Me, three weeks ago: “The site redesign took a lot of work, but it turned out great! I love how it looks, it has way more character, it’s gotten a huge positive reception, and I learned a lot making it. I’m really proud of what I built!”

Me, today: “What if it actually sucks though.”

I’m not fishing for validation; please enjoy this anecdote and carry on.

You know how some days you click Neocities’ “Global Activity” tab out of boredom, and in so doing you stumble across a massive project that has largely flown under the radar?

Ways to Play is one of those. Thousands of words written about the histories and mechanics of physical games from around the world, with citations. I don’t need to say anything else about this, it really speaks for itself.

Battle is inevitable at this point. Ordering a round of brandy poured for each man, Captain Smollett lays out his plan for defense: a gunner on each side of the cabin, and two along the back. The small peephole windows spaced regularly along each wall were purpose-built to allow rifles to be fired from relative safety, but if the pirates are able to reach these windows themselves, the defenders will be sitting ducks inside. Maintaining constant fire on all fronts is crucial. Jim will be helping pass and reload muskets, as will Smollett, who somehow judges himself a worse shot than the guy who only exists to brush Trelawney’s suit. A table of cutlasses sits in the center, should it come to that.

The group takes position, steeling themselves for the imminent attack.

…And they keep waiting. Silver’s promised hour passes. Smollett grumps at their tardiness.

Suddenly, the suit-brusher pulls his musket up and shoots; it’s a miss. A volley of returning fire from the woods hits all sides of the cabin, but the defenders remain safely tucked away inside.

Then, the fight starts in earnest. With a battle cry, seven pirates scale the stockade wall while another burst of fire from the treeline covers their advance; one shot shatters Livesey’s musket. Trelawney and the honest sailor fire back, killing two and scaring away a third, but four more are still on their feet and rushing the cabin. They’re at the walls impossibly fast; Trelawney’s other manservant is struck with a rifle after it’s yanked out of his hands, and a pirate threatens Livesey with a cutlass at the front door. Their saving grace is that the cabin has filled with powder smoke from the gunfire, reducing all visibility. The back of Jim’s hand is slashed in the confusion.

Smollett calls for cutlasses and orders them to take the fight outside, where at least they won’t be boxed in. Livesey chases his attacker down the hill and slices him across the face; meanwhile, the captain directs everyone else to charge around the side of the cabin. One of the pirates swings a blow at Jim, who tries to dodge but loses his footing and falls; the honest sailor jumps in and uses the opening to cut the opposing man down, which is a cool move and makes me wish I’d been calling this guy by name.

The rest of the pirates begin to climb over the wall at this point to join the others. They don’t make it very far; another from the first wave is shot at one of the windows, and only foe remaining in the melee drops his sword and flees in terror. With their numbers now reduced by five, and two more on the run, the pirates abandon their effort and retreat.

The few defenders who made it outside return to the cabin. Trelawney’s manservant is still unconscious from the blow he received, and Smollett is wounded. We don’t know the nature of the wound whatsoever; it’s implied to be bad, but Stevenson can’t be bothered to share that sort of information I guess, even though he doesn’t seem to mind telling us that the unfortunate suit-brusher was shot in the head. Rest in peace, you sweet prince.

Whatever injury befell him, Smollett is at least well enough to do some quick mental math, because he’s recalculating the odds the moment he learns the number of dead pirates. Their party lost three able bodies (again, apparently; a whole two of these are injuries of uncertain concern), but the pirates have been reduced by five, leaving the remaining tally at four versus nine. These numbers make the captain quite happy, especially since nobody who died has been particularly important.

He’d be even happier to learn that the guy at the cannon Trelawney shot during their escape yesterday succumbed to the wound, but we’re only learning this thanks to a footnote. I guess there’s no way to gracefully communicate this sort of information to the reader; you’d have to be a skilled writer or something to pull that off.

Looking down at the two pirates by their lonesome, Smollett suspects a trick, and orders lookouts posted before calling down “What do you want?”

“Cap’n Silver is here to make an agreement,” calls the flag-bearer. The honorific doesn’t escape Smollett’s notice—he’s the captain, after all—and he replies with contempt, “Captain Silver? Never heard of the guy.” Long John (hilariously) claims that Smollett deserted the ship, and that the boys elected to make him the acting captain instead. His tone makes it sound like he humbly accepted this honor, despite the fact that he’s somehow acquired a long blue coat and a hat with a big colorful feather from an uninhabited island sometime in the past twelve hours. I guess he must have smuggled it in with the muskets.

