diff --git a/web/sections/PageBuilderPanel.tsx b/web/sections/PageBuilderPanel.tsx
index 7f8bb3c..7d6ec37 100644
--- a/web/sections/PageBuilderPanel.tsx
+++ b/web/sections/PageBuilderPanel.tsx
@@ -68,8 +68,6 @@ import { BlockMedia } from './BlockMedia';
 import { PageStructure } from './PageStructure';
 import { BandBlocks } from './BandBlocks';
 
-
-
 /** Stored as a float, matched with a tolerance: 21/9 does not survive a round trip exactly. */
 const closeTo = (a: number, b: unknown): boolean => typeof b === 'number' && Math.abs(a - b) < 0.01;
 
@@ -187,18 +185,6 @@ export const PageBuilderPanel = () => {
   */
   const [rendered, setRendered] = useState(0);
 
-  /*
-    The lead photograph the TEMPLATE is previewing, so its cover block can be framed.
-
-    Asked of the site rather than worked out here: which template draws which section, which row is
-    the example, and which of its pictures leads are four facts that live in `templates.ts`, and a
-    second copy in this panel is how the two drift when a fifth template arrives.
-
-    Null on an ordinary page, on a template nothing routes, and on a section with no rows — all
-    ordinary states, and all of them mean the same thing here: nothing to frame.
-  */
-  const [subjectLead, setSubjectLead] = useState<string | null>(null);
-
   /*
     The builder's chrome, painted into the rendered page.
 
@@ -397,21 +383,6 @@ export const PageBuilderPanel = () => {
 
   const page = pageFromParam(pages, slug);
 
-  useEffect(() => {
-    if (!page?.is_template) {
-      setSubjectLead(null);
-      return;
-    }
-    let alive = true;
-    void clientRef.current
-      .get<{ data: { path: string | null } }>(`/fofos-admin/pages/${page.id}/subject-lead`)
-      .then((body) => alive && setSubjectLead(body.data.path))
-      // Left null, which the block reads as "nothing to frame" — the same as a template with no rows.
-      .catch(() => alive && setSubjectLead(null));
-    return () => {
-      alive = false;
-    };
-  }, [page?.id, page?.is_template]);
 
   /*
     The page's sections, which the canvas needs to name and outline what it finds in the document.
@@ -776,6 +747,15 @@ export const PageBuilderPanel = () => {
     const owner = piece ? sections.find((one) => one.components.some((c) => String(c.id) === piece)) : null;
     const block = owner?.components.find((c) => String(c.id) === piece);
 
+    /*
+      The shape a `subject-cover` is framed into, as Tailwind spells it.
+
+      `shapeOf` takes a whole block because a media block's shape depends on it having a picture at
+      all; a subject cover has no `url` of its own - the picture is the row's - so it was being asked
+      three times with a fabricated one. Asked once, from the only field that decides it.
+    */
+    const coverShape = SHAPES.find((one) => closeTo(one.ratio ?? Number.NaN, block?.content?.ratio))?.value ?? null;
+
     if (block && owner && page) {
       setEditorRef.current(
         <div className="flex flex-col gap-4">
@@ -838,19 +818,25 @@ export const PageBuilderPanel = () => {
           )}
 
           {/*
-            The lead photograph gets Shape, and only Shape.
+            The lead photograph gets Shape, and ONLY Shape.
 
-            The same framing the media block has had since it existed — a template wanting a letterbox
-            lead had no way to ask for one. Not the rest of that block's controls: there is no file to
-            choose, because the picture is the carousel's first item, and no crop to set, because the
-            crop belongs to the carousel item and two crops for one placement is two answers able to
-            disagree.
+            The same framing the media block has had since it existed - a template wanting a letterbox
+            lead had no way to ask for one. Not the rest of that block's controls, and not a crop:
+            there is no file to choose, because the picture is the row's, and no rectangle to drag,
+            because a template draws EVERY row in its section and one rectangle framed against one
+            photograph goes through somebody's head on the next one.
+
+            That is not a guess about what would happen - it is what did. This block briefly offered
+            zoom and pan, writing `content.crop`; the site stopped reading it when the crop moved to
+            the row, where there is one per picture, and the control stayed behind. It saved, it
+            persisted, and it changed nothing, under help text promising it applied to every row. The
+            per-row cropper is in each section's own settings - see SubjectFields.
           */}
           {block.kind === 'subject-cover' && (
             <div className="mt-3 flex flex-col gap-1">
               <label className="text-xs">Shape</label>
               <select
-                value={shapeOf({ content: { url: 'x.png', ratio: block.content?.ratio } }) ?? ''}
+                value={coverShape ?? ''}
                 onChange={(event) => {
                   const chosen = SHAPES.find((one) => one.value === event.currentTarget.value);
                   void handlersRef.current.setContent(block, {
@@ -866,42 +852,10 @@ export const PageBuilderPanel = () => {
                   </option>
                 ))}
               </select>
-
-              {/*
-                Zoom and pan, once there is a shape to frame INTO.
-
-                No shape means the picture draws at its own proportions and there is no rectangle to
-                choose — the same rule the media block follows, where the cropper appears only after a
-                shape is picked.
-
-                `fixed`, so there is no Change or Remove: the picture is the subject's first carousel
-                item and this block cannot store a different one. Framing is its decision; which
-                photograph is not.
-              */}
-              {shapeOf({ content: { url: 'x.png', ratio: block.content?.ratio } }) && subjectLead && (
-                <>
-                  <BlockMedia
-                    url={subjectLead}
-                    crop={block.content?.crop ?? null}
-                    aspect={shapeOf({ content: { url: 'x.png', ratio: block.content?.ratio } })!}
-                    onUrl={() => {}}
-                    onCrop={(crop) =>
-                      void handlersRef.current.setContent(block, { ...block.content, crop: crop || undefined })
-                    }
-                    fixed
-                  />
-                  {/*
-                    Said plainly, because it is the one surprising thing about framing a template.
-
-                    A template has no subject of its own; this is the row it previews against. The
-                    rectangle chosen here is used for EVERY row the template draws, so it is framed
-                    against one photograph and applied to all of them.
-                  */}
-                  <p className="text-[11px] text-muted-foreground">
-                    Framed against the preview. This crop applies to every one of them.
-                  </p>
-                </>
-              )}
+              <p className="text-[11px] text-muted-foreground">
+                One shape for every row this template draws. Which part of each photograph survives it
+                is set on the row itself.
+              </p>
             </div>
           )}
 
