sort of way, evoking the theme of them being at the very bottom, with the literal spotlight being on them in this moment. Or hell maybe they only had enough money for the one light, fuck if I know.
“I’m so glad we chose this location, right next to the seedy bum-filled alley with the window looking out directly at a brick wall to have sex!”The next scene features the very wasted potential of the amazing Celeste, and Woody Long, who are in a rather interesting scene to shoot in for a porno; a long narrow corridor. You honestly do not see that very often. What you see even less often, is a sex scene in a hardcore porno where there is ZERO penetration action. You see some spirited oral action, with Celeste working her face off to try and get him rock hard. But apparently, he just was not able to perform.
The most action we see from him is getting a blowjob, and then working her over with his mouth and a dildo. All the “penetration” we see is implied, with a couple of glimpses showing that he is doing the softcore trick of just dry-humping as we can see a hint of what I believe is his flaccid penis at a couple points, sporadically mixed in with some shots of Bob lingering outside, looking through the window watching these…newlyweds? Party-goers? Who cares, people in fancy clothes “fucking” (emphasis on the quotes).
The scene is bathed in a nice red key light, at one point painting their entire bodies in red, with some white highlights from fill lights, and nice backdrop lighting of yellow and blue creating a scene that screams warm, inviting, and intensely urban.
“Don’t you know it’s illegal to be sexy? Now bend over and let me show you my Night Stick!” – Or something like that.The scene transitions as quickly as possible to the next one with Nikki Sinn and Steve Hatcher, where the dynamic in this vignette is a cop taking a hooker into an alleyway to coerce sex from her.
This scene is hampered by the fact that Nikki Sinn cannot suck cock at all. She is biting it, flailing her tongue at it, and bobbing up and down on it like she’s trying to stab herself in the throat. This is leveraged though by the fact that she has a fat, dumpy ass. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
If you’re wondering, yes, he splits that ass wide open.The aftermath of this scene has her kissing the cop, and going back to her street corner, as she has a small chit-chat with Bob (which is where we learn he is a biochemist, after a comedic exchange). Bob is trying his hardest not to pass out while listening to the hooker go on and on about loving fucking cops and talking about Sarah Lee cakes. I am not sure if Jon Dough was actually on the verge of falling asleep listening to this dialogue, or if he was acting, but I feel for him. God damn I feel for him going through this scene.
Following that encounter we are introduced to Steven St. Croix, acting as a pimp, and the recently deceased Heather Lee (Rest in Peace, Latina mommy). Now, I am sure there have been greater disparities in acting, but this film does an excellent job inadvertently of highlighting the difference between Jon Dough’s acting, and Steven St. Croix’s. Croix is what we like to call “Crossover Talent”, a pornstar who can perform, but he can also act, and he can act surprisingly well. His portrayal of the pimp is soft, seductive, which a hint of threat that oozes from his two-bit character.
The overhead key light is doing some heavy lifting, but I’m sure he’d be just as seductively imposing without it.Again we are treated to a lot of intensely intimate oral play, although this time the color dominating the scene is not from the key light, but the back light, giving them shimmering blue highlights, making it feel urban but in a more somber, subtly threatening way.
The main draw of this scene is the blowjob. My god the blowjob. Can Heather Lee ever suck a dick, I mean holy shit. The way she uses her mouth makes me think she would almost be better at sucking than she would be at fucking. Of course, we also get some of that too, although with much less fanfare, as they finish in an intense missionary on a soiled grimy mattress.
This all culminates though in the finale, where Bob comes face to face with a woman out of time, who does not know who she is, or where she is, but she sees Bob. Shortly after her introduction, we are led to believe this is Marilyn (Tina Tyler), I.E. Marilyn Monroe, and surely a hallucination.
Even her shitty, breathy Marilyn Monroe impersonation is better than Jon Dough’s drunkard.We get a long-winded monologue about how he is all washed up. She coaxes it out of it after doing a rendition of “Happy Birthday Mr President” in the most stereotypical Marilyn way possible. He was a biochemist, he lost everything, his wife, and he loved her, and so on and so forth.
She convinces him it is not too late to try to get her back, that he can salvage her, somehow, he just has to try. The camera really focuses on Jon’s face for this whole thing, and we get a near 30 second long take, which is moderately impressive, especially for a porno film, as he waxes poetic about how he misses her, how she felt in his arms. I have absolutely no fucking clue what it is doing in this movie though, since it seemingly comes out of left field in terms of the emotional whiplash, although I guess you could argue there is a seedy, depressing, undercurrent running throughout the film, now starting to get put together about how he misses his wife and his ogling of these other people makes him long for her. You COULD argue that. But it would be incredibly difficult due to the fact that there was zero buildup to it outside of the very first scene, and his brief single sentence worth of lines with the hooker.
So, after this monologue, this long, overly emotional release valve for something that was barely gaining any steam to begin with, what does our protagonist, “Bob”, do? He fucks her, naturally.
My wife…My wife! But how often do you get sucked off by Marilyn Monroe?Listen, when a pretty amnesiac blond woman who thinks she’s Marilyn Monroe walks into your life, you don’t pass up that opportunity blindly, even if she did just convince you to try and get back with your wife.
After fucking Marilyn, Bob “wakes up”, stuck in the same pile of trash he was in at the beginning, the other woman now gone; both the woman at the beginning and the Marilyn impersonator, with what appears to be morning light beaming through a window above from the left-hand side. It leaves you questioning if he imagined all of the sex, just the last girl, or if he simply woke up from last night, not changing anything. A surprisingly effective closer for this vignette-based film.
Overall, it was decent for a porno in regards to sets, the well-executed focus on oral, and the selection of women; their profiles matching their character types moderately well. However the failure of utilizing Celeste (Arguably the best woman on screen here) to her fullest potential, the shitty performance from Jon Dough, and the rushed scene transitions all drag it down, but not by much. I would say it is worth sticking around for the oral scenes, if you are a fan of blowjobs, this is definitely a great skin-flick, but overall, it manages to fall very slightly short.
4/10
For other recent blog posts…
Careful, He May Be Watching (1987) – Review
Released shortly after the fall of the Golden Age of Porn, due to the disintegration of grind house cinema and tighter regulation of what kinds of films could be shown in theaters, “Careful, He May Be Watching,” is not the finale of narrative-driven porn that dominated the 70’s and half of the 80’s, but it…
by theangryfishheadApril 12, 2026April 12, 2026GENRE: Arcade Action / Block BreakerGAME LENGTH: Variable (5 minutes to several hours, depending on your patience, or skill)REPLAYABILITY: HighDIFFICULTY: Desk-smashingly Annoying Released in 1976 in the arcades, this was a – no pun intended – breakout success. It became so popular it spawned an entire genre of imitators, most notably in Japan, with the…
by theangryfishheadNovember 20, 2025November 20, 2025Anatomy of a Weak Argument: A Case Study in Bad Criticism (Featuring SugarPunch)
So, as a joke, a friend of mine posted a link to some youtube essayist criticizing ‘Mortal Kombat X’. “Great!” I think to myself. I am always up for seeing well-informed and nuanced discussions, especially around content that I love. For example, seeing peoples reactions to the 1995 ‘Mortal Kombat’ movie is always interesting because…
by theangryfishheadJune 24, 2025November 20, 2025 #1994 #90S #bigTown #blowjob #celeste #erotic #erotica #feature #fiction #film #flick #heatherLee #movie #Movies #nikkiSinn #oral #porn #rebeccaBardoux #retro #reviews #sex #smut #stevenStCroix #tinaTyler #vintage #woodyLong #writing -
Big Town (1994) Review
Contrary to the title shot, there isn’t any lumber to be seen what-so-ever. Plenty of wood though.Released by Plum Productions in 1994, directed by Anthony Spinelli, this is a porn feature film starring the likes of Jon Dough, Rebecca Bardoux, Nikki Sinn, Celeste, Heather Lee, Steve Hatcher, Steven St. Croix, Tina Tyler (Credited as Tina Tedeschi), and Woody Long. A star-studded cast for sure. Anthony Spinelli is a prominent figure in the feature film porno category, having direct a number of hits in the genre, with notable budgets. A veteran by this time, though it only barely shows in this picture.
The film revolves around the voyeuristic exploits of a bum named Bob, as he walks around the city (which I assume is the titular “Big Town”) watching people have sex. That’s really all there is to it.
The foible of the main character through which we experience these raunchy jaunts around the “City” (Which are really just re-arranged dingy backdrops), is that he is – or we assume him to be telling the truth – a man of stature who has fallen on hard times. A biochemist who somehow lost everything and his wife left him, and now he rummages through the streets for wine bottles trying to ogle people fucking. Sounds like my kind of guy, to be perfectly honest.
That is cleanest back-alley brick wall I have ever seen in my entire life.The first scene stars the beautiful Rebecca Bardoux, who is fighting over a bottle with Bob. She stole it while he was flagrantly yelling at shadows, giving us the tip-off that he’s not just some random sleazy bum, he’s “Einstein!” (in his own words). He nails the mannerisms of being drunk, unfortunately he is not convincing even superficially as being a drunk in his actual acting. I paid 10 dollars to see a drunk bum fuck Rebecca Bardoux, you could at least TRY to emulate the aftermaths one of the many party ragers I know you’ve ended up wasted and blacked out on the floor from.
The scene itself is rather blunt. He takes his bottle back, they chit-chat briefly and he tells her to suck his cock. But she will NOT do it…Unless he asks nicely. Now damn, why the hell didn’t I think of that? I’m off to the convenience store to try that on the hot cashier always dropping my Juul’s on the floor!
That’s the nicest ass I think I’ve ever seen on a “bum”. Don’t ask what I have to compare it to.The scene itself is rather straight forward, some oral, some vaginal, then we finish with a filthy anal scene. How fitting. The highlight would be the oral scene, which features very close, intimate close-ups, almost uncomfortable in how it relishes her lips around his cock. We also have a nice close-up shot of them making out. Very oral focused, which is not something I would have assumed.
The dominating lighting for the scene seems to be an overhead key light that gives the whole scene a rather moody, harsh, and dramatic appeal. The only way we can see their faces properly illuminated is if they look upwards, or are laying down, making the whole act feel depraved in a subconscious sort of way, evoking the theme of them being at the very bottom, with the literal spotlight being on them in this moment. Or hell maybe they only had enough money for the one light, fuck if I know.
“I’m so glad we chose this location, right next to the seedy bum-filled alley with the window looking out directly at a brick wall to have sex!”The next scene features the very wasted potential of the amazing Celeste, and Woody Long, who are in a rather interesting scene to shoot in for a porno; a long narrow corridor. You honestly do not see that very often. What you see even less often, is a sex scene in a hardcore porno where there is ZERO penetration action. You see some spirited oral action, with Celeste working her face off to try and get him rock hard. But apparently, he just was not able to perform.
The most action we see from him is getting a blowjob, and then working her over with his mouth and a dildo. All the “penetration” we see is implied, with a couple of glimpses showing that he is doing the softcore trick of just dry-humping as we can see a hint of what I believe is his flaccid penis at a couple points, sporadically mixed in with some shots of Bob lingering outside, looking through the window watching these…newlyweds? Party-goers? Who cares, people in fancy clothes “fucking” (emphasis on the quotes).
The scene is bathed in a nice red key light, at one point painting their entire bodies in red, with some white highlights from fill lights, and nice backdrop lighting of yellow and blue creating a scene that screams warm, inviting, and intensely urban.
“Don’t you know it’s illegal to be sexy? Now bend over and let me show you my Night Stick!” – Or something like that.The scene transitions as quickly as possible to the next one with Nikki Sinn and Steve Hatcher, where the dynamic in this vignette is a cop taking a hooker into an alleyway to coerce sex from her.
This scene is hampered by the fact that Nikki Sinn cannot suck cock at all. She is biting it, flailing her tongue at it, and bobbing up and down on it like she’s trying to stab herself in the throat. This is leveraged though by the fact that she has a fat, dumpy ass. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
If you’re wondering, yes, he splits that ass wide open.The aftermath of this scene has her kissing the cop, and going back to her street corner, as she has a small chit-chat with Bob (which is where we learn he is a biochemist, after a comedic exchange). Bob is trying his hardest not to pass out while listening to the hooker go on and on about loving fucking cops and talking about Sarah Lee cakes. I am not sure if Jon Dough was actually on the verge of falling asleep listening to this dialogue, or if he was acting, but I feel for him. God damn I feel for him going through this scene.
Following that encounter we are introduced to Steven St. Croix, acting as a pimp, and the recently deceased Heather Lee (Rest in Peace, Latina mommy). Now, I am sure there have been greater disparities in acting, but this film does an excellent job inadvertently of highlighting the difference between Jon Dough’s acting, and Steven St. Croix’s. Croix is what we like to call “Crossover Talent”, a pornstar who can perform, but he can also act, and he can act surprisingly well. His portrayal of the pimp is soft, seductive, which a hint of threat that oozes from his two-bit character.
The overhead key light is doing some heavy lifting, but I’m sure he’d be just as seductively imposing without it.Again we are treated to a lot of intensely intimate oral play, although this time the color dominating the scene is not from the key light, but the back light, giving them shimmering blue highlights, making it feel urban but in a more somber, subtly threatening way.
The main draw of this scene is the blowjob. My god the blowjob. Can Heather Lee ever suck a dick, I mean holy shit. The way she uses her mouth makes me think she would almost be better at sucking than she would be at fucking. Of course, we also get some of that too, although with much less fanfare, as they finish in an intense missionary on a soiled grimy mattress.
This all culminates though in the finale, where Bob comes face to face with a woman out of time, who does not know who she is, or where she is, but she sees Bob. Shortly after her introduction, we are led to believe this is Marilyn (Tina Tyler), I.E. Marilyn Monroe, and surely a hallucination.
Even her shitty, breathy Marilyn Monroe impersonation is better than Jon Dough’s drunkard.We get a long-winded monologue about how he is all washed up. She coaxes it out of it after doing a rendition of “Happy Birthday Mr President” in the most stereotypical Marilyn way possible. He was a biochemist, he lost everything, his wife, and he loved her, and so on and so forth.
She convinces him it is not too late to try to get her back, that he can salvage her, somehow, he just has to try. The camera really focuses on Jon’s face for this whole thing, and we get a near 30 second long take, which is moderately impressive, especially for a porno film, as he waxes poetic about how he misses her, how she felt in his arms. I have absolutely no fucking clue what it is doing in this movie though, since it seemingly comes out of left field in terms of the emotional whiplash, although I guess you could argue there is a seedy, depressing, undercurrent running throughout the film, now starting to get put together about how he misses his wife and his ogling of these other people makes him long for her. You COULD argue that. But it would be incredibly difficult due to the fact that there was zero buildup to it outside of the very first scene, and his brief single sentence worth of lines with the hooker.
So, after this monologue, this long, overly emotional release valve for something that was barely gaining any steam to begin with, what does our protagonist, “Bob”, do? He fucks her, naturally.
My wife…My wife! But how often do you get sucked off by Marilyn Monroe?Listen, when a pretty amnesiac blond woman who thinks she’s Marilyn Monroe walks into your life, you don’t pass up that opportunity blindly, even if she did just convince you to try and get back with your wife.