Smollett says, “Fine, you want to talk? You can come up here alone.” This Silver does in spite of the difficulty involved, for he has to climb over the palisade wall and traverse terrain that is not ADA-compliant. When he reaches the cabin, Smollett directs him to sit on the ground by the fire.

“What, you won’t invite me inside? It’s cold out here,” complains Silver.

“If you hadn’t decided to mutiny, you could be sitting cozy in the ship’s galley right now,” Smollett replies bitterly.

Since Smollett isn’t in the mood for small talk, Silver says the reason he’s here is to discuss terms, since he and his men are pretty shaken up after one of their number had their throat slit in the middle of the night. Of course, our protagonists didn’t do this—Jim suspects it was Ben—but Smollett is too clever to act like he doesn’t know what Silver is talking about.

Silver then gets to his point and makes his offer: give us the treasure map, and maybe stop gutting us while we sleep, and scout’s honor, we’ll either take you somewhere safe, or we’ll leave you here with half our rations and send a ship to come get you, whichever you’re more comfortable with. Refuse, though, and it’ll come to blows.

But Smollett believes Silver is bluffing a bad hand: “You don’t know where the treasure is, the wind's trapped the ship in the bay, none of you can navigate the open seas anyway, and y’all are dogshit in a straight fight. So either you submit to me and I’ll take you back to England for trial, or I’ll put you all in the ground now.”

Silver loses his cool and commands one of them to help him up to his feet; but nobody is willing, and he’s forced to crawl to the cabin porch and pull himself upright in humiliation. He avows that they’ll all be dead or worse within the hour, and he marches back down and climbs back over the stockade wall.

Really missed out on another good opportunity to just shoot him.

Jim picks the narrative back up here and returns us to shortly before he arrives at the stockade. He’s still with Ben Gunn, though not for much longer, as Ben doesn’t want to join the party without talking to either Livesey or Trelawney first. At least, that’s Jim’s read; Stevenson knew that Ben’s ramblings would be incomprehensible even to readers in the 1880s, so Jim has to serve as a helpful interpreter for us. To which I say: thank god.

Before letting Jim go, Ben makes him promise to come back for him, and not to rat him out to Silver. If he’d been reading along, he’d know that Jim isn’t very good at not being a snitch; but it’s hard to imagine Ben has a copy of the script on hand, being stuck on the island and all, so I’ll give him a pass.

Jim doesn’t go to the stockade immediately, though, largely because that area is actively being pelted by cannonballs. Instead, he hangs around until evening, watching from afar as the pirates get drunk on rum. I have to keep reminding myself that this book can’t be relying on tired old stereotypes if it was the origin of said stereotypes.

Eventually, he does reunite with the others, and they all get to settling in for the night. It’s not a pleasant experience; somehow the cabin has no ventilation for the smoke from the cooking fire to get out, yet is simultaneously constructed shoddily enough to let in a whole bunch of sand, which is coarse and rough and gets everywhere. Smollett keeps them distracted by putting them to work—standing watch, getting firewood, burying the gamekeeper, things like that.

During the downtime of keeping watch, Livesey admits to Jim that “Captain Smollett is a better man than me, and that’s saying something because I’m fucking awesome.” Then he asks about Ben Gunn for a moment before revealing to Jim that he (Livesey) carries a tobacco box with him at all times (would have been cool to see this before now) despite not being a smoker (a quirk we really could have set up earlier), in which he instead keeps a piece of cheese! (okay this is cute though) And he promises to reserve it for Ben, since cheese was his big craving (which I did tell you back in Chapter 15 without even knowing it would be relevant; anyway the point is I’m a better writer than Stevenson).

Before bed, the party regroups to take stock of their situation and tally up the numbers in case the readers haven’t been keeping track or have been hand-waving the specifics while writing disingenuous summaries.

Our protagonists count for seven: Smollett, Livesey, Trelawney, Jim, the honest sailor who defected, and Trelawney’s two manservants. On the other side, the crew roster started at 19; but following the initial skirmishes and factoring in the not-actually-bad-guys who got ganked by the pirates on shore, the opposition would be down to 15 at best, with maybe two or three of those wounded.

They’re still outnumbered, then, and low on provisions; but the odds are starting to grow more favorable, and our gang has other advantages as well. The stockade is their ace in the hole, of course, but Livesey notes that the dumbass pirates are camping in the marsh without any medical supplies, and predicts half of them will be sick in a week. At that point, they might be miserable enough to pack up and leave the island. Until then, the plan is to just keep picking them off and wearing their numbers down.

