The Conjuring 4, Him, The Long Walk

Monday, September 22nd, 2025 10:22 pm
snickfic: Buffy looking over her shoulder (Default)
[personal profile] snickfic
The Conjuring 4: Last Rites (2025). Man, this was terrible. Way too long, took forever to get the Warrens to the actual case, the case family got dropped for the entire middle of the movie, unbearably saccharine epilogue. The whole plot turns on the Warrens' daughter Judy having almost died as a baby, being gifted with Lorraine's clairvoyance, and being chased down by the demon(s?) who had her marked for death. However, somehow the characters don't figure that last part out until the climax even though it's blatantly obvious ten minutes in, so the emotional arc of Lorraine mentoring Judy into embracing her gift rather than telling her to hide from it is crammed into like a minute and a half.

Oh and Ed has heart trouble again, which means nothing. He's fine at the end. The bit in the middle where the doctor tells him he can't afford another heart attack is just a red herring.

People said this was something of a return to form after The Conjuring 3, but despite that one's glaring holes, at least it wasn't the draggy self-indulgent mess this one was.

--

Him (2025). A promising college quarterback is invited to train with the greatest professional quarterback of all time (Marlon Wayans) and gets more than he bargained for. This is football as a cult/football as folk horror. It is not, despite the impression I got from the trailer, about a kid making a deal with the devil at the beginning and then having it unravel on him; it took me a solid hour to accept that it had no intention of being that specific movie.

This movie has a lot of really nice shots, and both Wayans and the lead Tyriq Weathers are both great. I'm always here for folk horror and weird ritual shit, which this has elements of. I enjoyed the surreality as Cade questions how much of what he sees is even actually happening. The ending is very fun and my favorite part of the movie, even if the movie gets a bit too much into explaining itself.

That said, I wasn't sure what all the movie was trying to do. Thematically, I don't feel like the movie added much more than what was in the 90-second trailer. I also, as always, had several worldbuilding questions. (My preferred headcanon is that spoilers ))

--

The Long Walk (2025). In an ambiguously 50s-ish alternate America, fifty young men volunteer to go on the annual death march until the last one walking wins.

This is an adaptation of my favorite Stephen King book of all time. I have a bunch of thoughts on it, but tbh they're kind of all praising with faint damns, because they're essentially quibbles. Overall, this captures the essential spirit and theme of the book so well that quibbles are all I have. In fact, in that regard it's probably one of the closest adaptations of a King novel ever, because so many of them go sooooo far off the rails. The emphasis on the relationships between the walkers, the dreary vibe, the body horror, the horrific brutal deaths: it's all here. The movie changes the ending, in keeping with what I felt was a bit of Hollywood dramatization throughout, but the changes still keep to the spirit of the book's ending, I feel.

I keep thinking I'd like to go see it again before it's out of the theater. We'll see if I manage it. In the meantime, I have had a great time watching interviews with the cast and discussions of how it was made. This is one of those movies where the story of the production is as good as or better than the movie itself. Garrett Wareing, who plays Stebbins, says the cast walked 261 miles in the process of making it. 261 miles!!! He talks about how literally the entire production was mobile: makeup, the food, everything. It just rolled along with the actors. It's also kind of amazing to think about these actors having to do basically ALL their acting while moving. I feel like mostly in movies people aren't having big serious conversations and walking around at the same time. And they filmed the movie chronologically, which IMO really makes sense since they were continuously changing locations and let the actors organically develop their characters and chemistry.

The director is Francis Lawrence, who got started directing Constantine (2005) and has since directed every Hunger Games film except the first one, so he is a big budget guy. This is the lowest-budget movie he's ever directed ($20M). Several people involved have commented it was a passion project for him, and it really shows. His love for the novel might also explain how he ended up directing so many movies for Death Games: The Franchise??

This series of interviews is my favorite I've seen so far, but this interview by the Dead Meat folks has fun stuff too, especially in the second half when everyone has found their footing.

I think this movie is the one I've had the most fun thinking about in a long time.

LONELY PROMPTS WEEK :: 22 SEPTEMBER § DAY 1

Monday, September 22nd, 2025 10:17 pm
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[personal profile] simplyn2deep posting in [community profile] comment_fic
Super late start to Lonely Prompts week. In about 10 hours or so, I'll have the post for Day 2.

---

September 22-26 is Lonely Prompts Week and it will be a challenge week!

In the past, we used to have a "winner" who completed the most fills every day, and at the end of the week, we'd announce an overall winner. But this time around, we're doing things differently! There are no winners or “losers”, just prompts that have been filled. At the end of the week, we'll be sharing a round-up post of all the lonely prompts that have been filled.