After fucking Marilyn, Bob “wakes up”, stuck in the same pile of trash he was in at the beginning, the other woman now gone; both the woman at the beginning and the Marilyn impersonator, with what appears to be morning light beaming through a window above from the left-hand side. It leaves you questioning if he imagined all of the sex, just the last girl, or if he simply woke up from last night, not changing anything. A surprisingly effective closer for this vignette-based film.
Overall, it was decent for a porno in regards to sets, the well-executed focus on oral, and the selection of women; their profiles matching their character types moderately well. However the failure of utilizing Celeste (Arguably the best woman on screen here) to her fullest potential, the shitty performance from Jon Dough, and the rushed scene transitions all drag it down, but not by much. I would say it is worth sticking around for the oral scenes, if you are a fan of blowjobs, this is definitely a great skin-flick, but overall, it manages to fall very slightly short.
4/10
For other recent blog posts…
Careful, He May Be Watching (1987) – Review
Released shortly after the fall of the Golden Age of Porn, due to the disintegration of grind house cinema and tighter regulation of what kinds of films could be shown in theaters, “Careful, He May Be Watching,” is not the finale of narrative-driven porn that dominated the 70’s and half of the 80’s, but it…
by theangryfishheadApril 12, 2026April 12, 2026GENRE: Arcade Action / Block BreakerGAME LENGTH: Variable (5 minutes to several hours, depending on your patience, or skill)REPLAYABILITY: HighDIFFICULTY: Desk-smashingly Annoying Released in 1976 in the arcades, this was a – no pun intended – breakout success. It became so popular it spawned an entire genre of imitators, most notably in Japan, with the…
by theangryfishheadNovember 20, 2025November 20, 2025Anatomy of a Weak Argument: A Case Study in Bad Criticism (Featuring SugarPunch)
So, as a joke, a friend of mine posted a link to some youtube essayist criticizing ‘Mortal Kombat X’. “Great!” I think to myself. I am always up for seeing well-informed and nuanced discussions, especially around content that I love. For example, seeing peoples reactions to the 1995 ‘Mortal Kombat’ movie is always interesting because…
by theangryfishheadJune 24, 2025November 20, 2025 #1994 #90S #bigTown #blowjob #celeste #erotic #erotica #feature #fiction #film #flick #heatherLee #movie #Movies #nikkiSinn #oral #porn #rebeccaBardoux #retro #reviews #sex #smut #stevenStCroix #tinaTyler #vintage #woodyLong #writing -
The bit that you skip #93: Gazelle – At last, friend
Many songs tend to remind you of your childhood. Another quantity, perhaps greater, hark back to your teenage days. Then there’s songs that make you think of your early adulthood. The wide eyed rookie days. Wages are minuscule, possibilities are endless, and nothing is written in pen.
After Headlights broke up, I trawled for everything related to the Fein clan. First it was Absinthe Blind and their wondrous space age dreamy rock. Then I went for Ad Fein’s and Jeff Dimpsey’s Peléan eruption of a band, Gazelle. Healthy doses of dream pop and electronica gave us an album that sounded like nothing else. Perhaps what U2 wanted to do with POP, Gazelle did with their only album.
Just as I graduated from Electronics and Telecommunications, I went hogwild into ambient and lounge music. After a stint at Ericsson in Gustavo Baz, which wasn’t too far from my house, I got sent to a communications hub in Polanco in Lago Alberto, where it always smelled like chocolate due to La Holandesa being near. After a couple of weeks, I absconded to another central, a few blocks from Lago Alberto, on Kepler. The disorganised wires, dusty countertops and odd rodents of unusual size on the lower flowers contrasted with the upper floor, where I befriended two people, Chrissie and Alan. We would spent most of the time talking and eating in nearby places than doing much work, since a lot of it was tests that took time and the real crunch was understanding the output, then correcting anything in our means.
I would walk from Metro Polanco to Kepler, a good 2 km walk. The metro trip was brutal, as it was peak hour and you were, as Radiohead bluntly said it once, packt like sardines in a crushd tin pack. I wouldn’t dare to use my cd player as you could barely moved an arm, much less try to adjust volume in a noisy commute. Once out of the metro station, I’d go for a small coffee at a small joint on the way to Kepler’s telephone central. I would listen to any Café del Mar compilation I had ready, or just whatever electronica mix a friend gave me.
Chrissie and Alan eventually had to go back to London and we would meet a couple of times later but no longer as employees for Telcel, but as ex-coworkers. I considered them friends. Alan sadly passed away from cancer a few years later. He was pencil thin, and always smoking, holding his cig in a strange “inside ash” manner. Chrissie I talked to a few times, first after arriving at Nottingham in 2002, then after arriving in Sheffield in 2008. I’ve lost track, as one does with friends in life. It’s not intentional, it’s just something that happens and even if we never meet again, we had good times, like the trip we took to Teotihuacán with one of her friends that speak no English at all and paid my tourist guide with delicious plum candies. Or a strange trip to Acapulco where we barely escaped being on a disco boat that meet a grisly end (no casualties, thankfully).
Gazelle’s At last, friend evokes memories of both Chrissie and Mark. Chrissie usually went as “Chwissy” as a joke, and Alan…well, his devil-may-care attitude was always juxtaposed with an encyclopedic knowledge of telecommunications. The song also reminds me of my first days in Nottingham, wandering through town aimlessly. In fact, a few songs that have effect on me. I don’t think I’ll ever have that wide-eye feeling again. But nothing is written in pen. That never changes, though.
-Sam J. Valdés López
https://youtu.be/gfwSNGLAcqM?si=vKLPXRZulZuHoQF7
#AbsintheBlind #Acapulco #AdamFein #Gazelle #Graduation #Headlights #JeffDimpsey #life #London #Mark #music #Nottingham #Poetry #Sheffield #Sunblown #Telecomm #Teotihuacan #Teotihuacana #writing -
This account, this corner of the fediverse, has become one of the places I let those questions be noisy in public. What does healing mean when the conditions that harmed you are not gone, only rearranged into more respectable shapes? What actually happens inside a counselling relationship when disability or neurodivergence is present but unnamed, or misnamed, or politely ignored? How do we begin to notice the ways power and unspoken norms travel through even the most well-intentioned helping professions? How do we hold culture as something we are constantly creating and being created by, something we may need to grieve and interrogate and occasionally celebrate, often all at once, sometimes in the space of a single conversation?
I keep circling back to the interior labour of this work. The slow, repetitive practice of building emotional regulation when your nervous system's default setting is red alert. The awkwardness of learning self-compassion when sharp self-criticism has been your most reliable survival tool. The moments that feel like failure because you find yourself reacting in an old way, when in reality this is precisely how recovery moves, looping back on itself, revisiting old ground with slightly different eyes. The way trauma and joy can sit shoulder to shoulder in the same hour, the same therapy session, the same breath, and how unnerving and holy that can feel.
Rauch and Ansari suggest that silence can be deliberate and strategic, a form of self-regulation rather than withdrawal, a boundary rather than an absence. I think about this in relation to the freeze response, to the moments in my own history when going quiet was not giving up but holding on. The body stills because there are no safe words yet. Sometimes the silence is the story. And learning to hear it as such, to receive it without rushing to fill or fix it, is one of the things I am still practising, in music and in therapy and in the ordinary, unglamorous dailiness of trying to stay present in a life that sometimes arrives all at once.
I am not arriving anywhere with a finished theory of how any of this is supposed to work. I am coming, again and again, with fragments and questions and a stubborn intention to tell the truth as I understand it in the moment I am writing. That truth is often partial, often shifting. My understanding of myself, of trauma, of disability, of care, keeps moving, and I want it to. I would rather be inconsistent and alive to new information than seamless and rigidly wrong.
If you are still reading, you are already participating in something I care about. A space that treats complexity as ordinary rather than excessive. Where being too much is not an accusation but raw material. Where intense feeling and rigorous thought are both welcome at the same table. Where healing is not a linear journey toward a fixed destination but something more like learning to live inside unresolved chords without pretending they have resolved. Where music is both metaphor and method, both a way of speaking about change and a way of practising it in the body.
True silence does not exist. What we call silence is simply what we have not yet learned to hear. The fullness of life in quieter tones. The heartbeat of thought. The whispered rhythm of resilience. The steady murmur of healing is underway. And when we learn to tune into the music between the notes and into the truth held in breath, we do more than survive. We begin to sing again. This time, in a voice that is entirely our own.
I am not here to introduce myself so much as to keep turning up alongside you. To keep writing from the middle of things, not only from the rare polished moments that look good in hindsight. To keep noticing the small, ordinary, unglamorous ways humans find their way back to themselves, even inside systems that were never set up with them in mind. If any of these threads brush against something in your own story, then you are part of the imagined audience I write towards. And maybe, in a slow, imperfect, occasionally dissonant way, part of the choir that is still learning how to hear itself.
#AuDHD #Neurodivergent #Blind #Deafblind #Disabled #DisabilityJustice #MadStudies #Psychology #Counselling #Therapy #Trauma #TraumaRecovery #Neurodiversity #MentalHealth #ChronicStress #Healing #WindowOfTolerance #LivedExperience #CareWork #Culture #Power #Normality #Access #Inclusion #Ableism #Music #ClassicalMusic #ChoralMusic #Choir #Singing #Writing #PersonalEssay #Silence #LongPost #Fediversea (2/2)
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Apologetics: Atheism Confuses Me – The Religion That Denies Being a Religion.
As I’ve been studying various religions as an elective for my senior year, I have come to the realization that atheism – despite the vehement claims of its followers – is a religion, whether you like it or not. After all, if you look at the definition of “religion,” Google defines it as, “The belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods.” From this definition, though atheism denies the existence of God or other gods and, for the most part, lacks any sort of organization or liturgy (unless you count the Satanic Temple or Church of Satan,) its core tenants rely on the belief in the superhuman powers of nature in varying forms.
Just think about it for a sec. Atheists, in their pursuit to deny the existence of God, direct their subconscious need for faith in something beyond themselves to nature and Man’s creation (which Paul talked about in Romans 1.) In the absence of God, they turn to various forms of naturalism, materialism, etc. or a combination of various “-isms,” making those the ultimate forces that run the universe. They even have doctrines (though they wouldn’t call them that) in the form of theories such as evolution.
Ironically, though atheists would say that their beliefs are based on science and thus, isn’t blind faith, much less religion, there is very little to support their theories. For example, with evolution, while it’s treated as scientific fact, it’s been shown that often, what’s taught about it in the classroom is faulty at best, completely fraudulent at worst. Further, with the belief that the world randomly exploded into being from nothing, this is faulty as it relies on the belief that things can spontaneously generate from nothing through the power of…well, they’ll have to get back to you on how exactly nature did that. That’s also not mentioning the absurdity of the belief that things could become more complex through chance and time. But don’t worry. The atheists are convinced that as science advances, perhaps we’ll figure out how it happened, maybe through a couple hundred more theories that are ultimately untestable.
How this isn’t blind faith in the power of science and various theories is beyond me.
Additionally, atheism could be considered a sort of pantheistic religion. Pantheism is the belief that God is one with the universe and vice versa. That means that you, your house, the pebble in your shoe, and what your cat left in the litterbox are all God. In the case of atheism, the reason why I say that it could be considered to be a pantheistic religion is because it treats nature as God. And since humans are a part of nature, man is treated almost on the level of a god in the atheist mindset as the final arbiter of truth.
Basically, atheism is a religion in denial that it’s a religion, constantly gaslighting itself and its followers to continue in its delusional belief that it’s purely secular.
Until next time,
M.J.
#Apologetics #Atheism #BigBang #Blog #ChristianApologetics #Christianity #Evolution #faith #god #Irony #jesus #OpinionPeice #Pantheism #philosophy #Religion #Science #Writing -
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
- Long Form: Films
- Long Form: Non-Film/TV
- Short Form: TV Episodes
- Short Form: Non-TV
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 2025I 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, 2025I 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, 2025Bob 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://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
- Per the WSFS Constitution, clauses 3.8.2 and 3.8.3. ↩︎
- 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. ↩︎
- 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! ↩︎
- 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. ↩︎
- 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). ↩︎
- 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. ↩︎
- I call this “pilot syndrome”, and it’s one of my least favourite phenomena in media. ↩︎
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Saunders and Felagund’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024
By Dr. A.N. Grier
Saunders
Rather than delve into the not-so-good parts of a rollercoaster 2024, which had its share of rough circumstances, I’m using this rare soapbox moment to focus on the positives of another action-packed year of metal. Celebrating ten years of writing at Angry Metal Guy was an achievement that crept up. All these years later I remain beyond stoked and privileged to still be contributing in a small way as the blog has snowballed into the juggernaut it is today.
Unfortunately, I haven’t quite fulfilled my writing productivity goals in 2024. However, even when motivation slips, it still gives me great satisfaction to have a platform to share my thoughts and opinions on the music I love. I cannot match the writing chops or word smithery of our most esteemed scribes. However, honing my craft within my own abilities and drawing inspiration from the excellence of my fellow writers continues to motivate me and hopefully steer listeners toward some great music.
While it may not compete with some of the top-shelf individual years over the past decade, 2024 featured a lot of top-shelf stuff across a multitude of genres sprawled over the heavy spectrum. As per usual, the plethora of releases was overwhelming and again I stumble into the end-of-year chaos with a hefty list of stuff I need to check out or spend more time with. Nevertheless, from the numerous albums, I spent quality time with throughout the year, I eventually arrived at the releases that mattered the most to me, with many gems to no doubt uncover in the end-of-year wash-up. This is probably one of the more eclectic lists I’ve cultivated during my time here. Not sure exactly why that was the case, but a year of fluctuating, uneasy shifts on personal and professional fronts perhaps contributed to the more diverse listening rotation.
To wrap up, a heartfelt thank you to our beloved readership for making this all worthwhile and to all my colleagues/writing buddies and general crew of awesome people comprising the ever-expanding blog. Also shout-out to my list buddy Felagund, here’s hoping our combined powers partially align or otherwise complement and provide some listening inspiration. Lastly, a special heads-up to Angry Metal Guy, Steel Druhm, and the rest of the AMG editors and brains trust for whipping us all into order and doing the behind-the-scenes heavy lifting to keep this great thing chugging along. Cheers.
#ish: Anciients // Beyond the Reach of the Sun – Personal dramas, line-up shuffles, and an extended stint away from the studio failed to hamper the triumphant return of Canada’s progressive-stoner-sludge heavyweights Anciients. Beyond the Reach of the Sun marks a strong return that expands the band’s songwriting vision through a standout collection of ambitious, heavily prog-leaning cuts. Loaded with dazzling guitar work and gripping songwriting, Beyond the Reach of the Sun finds the band recalibrating and hitting their songwriting straps without compromising the genre-splicing traits and character they formed across their first couple of albums. It is not a perfect album by any means, with some niggling elements rearing their head, mostly via the way of some bloat, sequencing issues, and a flat production job. But with songs of the outstanding quality of “Despoiled,” “Is it Your God,” and “The Torch” leading the way, the album’s issues fail to extinguish my overall enthusiasm.