The group gets some sleep. However, early the next morning, Silver shows up at the stockade… alone but for a single aide, who is waving the white flag of truce.

Anyway, don’t forget to water your plants.

Remember water???

Always remember to spay and neuter your plants!

Water your plants today—don’t forget!

Don’t forget to water your plants!

The other night, after she shared an Instagram post with me which poked some light fun at Eowyn’s poor cooking skills, my wife asked, “So which Lord of the Rings characters can cook well?” One in-depth conversation later, we were quite pleased with the results. Here they are.

(No, I don’t know the lore, don’t @ me)

Bilbo

Bilbo definitely doesn’t cook, not since he returned from the Lonely Mountain a wealthy hobbit. He retains an in-home chef—likely the best in the Shire—who has the know-how needed to prepare the exotic ingredients Bilbo imports.

Frodo

Having grown up in fairly well-off families, Frodo has never needed to cook for himself. However, Frodo has more humility than his uncle, and unlike Bilbo (who’s more of a shut-in), Frodo chooses not to keep a master chef on retainer and instead simply goes out to eat.

Sam

Of course Sam cooks; we all know this. He’s not a culinary expert by any means, but if you’re in need of a good home-cooked meal, Sam’s your guy. You know the ending of Ratatouille, where instead of serving any of the restaurant’s fancy dishes to the menacing food critic they serve a humble ratatouille, which wins him over by evoking the comforts of his childhood home? That ratatouille is Sam’s recipe.

Merry

Merry cooks. Just not as well as Sam.

Pippin

I actually think that the culinary arts could be Pippin’s calling. He has a good sense of taste and an adventurous spirit that would serve him well, and concocting new, delicious recipes could be something that would give him the sense of pride he clearly needs. So long as he wises up and settles down a bit, first.

Aragorn

It would be outrageous to claim that Aragorn can’t cook, at least to some capacity. The lone survivalist archetype? Man’s gotta eat somehow. However, this lifestyle means that his cooking is strictly utilitarian. His food isn’t bad, per se; it tastes fine (more or less) and fills you for most of the day. But he won’t ever add more than maybe a pinch of salt for flavor, and you’ll be eating the leftovers for a week.

Gimli

Gimli is all about barbecue, or maybe smoking meats. He excels at this, but caters exclusively to a dwarven palate. They prefer it a fair deal more well-done than the other races, who find Gimli’s cooking largely inedible.

Legolas

Legolas has studied the finer points of elven cuisine many many years ago, and could recall any of it at the drop of a hat. He’s just into other hobbies at the moment.

Boromir

Boromir never needed to cook, and for the most part doesn’t know how. But you know he’s the kind of guy who has that one dish—something like a balsamic marinaded pork chop, or a hot & spicy taco recipe—that he busts out once in a while for fun, or by popular demand.

Gandalf

You don’t spend a significant amount of time living with both elves and hobbits without coming away with a deep appreciation for food. Gandalf, of course, adores the experience of dining. To that end, he keeps a stash of recipes that he will, one day, definitely get around to making, once he stops being so darn busy (he will never actually get around to making these).

Elrond

Elrond never cooks, with a singular exception: he runs the griddle at the Annual Rivendell Charity Pancake Breakfast, where he wears the stereotypical “kiss the cook” apron and genuinely seems to enjoy his role in the festivities.

(The lore doesn’t mention this, but the animosity between the elves and the dwarves was never a result of warfare. It’s actually because the Rivendell Charity Breakfast and the Dwarven Firehouse Chicken Barbecue take place on the same day every year, and both sides are too stubborn to reschedule.)

Arwen

Arwen’s never thought about cooking a day in her life.

Glorfindel

Yep, he cooks.

…Okay, so in the books this is the elf who shows up after Frodo gets stabbed by the Nazgul; his horse takes the hobbit to Rivendell. In the movies, he’s replaced by Arwen. I’m mostly including him because in this conversation, Mrs. Skep name-dropped him out of nowhere like I was supposed to know who he was (I actually did somehow? But that's not the point). In looking up more about this guy, I learned that he fought a Balrog? Wild they’d cut him from the films.

Well, I’m sure Arwen’s done cool stuff too. Cooking’s just not one of them.

Theoden

King Theoden is somewhat similar to Gandalf in this regard, in which he has an interest in taking up cooking, but he never seems to be able to get around to it. The difference is, had Theoden survived the War of the Ring and been able to settle into a life of peace, he would have given it a proper go.