Monday’s Theme: LGBT Day

More Information: Every fill has to be focused on a lesbian/gay/bisexual/trans character or pairing. Also note, character and/or pairing does not have to be canon within the fandom.

Also, to make up for this entry being a day late, I apologize that for as life got busy over the weekend and all day Monday, the prompt for Tuesday will be posted in 5 hours.

If you leave a request, please make sure it follows the theme for the day, however, you are more than welcome to fill any lonely prompt and share the fill here. Just let me know so that I can include the totals in a separate list.

Please number your fills when leaving more than one in a comment. This helps me when I'm ready to count them up.

To find those elusive Lonely Prompts, you can use LJ’s advanced search options to limit keyword results to only comments in this community. Fret not, DW members; we are working on a way to search through old entries for prompts for you! As of right now, the best way to search for a lonely prompt on DW is to search the community’s archive, which can be found [[HERE]].

While the use of LJ's advanced search and DW’s archive are options, bookmarking the links of prompts you like might work better for searching in the future.

To get things going, a few rules that I ask you all to follow.

1. You can only request five prompts to be filled.
2. You can request no more than three prompts from the same fandom.
3. You can, however, fill as many prompts as you'd like!
4. In the subject line, be sure to say whether this is a request or a fill!
5. You must link back to whatever the prompt is in the community logs (whether filling or requesting it be filled), and, if you're filling the prompt, please complete the fill as a response to the original prompt.
6. If you are filling an "any/any" prompt, please let us know what fandom (or, if original, say so!) you're using for the response.
7. If you filled any lonely prompts earlier this week, this is the place to share them!
8. Finally, we now have a community at AO3. If you have an AO3 account, please post your fills there. More information on how to do this is located at this link.

How to link:

[a href="http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/449155.html?thread=70682755#t70682755">MCU, Tony Stark/Pepper Potts, She's wearing daisy dukes and one of his button-down shirts.[/a]
(change the brackets to "<" and ">" respectively)

or:

http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/139897.html?thread=30155641#t30155641
Burn Notice, Sam/Michael/Fi, "It's always been you. And it's always gonna be you."

HAPPY REQUESTING/WRITING/FILLING!

evernight & march 7th ( 040 ╳ honkai star rail )

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2025 04:48 pm
vaporwaving: (003)
[personal profile] vaporwaving posting in [community profile] dwrp_icons
CANON: Honkai Star Rail
CHARACTERS: Evernight, March 7th
ADDITIONAL INFO: Taken from the Night Falls, Everyone, Close Your Eyes Evernight character trailer
CREDIT TO: [personal profile] vaporwaving



here @ [personal profile] vaporwaving
[syndicated profile] askamanager_feed

Posted by Ask a Manager

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My office is infested with wasps

I work in a field where telework for any reason has been prohibited by our CEO. We can telework and did throughout the lockdown portion of the pandemic, but he’s aggressively against it now. Some offices and some supervisors are more lax about allowing it, but mine are not.

Separately, our building has been harboring a reoccurring wasp infestation. Every summer, the building fills up with wasps. I guess my employer has complained about this to our landlord, and in response the landlord has used canned, commercially available wasp sprays a couple of times, administered by our building’s maintenance team. At no point in the five or so years of this occurring has anyone involved a professional pest control company. My employer acts as though this is not their problem and not something they can fix, and that their only recourse is to ask the landlord to address it.

I don’t feel like this is adequate. Some employees have been issued those electric flyswatters to attack the wasps. One was left on my desk as though to make the wasps my problem.

Here’s the thing: it’s not that I’m scared of wasps, although I am. I can work despite being afraid. The problem is this: I am allergic to wasps. It is in my medical record that I am allergic to wasps. I carry epi-pens, which I have to pay for out of my own pocket, because I am allergic to wasps.

In the past, I had permission to go home and telework when the wasps were out. It wasn’t always practical to do. That permission has been revoked. Work isn’t even sharing information about the wasps or addressing any of this widely — I only know about the wasps being back because others warned me, and I had to beg my supervisor to even tell me if anything is going on.

I don’t know what to do, other than tell my coworkers how to use an epi-pen and where to find mine. Should my supervisors be doing more? Should my employer? I feel like I’m losing my mind.

What on earth?! They’re just accepting having a wasp-filled building year after year and not insisting that a professional exterminator be called? Or just calling one themselves?

This is so absurd that I wrote back to this letter-writer and asked if wasps were a stand-in for something else to help keep them anonymous but nope, it’s wasps.