#10. Madder Mortem // Old Eyes New Heart – I came to veteran Norwegian progressive metal outfit Madder Mortem late in the game, just as they appeared to be hitting modern-era career peaks via Red in Tooth and Claw, and most recent album, 2018’s Marrow. Six long years in the wilderness and Madder Mortem return without missing a beat, continuing to pump out expressive, powerfully composed jams of their trademark mix of Goth-tinged progressive/alt metal. Although I enjoyed the album from the outset, if anything it has grown in stature since its early year release. The album’s subtleties and bevy of emotion-charged hooks bury deeper into the brain upon repeat doses. The tough period the band endured prior to the unleashing of Old Eyes New Heart is reflected in the album’s raw, potent swell of emotions and overall depth. This is further reflected in the diverse nature of the colorful songwriting, swinging from bluesy, melancholic restraint (“Cold Hard Rain”), pop-infected prog (‘Here and Now”) to urgent, dramatic, and infectious rock powerhouses (“The Head That Wears the Crown,” “Towers”).
#9. Opeth // The Last Will and Testament – As a longtime Opeth fanboy, it is a cool feeling to be genuinely enthused about a new LP, nearly three decades since their underrated Orchid debut. All the pre-release buzz centered on the return of Åkerfeldt’s famed death growls. While certainly a cool and unexpected touch, the fourteenth album The Last Will and Testament is not merely a nostalgic throwback to the band’s glory days. Instead, Opeth fuses those quirky, vintage prog tools from their modern-era material and fuses them into an intricate concept album that is a significant step up from the past couple of uneven efforts and easily their best work since at least 2014’s Pale Communion. Dazzling musicianship, jazzy licks, and inventively crafted, yet notably more focused and concise writing marked an album that features better production and tighter, punchier songs than the band has written in a while. It is also Opeth’s heaviest, most riff-centric release in many moons. Despite the trademark melancholic moods and darker shades, it also sounds as if the band is having real fun, reinforced by the abundance of bouncy, infectious riffs, shreddy solos, and boisterous grooves littering the album. Likely would have earned higher honors with time, as I still feel there is much more to discover.
#8. Oceans of Slumber // Where Gods Fear to Speak – Previously enjoyed the idea of Texan progressive metal powerhouse Oceans of Slumber, more than the execution and finished product. In particular, 2016’s Winter has grown in stature over the years. Yet for much of their career, it has felt like a case of incredible talent and potential not fully realized. That changed on Where Gods Fear to Speak, arguably the band’s most complete, consistent, and hook-laden release. When I felt the prog itch throughout 2024, Where Gods Fear to Speak was often the go-to. An album of lush, moody, drama-filled compositions, deftly contrasting soaring melodies, and skyscraping hooks with muscular riffage and heftier bouts of aggression, the writing is tighter and more compelling than previous efforts. Cammie Beverly’s scene-stealing vocals may take center stage, but this is very much a complete effort, where the rich soundscapes, brooding atmospheres, and technical musicianship shine brightly. Loaded with killer jams, including stirring highlights, “Don’t Come Back from Hell Empty Handed,” “Wish,” and “Poem of Ecstasy,” Where Gods Fear to Speak finally finds Oceans of Slumber firing on all cylinders.
#7. Pyrrhon // Exhaust – In theory, Pyrrhon should be one of my favorite bands. I used to eat up all manner of skronky, dissonant, and abrasive extreme metal. Perhaps my thirst for the weirder, experimental forms of death metal and dissonance has softened over the years. However, while largely enjoying Pyrrhon’s career up to this point, Exhaust feels like the album I have been waiting for the band to deliver. Exhaust dropped unexpectedly and that element of surprise flowed through another oddball, deranged platter of wildly inventive, chaotic, yet oddly accessible (in Pyrrhon terms) extreme metal. From cautious, challenging early listens, I found myself increasingly compelled to revisit Exhaust on a regular basis, marveling at its flexible, fractured songwriting, nimble musicianship, and raw hardcore punk edge infiltrating the dissonant, experimental death metal at the core of the Pyrrhon experience. Gritty production, perfectly unhinged vocal performance from Doug Moore, and occasional burst of groove and shred of accessibility punctuating the chaos (“First as Tragedy, Then as Farce,” “Strange Pains,” “Stress Fractures”) lend the album a refreshingly addictive edge to counterbalance its abrasive, challenging angles.
#6. Replicant // Infinite Mortality – New Jersey’s Replicant previously exhibited their brawny, yet brainy mix of gnarled dissonance, technicality, and knuckle-dragging street grooves to powerful effect. However, third album Infinite Mortality levelled the playing field as the band upped their game to elite levels of controlled chaos, while the writing remained challenging yet strangely accessible and memorable. In spirit, the ugly mix of harshness, discordance, and headbangable blockbuster grooves reminds me of the great Ion Dissonance. Meanwhile, the contrasting blend of unorthodox melody, jagged dissonance, and stuttering, complex song structures come together with cohesion and blunt force, punctuated by the occasional warped solo. Like a harsh, harrowing soundtrack to a bleak dystopian future, Infinite Mortality is a mean, chunky, technical, and deliciously primal slab of advanced disso-tech-death excellence.
#5. Noxis // Violence Inherent in the System – Notably death metal in 2024 was dominated by brutal, dissonant varieties, designed to scramble brains and challenge minds while battering the listener into submission. Refreshingly, unheralded surprise packet Noxis unloaded a killer debut LP to savor. Drawing from an array of old-school influences and ’90s touchstones without ever aping one particular band or style, Noxis unleashed a nostalgic yet unique death metal platter. Managing to at once sound raw and unclean, technical and brutal, thrashy and proggy, sharp and refined, Noxis blaze their way craftily through memorable, riff-infested wastelands with unbridled aggression, speed, and finesse, rubber-stamped by some exceptional bass work. Remnants of the classic Floridian scene mingle with powerful influences, including early Cryptopsy, later-era Death, Atheist, and Cannibal Corpse, resulting in a finished product that sounds fresh and vital, while containing an endearing, workmanlike old-school charm. It works a treat, and the top-notch and frequently inventive writing reveals impressive depth and character that rewards repeat listens.
#4. Dissimulator // Lower Form Resistance – There are some serviceable, enjoyable thrash-aligned albums in 2024, but one stood head and shoulders above the competition. Comprised of a grizzled bunch of underground Canadian musicians hellbent on fusing advanced technical thrash assaults with sick old-school death-thrash, a fuckton of killer riffs, quirky vocoder action, and razor-sharp hooks, Lower Form Resistance has consistently provided an adrenaline-filled shot of thrash when needing that specific fix. Dissimulator rewires thrash in intricate and intriguing ways, giving me the same giddy rush as past experiences with the likes of Capharnaum, Vhol, and Revocation. Excited to hear what these dudes conjure up next. In the meantime, Lower Form Resistance will continue to keep my thrash cogs oiled through potent bangers like “Warped,” “Automoil & Robotoil,” and “Hyperline Underflow.”
#3. Huntsmen // The Dry Land – After somehow sleeping on 2018 debut American Scrap and subsequently their apparent sophomore slumping second album, I finally righted my wrongs by delving into the strange and wildly unique woodlands of Chicago metal troupe Huntsmen and their phenomenal third LP, The Dry Land. A raw, rustic, and emotionally striking explosion of genre-bending excellence, where blackened sludge, doom, post, prog, folk, and Americana influences coalesce into an intoxicating and frequently thrilling musical formula, rich in detail and emotion. The skilled genre mashing is cohesive and genuine, loaded with surprises, structural twists, dramatic ebbs and flows, deep burrowing hooks, and contrasting vocal trade-offs to seal the deal on a remarkable album. Despite only a small handful of songs comprising the album (six in total), Huntsmen make every moment count, from blazing longer numbers with stunning contrasts and peaks (“This, Our Gospel,” “In Time, All things”) to plaintive folk dusted rock (“Lean Times”), through to the stunningly moving, compact power of “Rain.” Huntsmen occupy a unique space in the metalverse.
#2. Borknagar // Fall – I have a slightly odd history with Norwegian legends Borknagar. I recall being taken by their excellent 2012 album Urd, yet oddly enough I didn’t extend my listening beyond that isolated release. Things changed with 2019’s True North, a typically solid offering that inspired my explorations of portions of their vast and consistently engaging catalog. The twelfth album Fall marks their first album since True North and again features an outstanding line-up of talents, including founding mastermind Øystein Brun, multi-talented keyboardist/clean vocalist Lars Nedland, and ace up their sleeve bass/vocal powerhouse ICS Vortex. Fall smacks of a veteran band not merely content to coast on their laurels but rather carve freshly creative trajectories for their now signature blend of epic prog, triumphant Viking, and icy black metal to thrive. An extra shot of old-school blackened aggression and fuller production boosted an album of consistently high quality. Fall became a true all-occasions album in 2024; often uplifting me when I felt down or giving me a punchy charge when the need arose. Wall-to-wall prime cuts feature, headlined by the storming “Summits,” moody earworm, “The Wild Lingers”, and the striking, epic shimmer of “Moon.” Stalwarts still operating at the top of their game.
#1. Counting Hours // The Wishing Tomb – Not since Fvneral Fvkk’s remarkable Carnal Confessions debut has a doom album struck as hard as the second platter of sadboi misery perpetrated by Finland’s excellent Counting Hours. While doom and its death-doom companion may not always dominate my listening habits, when an album does hit that sweet spot, it usually leaves a profound impact. Few forms of metal generate the emotional resonance of quality doom and Counting Hours tears at the heartstrings through a riveting collection of gorgeously played and executed death-doom ditties, spearheaded by former members of the hugely underrated Rapture. Ilpo Paasela backs up the stellar musicianship, superb guitar work, and tight, addictive songwriting with a stunning mix of emotively raw, stately cleans and rugged death growls. The whole package packs an emotional wallop, yet its soulful edge and hopelessly addictive hooks and sing-along moments prevent a drop too deeply into depressive waters, as such earwormy gems as “Timeless Ones,” “All That Blooms (Needs to Die),” and “Starlit / Lifeless” attest. The Wishing Tomb is an epic album to lose yourself in.
Honorable Mentions:
- Blood Incantation // Absolute Elsewhere – Did I overrate Absolute Elsewhere? Possibly. Is it overhyped? Absolutely. Yet Blood Incantation remains a brave, adventurous band and Absolute Elsewhere represents a welcome return to form from these gifted, star-gazing space cadets. A flawed but effective fusing of their death metal roots with an increased focus on ’70s-inspired progressive rock and trippy psych flourishes.
- 200 Stab Wounds // Manual Manic Procedures – I barely took notice of Cleveland’s 200 Stab Wounds debut LP, but sophomore album Manual Manic Procedures provided one of the real surprise packets in 2024. It very nearly cracked the main list sheerly through heavy rotation. A meaty, adrenaline-charged shot of muscular death into the veins.
- Ripped to Shreds // Sanshi – Another reliably awesome slab of old-school death from Andrew Lee and co. Increasingly shreddy, extravagant solo work and a grindier edge powered one of their best albums yet.
- Nails // Every Bridge Burning – Nails is back and that is a great thing. New line-up, the same mode of short, sharp, blast-your-skin-off aggression, head-caving grooves, and hate-filled energy.
- Unhallowed Deliverance // Of Spectre and Strife – A pleasant surprise and one of the best debut albums in 2024. German tech-slam-brutal death juggernaut Unhallowed Deliverance knocked it out of the park with limited subtlety but a heap of talent, creativity, and songwriting smarts.
- Wormed // Omegon – With Ulcerate’s latest release not quite hitting me on the intense level of others, and having run out of time to properly digest and rank the obvious high-quality new Defeated Sanity, Wormed’s long-awaited return gave me my fix of calculated brutality via futuristic, slammy, technical brutal death executed in typically warped, mind-blowing fashion.
- Khirki // Κυκεώνας – Following up an impressive, well-received debut LP is no easy feat. Kenstrosity steered many of us from the AMG community onto Greek band Khirki’s Κτηνωδία debut in 2021, so I eagerly anticipated Khirki’s return for the second go around. The resulting album met expectations through a fiery, passionate, and eclectic mix of metal, rock, and traditional Greek folk.
- Sergeant Thunderhoof // The Ghost of Badon Hill – A late-year list shaker, underappreciated UK psych-prog-stoner outfit Sergeant Thunderhoof unleased a more restrained, psych-enhanced, and introspective album, showing signs of being a genuine grower since its November release, despite not quite hitting the irresistible highs of 2022’s This Sceptred Veil.
Disappointments o’ the Year:
- Several highly anticipated albums did not quite land the killer blows I was hoping for. Respectable to very good albums, but I expected better from Vola (admittedly a grower), Caligula’s Horse, Ihsahn, and especially Zeal and Ardor.
Non-Metal Picks:
- St Vincent, SIR, Michael Kiwanuka, Allie X, MGMT
Song ‘o the Year:
- Counting Hours – “Timeless Ones”
There were any number of standouts and potential Song o’ the Year candidates that could have nabbed top honors, including several counterparts from Counting Hours’ spectacular sophomore album. In the end, I settled on the (proper) album opener of my album of the year, as the tune that really hooked me initially from an album that captivated my soul. A rich, emotive piece of dark, melodic death-doom with superlative guitar melodies and a chorus for the ages. Honorable mention to Huntsmen’s “Rain.”
Felgund
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of living in interesting times. But as that wizened sage, Gandalf so wisely reminds us: “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
So what have I been doing with the time that has been given? A fair amount, as it turns out. 2024 has certainly been a tumultuous year for our small family. On the one hand, the business that I launched in 2023 has been chugging along for well over a year and a half now, and I think I’m far enough along in the process that I feel (at least somewhat) comfortable calling it a success. The baby that we brought home from the hospital is now, inexplicably, a whip-smart 7-year-old. My wife’s career continues to blossom as she continues to moonlight as my business manager. Things are good.
And yet 2024 also proved to be harder than I’d ever imagined. My dad died back in April, an experience that remains both devastating and surreal. He’d had multiple sclerosis for well over a decade, and as I’m sure many of you know, MS is a grasping, grinding petty little disease. But for as much as it stole, it proved incapable of taking away who my father was; it couldn’t quite make off with what made him him. He was my best friend before his diagnosis, and he remained my best friend up until that impossible evening in a hospital room in early April. Truth be told, he’s still my best friend, only now he’s free to walk wherever I see fit to imagine him.
Despite my best efforts, I realized pretty quickly you can’t capture a life in a few paragraphs. I couldn’t do it in his eulogy, and I certainly won’t attempt to do so on a heavy metal blog. But I will share this:
My dad was a carpenter by trade and an artist by choice; he was a fisherman and a cook; he was a handyman, a builder, a designer, and a writer; he taught himself how to play guitar, and he’s perhaps the singular reason why I’m writing for this website today. Because while he wasn’t a fan of metal himself, he instilled in me not only a love for music, but an interest in the process; in the people who create it, the minds that shape it, and the passion that births it.