Eomer

Eomer would eat baked beans every day without a second thought.

Saruman

Mrs. Skep is adamant that Saruman would exercise his creativity via some form of mixology or brewing. She may be right, but I have a difficult time picturing him rigorously developing the next Mai Tai. Maybe this is a result of Christopher Lee’s performance, but to me, Saruman is more the mute, eerily-competent bartender. He doesn’t craft house cocktails, but if you name any drink under the sun, he can make it. Then, if you try to trip him up by saying some words that aren’t a drink, he’ll make it anyway, and it will be good, and you’ll question whether the name you made up on the spot wasn’t a real cocktail all along.

Galadriel

Galadriel charges herself with cooking the Christmas goose every year. Not because she needs to, but because nobody else does it the way she likes.

Faramir

Faramir cooks! And he’s quite decent at it—he knows a number of game-based stews and roasts that make simple but hearty meals. None of these entrees are particularly flashy, though, so his own accomplishments are overshadowed by that one dish of Boromir’s that everyone knows him for.

Rosie

We can probably agree that Rosie cooks, right? In fact, one of her and Sam’s favorite activities is to cook a meal together. It’s almost sickeningly cute.

Gollum

Gollum doesn’t know what a potato is.

Smeagol

Smeagol would show up to the potluck with a bowl of brussels sprouts that are overly-mushy and smell vaguely of urine. Nobody eats the sprouts, but this doesn’t seem to bother him at all.

They’ll pay for it later, though.

I was doing some research for the Skep’s Place redesign earlier today (hey, did I mention I’m redesigning the website yet???) and came across this article by Axess Lab regarding ways that screen readers might misinterpret decorative site elements. While I do try to account for screen reader usage wherever possible, I must admit that my knowledge on this topic is both scattershot and incredibly limited, to the point that I never really took time to consider how this technology actually works.

Not only was it helpful to see a way in which screen readers are actually used in practice, but the article also explains how even simple styling decisions can result in user frustration, and recommend a really easy solution to help mitigate this issue. Thought I’d pass it along!

Smollett, Livesey, Trelawney, and the rest make it ashore, but hear the pirates close by as they near the palisade, and ready a volley. Aided by the servants inside, they loose four shots as the pirates emerge from the treeline; one of them falls dead, and the rest retreat.

“Hold up,” says Skep, “I thought Livesey said they only had two muskets left. But now you’re firing four shots! Got you!” Then he remembers that Livesey left some guns behind on his first trip and begins to feel silly.

The victors then do something incredibly foolish: they leave the safety of the wall to go admire their kill. Predictably, a pistol shot from the woods barely misses Livesey and strikes the gamekeeper from Chapter 7, who has been present this entire time but who hasn’t done anything particularly noteworthy in the story other than being shot just now. It’s clear he’s a goner, and they take him inside the cabin and lay him out on a bed where he eventually passes. Captain Smollett takes a flag from his jacket pocket and drapes it over the man.

Then he takes a second flag from his jacket pocket and runs it up the flagpole on the roof. The story has so far not revealed just how many flags he’s packing in there, but I choose to infer that he’s dispensing the things like a tissue box.

As they take stock of their situation and decide that maybe having one less mouth to feed during a siege isn’t the worst thing, the ship’s cannon fires again, and they hear a cannonball whistle over the cabin. It seems convenient that now they can hear a cannonball flying—from inside the bunkhouse, even—when fifteen minutes ago in the rowboat they weren’t exactly certain whether or not one missed their heads by inches. No, I’m not willing to be shot at by a cannon to resolve this discrepancy.

After few more shots whiz by, Trelawney realizes, “Wait, you can’t even see this place from the ship. They must be seeing the flag the captain raised up the pole! Wouldn’t it be smarter to take it down?”

But everybody agrees that this would be unpatriotic, so they don’t.

Instead, the men spend the entire evening hanging around as the pirates lob cannonballs in their general direction, largely unconcerned and in high spirits despite the text implying that one of the shots even crashes through the cabin roof at one point. Eventually, Smollett decides that the mutinous horde probably isn’t nearby since at this rate the cannonballs would be more likely to hit them then the patriots in the cabin (again, ignoring the one that came in through the ceiling I guess) and it’s worth seeing if they can recover some of the provisions from the rowboat. However, they discover that the pirates were bolder than they expected, having already procured the submerged food and delivered it to one of their own rowboats—helmed by Long John Silver, and with every pirate aboard now inexplicably armed with a musket.

(That’s not me pointing out an inconsistency; the book says they must have smuggled the guns somehow. Just giving credit in the rare instance it’s due.)