So first and foremost: can you and your coworkers band together and push for a professional to be called? Say you feel unsafe and you’re not willing to work surrounded by wasps.

But as for you specifically, go the formal accommodations route! Talk to HR, use the words “formal request for accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act,” and explain you’re allergic to wasps and it’s not safe for you to continue working around them and you need a wasp-free spot to work in. They can decide how to achieve that, whether it’s letting you work from home, finding a wasp-free space in your current building, or calling a damn exterminator.

2. Whispering in classes vs. whispering in work meetings

This is a question about how a situation I’m dealing with in academia would transfer to the rest of the working world. In my college classes, I have a few students (underclassmen, but still adults) who consistently whisper/giggle through the lesson, sometimes when I’m not paying attention to them but sometimes when I obviously am! I’ve tried various things, like asking in the moment if they’re ready to participate, emailing after class, or warning about the impact on their grades, and this has decreased the volume but not stopped the behavior. I’m probably going to escalate to asking them to leave class or putting in a formal report with the administration (which is fairly standard practice at my school). These are short classes with 30-40 students, and I try to use a lot of interactive activities to break up the lectures (although I think I should expect them to listen even if I lectured the whole time).

What I’m wondering, as I’m trying to gauge the right response, is how this would be dealt with in a work context? I assume they’d be firmly warned about the behavior, probably in private (not easy for me to facilitate, since I only see them in class and I know some of them don’t read email), but then what? Could someone be fired for obviously whispering through large meetings or trainings every day, despite warnings? I want to take seriously my responsibility to prepare these students for the working world, and I’m also just always curious about how things work outside the strange bubble of academic life!

In a work context, they’d either be spoken to privately afterwards or directly asked mid-meeting to stop, depending on how disruptive the behavior was. In theory it’s something someone could be fired over if it continued, but in reality it’s very unlikely that it would get to that point — that’s just not something that tends to happen a lot at work; once someone has been asked to stop a few times, they tend to stop. That’s probably because the stakes feel higher at work.

I’m not an expert on teaching, but in your shoes I’d just ask them directly in middle of class to quiet down so they’re not distracting others. If they continue after that, ask them to leave so they’re not disrupting people who are trying to learn. If not being in class impacts their grades, that’s a natural consequences of the behavior — but I don’t think you need all the separate stuff about warning the whispering itself will impact their grades, reporting it to the administration (which feels like overkill, even if it’s standard practice at your school), or even teaching them a lesson about how it would go over at work.

As college students, whether or not they’re learning is up to them. But controlling your class environment so people who want to learn can learn is up to you, and you should just tell them in the moment to stop or leave.

3. A colleague’s name and mine are so similar that clients mix us up

I am one of four people at my company who do my job: think, four vets and a number of assistants and office staff. Pet owners don’t have to request a specific vet, but they often do. It’s in my best interest for people who ask for me to get to see me: it’s better customer service plus the numbers will eventually shake out into next year’s salary. The problem: my last name is extremely similar to the last name of one of the other vets. (Think Dr. Thomas vs. Dr. Thompson.) To make it even worse, we bear a slight resemblance to each other. Nobody who knew us would have trouble telling us apart, but we are the same general physical type. She is also more charismatic than me and, I’ll just say it, somewhat more popular with clients.

So, we get a steady stream of people who ask to see her, when I think they meant to ask to see me, except what if they really are asking to see her? There are a few clients who have seen us both and prefer her, and a smaller number of people who have seen both and prefer me, and some who probably don’t care but she will end up with that appointment for reasons outside of my control.

We can’t use pseudonyms like they do in customer service, because our real names have to be findable for various regulatory reasons. This has been going on for years and I’m no closer to a solution. Any ideas?

Would you be willing to use your first name — as in Dr. Jane or similar? I know it’s not traditional in medicine, but it’s also not unheard of — and it may be the easiest way to help people differentiate between you!

4. Taking sick days as a new employee

I began a new job about three months ago. It is a higher level position that requires board certification, if that matters. I currently have a mild respiratory infection. Though I have been to a doctor and tested negative for both flu and Covid, I have opted to take two days off. I simply do not feel up to performing at my full ability, and I am also trying to keep my germs to myself. Prior to taking time off, several coworkers noticed that I looked visibly ill and was losing my voice, and I have a note from my doctor. However, I am mostly worried about optics, since I am still relatively new.

In my last position, which I held for almost four years, I rarely took time off. That was my own choice, as I truly enjoyed being at work. However, when I left, I found myself unable to cash out all of my unused PTO due to a recently implemented policy. I am trying to set healthy boundaries for myself this time around, one of those being utilizing my available time off. My question is, in this situation of being a new-ish employee, does it reflect poorly on me to take these two days off?