He played in countless bands in his youth, and I can think of no better way to honor his memory than by sharing some of his music with you all. With Steel’s blessing, I’m embedding a two-song demo (“A Place in Time” and “Street Legal”) ripped from a cassette my old man recorded in the late 80s, so apologies in advance for the questionable quality. He composed both the music and lyrics, played guitar and bass, and sang on both tracks, which were devised when he was perhaps at his Rush fanboy peak. It’s been a delight and a balm hearing his voice again, captured as it was in a moment when he was young, vibrant, and doing what he loved.
So here we are. Despite (or perhaps because of) this, I managed to consume a fair amount of metal this year. And while I was far less productive as a writer than I’d hoped and I wasn’t able to listen to as much as I originally planned, I discovered a plethora of new music here on AMG that soothed what Neil Peart once referred to as his “baby soul.” And surprisingly, I found much of that solace in the discordant, the dissonant, and the off-kilter, as the list below probably reflects. But more importantly, I found compassion, support, and understanding amongst the writing staff here. And while they may not know it, I will be forever thankful for the folks who showed me such boundless kindness during a year that felt decidedly unkind. Thank you, my friends.
Now let’s get to to it. Here are my top ten(ish) albums of 2024.
#(ish). Beaten to Death // Sunrise Over Rigor Mortis – It almost feels like cheating to place an 18-minute album in my Top 10(ish), but here we are. 2024 proved to be a year where my interest in grind and grind-adjacent acts expanded, and this “ish” is the result. While I wasn’t aware of Beaten to Death prior to this release, I was quickly swept away by Sunrise Over Rigor Mortis’ ability to bludgeon its idiosyncratic way into my brain and coil there like the most glorious of infections. Beaten to Death has delivered a concise helping of grinding goodness, with crispy prog edges and a schmear of off-kilter humor. Back catalog, here I come!
#10. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum // Of the Last Human Being – Gardenstale’s gushing review of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum’s fourth album Of the Last Human Being was a tough endorsement to ignore, as was an invocation of Diablo Swing Orchestra. So I threw caution to the wind and leaped headlong into this experimental maelstrom. And I’m so happy I did. Don’t let the runtime dissuade you; Of the Last Human Being doesn’t feel nearly as long as it is, and over that relatively brief timespan, you’re provided with a front-row seat to the aural equivalent of perhaps the most fun kind of performance art. Hard-edged riffs, off-kilter instrumentation, ominous theatrics interlaced with beautiful, sparse melodies, and all capped off by the deranged croons of chief carnival barker Nils Frykdahl. If I’d spent more time with this record it may have placed higher, but as it is, I’m happy it’s making an appearance at the number 10 spot.
#9. Sur Austru // Datura Strǎhiarelor – Despite Twelve underrating this album, I suppose I should commend him for introducing me to Sur Austru in the first place. This Romanian outfit’s third full-length Datura Strǎhiarelor is a potent blend of rumbling, blackened fury, and melodic folk metal, with plenty of flute work, orchestration, choral elements, and plaintive keys thrown in. And, while the gruff, chanting growls might rub some listeners the wrong way, it was this aspect more than any other that first grabbed my attention, and proceeded to keep it. And while I haven’t a clue what the vocalists are shouting at me, the tone and placement in the mix feels just right, especially for this brand of folk-infused black metal. Such is the strength of Sur Austru that this album began as my “ish” before eventually working its way to ninth. Mightly bold of them.
#8. Necrowretch // Swords of Dajjal – Some of the entries on this list were either late discoveries or took some time before they got their dirty little hooks in me. Necrowretch’s Swords of Dajjal was not one of them. As soon as I spun it back in February, it was love at first listen. Swords of Dajjal focuses on the greater deceiver in Islamic mythology, and explores that tradition through the use of ferocious blackened death metal (with perhaps a dollop or two of thrash thrown in). Although, as Carcharodon rightly pointed out in his review, the “blackened” part is doing most of the heavy lifting here. And that’s not a bad thing, as Necrowretch is more than adept at crafting memorable hooks and an engaging atmosphere without sacrificing heft or freneticism. Swords of Dajjal is an unmitigated success, and my only real gripe is that Necrowretch dropped a new platter so early in the year that it may go overlooked on too many end-of-year lists.
#7. The Vision Bleak // Weird Tales – Grier and I may not see eye to eye on music, but what can I say? The man knows his way around gothic metal. So when he awarded a 4.0 to Weird Tales back in April, what was I to do? If you said wait several months before bothering to press play, you’re correct. But folks, I may have been late to the party, but it’s a rager nonetheless. The Vision Bleak has produced an emotive, memorable, downright heart-wrenching concept album; one that is both lush and harsh, both achingly melodic and morosely heavy. Weird Tales isn’t my usual cup of tea, but The Vision Bleak has rejected my assertion by doing what many similar acts appear incapable of doing: cohesively balancing “gothic” and “metal” without lessening the impact of either. A well-earned addition, indeed.
#6. Stenched // Purulence Gushing from the Coffin – While Rots-giving may have been tarnished by a less-than-stellar release from Rotpit back in November, I’ve moved on since then, and am now proudly celebrating Stenched-mas. The Manly n’ Mighty Steel reviewed this one-man grimy death outfit last month, and even though I was still smarting from my failed attempt to poach Purulence Gushing from the Coffin for myself, I can’t in good conscience deny how hard this globular mass of funerary muck rips. From the first track to the last, you’ll be rocking a near-permanent stank face, and you can’t blame that solely on the fungal miasma wafting from your speakers. The truth is, Stenched has delivered a masterclass in riff-heavy, moss-encrusted death metal; the kind that’s perfect to drag your knuckles to. Purulence Gushing from the Coffin is the exact kind of no-frills, all-guts death metal I needed in 2024, and that’s why it’s sitting pretty at 6.
#5. Aklash // Reincarnation – How are we already at the Top Five? And what better way to kick off this most treasured of positions than with the melodic black metal stylings of Aklash on their fourth album Reincarnation? Aklash received a solid write-up in June’s Stuck in the Filter by our very own Kenstrosity, and their most recent outing has continued to climb higher and higher on my list the more I’ve spun it. Part black metal, part progressive metal, part trad metal (epic choruses included), Reincarnation packs a wallop in just a short 37 minutes. overflowing with varied instrumentation and keen lyrical chops, grandiose in scope and medieval in tone, yet more personal than it has any right to be, Aklash is firing on all cylinders here, and, as such, is perfectly suited for anyone’s top 5.
#4. Devenial Verdict // Blessing of Despair – And, just like that, more death metal rears its ugly head. I’m still surprised at how high up Devenial Verdict’s sophomore album landed on my list, primarily because their 2022 debut Ash Blind failed to connect. But Blessing of Despair seems to have arrived just in time for my increasing flirtation with the cruel mistress that is dissodeath. As such, I found myself utterly taken with Devenial Verdict’s latest, overflowing as it is with equally heavy doses of discordant ferocity and mournful melodicism. And while Blessing of Despair is an undeniably heavy record, it makes sure to leave plenty of room for quieter moments, where slower sections and sparse instrumentation have room to bloom and breathe. This approach not only results in a wonderfully balanced album but ensures the bludgeoning that’s sure to follow is all the more impactful. Consider me reformed.
#3. Aborted // Vault of Horrors – I’m fairly certain that any death metal fan worth their salt is legally required to include the latest Aborted release on their end-of-year list. Over 25 years and 12 albums into their carnal career, these death metal titans need no introduction. Blood-drenched, gore-soaked, and happily grindy, Aborted are in a league all their own, and it shows on Vault of Horrors. The music remains tight and explosive, building a menacing atmosphere that pervades only the stickiest of grindhouse theaters. Besides, with songs dedicated to classics like Return of the Living Dead, Hellraiser, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, how could I do anything other than include this gem of an album in my top 3? I for one welcome our horror-themed overlords.
#2. Noxis // Violence Inherent in the System – What began as a random pick from the promo sump by one Kenstrosity quickly rose to become a favorite of the death metal maniacs (those with good taste, anyway) on the AMG staff. Now, more importantly, it’s nabbed the second-highest honor on my year-end list. Noxis’ first full-length album Violence Inherent in the System sounds like the product of a much more experienced band. The songwriting is top-notch, the performances are big and bold without being overwrought, and the sticky riffs stay wedged in your mind long after the album ends. And yet for all of its bombast, Noxis is still able to infuse their debut with oodles of atmosphere, not to mention a level of balance between death metal orthodoxy and fresh bells and whistles (and horns) that would make even Thanos grimace in jealousy. Special attention must also be paid to Joe Lowrie’s snare tone and Dave Kirsch’s godlike bass performance.
#1. Pyrrhon // Exhaust – I suppose I was always destined to end up here, I just didn’t know it right away. Pyrrhon’s fifth full-length Exhaust didn’t initially grab me the way some of my other entries did. However, on repeat spins, I found myself falling deeper and deeper into its frenetic, dissonant embrace, discovering both nuances and subtleties amidst the proggy cacophony. On an album that thoroughly explores the universal theme of exhaustion, be it physical, mental, social, or economic, Pyrrhon’s brand of noise-tinged death metal feels like the ideal tool with which to scrawl their livid manifesto. But what truly sets Exhaust apart is its unrelenting groove, stoked by Pyrrhon’s inventive capacity to not only feature but to uplift its unique brand of melodicism amidst the unrelenting maelstrom. It’s hard to overstate just how critical this aspect is to Exhaust’s success, especially since it would have been so easy to excise. But Exhaust’s manic ferocity, which swerves jerks, hops, and heaves, is all the better for it. And while its charms were initially lost on me, I found it easier and easier to finally succumb to its tremulous tendrils. Any record with that kind of staying power (not to mention a theme so applicable to my own experiences this past year) has more than earned my top spot for 2024.
Honorable Mentions:
- Defeated Sanity // Chronicles of Lunacy – Defeated Sanity is a brutal tech death stalwart at this point, and now seven albums in, Chronicles of Lunacy only further cements that status. Chronicles of Lunacy provides the listener with track after aggressively intricate track exploring lunacy in its many forms, but the real treat here is Lille Gruber’s masterful performance on the drums.
- Full of Hell // Coagulated Bliss – while I don’t think I’ve become a complete grind convert, albums like Full of Hell’s Coagulated Bliss and Beaten to Death’s Sunrise Over Rigor Mortis certainly set me on the path to one day become a proud proselytizer. You can’t deny Coagulated Bliss’ infectious groove and whirlwind pace, although I agree with the Dolphin’s rating adjustment.
- Undeath // More Insane – no, it’s not as good as It’s Time…to Rise from the Grave, and there’s no reason to pretend that it is. Nor does it need to be. While More Insane may not reach the lofty heights of its predecessor, it still showcases an Undeath doing what it does best, while also hinting at an undeniable ability to evolve into an even sharper, more fetid OSDM beast.
- 200 Stab Wounds // Manual Manic Procedures – while I wasn’t entirely kind in my review of 200 Stab Wounds’ debut, Mark Z suggested I take their follow-up Manual Manic Procedures for a spin, and I’m glad I did. It’s clear they’ve grown as artists, and their sophomore effort reflects that heightened maturity. Keep stabbing on, your crazy diamonds!
- Mamaleek // Vida Blue – I’m confident this album captures what it would sound like if Tom Waits listened to too much Ashenspire before leaving for the recording studio. Long, difficult, and bold, I found myself returning again and again to Vida Blue no matter how challenging I found the experience. While this album didn’t make my top 10, I’m convinced a future Mamaleek release will.
Song o’ the Year:
- Noxis – ”Skullcrushing Defilement”
This song goes hard. Exceptionally hard. In truth, there are any number of tunes from Violence Inherent in the System that fit the “Song o’ the Year” bill, but I had to give the edge to “Skullcrushing Defilement.” Not only does it begin with an absolutely searing bass solo, but it sets the stage for the four-string onslaught that’s to come. There’s a noticeable Cannibal Corpse influence that I can’t help but love here, alongside heaping doses of maniacal melodicism, turbocharged technicality, and an earworm chorus to boot. Abandon all cervical spines, ye who enter here.
#200StabWounds #2024 #Aborted #Aklash #AllieX #Anciients #Archspire #Atheist #BeatenToDeath #BlogPosts #BloodIncantation #Borknagar #CaligulaSHorse #CannibalCorpse #Capharnaum #CountingHours #Crytopsy #Death #DefeatedSanity #DevenialVerdict #DiabloSwingOrchestra #Dissimulator #Dissonance #FullOfHell #FvneralFvkk #Huntsmen #Ihsahn #Khirki #Lists #MadderMortem #Mamaleek #MGMT #MichaelKiwanuka #Nails #Necrowretch #Noxis #OceansOfSlumber #Opeth #Pyrrhon #Rapture #Replicant #Revocation #RippedToShreds #Rotpit #SaundersAndFelagundSTopTenIshOf2024 #SergeantThunderfoot #SIR #SleepytimeGorillaMuseum #StVincent #Stenched #SurAustru #TheVisionBleak #TomWaits #Ulcerate #Undeath #UnhallowedDeliverance #Vhöl #Wormed #ZealAndArdor
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As I don't have a pinned #introduction I thought I'd post one, particularly for new followers, although my profile is fairly descriptive.
I'm visually impaired due to LCA. I'm a practicing Catholic. I was born Jewish and became a nondenominational Protestant for a while before becoming Catholic in 2007.
I've been working in the blindness assistive technology space for 35 years, doing tech support and then providing technology training for both children and adults. After that, I was a product manager with Comcast's accessibility team. I'm currently the marketing director for Blazie Technologies, which develops Braille oriented computers for blind consumers, powered by Raspberry Pi.
love science fiction, with #DoctorWho and #Babylon5 being my two favorite series. I've been a Doctor Who fan for 41 years and enjoy the TV series, books as well as professional and fan-produced DW dramas. I love audio theater, both old time radio as well as modern audio drama. I primarily enjoy science fiction drama but I also have a special place in my heart for Gunsmoke, which I feel was one of the best OTR shows of its time, as far as its writing and audio production.
I also enjoy watching videos and reading books on apologetics as well as about religious cults; their beliefs and how we as Christians should respond to their claims. I love clean, wholesome puns and I often am unable to resist responding with them.
I love cats. I probably wouldn't be allowed on Mastodon if I didn't.
I use both #JAWS and #NVDA for screen reading.
In the tech world, product support is always my first love.
I own and moderate the Tech-VI mailing list. It's an announce-only list where I distribute announcements in the blindness technology space; winner of the 2022 James R. Olsen Distinguished Service award from the American Council of the Blind. To subscribe, send email to
[email protected]Favorite OTR show: the Shadow
Favorite foods: any type of pasta, love spaghetti and meatballs. Also sushi.
#AssistiveTechnology -
Dragon Skull – Chaos Fire Vengeance [Things You Might Have Missed 2025]
By Baguette of Bodom
Greece is a surprising hotbed for power metal-adjacent sounds, providing recent gems such as Sunburst last year and Sacred Outcry’s 2023 masterpiece.1 Dragon Skull is a newcomer to these fields of glory, introducing their burly heavy/power style on their promising self-titled EP as recently as 2022. Now, three years later, they were finally ready to unleash their debut Chaos Fire Vengeance on the world. And oh my, what an entrance it is.
