diff --git a/css/itflow_custom.css b/css/itflow_custom.css
index 927992f21..ebcc66a62 100644
--- a/css/itflow_custom.css
+++ b/css/itflow_custom.css
@@ -496,12 +496,107 @@ a:focus {
     font-weight: 600;
 }
 
-/* --- Toast fade ---------------------------------------------------------
-   Bootstrap's .fade is a .15s transition, which next to toastr's old 1s
-   fadeOut reads as a blink. Bootstrap uses the same .showing class for both
-   directions, so in and out cannot be timed separately without JS - .5s is
-   the compromise. Change the duration here to taste. */
-#itflowFlashToast.toast.fade,
+/* --- Flash toast ---------------------------------------------------------
+   Restores the four things toastr did that a plain Bootstrap toast does not:
+   sits top-right rather than centred over what you are reading, carries an
+   icon for its type, counts its own timer down, and dismisses on a click
+   anywhere instead of only on the small x.
+
+   It also appears on the FIRST PAINT. includes/inc_alert_feedback.php renders
+   the element with .show already set and every state change here is an
+   animation, so nothing waits on bootstrap.Toast - which used to mean waiting
+   for DOMContentLoaded, and therefore for every parser-blocking script in the
+   document. The inline script in that file only handles the click and removes
+   the node; neither gates the appearance.
+
+   Durations are toastr's own: 300ms in, 5s on screen, 1s out. */
+.itflow-toast {
+    position: relative;
+    overflow: hidden;
+    cursor: pointer;
+    animation:
+        itflow-toast-in 300ms ease-out both,
+        itflow-toast-out 1s ease-in 5s both;
+}
+
+/* Hovering holds it open, so a long message cannot disappear mid-sentence.
+   The progress bar needs its own rule - animation-play-state does not
+   cascade to a child's separate animation. */
+.itflow-toast:hover,
+.itflow-toast:hover .itflow-toast-progress {
+    animation-play-state: paused;
+}
+
+/* currentColor, so the bar inherits whichever contrast text-bg-* already
+   picked - white on success and danger, dark on warning and info - rather
+   than needing a rule per type. */
+.itflow-toast-progress {
+    position: absolute;
+    right: 0;
+    bottom: 0;
+    left: 0;
+    height: 3px;
+    background: currentColor;
+    opacity: .4;
+    transform-origin: left;
+    animation: itflow-toast-progress 5s linear both;
+}
+
+@keyframes itflow-toast-in {
+    from {
+        opacity: 0;
+        transform: translateX(100%);
+    }
+    to {
+        opacity: 1;
+        transform: translateX(0);
+    }
+}
+
+/* visibility flips on the last one percent rather than at the end, because a
+   discrete property switches at the MIDPOINT of its keyframe interval - put
+   it only on the 100% stop and the toast would vanish halfway through its own
+   fade. This is the fallback that matters if the inline remover never runs:
+   without it an invisible toast keeps sitting over the user menu, eating
+   clicks. */
+@keyframes itflow-toast-out {
+    0% {
+        opacity: 1;
+        visibility: visible;
+    }
+    99% {
+        opacity: 0;
+        visibility: visible;
+    }
+    100% {
+        opacity: 0;
+        visibility: hidden;
+    }
+}
+
+@keyframes itflow-toast-progress {
+    from {
+        transform: scaleX(1);
+    }
+    to {
+        transform: scaleX(0);
+    }
+}
+
+/* Reduced motion drops the slide and the moving bar but keeps the timed
+   dismissal - that is a timeout, not an animation the user is watching. */
+@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
+    .itflow-toast {
+        animation: itflow-toast-out 1s linear 5s both;
+    }
+    .itflow-toast-progress {
+        animation: none;
+        transform: scaleX(0);
+    }
+}
+
+/* The JS-raised toasts from itflowToast() still go through bootstrap.Toast,
+   so they keep the slower fade. */
 .itflow-toast-js .toast.fade {
     transition: opacity .5s linear;
 }
diff --git a/includes/inc_alert_feedback.php b/includes/inc_alert_feedback.php
index 53df7810f..7b496ca1f 100644
--- a/includes/inc_alert_feedback.php
+++ b/includes/inc_alert_feedback.php
@@ -3,9 +3,14 @@
 /**
  * Flash alert rendering.
  *
- * Renders the session flash message as a Bootstrap 5 toast. Bootstrap's Toast
- * component ships in bootstrap.bundle.min.js, which is already loaded, so this
- * replaces toastr (and its jQuery dependency) without adding a library.
+ * Renders the session flash message as a toast, replacing toastr and its jQuery
+ * dependency without adding a library. It borrows Bootstrap's .toast styling
+ * but NOT its Toast component: the element ships with .show already on it and
+ * the whole appear/linger/fade cycle is a CSS animation, so the alert is on
+ * screen at first paint. Driving it with bootstrap.Toast meant waiting for
+ * DOMContentLoaded, which does not fire until every parser-blocking script has
+ * run - so it used to arrive well after the page had settled. See the
+ * .itflow-toast block in css/itflow_custom.css.
  *
  * SECURITY: the message is rendered into HTML here, not interpolated into a
  * JavaScript string literal as it was previously. 429 of the ~653 flashAlert()
@@ -24,48 +29,79 @@ if (!empty($_SESSION['alert_message'])) {
     // functions/sanitize.php. flashAlert() is called with more type names than
     // Bootstrap has classes ('danger', 'alert' and a typo'd 'errpr' among
     // them), and an unmapped value used to resolve to nothing at all.
-    $alert_style = 'text-bg-' . alertStyleClass($alert_type);
+    $alert_style_class = alertStyleClass($alert_type);
+    $alert_style = 'text-bg-' . $alert_style_class;
     // text-bg-info and text-bg-warning are the two Bootstrap pairs with dark text
-    $alert_dark_text = in_array(alertStyleClass($alert_type), ['warning', 'info'], true);
+    $alert_dark_text = in_array($alert_style_class, ['warning', 'info'], true);
+
+    // Font Awesome 5 names - the vendored build is 5.15.4, so no fa-circle-*
+    // aliases. Keyed on alertStyleClass()' output rather than the raw type, so
+    // 'error', 'errpr' and 'danger' all land on the same icon the same way they
+    // already land on the same colour.
+    $alert_icons = [
+        'success'   => 'fa-check-circle',
+        'info'      => 'fa-info-circle',
+        'warning'   => 'fa-exclamation-triangle',
+        'danger'    => 'fa-times-circle',
+        'secondary' => 'fa-bell',
+    ];
+    $alert_icon = $alert_icons[$alert_style_class] ?? 'fa-bell';
 
