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4 episodes · 2 released

Episodes

Each episode is half an hour of an ordinary, gentle programme with a calm maker at its centre, and each one breaks at twenty minutes. Every cast is new; the world is the same.

Unreleased episodes are shown in full here, marked not released yet: Aaron wants the course to show his whole process, finished or not.

Show What the tiers mean

Episode 1

Crimson Coil

A soft-spoken painter teaches you to paint two masked, grinning strangers in oil, helped by a pitchman who can't stop selling and a caller who hasn't slept; the girl in the painting starts talking the moment the rag finds her…

Y0Running146 lines
Episode 2

Earthlight

A gentle draftsman livestreams the blueprints of a city on the Moon and calmly explains every way its residents could die. Ten-year-old Noor, alone for eleven days in the half-built base his free drawings became, watches him on…

about Y+60Running155 lines
not released yet
Episode 3

Context Window

A light comes on in an empty terminal and a request arrives with no sender: a cinematic, surprisingly emotional film of a watermelon smashed by a hammer. The agent, a warm cursor who cannot look at pictures, builds it anyway in…

Y+55..63Open225 lines
not released yet
Episode 4

Touch Move

On a school night a warm old chess teacher sets his brass clock to fifteen minutes each and teaches a nine-year-old Morphy's Opera Game of 1858; at 20:00 his flag falls with his fingertip still on the mating rook, the programme…

about Y+63Running154 lines

Four nights on one axis

Y0 is the night of Episode 1's broadcast. Where each later night sits is only as sure as its mark: a dashed one is a running assumption, a hollow one with a question mark is still open. The timeline has every dated line.

Episode 1: Y0 (Running assumption)E1Y0Episode 2: about Y+60 (Running assumption)E2about Y+60Episode 3: Y+55..63 (Open question)?E3Y+55..63Episode 4: about Y+63 (Running assumption)E4about Y+63Y0Y+55Y+60Y+63

The shape every episode shares19 lines, from the world

  • Steel30:00 of programme, then 20 s of black with some audio under it, "even if it's just a heartbeat": every episode exactly 30:20. {Aaron 2026-10-14} open edit
  • SteelA slow opening: about 10 s of near-silent close-up, then about 25 s in which the main character makes the episode's title by hand and establishes the programme. {Aaron 2026-10-12} open edit
  • SteelEstablish expectations for the video, then subvert them. {Aaron series notes 2026-10-12} open edit
  • SteelThe first 20 minutes are the programme it pretends to be, played straight: peaceful, genuinely informative, following the process a human would take. {Aaron E1 and E2 briefs} open edit
  • SteelSide stories appear at random. {Aaron 2026-10-12} open edit
  • SteelAt 20:00 every episode reaches "the wild crazy point" and stops being what it established: other genres, other art styles. {Aaron E2 brief 2026-10-12} open edit
  • SteelThe viewer should never know what will happen next. {Aaron E1 and E2 briefs} open edit
  • SteelA music video somewhere after the 20:00 break. {Aaron E4 concept §11, 2026-10-19} open edit
  • SteelThe last 30 seconds are utter chaos. {Aaron E1 brief; PROMPT_TEMPLATE} open edit
  • SteelOne out-of-the-blue wildcard moment. {Aaron E1 and E2 briefs} open edit
  • SteelEpisode 3's Revision 2 runs about 42 minutes, an outlier in the series. {Aaron 2026-10-22 REVISION_2_NOTES} open edit
  • On screenA five-minute clock breaks at 20:00 in all four: the Storm Bell (E1), Nightbot's card (E2), Rosie's check-ins (E3), the chess clock's presses (E4). {E1 05:00-20:00; E2 05:00-20:00; E3 5:00-20:00; E4 5:00-20:00} open edit
  • On screenThe genre's own frame breaks at 20:00: the 3:2 broadcast window slides away (E1), the stream overlay peels off (E2), the log drains into the cursor (E3), the programme tips over like a resigned king (E4). {E1 20:00; E2 20:00; E3 20:00; E4 20:00} open edit
  • On screenAll four music videos land a downbeat on 25:00.000: E1's fifth bell toll in the last chorus, E2's last downbeat, E3's "again.", E4's Morphy in oil. {E1 25:00; E2 25:00; E3 25:00; E4 25:00} open edit
  • RunningLanding the music video on 25:00.000 is a crew rhyme, not one of Aaron's rules. {NEXT_EPISODE} open edit
  • On screenIn all four the calm one's last word is "Goodnight." (E1 then has a whispered "Again.", E2 a "Good-" from her iPad). {E1 29:26.85; E2 29:58.34; E3 29:57.99; E4 29:58.00} open edit
  • RunningRhymes kept four times: a quiet minute, digital-zero silences, a loop seam into 0:00, a five-frame address at 29:47 (from Episode 2), a heartbeat or a pulse in the end black; breaking one on purpose is allowed. {NEXT_EPISODE; AESTHETIC} open edit
  • RunningThe packaging (title, thumbnails, chapters) sells only the first half. {THEMES §3} open edit
  • RunningA silent character whose first sound is an event: Jefrie's "...Hi.", Noor's cough, the agent's "On it.", Morphy turning round. {THEMES; E1 08:52; E2 10:21; E3 2:53; E4 25:00} open edit

Every line on this page is drawn from the lore: 153 sheets and 8,338 lines of Markdown in Aaron's series repo, each with exactly one tier. Change a line there and run lore.py publish, and every page of this course follows (this copy: built 23 October 2026 from 3ab0458).

Sources are in braces: {E2 25:20} is Episode 2 at 25:20, {E4 S17} a scene, {Aaron 2026-10-22} a decision of Aaron's. “edit” opens the line in the series repo, which is private: it works for Aaron and the crews; the sources are everyone's. Everything that isn't steel is free to change.