cyphomandra | Network

2025/148: The Mirror and the Light — Hilary Mantel

...he has no one to talk to, except Christophe and his turnkey and the dead; and with daylight the ghosts melt away. You can hear a sigh, a soufflation, as they disperse themselves. They become a whistling draught, a hinge that wants oil; they subside into natural things, a vagrant mist, a coil of smoke from a dying fire. [loc. 13141]

The finale to the trilogy that began with Wolf Hall and continued with Bring Up the Bodies, The Mirror and the Light covers the last four years of Thomas Cromwell's life, from the death of Anne Boleyn in 1536 to Cromwell's own execution in 1540. Cromwell is more powerful and successful than ever, but he's haunted by the dead: Cardinal Wolsey his mentor, Thomas More, the men and women he's condemned and sent to the scaffold or the pyre. At 900-odd pages, there's a certain amount of repetition, and the tension is uneven: but stitch by stitch, Cromwell's enemies collate the information that will lead him to the executioner's axe.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: thankful

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.

fleetsparrow posting in

writethisfanfic

Hello, friends! I hope your writing day was more productive than mine!

Poll #33650

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 1

View Respondents

The writing, friends. Was it productive?

View Answers

Of course it was! (genuine)
0 (0.0%)

...Of course it was! (lie)
0 (0.0%)

Let's not get lost in the weeds of "productivity" here
0 (0.0%)

It was a break and/or life day and that's fine!
1 (100.0%)

Umami...the fifth answer.
0 (0.0%)

If there's one thing I've learned from a life with chronic illnesses, it's that daily energy is not constant, no matter what we do. Some days you can do a lot, and some days just making it to the next day is a lot. Writing is like that, too.

And sometimes, even when you have the energy for writing and no other tasks that need to get done instead, you still just don't want to write. And that's OK, too. Our brains need rest the same as our bodies. Besides, when you come back to your writing, you'll be that much fresher and eager to do it.

fanweeklymod posting in

fandomweekly

Here are the entries for this week's challenge:

( List of entries )

In order to vote, please reply to this post using the form provided. All comments are screened, and entries are listed in the order they were submitted. For your vote to qualify, you must fill out your entire voting card (all three spots) in order to be counted. First place votes are worth 3 points, second place votes are worth 2 points, and third place votes are worth 1 point. Meeting the bonus goal on an entry gets an extra point for that submission.

When voting, please copy/paste the ENTRY NUMBER and the FIC TITLE from the list above into the spot you're voting for (this prevents accidentally mis-numbering a vote and casting it for the wrong entry). It should look like this:

First Place: 61. Fic Title Here
Second Place: 88. Another Fic Title
Third Place: 47. Finally a third fic title goes here

Please note that you cannot vote for your own entry, and that votes cannot be made anonymously. You do not have to be a member of the community in order to vote, nor have submitted an entry for this week; everyone is welcome to participate in the voting. IP addresses are logged to prevent duplicate voting.

Voting closes Wednesday, September 24, at 9:00PM EST.

nineweaving

I like that the New Year and the equinox are in balance. May this year bring peace.

Nine

stargrey posting in

fandomweekly

Theme Prompt: #274 – Near-Death Experience
Title: The Rotting
Fandom: Mexican Gothic
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 / Vomiting, fungal body horror, violent illness
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 692
Summary: Noemí struggles to recover from the assimilation with the gloom.

( Read more! )

marycatelli

It's always interesting, doing a journey.

The interruptions of attacks or broken bridges are one thing, but it's always a trick to convey to the reader that the journey was long and wearisome without the passage being long and wearisome.

marycatelli

Jeeves and the Tie That Binds by P.G. Wodehouse

The continuing adventures. Spoilers for the earlier works ahead.

( Read more... )

cornerofmadness

It's Mabon here in the north. It's my favorite time of year. It was not off to a good start today but you know what? It's all just minor work stuff and it'll work itself out.