Dragon Skull know how to riff like hell and craft anthemic, cataclysmically heavy tunes. In addition to the fist-pumping Manowar feel the band is going for (“Brethren,” “Skull Crusher”), the songwriting is further guided by the spirit of German power metal, something like Brainstorm further reinforced with later Blind Guardian bombast (“Nampat,” “Blood and Souls”). But what makes the instrumentation incendiary is how guitarists Panos Wallach and Chris Brintzikis take influence from several directions at once. This guarantees plenty of variety through the album’s eight tracks, ranging from the dual-harmonized NWoBHM of “Brethren” to the melodeath/meloblack-informed tremolos on “Shield Maiden.” To top it all off, the pummeling war drums of Teo Stamatiadis and gargantuan vocals of Aris Labos lend maximum grit to an already muscular record.
Chaos Fire Vengeance offers a refreshing mixture of ’80s heavy metal and ’00s power metal. Slower, anthemic annihilation is counterpointed by thunderous fury, often during the same song (“Dragon Riders,” Shield Maiden”). The extra melodic death metal DNA brings with it a welcome burst of harsh vocals as well (“War Drums,” “Skeleton Hand”), and the way it all gels effortlessly is impressive. Despite the amount of various elements and influences in the album, the end result is deceivingly simple and effective. It makes Dragon Skull’s style stand out in a similar way Triumpher’s shtick does, but the increased mass and grit of Chaos Fire Vengeance improves the formula from good to face-melting. Though the first half of the album is already potent, the second half is where the band’s ambitions are fully realized. The hooks in “Nampat” and “Skeleton Hand” are immense, and the gargantuan epic “Blood and Souls” is a serious Song o’ the Year contender. I mean, how can you not love a song with Elric and Tanelorn-themed lyrical homages to Cirith Ungol and Blind Guardian?2
Dragon Skull is single-handedly carrying the power metal torch this year. Sure, it might be more heavy/power, but who’s counting? The songwriting is superbly anthemic, and the band knocked it out of the park on their first try in 42 brief minutes. I’ve had some trouble getting all my writing done late in the year for countless reasons, and this album in particular felt difficult to write deeper analysis for. But maybe it’s not necessary. After all, what is a TYMHM but a long-winded way to say “this album rocks, go check it out?” Sometimes it’s just better to keep things short and simple, and all Chaos Fire Vengeance needs is a damn strong barrage of eight massive tunes. Better yet, it’s a brilliant blueprint Dragon Skull can use to further refine their songcraft.
Tracks to Check Out: “Nampat,” “Skeleton Hand,” and “Blood and Souls.”
#2025 #BlindGuardian #Brainstorm #ChaosFireVengeance #CirithUngol #DragonSkull #EpicHeavyMetal #GreekMetal #HeavyMetal #Manowar #PowerMetal #SacredOutcry #SelfReleased #Sunburst #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2025 #Triumpher #TYMHM
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CW: adult content, monster fucking
LUSTY AND THE TIKBALANG
Get all 14 versions! https://www.patreon.com/posts/151078746
Includes:
- milk, nipple clamps, cum
- blindfold, bit gag, body harness
- PREGNANT LUSTY, and body writing#Lusty #elf #Tikbalang #werehorse #YearoftheHorse #LunarNewYear #nsfw #nsfwart #tits #monsterfucker #monstercock #teratophilia
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At one point
it was okay to #pretend
that everything was going
to be all right.
The blinders have been lifted
things are real.
Reality has hit and
history has repeated.
But I will not curl up and die.
The dawn will rise once more. -
@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".
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 whatalttext 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 -
@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".
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 whatalttext 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 -
@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".
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 whatalttext 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 -
@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".
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 whatalttext 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 -
@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".
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 whatalttext 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 -
CW: Misskey only allows for 512 characters of alt-text which is bad for my image posts; CW: long (over 8,600 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, alt-text meta, character limit meta, content warning meta
Just the other day, I found something out. Something very inconvenient about Misskey and maybe also the Forkeys.
It should be commonly known that Misskey has a local limit of 3,000 characters for posts (which it refers to as "notes"). What is not so well-known is that Misskey has a limit of about 8,000 characters, probably 8,192 or so, for inbound messages, ironically fewer than this post is long. Also, it has a limit of 512 characters for alt-text, both locally and in-bound.
Mastodon has a character limit for in-bound content, too, at least for Note-type objects (not for Article-type objects because it refuses to render them fully and links to the original instead). To my best knowledge, it rejects messages with over 100,000 characters. As for its 1,500-charater limit for alt-text, it enforces that by truncating alt-text that's longer.
Misskey, in contrast, truncates everything that exceeds its limits while still letting it in. If your post is longer than the inbound limit of ca. 8,000, all excess characters are chopped off and thrown away. If your alt-text is longer than 512 characters, all excess characters are chopped off and thrown away.
I don't know which Forkey behaves how in this regard, seeing as all Forkeys I know about have a configurable local post character limit that can be adjusted to well over 8,000. But even if the inbound limit is configurable, too, I don't think any *key admin cranks it over 60,000 or over 70,000 or over 100,000. It's simply unimaginable that someone, anyone, could ever post that much at once if your idea of the Fediverse is pure microblogging.
Also, I don't know what *key users do when they come across a truncated post or what blind or visually-impaired *key users do when they come across a truncated alt-text. Do they even suspect that it's a truncated copy of something that's longer at its source and then go check the source? Either way, it's very inconvenient.
It's especially inconvenient for me. My longest posts by a gigantic margin are image posts with original images. They always have a long image description block in the post itself that tends to be tens of thousands of characters long. It contains highly detailed visual descriptions of all images in the post. It contains all explanations necessary to understand the post, the images and the descriptions. It contains verbatim transcripts of all bits of text within the borders of the image that I can read, no matter whether or not my audience can.
In addition, each image has a shorter description in the alt-text, along with a bit that announces the long description, including where to find it. I even used to explain how to get to that description for Mastodon users for whom the summary and content warning hides the post text, but not the images, depending on which Mastodon version and frontend they use. This alone took up several hundred characters in the alt-text. All in all, I got to a point in which my alt-texts always ended up either at precisely 1,500 characters or just a few characters short.
I myself am not really bound to character limits. I used to post images here on Hubzilla where I have over 16.7 million characters for the post, including all alt-texts. Now I post them on (streams) where I have over 24 million characters. I could theoretically write alt-texts as long as I want to, seeing as, unlike on Mastodon, they aren't separate text fields; instead, they're being woven into the image-embedding markup code in the post text.
Still, I stick to a maximum of 1,500 characters for alt-text to keep Mastodon from truncating it. If you post images into the Fediverse, the main audience for your alt-text is on Mastodon, and most of them don't understand that there's something, anything, out there in the Fediverse that does not work exactly like Mastodon. And 1,500 characters can be tight already.
But if I have to stay within Misskey's limits, I can hardly post images anymore. At least not with appropriate descriptions and explanations.
Since late 2024, I have been working on-and-off on a series of fairly simple avatar portraits or rather their image descriptions. The idea is for the long description to consist of a preamble that starts with a general summary, followed by explanations, then followed by visual descriptions of what all images in the post have in common. Next come the individual descriptions of each image. Each post shall have three or four images with three or four portraits each, all in the same pose, all with only minor differences in outfits, all with a neutral, bright white background.
In addition, of course, each image shall have an alt-text, and none of the alt-texts shall depend on each other.
Now, the problem is that I have to describe three or four individual portraits in each alt-text. I'm actually struggling to squeeze such a description plus the note that announces the long description into 1,500 characters, especially if I want to fulfill Veronica Lewis a.k.a. Veronica With Four Eyes' requirements for outfit descriptions to a tee in the alt-text as well (https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-write-alt-text-for-casual-outfits/, https://veroniiiica.com/writing-image-descriptions-for-red-carpet-outfits/; see also https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-write-alt-text-image-descriptions-visually-impaired/ and https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-create-visual-descriptions/).
But in 512 characters so that even Misskey users won't get a severely truncated version? This is absolutely impossible. Even if I limit the long description announcement to some 100 characters, even if I didn't walk people through how to get to the long description, I'd have fewer than 140 characters on average to describe each individual outfit.
The long description won't fare any better. Currently, the preamble starts with some 14,000 characters of explanations, most of which are necessary to understand the visual descriptions. But when Misskey goes and truncates the post at the 8,000-something mark, Misskey users won't even get to any visual description because all visual descriptions would be chopped off.
What makes matters worse is that the preamble grows the longer, the easier to understand I make it and the less I leave people with unexplained technical or jargon terms which you shouldn't use in image descriptions at all anyway. So the next time I go through it and rewrite it to make it easier to understand, I'll also make it even longer than it already is.
But what if I simply cut all the explanations? For one, I'd leave people to their own devices to understand extremely obscure niche content. They won't. My explanations aren't 14,000 characters long because I've artificially inflated them, but because there is so much to know before you understand the post and the images and the descriptions.
Besides, the visual descriptions alone won't fit into 8,192 characters either. What I currently have is over 5,000 characters of common visual description for all portraits in all images plus about 2,500 characters of individual visual description for the three portraits in the first image. That's over 7,500 characters altogether already. And I still have to describe nine portraits in another three images. The post will end up with some 15,000 characters of visual descriptions unless they grow longer when I simplify them again.
I guess users of Misskey or any Forkey will still have to put up with truncated alt-texts and truncated long descriptions in the future. But my future image posts will contain a paragraph at the beginning that explains that the post and/or the alt-text may be truncated on Misskey and the Forkeys, and that both are uncut at the source. Still, this means that *key users will have to put up with the extra hassle of opening my original post at a source with a quite cumbersome UI. And I've got my doubts that this UI is really accessible.
Unfortunately, this also means that *key users won't get any hashtags along with these posts. But then again, the handling of Identi.ca-style/Friendica-style hashtags with the number sign outside the link is broken on all *keys and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #Calckey #Firefish #Sharkey #CherryPick #Iceshrimp #Iceshrimp-JS #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #A11y #Accessibility -
CW: Misskey only allows for 512 characters of alt-text which is bad for my image posts; CW: long (over 8,600 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, alt-text meta, character limit meta, content warning meta
Just the other day, I found something out. Something very inconvenient about Misskey and maybe also the Forkeys.
It should be commonly known that Misskey has a local limit of 3,000 characters for posts (which it refers to as "notes"). What is not so well-known is that Misskey has a limit of about 8,000 characters, probably 8,192 or so, for inbound messages, ironically fewer than this post is long. Also, it has a limit of 512 characters for alt-text, both locally and in-bound.
Mastodon has a character limit for in-bound content, too, at least for Note-type objects (not for Article-type objects because it refuses to render them fully and links to the original instead). To my best knowledge, it rejects messages with over 100,000 characters. As for its 1,500-charater limit for alt-text, it enforces that by truncating alt-text that's longer.
Misskey, in contrast, truncates everything that exceeds its limits while still letting it in. If your post is longer than the inbound limit of ca. 8,000, all excess characters are chopped off and thrown away. If your alt-text is longer than 512 characters, all excess characters are chopped off and thrown away.
I don't know which Forkey behaves how in this regard, seeing as all Forkeys I know about have a configurable local post character limit that can be adjusted to well over 8,000. But even if the inbound limit is configurable, too, I don't think any *key admin cranks it over 60,000 or over 70,000 or over 100,000. It's simply unimaginable that someone, anyone, could ever post that much at once if your idea of the Fediverse is pure microblogging.
Also, I don't know what *key users do when they come across a truncated post or what blind or visually-impaired *key users do when they come across a truncated alt-text. Do they even suspect that it's a truncated copy of something that's longer at its source and then go check the source? Either way, it's very inconvenient.
It's especially inconvenient for me. My longest posts by a gigantic margin are image posts with original images. They always have a long image description block in the post itself that tends to be tens of thousands of characters long. It contains highly detailed visual descriptions of all images in the post. It contains all explanations necessary to understand the post, the images and the descriptions. It contains verbatim transcripts of all bits of text within the borders of the image that I can read, no matter whether or not my audience can.
In addition, each image has a shorter description in the alt-text, along with a bit that announces the long description, including where to find it. I even used to explain how to get to that description for Mastodon users for whom the summary and content warning hides the post text, but not the images, depending on which Mastodon version and frontend they use. This alone took up several hundred characters in the alt-text. All in all, I got to a point in which my alt-texts always ended up either at precisely 1,500 characters or just a few characters short.
I myself am not really bound to character limits. I used to post images here on Hubzilla where I have over 16.7 million characters for the post, including all alt-texts. Now I post them on (streams) where I have over 24 million characters. I could theoretically write alt-texts as long as I want to, seeing as, unlike on Mastodon, they aren't separate text fields; instead, they're being woven into the image-embedding markup code in the post text.
Still, I stick to a maximum of 1,500 characters for alt-text to keep Mastodon from truncating it. If you post images into the Fediverse, the main audience for your alt-text is on Mastodon, and most of them don't understand that there's something, anything, out there in the Fediverse that does not work exactly like Mastodon. And 1,500 characters can be tight already.
But if I have to stay within Misskey's limits, I can hardly post images anymore. At least not with appropriate descriptions and explanations.
Since late 2024, I have been working on-and-off on a series of fairly simple avatar portraits or rather their image descriptions. The idea is for the long description to consist of a preamble that starts with a general summary, followed by explanations, then followed by visual descriptions of what all images in the post have in common. Next come the individual descriptions of each image. Each post shall have three or four images with three or four portraits each, all in the same pose, all with only minor differences in outfits, all with a neutral, bright white background.
In addition, of course, each image shall have an alt-text, and none of the alt-texts shall depend on each other.
Now, the problem is that I have to describe three or four individual portraits in each alt-text. I'm actually struggling to squeeze such a description plus the note that announces the long description into 1,500 characters, especially if I want to fulfill Veronica Lewis a.k.a. Veronica With Four Eyes' requirements for outfit descriptions to a tee in the alt-text as well (https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-write-alt-text-for-casual-outfits/, https://veroniiiica.com/writing-image-descriptions-for-red-carpet-outfits/; see also https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-write-alt-text-image-descriptions-visually-impaired/ and https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-create-visual-descriptions/).
But in 512 characters so that even Misskey users won't get a severely truncated version? This is absolutely impossible. Even if I limit the long description announcement to some 100 characters, even if I didn't walk people through how to get to the long description, I'd have fewer than 140 characters on average to describe each individual outfit.
The long description won't fare any better. Currently, the preamble starts with some 14,000 characters of explanations, most of which are necessary to understand the visual descriptions. But when Misskey goes and truncates the post at the 8,000-something mark, Misskey users won't even get to any visual description because all visual descriptions would be chopped off.
What makes matters worse is that the preamble grows the longer, the easier to understand I make it and the less I leave people with unexplained technical or jargon terms which you shouldn't use in image descriptions at all anyway. So the next time I go through it and rewrite it to make it easier to understand, I'll also make it even longer than it already is.
But what if I simply cut all the explanations? For one, I'd leave people to their own devices to understand extremely obscure niche content. They won't. My explanations aren't 14,000 characters long because I've artificially inflated them, but because there is so much to know before you understand the post and the images and the descriptions.