diff --git a/web/sections/SubjectFields.tsx b/web/sections/SubjectFields.tsx
index 8f2f8c6..51a6192 100644
--- a/web/sections/SubjectFields.tsx
+++ b/web/sections/SubjectFields.tsx
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 import { useEffect, useState } from 'react';
 import { useClient } from 'hooks/useClient';
+import { readableError } from '../errors';
 import { Input } from '@/components/ui/input';
 import { Textarea } from '@/components/ui/textarea';
 import { RichText } from '../RichText';
@@ -41,6 +42,20 @@ export const SubjectFields = <T extends SubjectRecord>({
   const client = useClient();
   const [draft, setDraft] = useState<Partial<Record<string, string>>>({});
 
+  /*
+    What went wrong, because otherwise nothing says.
+
+    Every save here is silent by design - there is no button to report back to, which is the whole
+    point of useAutosave. That is fine while it works and indefensible when it does not: the two paths
+    below had no failure branch at all, so a rejected PATCH was an unhandled promise and a person
+    watching their own change on screen had no way to know it had not been written.
+
+    It matters most for the cover, which does not go through the draft. Typing survives a failure -
+    the draft is only cleared on success, so the next keystroke tries again with a new value. A crop
+    that fails is simply gone, and the picture goes on showing the rectangle that was dragged.
+  */
+  const [error, setError] = useState<string | null>(null);
+
   // Keyed on the ID, not the values: keyed on the values it would fight the typing, pulling every
   // keystroke back to the last saved one until the save landed.
   useEffect(() => setDraft({}), [record.id]);
@@ -51,9 +66,16 @@ export const SubjectFields = <T extends SubjectRecord>({
   const dirty = Object.keys(draft).length > 0;
 
   useAutosave(dirty ? JSON.stringify(draft) : null, false, async () => {
-    await client.patch(`${section.endpoint}/${record.id}`, draft);
-    setDraft({});
-    onSaved();
+    try {
+      await client.patch(`${section.endpoint}/${record.id}`, draft);
+      setError(null);
+      // Only on success: what is still here is what has not been written, and clearing it would throw
+      // away the typing along with the news that it was lost.
+      setDraft({});
+      onSaved();
+    } catch (failure) {
+      setError(readableError(failure));
+    }
   });
 
   const set = (key: string) => (next: string) => setDraft((was) => ({ ...was, [key]: next }));
@@ -67,7 +89,13 @@ export const SubjectFields = <T extends SubjectRecord>({
     discarded by the `setDraft({})` that follows every save.
   */
   const save = (values: Record<string, unknown>) => {
-    void client.patch(`${section.endpoint}/${record.id}`, values).then(onSaved);
+    void client
+      .patch(`${section.endpoint}/${record.id}`, values)
+      .then(() => {
+        setError(null);
+        onSaved();
+      })
+      .catch((failure: unknown) => setError(readableError(failure)));
   };
 
   /* Null means the carousel's first item, which the panel already knows — see SubjectPanel. */
@@ -82,6 +110,12 @@ export const SubjectFields = <T extends SubjectRecord>({
 
   return (
     <div className="space-y-4">
+      {error && (
+        <p className="rounded-md border border-destructive/40 bg-destructive/10 px-2 py-1.5 text-xs text-destructive">
+          {error}
+        </p>
+      )}
+
       <div className="space-y-1.5">
         <label className="text-xs text-muted-foreground">Name</label>
         <Input value={value('title')} onChange={(event) => set('title')(event.target.value)} />