I don't understand what Rybelsus did to me but ever since I took it just for those 3 days (and it took another 3 to recover) it seemed to reset me. My diabetes is doing good, blood sugar down to normal levels. I know it won't last and it makes me sad I couldn't deal with the side effects. It would be nice not to have to worry about all the damage done from the high sugars.

Had the authors' zoom tonight. It was a short one but that's okay because storms were raging around and I got a lot of words and I finished my second

wipbigbang which is great. Now to get moving on other things. Too much to do.

And I got a request for my bio and buy links from the cryptid anthology I'm in. Finally. Still no release date.

So Mothman festival (pictures like all my pictures coming eventually). Last year I went on Saturday but my friend TH wanted to come with me this year and he couldn't go until Sunday. You know what, SO much better. On Saturday even getting there are 830 (it starts at 10) there was NO parking. Had to park blocks away (for some reason I wish I knew why, pre covid we had to park 2.5 miles in Krodel park but there were buses to the fest, now you still have to park there and WALK to town. No way)

But since Sunday had no 5K mothrun we got to park in the handicapped lot (which I doubt anyone knew existed because very few others asked the boys to move the blockage and let them in. I'm not shy about that). Last year everything was open before 10 (thank you racers) but yesterday no one was expect Silver Bridge coffee (my local favorite brand) I got caught and me and TH sat at a sidewalk table talking until things opened.

It was cool then (ended up around 90 by noon though) We left before 1 and the talks started but let's face it, I'm getting old and TH is several years older than me and it was getting hot. How many Bigfoot talks can we go to?!? We dipped out on that.

So it was a nice few hours of shopping around (and me showing him the new stores because he's a homebody and didn't even know about these stores) It's good. The town is recovering a little and it's great to see and for perspective, Point Pleasant has about 4,000 people. The festival had nearly 40K. Yeah.

Did I get much? No, oddly enough not as much as I usually do but again how much more crap do I need? I got some pins from the guy with popculture stuff, a couple fridge magnets, one book on creepy florida (ha, didn't expect that!) and two more cds from Nox Arcana whom I love. And some more infused maple syrup from the sellers I buy from every year.

I ran into a former student and we'll hopefully by hiring her on as part of the wellness committee to teach yoga.

Lunch was special...bad special, delicious but bad from coal miner diner, a hot dog with cheese, bacon, fried pickles and slaw. I felt SO much better after that and that caused me concern. I think my BP has been low (another sign I might have a slow bleed ulcer) I mean think of all the salt in that. It made me feel good so it raised my pressure up.

I saw storm troopers, ghost busters, men in black, mothmen, the hodag (another cryptid I lived in his town) and the hot new cryptid this year was the Squonk! That's right, the one I was going to his festival in July but had to house sit. He's also in the other cryptid story I wrote that I'm still waiting to hear (I hope they're not one of those we're never telling you you didn't get in) I didn't buy any squonk stuff. Maybe next year if my story gets taken in.

TH is looking at me like I'm crazy because I'm like hey Vendor, saw you at the Kecksburg fest, yo how was the bigfoot fest. No, not crazy but I am deeply weird.

It's just a free for all Music Monday share whatever makes your weird little heart happy. I'll go first.

For Mabon -

Watch on YouTube

and here's the album I bought

Watch on YouTube

Current Mood: drained
Current Music: Signs of a Psychopath

likeadeuce

I swore off exchanges after last year, ESPECIALLY yuletide, but I keep getting obsessed with weird little movies and so i have submitted nominations.

username: Likeadeuce
Did you add this to the spreadsheet already?: Yes
Nomination OR Request?: Nomination
Fandom: A History of Sound (2025)
Character 1: Lionel Worthing
Character 2: David White
Character 3: Belle White Sinclair
Character 4: Vincent (The History of Sound)

Fandom:Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Character 1: Llewyn Davis
Character 2: Jean Berkey
Character 3: Mike Timlin (Inside Llewyn Davis)
Character 4: Al Cody

Fandom: A Complete Unknown (2024)
Character 1: Bob Dylan (A Complete Unknown)
Character 2: Johnny Cash (A Complete Unknown)
Character 3: Joan Baez (A Complete Unknown)
Character 4: Pete Seeger (A Complete Unknown)

Fandom: Babygirl (2024)
Character 1: Romy Mathis
Character 2: Samuel (Babygirl)
Character 3: Esme Smith
Character 4: Jacob Mathis

Fandom: Saltburn (2023)
Character 1: Oliver Quick
Character 2: Felix Catton
Character 3: Venetia Catton
Character 4: Farleigh Start

agoodwinsmith

Kenvue is now the parent company of Tylenol, previously hived off from Johnson & Johnson.