Besides, the visual descriptions alone won't fit into 8,192 characters either. What I currently have is over 5,000 characters of common visual description for all portraits in all images plus about 2,500 characters of individual visual description for the three portraits in the first image. That's over 7,500 characters altogether already. And I still have to describe nine portraits in another three images. The post will end up with some 15,000 characters of visual descriptions unless they grow longer when I simplify them again.
I guess users of Misskey or any Forkey will still have to put up with truncated alt-texts and truncated long descriptions in the future. But my future image posts will contain a paragraph at the beginning that explains that the post and/or the alt-text may be truncated on Misskey and the Forkeys, and that both are uncut at the source. Still, this means that *key users will have to put up with the extra hassle of opening my original post at a source with a quite cumbersome UI. And I've got my doubts that this UI is really accessible.
Unfortunately, this also means that *key users won't get any hashtags along with these posts. But then again, the handling of Identi.ca-style/Friendica-style hashtags with the number sign outside the link is broken on all *keys and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #Calckey #Firefish #Sharkey #CherryPick #Iceshrimp #Iceshrimp-JS #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #A11y #Accessibility -
CW: Misskey only allows for 512 characters of alt-text which is bad for my image posts; CW: long (over 8,600 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, alt-text meta, character limit meta, content warning meta
Just the other day, I found something out. Something very inconvenient about Misskey and maybe also the Forkeys.
It should be commonly known that Misskey has a local limit of 3,000 characters for posts (which it refers to as "notes"). What is not so well-known is that Misskey has a limit of about 8,000 characters, probably 8,192 or so, for inbound messages, ironically fewer than this post is long. Also, it has a limit of 512 characters for alt-text, both locally and in-bound.
Mastodon has a character limit for in-bound content, too, at least for Note-type objects (not for Article-type objects because it refuses to render them fully and links to the original instead). To my best knowledge, it rejects messages with over 100,000 characters. As for its 1,500-charater limit for alt-text, it enforces that by truncating alt-text that's longer.
Misskey, in contrast, truncates everything that exceeds its limits while still letting it in. If your post is longer than the inbound limit of ca. 8,000, all excess characters are chopped off and thrown away. If your alt-text is longer than 512 characters, all excess characters are chopped off and thrown away.
I don't know which Forkey behaves how in this regard, seeing as all Forkeys I know about have a configurable local post character limit that can be adjusted to well over 8,000. But even if the inbound limit is configurable, too, I don't think any *key admin cranks it over 60,000 or over 70,000 or over 100,000. It's simply unimaginable that someone, anyone, could ever post that much at once if your idea of the Fediverse is pure microblogging.
Also, I don't know what *key users do when they come across a truncated post or what blind or visually-impaired *key users do when they come across a truncated alt-text. Do they even suspect that it's a truncated copy of something that's longer at its source and then go check the source? Either way, it's very inconvenient.
It's especially inconvenient for me. My longest posts by a gigantic margin are image posts with original images. They always have a long image description block in the post itself that tends to be tens of thousands of characters long. It contains highly detailed visual descriptions of all images in the post. It contains all explanations necessary to understand the post, the images and the descriptions. It contains verbatim transcripts of all bits of text within the borders of the image that I can read, no matter whether or not my audience can.
In addition, each image has a shorter description in the alt-text, along with a bit that announces the long description, including where to find it. I even used to explain how to get to that description for Mastodon users for whom the summary and content warning hides the post text, but not the images, depending on which Mastodon version and frontend they use. This alone took up several hundred characters in the alt-text. All in all, I got to a point in which my alt-texts always ended up either at precisely 1,500 characters or just a few characters short.
I myself am not really bound to character limits. I used to post images here on Hubzilla where I have over 16.7 million characters for the post, including all alt-texts. Now I post them on (streams) where I have over 24 million characters. I could theoretically write alt-texts as long as I want to, seeing as, unlike on Mastodon, they aren't separate text fields; instead, they're being woven into the image-embedding markup code in the post text.
Still, I stick to a maximum of 1,500 characters for alt-text to keep Mastodon from truncating it. If you post images into the Fediverse, the main audience for your alt-text is on Mastodon, and most of them don't understand that there's something, anything, out there in the Fediverse that does not work exactly like Mastodon. And 1,500 characters can be tight already.
But if I have to stay within Misskey's limits, I can hardly post images anymore. At least not with appropriate descriptions and explanations.
Since late 2024, I have been working on-and-off on a series of fairly simple avatar portraits or rather their image descriptions. The idea is for the long description to consist of a preamble that starts with a general summary, followed by explanations, then followed by visual descriptions of what all images in the post have in common. Next come the individual descriptions of each image. Each post shall have three or four images with three or four portraits each, all in the same pose, all with only minor differences in outfits, all with a neutral, bright white background.
In addition, of course, each image shall have an alt-text, and none of the alt-texts shall depend on each other.
Now, the problem is that I have to describe three or four individual portraits in each alt-text. I'm actually struggling to squeeze such a description plus the note that announces the long description into 1,500 characters, especially if I want to fulfill Veronica Lewis a.k.a. Veronica With Four Eyes' requirements for outfit descriptions to a tee in the alt-text as well (https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-write-alt-text-for-casual-outfits/, https://veroniiiica.com/writing-image-descriptions-for-red-carpet-outfits/; see also https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-write-alt-text-image-descriptions-visually-impaired/ and https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-create-visual-descriptions/).
But in 512 characters so that even Misskey users won't get a severely truncated version? This is absolutely impossible. Even if I limit the long description announcement to some 100 characters, even if I didn't walk people through how to get to the long description, I'd have fewer than 140 characters on average to describe each individual outfit.
The long description won't fare any better. Currently, the preamble starts with some 14,000 characters of explanations, most of which are necessary to understand the visual descriptions. But when Misskey goes and truncates the post at the 8,000-something mark, Misskey users won't even get to any visual description because all visual descriptions would be chopped off.
What makes matters worse is that the preamble grows the longer, the easier to understand I make it and the less I leave people with unexplained technical or jargon terms which you shouldn't use in image descriptions at all anyway. So the next time I go through it and rewrite it to make it easier to understand, I'll also make it even longer than it already is.
But what if I simply cut all the explanations? For one, I'd leave people to their own devices to understand extremely obscure niche content. They won't. My explanations aren't 14,000 characters long because I've artificially inflated them, but because there is so much to know before you understand the post and the images and the descriptions.
Besides, the visual descriptions alone won't fit into 8,192 characters either. What I currently have is over 5,000 characters of common visual description for all portraits in all images plus about 2,500 characters of individual visual description for the three portraits in the first image. That's over 7,500 characters altogether already. And I still have to describe nine portraits in another three images. The post will end up with some 15,000 characters of visual descriptions unless they grow longer when I simplify them again.
I guess users of Misskey or any Forkey will still have to put up with truncated alt-texts and truncated long descriptions in the future. But my future image posts will contain a paragraph at the beginning that explains that the post and/or the alt-text may be truncated on Misskey and the Forkeys, and that both are uncut at the source. Still, this means that *key users will have to put up with the extra hassle of opening my original post at a source with a quite cumbersome UI. And I've got my doubts that this UI is really accessible.
Unfortunately, this also means that *key users won't get any hashtags along with these posts. But then again, the handling of Identi.ca-style/Friendica-style hashtags with the number sign outside the link is broken on all *keys and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #Calckey #Firefish #Sharkey #CherryPick #Iceshrimp #Iceshrimp-JS #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #A11y #Accessibility -
CW: Misskey only allows for 512 characters of alt-text which is bad for my image posts; CW: long (over 8,600 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, alt-text meta, character limit meta, content warning meta
Just the other day, I found something out. Something very inconvenient about Misskey and maybe also the Forkeys.
It should be commonly known that Misskey has a local limit of 3,000 characters for posts (which it refers to as "notes"). What is not so well-known is that Misskey has a limit of about 8,000 characters, probably 8,192 or so, for inbound messages, ironically fewer than this post is long. Also, it has a limit of 512 characters for alt-text, both locally and in-bound.
Mastodon has a character limit for in-bound content, too, at least for Note-type objects (not for Article-type objects because it refuses to render them fully and links to the original instead). To my best knowledge, it rejects messages with over 100,000 characters. As for its 1,500-charater limit for alt-text, it enforces that by truncating alt-text that's longer.
Misskey, in contrast, truncates everything that exceeds its limits while still letting it in. If your post is longer than the inbound limit of ca. 8,000, all excess characters are chopped off and thrown away. If your alt-text is longer than 512 characters, all excess characters are chopped off and thrown away.
I don't know which Forkey behaves how in this regard, seeing as all Forkeys I know about have a configurable local post character limit that can be adjusted to well over 8,000. But even if the inbound limit is configurable, too, I don't think any *key admin cranks it over 60,000 or over 70,000 or over 100,000. It's simply unimaginable that someone, anyone, could ever post that much at once if your idea of the Fediverse is pure microblogging.
Also, I don't know what *key users do when they come across a truncated post or what blind or visually-impaired *key users do when they come across a truncated alt-text. Do they even suspect that it's a truncated copy of something that's longer at its source and then go check the source? Either way, it's very inconvenient.
It's especially inconvenient for me. My longest posts by a gigantic margin are image posts with original images. They always have a long image description block in the post itself that tends to be tens of thousands of characters long. It contains highly detailed visual descriptions of all images in the post. It contains all explanations necessary to understand the post, the images and the descriptions. It contains verbatim transcripts of all bits of text within the borders of the image that I can read, no matter whether or not my audience can.
In addition, each image has a shorter description in the alt-text, along with a bit that announces the long description, including where to find it. I even used to explain how to get to that description for Mastodon users for whom the summary and content warning hides the post text, but not the images, depending on which Mastodon version and frontend they use. This alone took up several hundred characters in the alt-text. All in all, I got to a point in which my alt-texts always ended up either at precisely 1,500 characters or just a few characters short.
I myself am not really bound to character limits. I used to post images here on Hubzilla where I have over 16.7 million characters for the post, including all alt-texts. Now I post them on (streams) where I have over 24 million characters. I could theoretically write alt-texts as long as I want to, seeing as, unlike on Mastodon, they aren't separate text fields; instead, they're being woven into the image-embedding markup code in the post text.
Still, I stick to a maximum of 1,500 characters for alt-text to keep Mastodon from truncating it. If you post images into the Fediverse, the main audience for your alt-text is on Mastodon, and most of them don't understand that there's something, anything, out there in the Fediverse that does not work exactly like Mastodon. And 1,500 characters can be tight already.
But if I have to stay within Misskey's limits, I can hardly post images anymore. At least not with appropriate descriptions and explanations.
Since late 2024, I have been working on-and-off on a series of fairly simple avatar portraits or rather their image descriptions. The idea is for the long description to consist of a preamble that starts with a general summary, followed by explanations, then followed by visual descriptions of what all images in the post have in common. Next come the individual descriptions of each image. Each post shall have three or four images with three or four portraits each, all in the same pose, all with only minor differences in outfits, all with a neutral, bright white background.
In addition, of course, each image shall have an alt-text, and none of the alt-texts shall depend on each other.
Now, the problem is that I have to describe three or four individual portraits in each alt-text. I'm actually struggling to squeeze such a description plus the note that announces the long description into 1,500 characters, especially if I want to fulfill Veronica Lewis a.k.a. Veronica With Four Eyes' requirements for outfit descriptions to a tee in the alt-text as well (https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-write-alt-text-for-casual-outfits/, https://veroniiiica.com/writing-image-descriptions-for-red-carpet-outfits/; see also https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-write-alt-text-image-descriptions-visually-impaired/ and https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-create-visual-descriptions/).
But in 512 characters so that even Misskey users won't get a severely truncated version? This is absolutely impossible. Even if I limit the long description announcement to some 100 characters, even if I didn't walk people through how to get to the long description, I'd have fewer than 140 characters on average to describe each individual outfit.
The long description won't fare any better. Currently, the preamble starts with some 14,000 characters of explanations, most of which are necessary to understand the visual descriptions. But when Misskey goes and truncates the post at the 8,000-something mark, Misskey users won't even get to any visual description because all visual descriptions would be chopped off.
What makes matters worse is that the preamble grows the longer, the easier to understand I make it and the less I leave people with unexplained technical or jargon terms which you shouldn't use in image descriptions at all anyway. So the next time I go through it and rewrite it to make it easier to understand, I'll also make it even longer than it already is.
But what if I simply cut all the explanations? For one, I'd leave people to their own devices to understand extremely obscure niche content. They won't. My explanations aren't 14,000 characters long because I've artificially inflated them, but because there is so much to know before you understand the post and the images and the descriptions.
Besides, the visual descriptions alone won't fit into 8,192 characters either. What I currently have is over 5,000 characters of common visual description for all portraits in all images plus about 2,500 characters of individual visual description for the three portraits in the first image. That's over 7,500 characters altogether already. And I still have to describe nine portraits in another three images. The post will end up with some 15,000 characters of visual descriptions unless they grow longer when I simplify them again.
I guess users of Misskey or any Forkey will still have to put up with truncated alt-texts and truncated long descriptions in the future. But my future image posts will contain a paragraph at the beginning that explains that the post and/or the alt-text may be truncated on Misskey and the Forkeys, and that both are uncut at the source. Still, this means that *key users will have to put up with the extra hassle of opening my original post at a source with a quite cumbersome UI. And I've got my doubts that this UI is really accessible.
Unfortunately, this also means that *key users won't get any hashtags along with these posts. But then again, the handling of Identi.ca-style/Friendica-style hashtags with the number sign outside the link is broken on all *keys and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #Calckey #Firefish #Sharkey #CherryPick #Iceshrimp #Iceshrimp-JS #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #A11y #Accessibility -
CW: Misskey only allows for 512 characters of alt-text which is bad for my image posts; CW: long (over 8,600 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, alt-text meta, character limit meta, content warning meta
Just the other day, I found something out. Something very inconvenient about Misskey and maybe also the Forkeys.
It should be commonly known that Misskey has a local limit of 3,000 characters for posts (which it refers to as "notes"). What is not so well-known is that Misskey has a limit of about 8,000 characters, probably 8,192 or so, for inbound messages, ironically fewer than this post is long. Also, it has a limit of 512 characters for alt-text, both locally and in-bound.
Mastodon has a character limit for in-bound content, too, at least for Note-type objects (not for Article-type objects because it refuses to render them fully and links to the original instead). To my best knowledge, it rejects messages with over 100,000 characters. As for its 1,500-charater limit for alt-text, it enforces that by truncating alt-text that's longer.
Misskey, in contrast, truncates everything that exceeds its limits while still letting it in. If your post is longer than the inbound limit of ca. 8,000, all excess characters are chopped off and thrown away. If your alt-text is longer than 512 characters, all excess characters are chopped off and thrown away.
I don't know which Forkey behaves how in this regard, seeing as all Forkeys I know about have a configurable local post character limit that can be adjusted to well over 8,000. But even if the inbound limit is configurable, too, I don't think any *key admin cranks it over 60,000 or over 70,000 or over 100,000. It's simply unimaginable that someone, anyone, could ever post that much at once if your idea of the Fediverse is pure microblogging.
Also, I don't know what *key users do when they come across a truncated post or what blind or visually-impaired *key users do when they come across a truncated alt-text. Do they even suspect that it's a truncated copy of something that's longer at its source and then go check the source? Either way, it's very inconvenient.