You’re three months in. You’re obviously sick. You have nothing to worry about!

Frankly, even if it were your third week rather than your third month, people get sick! Your body doesn’t halt all illnesses just because you’re new to a job, and you’re not expected to come to work sick (and potentially infect others) just because you’re new. It’s not ideal to miss work when you’re new, but it happens. And you’re three months in; this is a non-issue.

Related:
Getting sick your first week at a new job

5. Job ads with a single number instead of a salary range

I’m job hunting for the first time in years and have been glad to see that many companies are including salary information in their job postings. However, a couple of times I’ve seen something that I’m not sure how to interpret: instead of listing a salary range, there’s a single figure listed. Should I take this to mean the number is firm or close to it, or go in assuming that that number is some part of what’s actually a range for the position (and if so, what point in the range is it likely to be?)? Why do companies do this?

Sometimes the number is firm (particularly in companies with policies around salary equity, where they want/need to ensure that people doing the same job at the same level aren’t compensated differently just because one person negotiated better than someone else). Sometimes it’s more indicative of the general range. You can’t really know from the outside, but in general it makes to assume that even if it’s a range, it’s a range pretty close to the number they named.

The post my office is infested with wasps, whispering in meetings, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

Fic: Reconnection

Monday, September 22nd, 2025 08:30 pm
andersenmom: (immature)
[personal profile] andersenmom
Title: Reconnection
Rating: G
Type: Fic
Size/length/word count etc.: 402
Prompt: 017: Twilight
Fandom/Ship: The Kingdom; Yang Dongsik | Louis, Go Sungho | Mujin
Notes/Warnings: Refers to The Kingdom’s lore.
Summary Louis throws parties, in part to let the others know where to find him when they remember who they are.

This one he modeled after Versailles. )

Find the table with the list of fics here

12 Week Year WAM Week 13

Monday, September 22nd, 2025 08:00 pm
andersenmom: (immature)
[personal profile] andersenmom
Weekly Score: 29.4% (10/34)

Goal 1: Declutter house and take care of family. 24% (6/25)

Review: I got caught up with laundry, and didn't feel the need to do more. So I didn't do much. No cleaning, and no dishes, either. There's only two of us, and we didn't do much cooking.

Goal 2: Catch up on Fannish50. 44% (4/9)

Review: I got some of these done, and only posted one. I'm almost caught up, though, and I can keep working on this.

Intentions for the future: Next 12 Week year. I can't believe it. G1: Do my physical therapy exercises. I had to stop them because I broke my foot, and everything hurts again. I am back in for my elbow, so I need to remember to add that in with everything else. G2: Take care of myself. THis includes getting to bed at a decent time, making sure I eat three meals, at least, go on walks, and try to whittle down my todo list, spend a pom a day on doing that. G3: Finish GYWO Build-a-Bingo and 100Ships. I will finish the Bingo, as I have a deadline for that, and I'll get as far as I can on 100Ships. Each fic I write goes for both challenges, so that works out, and as soon as I'm done with the Bingo, I'll keep writing on 100ships.

I also realized I'm doing this wrong. I've been doing the 12 Week Year for how long, and have just... made everything go 13 weeks. I just realized I don't need to do it that way. it's only supposed to be 12 weeks! So that's going to help too. So that's going to help too.
full_metal_ox: A gold Chinese Metal Ox zodiac charm. (Default)
[personal profile] full_metal_ox posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Mo Dao Zu Shi, Chen Qing Ling
Pairings/Characters: Gen; Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji, Jiang Cheng, Lan Xichen, Jiang Yanli, Jin Zixuan
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 26 photos
Creator Tags: char: jiang cheng, char: jiang yanli, char: jin zixuan, char: lan wangji, char: lan xichen, char: wei wuxian, fanwork: other
Creator Links: (AO3) [archiveofourown.org profile] Technomancer28; (DeviantArt) [deviantart.com profile] Abyss-Valkyrie; (Dreamwidth) [personal profile] abyss_valkyrie; (Tumblr) [tumblr.com profile] abyss-valkyrie

Theme: Food and Cooking, Non-Fic Recs: Crafts

Summary: So I spent all of yesterday and the night before making cupcakes and I wanted to try making some MDZS/Untamed character themed ones so these were very self indulgent and made me happy,lol.

Reccer's Notes: Exactly what it says on the tin: various characters from The Untamed, as symbolized by a photospread of fluffily ornate cupcakes; my own favorite is the Jiang Cheng one in fluorite swirls of violet and teal.