As soon as I heard the nonsense about Autism, I went searching for the real story that must be fueling this vendetta. And there is something paywalled on New York Times. So, I don't know what it is, but I know that somebody has failed to leap at the chance to be a sycophant.

norightturn_feed

Posted by Idiot/Savant

http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2025/09/still-wibbling.html

On Monday, Australia, Canada, and the UK finally recognised Palestine. Today, France followed suit. Meanwhile, New Zealand is still wibbling:

Foreign Minister Winston Peters has refused to be drawn over whether New Zealand will join nations taking steps to formally recognised a Palestinian state.
[...]
Peters said there were many days to go, and he planned to spend those days "finding out all the facts".
"We've been waiting 80 long years for an answer here, and a few days finding out all the facts will not be wasted."
Asked what information he was searching for while in New York this week, Peters said "we're here to listen, hear all the arguments, all the facts as best known, and when we have them, we will finalise our decision".

I assume the "facts" he is waiting to hear are his marching orders from the fascist regime in Washington. Because he is clearly not interested in what is happening on the ground in Gaza - genocide, a crime against humanity - or in the views of fellow UN member-states, 80% of whom recognise Palestine. Let alone those of New Zealanders, 40% of whom support immediate recognition (vs 22% who oppose it).

Once upon a time, Aotearoa stood up for what was right on the international stage. This regime clearly will not. If we want a government which reflects our values, they have to go.

(Of course, recognition is only the first step. We need full sanctions and a trade-ban on Israel, an international tribunal to prosecute those responsible for genocide and war crimes, and an international effort to identify, locate, and arrest them).

http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2025/09/still-wibbling.html

labingi

Happy Bilbo and Frodo's Birthday! (In the great crossover 'verse in my mind, Frodo is 96 this year, I think. My math is bad, but for reasons unlikely to become apparent right now, my reference point is he's 46 years older than me, so.)

In honor of this year's birthday, I thought I'd respond Tolkienesquely to a video I recently watched, LibraryofaViking's "What Modern Fantasy Gets Wrong (and why it matters)," which is interesting and nuanced, and, its clickbaity title notwithstanding, respectful toward fantasy old and new.

Watch on YouTube

Specifically, I want to respond to the video's reference to R. F. Kuang's defense of fantasy (and SF?) being ideological. I have not seen/read her speech. I'm responding to this video's reference to it; folks familiar with the whole are welcome to add context. I gather that Kuang defends ideological fantasy against the common (often rightwing) critique that it's being ruined by being too "ideological" or "political" (i.e. "woke"). As characterized by LibraryofaViking, she argues that it is artistically valid to take an ideological stand and pursue it didactically in a genre novel.

The Problem I See with (Some) Modern "Ideological" SF&F

I agree ideological didacticism is valid (i.e. it should be publishable and socially allowable, and it can have good artistic quality—Jemisin, for me, is an example; I haven't read Kuang). Likewise, I agree the rightwing critique often has a subtext that the problem is not (entirely) being ideological but being leftwing. It's not just critiquing bad writing; it's critiquing values the critic doesn't agree with and casting this disagreement as a question of "writing quality." Side note: these aren't separate issues; values and artistic quality are entangled, but they are also not the same thing.