It's especially inconvenient for me. My longest posts by a gigantic margin are image posts with original images. They always have a long image description block in the post itself that tends to be tens of thousands of characters long. It contains highly detailed visual descriptions of all images in the post. It contains all explanations necessary to understand the post, the images and the descriptions. It contains verbatim transcripts of all bits of text within the borders of the image that I can read, no matter whether or not my audience can.
In addition, each image has a shorter description in the alt-text, along with a bit that announces the long description, including where to find it. I even used to explain how to get to that description for Mastodon users for whom the summary and content warning hides the post text, but not the images, depending on which Mastodon version and frontend they use. This alone took up several hundred characters in the alt-text. All in all, I got to a point in which my alt-texts always ended up either at precisely 1,500 characters or just a few characters short.
I myself am not really bound to character limits. I used to post images here on Hubzilla where I have over 16.7 million characters for the post, including all alt-texts. Now I post them on (streams) where I have over 24 million characters. I could theoretically write alt-texts as long as I want to, seeing as, unlike on Mastodon, they aren't separate text fields; instead, they're being woven into the image-embedding markup code in the post text.
Still, I stick to a maximum of 1,500 characters for alt-text to keep Mastodon from truncating it. If you post images into the Fediverse, the main audience for your alt-text is on Mastodon, and most of them don't understand that there's something, anything, out there in the Fediverse that does not work exactly like Mastodon. And 1,500 characters can be tight already.
But if I have to stay within Misskey's limits, I can hardly post images anymore. At least not with appropriate descriptions and explanations.
Since late 2024, I have been working on-and-off on a series of fairly simple avatar portraits or rather their image descriptions. The idea is for the long description to consist of a preamble that starts with a general summary, followed by explanations, then followed by visual descriptions of what all images in the post have in common. Next come the individual descriptions of each image. Each post shall have three or four images with three or four portraits each, all in the same pose, all with only minor differences in outfits, all with a neutral, bright white background.
In addition, of course, each image shall have an alt-text, and none of the alt-texts shall depend on each other.
Now, the problem is that I have to describe three or four individual portraits in each alt-text. I'm actually struggling to squeeze such a description plus the note that announces the long description into 1,500 characters, especially if I want to fulfill Veronica Lewis a.k.a. Veronica With Four Eyes' requirements for outfit descriptions to a tee in the alt-text as well (https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-write-alt-text-for-casual-outfits/, https://veroniiiica.com/writing-image-descriptions-for-red-carpet-outfits/; see also https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-write-alt-text-image-descriptions-visually-impaired/ and https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-create-visual-descriptions/).
But in 512 characters so that even Misskey users won't get a severely truncated version? This is absolutely impossible. Even if I limit the long description announcement to some 100 characters, even if I didn't walk people through how to get to the long description, I'd have fewer than 140 characters on average to describe each individual outfit.
The long description won't fare any better. Currently, the preamble starts with some 14,000 characters of explanations, most of which are necessary to understand the visual descriptions. But when Misskey goes and truncates the post at the 8,000-something mark, Misskey users won't even get to any visual description because all visual descriptions would be chopped off.
What makes matters worse is that the preamble grows the longer, the easier to understand I make it and the less I leave people with unexplained technical or jargon terms which you shouldn't use in image descriptions at all anyway. So the next time I go through it and rewrite it to make it easier to understand, I'll also make it even longer than it already is.
But what if I simply cut all the explanations? For one, I'd leave people to their own devices to understand extremely obscure niche content. They won't. My explanations aren't 14,000 characters long because I've artificially inflated them, but because there is so much to know before you understand the post and the images and the descriptions.
Besides, the visual descriptions alone won't fit into 8,192 characters either. What I currently have is over 5,000 characters of common visual description for all portraits in all images plus about 2,500 characters of individual visual description for the three portraits in the first image. That's over 7,500 characters altogether already. And I still have to describe nine portraits in another three images. The post will end up with some 15,000 characters of visual descriptions unless they grow longer when I simplify them again.
I guess users of Misskey or any Forkey will still have to put up with truncated alt-texts and truncated long descriptions in the future. But my future image posts will contain a paragraph at the beginning that explains that the post and/or the alt-text may be truncated on Misskey and the Forkeys, and that both are uncut at the source. Still, this means that *key users will have to put up with the extra hassle of opening my original post at a source with a quite cumbersome UI. And I've got my doubts that this UI is really accessible.
Unfortunately, this also means that *key users won't get any hashtags along with these posts. But then again, the handling of Identi.ca-style/Friendica-style hashtags with the number sign outside the link is broken on all *keys and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #Calckey #Firefish #Sharkey #CherryPick #Iceshrimp #Iceshrimp-JS #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #A11y #Accessibility -
Imprinted Image: Comics Link Roundup April 24
Why aren’t there more fan comics?
John Byrne, the artist behind some of the most classic X-Men stories like the Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past, has X-Men fan-fiction. Quite literally, he drew something like 30 issues of comics for his website under the premise “what if I never left the franchise?” Incredibly, Marvel is actually collecting and publishing this material! Beyond the Byrne of it all, however, this does make me wonder: why aren’t there more fan-fiction comics?
In Japan, for example, there is a thriving scene of doujinshi, self-published print works that often use copy-written characters. Many amateur mangaka get their start in this scene, and even professionals participate to avoid the strictures of formal publishing. The market for such works in the US is paltry, comparatively. Artists like Jeremy Hyler have done Batman fan-comics that they sell on their websites, but there aren’t major conventions like there are in Japan. Perhaps it is the difference in copyright culture in America.
I think there is something to the difference in scenes. In the US, the underground comix scene is, painting with a broad brush, positioned against the superhero comics industry. The people who go to zine fests and other self-published conventions in the US usually aren’t the same people who want to draw Spider-Man. Similarly, while you do see some “derivative” work in the webcomics space, it usually isn’t trying to do the same thing as “mainstream” comics. They’ll use superheroes, but for gag pages. Occasionally you’ll see a slice-of-life fan-fiction comic. I’m not as well-versed in this scene, but I could imagine that there is more of a priority placed on original characters and content in the US webcomic space.
Finally, drawing is incredibly time intensive. Compare it to the amount of time it takes to write fan-fiction and you could see why artists might not want to spend their limited free time on works that they don’t feel passionate about. Additionally, drawing arguably takes more time to get good at than writing. Certainly it is more readily apparent when it is “bad.” Ease of entry is one of the drivers for sharing fan-fiction, and even a small difference in difficulty could lead to a massive difference in amount shared online.
What are your thoughts? Am I even correct that there aren’t many fan-fiction comics akin to Japanese doujinshi, or have I not looked in the right spaces? Let me know in the comments!
Last week, I made a comic! It’s a two-page mini-zine, and you can read it for free here. But! If you would like a cool print version mailed you, there are two ways you can do that. Either support me on Patreon to get this and any future physical media I do, or buy it on Ko-fi for as low as $ 1.
I also have a behind the scenes video previewing the physical mini-comic, as well as some behind-the-scenes information on my inspiration.
Welcome to Imprinted Image, my semi-weekly comics newsletter. If this is your first time, welcome! This is the best way to keep up with my comics blog. After links to my most recent writing, I’ll provide a roundup of comics industry links. This can be news, media, criticism, or anything that I personally found interesting.
Please don’t forget about the resources tab on this website. It’s a collection of reading guides, tutorials, and free legal resources like public domain image archives. I want this to be as useful as possible, so if you have any additions please send them my way.
Divining Comics is sponsored by readers like you
I have a Patreon! For as little as $3 a month, you can keep the lights on at this blog and get your name at the bottom of every article. At higher tiers, you can vote in monthly Patreon polls and more! Anything you can offer means the world to me, and I cherish all my supporters.
Support Divining Comics on PatreonComics Challenge YouTube
I designed and am participating in a comics challenge this year, alongside some friends in the My Marvelous Year community. I have picked 52 comics from 52 categories, shown below. I’d love for you to participate and comment along as you are reading! Note that on this list, categories that match with episodes from the Extra Issues podcast.
Comic Challenge Extra Issues Edition 2026DownloadI decided to create a YouTube documenting my reading journey! MAGAZINE MARCH has almost concluded. Recently I published videos on SIN CITY and JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD, the latter of which was done in conversation with Matt Bernico of the Magnificast Podcast. Pre-order his book!
I’ve also been doing little shorts where I poorly read a scene I liked from these comics. I guess shortform video gets juiced in the algorithm because they have been blowing up. You can check out the playlist of them here.
It would mean the world to me if, in addition to watching this video, you subscribed to my channel and gave the video a like. No one knows exactly how the black box of social media algorithms work, but I do know that if you interact with the video in different ways, YouTube might show it to more people who would be interested. The other easy way you can help is by sharing this video with a comic fan in your life!
Link Roundup
News:
Disney Layoffs
Disney fired a massive number of their workers. This includes a number of people at Marvel comics, like former Head of Sales David Gabriel and 3 comics editors.Awards
Several comics won the LA Times Book Prize, including LIFE DRAWING by Jaime Hernandez and ANGELICA by Trung Le Nguyen.Jeopardy
Comics writer Tini Howard was on Jeopardy!Comics, Adapted (Into New Comics)
SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN is coming to Webtoon. A number of Western, print-original comics are getting adapted into infinite-scroll digital comics. This is an interesting trend worth keeping an eye on.Social Media Sucks
Syundei, the creator of a popular manga, GO FOR IT NAKAMURA!, was bullied off of Twitter.Writing:
SKTCHD interviewed Rafael Albequerque on his design work for ABSOLUTE GREEN ARROW and Ram V. on the new series he is writing, DECIDIUM.
Shelfdust published a David Brothers piece looking at GINGER, a pay-what-you-want comic by Victor Santos available on Panel Syndicate, Brian K. Vaughan, Marcos Martin, and Muntsa Vicente’s website to publish digital-first comics. They also published a piece on the history of Batman’s wealth, noting the times when it started to become a problem for the narrative.
Anime Herald published an article examining an interesting question: why aren’t there more anime and manga about marijuana?
Comic Book Herald updated his Best Superhero Comics of All Time list with his favorite superhero comics of 2026.
Humble Bundle has a few packs of digital comics you can buy for cheap: Complete Terry Moore. Kana-Manga Mini Bundle.
Similar site Digifile has a huge collection of pre-Absolute Image comics from Absolute creators.Other News Roundups:
SKTCHD’s Comics Disassembled: 4/17.
Comics Beat’s biweekly Digest: 4/14. 4/17. 4/21.
The Comics Journal’s weekly links to New, Reviews, and Interviews: 4/17. 4/24.Very Limited Data Bestseller Lists from the past few weeks:
Weekly Top 400 Bestseller List from Prana / Comic Shop Assistant: 4/17.
Weekly Bestseller List from Bleeding Cool / ComicHub: 4/11. 4/19.Weekly “Hottest Comics” from Bleeding Cool / Covrprice: 4/14. 4/21.
Most Anticipated Comics from Bleeding Cool / League of Comic Geeks: 4/13. 4/19.
Top March Comics from ICv2 / Circana Bookscan: Author, Manga, and Superhero Graphic Novels. Adults Graphic Novels.BEN TEN # 1 sold 82,000 copies to comic shops. An enterprising data nerd could take that data, combine it will the charts that map sales as a percentage of the top seller, and calculate actual market size.
Image puts out their Top 10 selling comics for March.
Popverse gets in to just how many units are being sold of each issue of ABSOLUTE BATMAN. Spoiler alert – it’s more than each issue of the New 52 BATMAN was selling.
DC expands its market share over Marvel in 2026 Q1.
My favorite video and podcasts:
Podcasts:
OFF PANEL had on Julia Wertz to discuss BURY ME ALREADY and Pornsak Pichetshote about ABSOLUTE GREEN ARROW.
LET’S TALK COMICS had on Charlie Adlard to talk OF THE EARTH.
MY MARVELOUS YEAR posted 2014 pt. 3 covering DEADPOOL, DR. STRANGE, and THE ILLUMINATI, and 2014 pt. 4, talking DAREDEVIL and the debut of MS. MARVEL. Their sister podcast EXTRA ISSUES posted to the public feed Osamu Tezuka pt 4: AYOKO and BUDDHA and to the early access Patreon feed a smattering of Don Rosa SCROOGE issues.
YouTube:
MATTTT (that’s Matt with 4 Ts) has a new channel, MATTTTTTTT (Matt with 8 Ts) where he posts more casual videos, like a critique of the “Blind Bag” trend, a look at John Byrne’s ELSEWHEN X-Men fan comics, and his 14 favorite Graphic Novels of 2025.
COMICTROPES had a video on Spider-Man’s marriage.
COMICBOOK COUPLE’S COUNSELING continued season 2 of their miniseries “The Stacks,” where they have industry people select comics to talk about from the shelves of Third Eye Comics, like the Criterion Closet, with Tony Fleecs (writer of STRAY DOGS and FERAL), and Curt Pires (writer of LOST FANTASY and FIREBORN)
SKTCHD published a video conversation with Chip Zdarsky.
What the hell, I’ll plug my YouTube again. Watch me talk about SIN CITY and JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD.
Divining Comics is brought to you by generous support from the “Best Friends of Divining Comics,” Alex Seubert.
Divining Comics is also brought to you by the support of the “Friends of Divining Comics,” Comic Book Herald.
If you would like to add your name to the list of friends, best friends, or best friends forever, support this work for less than the cost of one cup of coffee a month at patreon.com/diviningcomics. You can also leave a one-time tip/buy my zines at ko-fi.com/spikestonehand. Follow me on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky and share my posts there.
#art #books #ComicBooks #comics #criticism #dcComics #fiction #graphicNovels #ImprintedImage #links #marvel #marvelComics #reviews #Writing -
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
#JoniMitchell – The Circle Game#Consciousness in about #2000 words and a Joni Mitchell song
#Blindsight #BrainStimulation #epilepsy #HardProblem #NeuralCorrelates #neurology #SplitBrain #DavidChalmers
#DanielDennet
#GiulioTononi #PatientHM
#JosephLeDoux #Gazzaniga #NedBlock
#PatriciaChurchland #PaulChurchland
#WilderPenfield #blog #writing -
Accidental ontologist. 🧐 I am madly working on a couple of new ontology books. As a follow-up to A Language Insufficiency Hypothesis, I noticed that the challenge is deeper than language; it's ontological. In my first book on the topic, I focus on the societal problems. In the next, I'll focus on a broader object reality.
#writing #philosophy #psychology #hiatus #socialmedia #focus #ontology #society #humancondition #tribes #blog #philosophyoflanguage #podcast
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Kenstrosity’s Top Ten(ish) of 2025 By Kenstrosity
Well, here we are again! One of the longest, most eventful years in recent memory comes to a close. After all of the hardships my family, friends, and I endured at the end of last year, it was difficult to imagine what life would be like. For quite some time, it took everything in us just to continue our day-to-day existences, to reestablish or refresh our routines, and to build our lives back up. But we had tons of support, and we got through it. In fact, I’d say that we came out of everything with a better understanding of who we are, what we want out of life, and a greater drive to live more fully, more intentionally, and without regrets. Personally, I learned the value of asking more questions, making fewer assumptions, and embracing the mess of being human in today’s world. With practice in these areas, in time, I’ll grow into a better person, a better friend, and a better partner to my loved ones.