Fanwork Links: The Untamed cupcakes

Write Every Day September 2025 - Day 22

Monday, September 22nd, 2025 05:33 pm
carenejeans: (Default)
[personal profile] carenejeans
Sorry this is so late again. Mondays are hopeless...

Also, it's getting near the end of the month. Who will volunteer to host October? Raise your hand!


Quote of the Day:

"The ways creative work gets done are always unpredictable, demanding room to roam, refusing schedules and systems. They cannot be reduced to replicable formulas."

— Rebecca Solnit, "Woolf's Darkness," in Men Explain Things to Me (2014)


Today's Writing:

More words on that thing I thought of that I didn't want to forget. \o/


Tally

Days 1-20 )

Day 21: [personal profile] badly_knitted, [personal profile] brithistorian, [personal profile] callmesandyk, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] carenejeans, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] goddess47, [personal profile] luzula, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] trobadora

Day 22: [personal profile] china_shop


Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!

Lake Lewisia #1307

Monday, September 22nd, 2025 04:35 pm
scrubjayspeaks: Town sign for (fictional) Lake Lewisia, showing icons of mountains and a lake with the letter L (Lake Lewisia)
[personal profile] scrubjayspeaks
As the season meanders on, you may notice unexpected additions to your garden in the form of vines you had not previously tripped over and stalks where there had been empty space. These are simply ghost plants, drawing closer to their living kindred as harvest time does as well. They mean no harm, though we recommend against allowing any particularly active squash tendrils from anchoring to you while you garden: they may not be too selective about what they guide into the afterlife.

---

LL#1307

Monday: Ormolu

Monday, September 22nd, 2025 06:28 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: letters (letters)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi posting in [community profile] 1word1day
ormolu [ȯr-mə-ˌlü]

noun and adjective

1. the gilding technique of applying finely ground, high-carat gold–mercury amalgam to an object of bronze, and objects finished in this way

examples
1. Specialists stabilized the ormolu (gilt bronze) and enamel panels and, most critically, dismantled and repaired clockworks that had been corroded by dirty floodwaters. Drew Broach, NOLA.com, 21 Oct. 2017
2. "Oh, come, Miss Pebmarsh. What about the beautiful Dresden china clock on the mantelpiece? And a small French clock--ormolu. And a silver carriage clock and--oh, yes, the clock with 'Rosemary' across the corner." The Clocks by Agatha Christie.

origin

French or moulu, literally, ground gold

ormolu

[ SECRET POST #6835 ]

Monday, September 22nd, 2025 06:33 pm
case: (Default)
[personal profile] case posting in [community profile] fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6835 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.


More! )


Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 38 secrets from Secret Submission Post #976.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Shopping List (Transformers [G1], Starscream & Megatron)

Monday, September 22nd, 2025 05:10 pm
senmut: A simple Geometric Decepticon logo in purple, red and white on gray. (Transformers: Con Logo)
[personal profile] senmut posting in [community profile] no_true_pair
Title: Shopping List
Fandom: Transformers [G1]
Pairing/Characters: Starscream & Megatron
Content Notes: Decepticon humor
Prompt: September Twenty-two - 2 & 8 - grocery list




"Energon. Cabling. Chassis wiring."

"Dermaplates. Epoxy. Resin."

In unison, the pair said the next item on the list. "Optimus Prime's head on a plate."

The roar of laughter between them was frightening to the other Decepticons in the bay, but Megatron in high spirits, with Starscream in accord with him was plenty of reason to be terrified.

"This plan of yours, my traitor, just may net us that item finally," Megatron said, flicking over the rest of the pieces they had already acquired.

"Of course it will, my Lord, for it makes best advantage of their weakness."

"Indeed it does."

Ongoing Swaps

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2025 09:40 am
modzilla: Godzilla with a clipboard (Default)
[personal profile] modzilla posting in [community profile] fffx
I hope your assignments are, by and large, well suited to you!

Sometimes you and your recipient are not a great fit. Or sometimes you're excited about a request during sign-ups, and the moment you get assigned to it, you wonder what you were thinking. So: swaps.

If you would like to swap to any other participant, please get in touch before 11:59pm EDT, Thursday 25 September - mod.modzilla@gmail.com. Most swap requests can be granted.

After that time passes, you can still swap your assignment in the following circumstances:

-The request you want is a pinch hit. You can swap to any pinch hit until the January deadline.
-Your assigned recipient has an incomplete letter. You are welcome to swap to another recipient, whether they are a pinch hit or not, until the January deadline.

I think I've responded to all the swaps requests I've received so far - please contact me again if I've missed replying to you.

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