That said, as someone often annoyed by the didacticism of modern SF&F, for me, the problem is not that it's ideological; it's that it's simplistic. ( Read more... )

full_metal_ox posting in

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)

Technomancer28; (DeviantArt)

Abyss-Valkyrie; (Dreamwidth)

abyss_valkyrie; (Tumblr)

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

marginaliana

Various:

--Currently reading Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke, which is a silly epistolary novel told via slack messages at a PR company in which one of the characters has had his consciousness mysteriously uploaded into the company's slack channels and all his coworkers think it's a bit. Also Slackbot is having an existential crisis. Also the gentlest of satires of a PR business carries on around it all. I have actually read this before but did not retain it (as discovered when I checked out the ebook and it opened to the last page) but that just means I get to enjoy it fresh. Do recommend as very light reading.

--The makers of the game Shovel Knight wanted the characters to be body and pronoun swappable - this is a great article about their process of designing the system

--The Book of Love by Kelly Link - DNF. I don't even know any teenagers but I know this is not what teenagers are like, even if they've just come back from the dead. Contains: stereotypical teen sister drama with zero nuance, mysterious authority figure knows things but doesn't reveal any of them and speaks only in the most cryptic of ways because reasons, etc. There was one interesting/creepy bit of worldbuilding but I couldn't be bothered to see if anything came of it because I was so annoyed by everything else. It doesn't seem like it was sold as YA but god it felt desperately 2004-YA. And jagged, in that way modern pop literature uses jaggedness to mean reality. Anyway, unsurprisingly this got rave reviews and I hated it violently.

--Reread Jonathan Livingston Seagull which I believe I last encountered in my teen years and the only reaction I can manage is disdain. But why? Has western society passed out of the time of fable? Am I too close-minded for metaphor? Or is the book just fundamentally not very good? Honestly, I really don't think it's very good. I'm prepared to accept it conceptually but the different sections just don't go. It's cramming five different concepts into a seagull-shaped trenchcoat, and three of those concepts are trying to bite each other's faces off.

--Everyone should tell me their yuletide nominations just so I can be delighted about things I'm probably not going to write.

kalloway

Whew! A whole week got away from me. I am a little behind on the Accidental Advent, but I will have time this week to catch up. ^^;;

(Sunday's belated post)

Yesterday was our annual family expedition to Eastern Market in Detroit, so my fridge is filled with vegetables. At some point shortly, all stir-fry all the time, lol. I am very excited. I didn't mean to buy as much as I did, but everything looked so good!

It's Tokyo Game Show week and as usual, I took a couple of days off for it. Honestly, the official streaming schedule is pretty anemic. There are two or three things I might watch, and one S-E stream. I'm not sure who else might have streaming presentations that I want to watch...

(but since it's my ~annual 'clean the utility room' weekend, I'll also be doing that!)

I finished my

iddyiddybangbang project and will be posting it later in the week! I took one of the amnesty dates both because I was So Busy last weekend/week and because I just wasn't done. But now I am (and I suppose if I'd not been so busy I might've finished then?) and I've also leveled up my time management and project management skills.

Yeah, mostly I'm just thrilled to have the Project done!

a_little_apocalypse posting in

fandomweekly

Theme Prompt: #274 - Near-Death Experience
Title: Silenced
Fandom: Control
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, spoilers
Bonus: No
Word Count: 945
Summary: It's been a week since the expedition, and Trench still isn't talking.

( Silenced )

scintilla10

letzan posted about recent "high velocity f/f fandoms":

I want to shine an occasional spotlight on fandoms that are in flux. There are two kinds of fandoms here:

Fandoms that are growing rapidly, which are typically not in the top 20 now, and may never get there, but might be interesting for F/F readers to check out and encourage.

Fandoms that are losing ground on the top 20, and seem to be "post-peak." They may well peak again in the future, but it's a good moment to look back at the impressive amount of F/F which has been written so far.

There were some real surprises (to me) in both the list of femslash fandoms that are growing over the last 3 months, and those "losing ground."

letzan is also soliciting femslash recs for all of the fandoms listed in the post!

Take a peek for yourself.

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:

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

callmesandyk,

china_shop,

carenejeans,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora

Day 22:

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!