Musically, I experienced a bit of a shift. I don’t know exactly when this shift happened, but I could feel my desire for unfamiliar or less-traveled territory build. I desired weird, long, or messy records that called to me on a more personal level above all else. I craved pieces that showcased artists who wrote what they wanted (or needed) to, regardless of what others might think or say. Authenticity, creativity, memorability, imperfection, and artistic integrity became my core values when approaching new music this year.
Aside from all of that, the thing I want to do most is offer my deepest heartfelt thanks to everyone who’s stuck by me and been my support system this year. To Alex, a wonderful and gorgeous man who continually shows me more love, patience, and attention than I ever dared to ask for—and who challenges me to grow with every passing day. To Ally, Thea, Kaja, Ashe, Sophie, Chris (both of them), Sean, Malachi, Brandon, Michelle, and Jeff for being the best meatspace friends a guy could ask for, and who also show me more love than I ever dared to ask for. To new meatspace friends (Jhierry, Adrien, Forest, Logan, Nick, Zach, Brett, Blue, Brian, and Shawn) who further enrich my life with each interaction, I am excited to see how our relationships develop! To my therapist, Clint, who has helped pull me from the brink more times than I can count. To my family, Mom, Dad, and Kathy, I don’t know what I would do if they were not here with me. To Lise and Victoria, who have been and continue to be the best supervisors—and all-around cool, brilliant, creative, and inspiring people—I’ve ever known. To AMG Himself, Steel Druhm, Dr. A. N. Grier, and Sentynel for running the greatest blog on the planet and being an invaluable resource for my continued growth as a writer and contributor. To all of my fellow writers and editors, both active and inactive, who make this blog the wonderland it is and whose contributions and company continually uplift and motivate me. To the readers, our Discord members, and the metal community writ large, we wouldn’t be here without you!
Lastly, I’d like to give a shout to all the bands who released awesome records this year that fought valiantly for a spot on my list/HMs, in alphabetical order: 1914, Ancient Death, …and Oceans, Astronoid, Aversed, Blind Equation, Bodybox, Buried Realm, Cave Sermon, Changeling, Death Whore, Gloombound, The Halo Effect, Havukruunu, Helms Deep, Inoculation, Maud the Moth, Mutagenic Host, Nephylim, Pedestal for Leviathan, Proscription, Rothadás, Sarastus, Serenity in Murder, Structure, Tower, Tribunal, Vittra, Yellow Eyes. Despite these gems losing a place on my list proper for any number of reasons, I know I’ll return to them with great relish.
With all of that said, I invite all of you to bear witness to my absolutely unhinged Top Ten(ish) selections for 2025. May the rabble commence!
#ish. Epica // Aspiral – Epica is my favorite symphonic metal band. It’s no secret. They’ve been at the grindstone churning out quality records for almost 25 years with a remarkably stable lineup, and there’s every reason to expect Angry Metal Guy’s Law of Diminishing Recordings™ to catch up with them someday. Today is not that day. Aspiral is easily my favorite record since The Quantum Enigma, full of memorable songs and standout performances. It may be hookier and poppier than anything they’ve put out in the past, but accessibility looks great on Epica.
#10. Citadel // Descension – Every time I thought I knew how I felt about this record, I’d go back to it and discover more reasons to love it. Descension follows the same school of melodic death metal with long-form constructions that bands like An Abstract Illusion practice, but there’s a smoky, gothic twist to it that embodies darkness and light as a merged entity. It’s a delicate balance that Citadel treads with grace and athleticism. That feat is what ultimately elevated Descension to my Top 10 proper.
#9. Depravity // Bestial Possession – Depravity really fucked around with my cutoff for list consideration, coming in clutch one week before Turkey Day. But I am the one who found out. Riffs made to break bones and minds alike, Bestial Possession is lean, mean, and bloodthirsty. And yet, it’s smooth, refined, and streamlined. This is the work of a band that understands exactly what they want to write, and knows how to execute that vision with devastating precision. It’s death metal as we know and love it, weaponized for mass destruction.
#8. In Mourning // The Immortal –The Immortal surprised me. I fully expected it to be good. After all, In Mourning haven’t released a bad album to date. But against all odds, they managed to capture lightning in a bottle here, with songs that are impossible to resist and even harder to forget. It represents everything I love about the sadboi side of melodic death without skimping on hooks or on teeth. The Immortal might just be the pinnacle of In Mourning’s career. Who would’ve expected that after 25 years?
#7. An Abstract Illusion // The Sleeping City – In recent years, I often found myself gravitating towards concise, to-the-point records. I wanted hooks. I wanted brevity. I wanted unrelenting intensity. In 2025, that shifted. The long form became my home away from home. Epic yarns and gentle movements brought comfort and warmth to my listening schedule. With The Sleeping City, An Abstract Illusion managed to capture both the intensity I craved before and the sweeping arcs that I look for now. That it is beautiful without compromising either of those traits is nothing short of awe-inspiring. And so, here we are.
#6. Igorrr // Amen – When I look at my Top 10ish, I notice two things. Firstly, a fair number of these selections are, in some shape or form, weird or niche. Secondly, the gaps that separate one album from the other at this point are paper-thin, aside from my AotY. For French wild cards, Igorrr, accessibility ultimately put Amen here with my faves of 2025. Whimsically weird, savagely smart, and wholly unpredictable, Igorrr achieved a buttery smoothness and an unflinching confidence with these 12 absolute bangers that they’ve never shown before. A high-water mark for an act with an established reputation for excellence.
#5. Tómarúm // Beyond Obsidian Euphoria – My relationship with Beyond Obsidian Euphoria followed much the same trajectory as my relationship with its predecessor, Ash in Realms of Stone Icons. I felt confident in my score, then I started doubting its accuracy, then I’d revisit the record and feel vindicated in my original evaluation—rinse and repeat. It’s a vicious cycle, but at the end of the day, Beyond Obsidian Euphoria was always destined for my Top 5. Its epic, sprawling constructs demand so many of my spoons; emotionally, physically, and spiritually. But it gives just as many back, plus just enough extra to compel me to spin it again. It’s one helluva journey, but that’s what makes it excellent!
#4. Qrixkuor // The Womb of the World – In the world of symphonic death metal, Qrixkuor is singular. Nobody else sounds like them, and I’m convinced nobody else could. Dramatic, violent, and grotesque, but at the same time possessing a disturbing beauty, The Womb of the World sets a new standard for lushly orchestrated death metal. It’s not for the faint of heart, nor for those looking for a quick fix. But once it’s infected your mind, you belong to it. An album to be feared as much as it is to be adored.
#3. Cam Girl // Flesh & Chrome – Deciding where to slot this was a difficult process for me. The people-pleaser that lives in my brain—who is jacked, devastatingly handsome, and incredibly charismatic—tried to move Cam Girl’s sophomore LP down a couple of notches, purely to protect me from those who would (and likely will) tell me this kind of record is undeserving of such high placement here. But the reality is I don’t fucking want to. Flesh & Chrome is a staggering improvement on Cam Girl’s already winning formula, with an invincible selection of super-sticky and subversive tunes that haven’t left my brain since the first half of 2025. It’s among the most fun records I’ve had the pleasure of covering on this site. Above all, Flesh & Chrome earned its rightful place in my Top 3. So it is, so it shall be.
#2. ByoNoiseGenerator // Subnormal Dives – This was not on my bingo card for 2025. I used to despise everything about ByoNoiseGenerator’s brand of brutal jazzgrind. After spinning Subnormal Dives roughly 10^230049 times in the span of a few short months, with a mind-broken grin plastered permanently on my face, something snapped. It wasn’t a gradual affinity borne of a studious and painstaking process. It was a total, implosive disintegration of everything I held true. The result? BYONG is now one of my favorite bands, and I’ve come to love their previous work, too. Not many albums wield that much power. Subnormal Dives does.
#1. Flummox // Southern Progress – This is easily my biggest surprise of 2025. I never heard of Flummox before seeing this cover art on my Bandcamp feed, and I was thoroughly bamboozled by my first spin. The mix was bizarre, the songwriting highly unorthodox compared to anything I’ve heard this side of Devin Townsend, and Flummox’s refusal to settle into any one style was confounding. Yet, I simply could not stop spinning it. All year long, Southern Progress was my go-to, even on days when I just felt so numb that I didn’t want to listen to anything at all. With that commitment came understanding. Southern Progress is, simply put, a fully realized and inspired work of art, complete with relevant societal commentary. Steeped in messaging that spotlights systematic and social prejudices that plague the queer, and particularly the trans/nonbinary/gender-fluid, community (especially in the American South)—and deftly integrating branched subplots that exhibit the wide-reaching complications that neurodivergence, late-stage capitalism, and religion-based upbringings contribute to that experience—Flummox’s fifth LP greatly affected me on a personal level. More so than any other record released this year, Southern Progress feels important, not just to me, and not just to Flummox. I strongly believe everyone could learn something from this bizarre, wild, and untamable barnstormer and have a blast doing it. For these reasons, and so much more, I gratefully award Southern Progress my 2025 Album o’ the Year. Thank you, Flummox, for this wonderful gift!
Honorable Mentions
- Barren Path // Grieving – Deathgrind never sounded this good, or felt this vicious.
- Bianca // Bianca – The beauty and the beast returns, reimagined and rekindled.
- Calva Louise // Edge of the Abyss – Fiercely creative and vividly memorable, this is what happens when artists use neurodivergence and cultural diversity as assets.
- Dagdrøm // Schauder – Passionate melodic black metal for those who are looking for something a bit outside convention.
- Dawn of Ouroboros // Bioluminescence – The best vocal performance of the year meets some of the coolest progressive death songwriting I’ve heard in a minute.
- Imperial Triumphant // Goldstar – The gritty, twisted, sprawling city-dweller with a shady story to tell, and yet it glitters like the purest gold.
- Messa // The Spin – Emotive, sultry, and nuanced doom, compelling enough to seduce even the coldest heart.
- Psychonaut // World Maker – Thoughtful and deeply personal, but still crushingly heavy, post-metal from one of the best acts in the scene.
Songs o’ the Year
- Cam Girl – “Flesh & Chrome” – Simplicity and a curated collection of razor-sharp hooks will win my heart faster than anything else, and few songs this year upheld that virtue better than “Flesh & Chrome.” I haven’t been able to stop singing it to myself literally every single day since I first got my hands on this promo half a year ago, and yet the serotonin production it generates in my burned-out brain almost overwhelms me still. From the white-hot brightness of its lead melodies to the soaring brass of its addictive1 chorus and tight writing, “Flesh & Chrome” just makes me happy. Simple as.
- Citadel – “Sorrow of the Thousandth Death” – I didn’t expect to include this song on my list, but something happened once I started revisiting Descension more often. I found myself completely blown back by the artistry, the expressiveness, and the fluidity exhibited by Citadel’s epic “Sorrow of the Thousandth Death.” This unexpected emotional response completely shifted my perspective on what I was looking for in my Song o’ the Year candidates. Once I contemplated those requirements more deeply, it became clear in short order that “Sorrow of the Thousandth Death” was worthy and then some. Incredible.
- In Mourning – “As Long as the Twilight Stays” – While songs like “Flesh & Chrome” make me happy beyond all reason, others like “As Long as the Twilight Stays” break my bleeding heart. Every time the lyrics “Breathe and open your eyes / When darkness falls, a new dawn will rise / Reveal the secrets you keep / There is still hope as long as twilight stays” pierce through my eardrums, something deep from within my soul surges. That pull, strong enough to rip my heart from its bony cage, and further strengthened by weeping, layered tremolo harmonies, melts me. This is power; it is magic. I am helpless to resist.
- Flummox – “Long Pork” – Southern Progress is swimming in great songs, all of which make a strong claim for inclusion here. Ultimately, “Long Pork” won the blue ribbon for its unhinged songwriting, bizarre vocal acrobatics, harrowing instrumentation, and metamorphic storytelling. The cutting and clever lyrics may seem whimsical at first blush, but the critique they level at humanity’s gross exploitation, not only for the vast overproduction and dysfunctional distribution of food—and the systematic abuse of animals to meet that unsustainable demand—but also to the gluttony of late-stage capitalism and the chasmic wealth divide it perpetuates, sends chills through my nervous system. Sensational!
- Messa – “The Dress” – Of all the great songs 2025 had to offer, “The Dress” was the first one I felt earned a nod here. It is classy beyond all comprehension, sultry and sophisticated without being busy or especially complex. Moreover, it captivates my attention completely. An unqualified success of songwriting prowess, excellence in execution and performance, and spirited delivery, “The Dress” flows between melodies, moods, and modes as mana from otherworldly realms. I would not be surprised if, ten years from now, I still feel its magic as strongly as I do today, immune to the eroding force of time.
Non-Metal Album o’ the Year:
- Lady Gaga // Mayhem – I am absolutely obsessed with this album. I’ve been a fan of Lady Gaga for a long time, but never before did I feel so wholly ensnared by one of her records. This absolute triumph of modern pop explodes with energy, killer hooks, and an unfuckwithable vocal display that makes not singing along to each and every track entirely impossible. Mainstream though it is, Mayhem is a force, and I’ll be listening to it with glee for years to come.
Shakes Fist at Cloud Album of 2025
- Pedestal for Leviathan // Enter: Vampyric Manifestation – There will never be a day when I don’t rue how late I encountered this record, and how lame it felt to realize it had been self-released months before I picked up a December promo for it. It is listworthy, and that I treated it as if it missed my yearly cutoff because of a simple lack of awareness makes me want to shake my fists at the clouds!
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David Brock on Clarence Thomas and supreme court hijack: ‘The original sin’
#David #Brock once attacked #Anita #Hill,
who accused #Clarence #Thomas of sexual harassment.♦️His new book slams Thomas♦️
Thirty years ago, David Brock made his name as a reporter with 🔸"The Real Anita Hill",
a book attacking the woman who accused Clarence Thomas,
George HW Bush’s second supreme court nominee,
of sexual harassment.After tempestuous hearings, Thomas was confirmed.
Brock
– who memorably characterized Hill, a law professor, in sexist terms as “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty”
– was launched as a rightwing media star.Thirty years on, Thomas still sits on the court, the longest-serving hardliner on a bench tilted 6-3 to the right by three confirmations under Donald Trump.
But Brock switched sides long ago, disillusioned by rightwing lies.
He apologized for smearing Hill and eventually became a prominent Democratic operative, close to Bill and Hillary Clinton.
He founded watchdogs and Super Pacs and kept on writing books.
He dealt with his political conversion 20 years ago in 🔸"Blinded by the Right: the Conscience of an Ex-Conservative".Now, with🔸 "Stench: The Making of the Thomas Court and the Unmaking of America",
he has returned to what he calls “the original sin” of the modern supreme court:
“Thomas’s perjury to get on the court”
and his allegedly untruthful answers to questions about his treatment of Hill and other women.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/16/david-brock-clarence-thomas-supreme-court-stench-book?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other