At least it’s not all doom and gloom. Jim shows up at the end of this chapter! Remember how this whole thing started when Livesey went out to make sure the child was still alive? Yeah, we all get sidetracked sometimes I guess.

Before they can reach the stockade, they need to bring the overstuffed rowboat to shore, but this is no easy feat. The tide is going out at this point, and they have to fight off such a current to avoid being swept straight down to the pirates that their only option is to row at an angle that makes uncomfortably slow progress.

Of course, the pirates back onboard aren’t being held captive anymore, and now that all pretenses are gone, they return to the deck to ready the cannon. Smollett cries, “The gun!” but Livesey jovially replies, “Don’t worry, there’s no way they could get it to shore.”

That’s not really Smollett’s concern at the moment. No, he’s a little bit more preoccupied with the fact that they’re completely broadside to the cannon and moving at a snail’s pace. His grandmother could make the shot—to say nothing of Captain Flint’s former gunner, who’s currently loading the muzzle.

Trelawney is said to be the best marksman of the group, and he stands up and takes a crack at the gunner, who unfortunately happens to kneel over at just the right time. The bullet injures the pirate standing behind him instead. If you’re looking to inject some slapstick comedy into your rendition of Treasure Island, this is a great place to do it.

One of the pirate boats launches from shore and begins to give chase, and the plan changes from “get to shore” to “get as close to shore as possible”. Their biggest problem is still the cannon, however, and by now it’s ready to fire.

“Tell us the moment you see them strike the match,” Smollett tells Trelawney. He does; and as the cannon fires, the rowers backpaddle hard, dipping the stern into the water. Livesey supposes the ball sailed just over their heads, though nobody can say for certain.

Immediate disaster is averted, but not without cost: the rowboat is too laden-down to be saved, and it sinks, along with half of the provisions. All but two of the muskets are ruined as well. As they abandon ship, the men begin hear the shouts of even more pirates advancing on foot through the woods. Time is of the essence here; Livesey worries that the pirates will either cut off their escape to the stockade, or attack it directly.

In the latter case, the only two people present to hold them off are Trelawney’s manservants, placed there to keep an eye on their stores. Considering that Livesey’s opinion of one of them is that he’s “good at brushing dirt off suits and not much else”, they opt to hustle to shore as fast as they can.

We left off last time with Jim hearing gunfire and the retort of the ship’s cannon. For this chapter, we actually roll back the clock a bit and get Dr. Livesey’s report of what took place while Jim was away. I find this more fun than Jim simply recounting what he learned upon his return, although this chapter inadvertently clarifies why Livesey asked Jim to write the book, as Livesey is kind of a boring read.

I jest somewhat. This chapter has the onerous task of handling the logistics leading up to the events to come, which is doubly unfortunate as they are going to happen somewhere else and we have to get all our supplies over there. Stevenson tries to flesh out the scene with small details to keep us invested—such as what tunes folks are whistling—but the results are generally middling. As such, I’ll run through the important parts quick.

Upon hearing that Jim went ashore, everybody is immediately worried for his safety. It’s decided that Livesey should go ashore to gather information, although it’s not clear whether they are trying to keep tabs on Jim or if this is just a general scouting mission.

Either way, this mostly becomes the latter; Livesey lands downshore of the pirates, and when he goes inland he discovers a log cabin surrounded by clear land and a 6-foot stockade wall—a veritable fortress, and complete with running water, too. Having served in the military in his youth, he realizes this could be the perfect place to fight off the pirates. This is just in time, because he hears the same cry of pain that Jim did last chapter (though Livesey believes this is Jim himself; Skep, meanwhile, is dubious that a 14-year-old boy screams the same as a grown man). Deciding that it’s best to take action while they still have the element of surprise, he hauls ass back to the ship.

It turns out that everybody aboard heard the cry, too, and Captain Smollett agrees that the battle is near. The pirates who stayed behind get trapped below deck as Smollett covers both exits with guns; meanwhile, Livesey loads up the rowboat with as many muskets and provisions as it can carry. In this way, the stockade receives its first supply dump; but the pirates lingering on the shore grow suspicious at Livesey taking so many trips back and forth so much, and they disappear into the trees, seemingly to gather the others. Time is short.

He returns to the ship one more time to fetch the others; they pack up as many supplies as they dare, and Smollett is able to win over one of the rookie crew members who hadn’t fully thrown in with the pirates yet. Rowboat fully loaded, they embark for land to mount their desperate defense.