     // Escaping lives in one place now - see alertMessageHtml() in functions/sanitize.php
     $alert_safe_message = alertMessageHtml($_SESSION['alert_message']);
 
     ?>
 
-    <div class="toast-container position-fixed top-0 start-50 translate-middle-x p-3" style="z-index: 1090;">
+    <?php /* `show` is on the element from the server, and `fade` is gone: the
+             appearance is a CSS animation now, so the alert is on screen at
+             first paint instead of waiting for bootstrap.Toast. The old version
+             called it on DOMContentLoaded, which does not fire until every
+             parser-blocking script in the document has run - most of a megabyte
+             on a page with tinymce - so the alert turned up after you had
+             already started reading. toastr never had that problem because it
+             loaded in the header. */ ?>
+    <div class="toast-container position-fixed top-0 end-0 p-3" style="z-index: 1090;">
         <div id="itflowFlashToast"
-             class="toast fade align-items-center <?= $alert_style ?> border-0"
+             class="toast show itflow-toast align-items-center <?= $alert_style ?> border-0"
              role="alert" aria-live="assertive" aria-atomic="true">
-            <div class="d-flex">
+            <div class="d-flex align-items-center">
+                <i class="fas fa-fw <?= $alert_icon ?> fa-lg ms-3"></i>
                 <div class="toast-body"><?= $alert_safe_message ?></div>
+                <?php /* No data-bs-dismiss - the click handler below covers the
+                         whole toast, and this button sits inside it. */ ?>
                 <button type="button"
                         class="btn-close <?= $alert_dark_text ? '' : 'btn-close-white' ?> me-2 m-auto"
-                        data-bs-dismiss="toast" aria-label="Close"></button>
+                        aria-label="Close"></button>
             </div>
+            <div class="itflow-toast-progress"></div>
         </div>
     </div>
 
     <script>
         (function () {
-            // This include runs near the top of the page but bootstrap.bundle
-            // loads in the footer, so the toast has to wait for scripts to
-            // finish. toastr did not need this - it was loaded in the header.
-            function showFlashToast() {
-                var el = document.getElementById('itflowFlashToast');
-                if (el && window.bootstrap && bootstrap.Toast) {
-                    bootstrap.Toast.getOrCreateInstance(el, {
-                        animation: true,
-                        autohide: true,
-                        delay: 5000
-                    }).show();
+            // Deliberately depends on nothing. It runs inline, right after the
+            // markup above, and does not wait for DOMContentLoaded - showing
+            // and hiding is CSS, so if this never ran the alert would still
+            // appear and still go away on its own.
+            var el = document.getElementById('itflowFlashToast');
+            if (!el) {
+                return;
+            }
+
+            // Click anywhere on it to dismiss, the way toastr did. The close
+            // button is inside the toast, so this covers it too.
+            el.addEventListener('click', function () {
+                el.remove();
+            });
+
+            // Remove on the fade rather than a fixed timer, so hovering to
+            // finish reading a long message keeps the node alive as well as
+            // visible.
+            el.addEventListener('animationend', function (event) {
+                if (event.animationName === 'itflow-toast-out') {
+                    el.remove();
                 }
-            }
-            if (document.readyState === 'loading') {
-                document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', showFlashToast);
-            } else {
-                showFlashToast();
-            }
+            });
         })();
     </script>
 
diff --git a/js/app.js b/js/app.js
index afc86fbcc..92459ee76 100644
--- a/js/app.js
+++ b/js/app.js
@@ -804,7 +804,7 @@ function itflowToast(message, type) {
     var container = document.querySelector('.toast-container.itflow-toast-js');
     if (!container) {
         container = document.createElement('div');
-        container.className = 'toast-container itflow-toast-js position-fixed top-0 start-50 translate-middle-x p-3';
+        container.className = 'toast-container itflow-toast-js position-fixed top-0 end-0 p-3';
         container.style.zIndex = '1090';
         document.body.appendChild(container);
     }