Culture Consumption: January 2026

Books

I’ve always loved Haymich as a character in the Hunger Games series and wished I knew more of the story (since we got so little of his background when in Katniss’ perspective). Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins satisfied all of that curiosity, revealing Haymich’s life before he was dragged into the Hunger Games, how he survived, and why he’s so broken for all the years afterwards. It also provides new context for many of the characters that showed up in the second book, Catching Fire, making their loss in that book even more heartbreaking.

Sunrise on the Reaping is a fantastic story, one that had me weeping big ugly tears by the end.

Books Finished This Month:

1. Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

2. The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World by Dorie Clark

Still in Progress:

The Losers: Part One by Harley Laroux, Hydra Medusa by Brandon Shimoda, and Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu.

Short Stories & Poetry

A selection of works I recently read in journals and online publications, with a few lines from the text shared here.

Horror: “Roadkill” by Nessa Cannon (The Horror Zine):

Poetry: "-ocide" by Shantell Powell (Eavesdrop Literary Magazine, a multi-media magazine):

Science Fiction: “Bots All the Way Down” by Effie Seiberg (Lightspeed Magazine):

Poetry: [What I no longer need to carry] by Kathy Nguyen:

Movies

Wake Up Dead Man is the third film in the Knives Out series. When Mons. Wicks (Josh Brolin) ends up dead in what appears to be an impossible murder, eyes turn to the young Father Jud (Josh O'Connor) who hated the man for the manipulative way Wicks maintained control over his parishioners. Fortunately, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) — famous detective and devout atheist — shows up, fascinated by the impossibility of the murder. As the case takes its twists and turns, Blanc is irritatingly charming and Jud remains a kind-hearted man just trying to do some good in the world.

One of my favorite moments is when Jud starts to get wrapped up with the excitement of solving the case, only to be met with someone wounded in need of advice and support. The conversation pulls him back from the chess game of the case, reminding him of who he is and why he joined the Church in the first place, as he offers this woman a small bit of solace in her trying time.

Honestly, the movie is wonderful, and it’s now competing for the top place of being my favorite in the Knives Out series.

Enola Holmes is a charming adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, in which the younger sister of Sherlock is almost or just as clever as her detective brother. Raised by their eccentric and rebellious mother, Enola is book read and brilliant, with skills and knowledge ranging from hand-to-hand combat and archery to science, chemistry, and the art of disguise (dressing as a posh lady, a boy, and a widow), but she’s lived a sheltered life with her mother in a country estate. She’s naive to certain aspects of the world and doesn’t understand the niceties of polite society, particularly when it comes to the restrictions imposed on women — and this leads to some rather humorous misunderstandings.

When her mother suddenly disappears and her brother Mycroft declares that she be put in a finishing school, she absconds to London in secret to find her mother. Along the way, she meets a young runaway about her own age, who is actually being hunted by an assasin. In striving to keep him safe and discover why someone would want him dead, Enola uncovers a great scheme that could change the future of the country.

The second movie in the series is also rather delightful, with both movies gently touching on the suffragette movement and the roles of women in the period.

M3GAN 2.0 is just so much fun. Attempting to correct her past mistakes (creating an AI robot that went rogue and killed several people), Gemma (Allison Williams) has become a public figure speaking out against the dangers of AI and urging parents to avoid technology usage with their kids. But these efforts have left her relationship with Cady (Violet McGraw), now twelve, strained, since Cady is interested in computing, despite her aunt’s fears.

When a rogue military AI goes rogue, killing all those who contributed to its creation, Gemma is forced to resurrect M3gan (Amie Donald), since she’s the only one strong enough to take the other bot on. This movie knows exactly what it’s supposed to be — fun, campy, and action packed — with a bonus dance number — and it leans into that with aplomb. I wouldn’t mind if they stretched it to a trilogy.

New-to-Me Movies Watched Last Month:

1. Enola Holmes (2020)

2. Enola Holmes 2 (2022)

3. Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story (2025)

4. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)

5. M3GAN 2.0 (2025)

Television

I don’t normally go for medical dramas, but a friend convinced me to watch The Pitt and oh, my goodness, it is so good. The show explores a single intense shift, with one hour of show time representing one hour of that shift. Dr. Michael Robinavitch, aka “Dr. Robbie” (played by Noah Wyle), is the head doctor at the ER, providing strict guidance and calm compassion to his doctors, student doctors, nurses, and patients alike. But his calm demeanor slowly starts to fracture over the shift as the trauma of loosing a friend during the COVID pandemic. Its a fantastic performance from Wyle and from everyone on this show, as the doctors and nurses face their own mistakes, the choices of their patients, and a multitude of misfortunes — all of which is just a regular day in an overpacked and understaffed ER.

The storytelling — from the writing to camerawork to the setting — immerses the viewer in the show, somehow managing to maintain consistency between the multiple plot lines and characters as we move from patient to patient. One of the things I really like about this show is how it doesn’t delve much into the personal lives or dramas of the doctors and nurses, except for what would naturally occur on the ER. There are no deep side conversations about who they’re dating or some such, because in the ER, there’s just not time for that. The focus is on the work of keeping patients alive in a struggling medical system. And yet, each character feels fully fleshed out and fully realized.

It’s just so good. Season two is currently being released week by week, but I’m holding off for the moment. I’ll probably binge it all in one go once it’s available.

Wayward is a tense mini-series about a school for troubled teens that delves deep into identity, self healing, brainwashing, and the power of cults to draw people in to their circle. Leila (Alyvia Alyn Lind) and Abbie (Sydney Topliffe) are two such troubled teens turning to drugs and rock-n-roll to deal with the world and figure out their place in the world — and find themselves caught up in the school’s troubling system to “fix the problem of adolescence”.

Alex (Mae Martin) recently moved to town with his wife, Laura (Sarah Gadon), who used to be a student at the school. As he settles into being an officer in the community, he starts to question certain unsettling aspects of this town.

Meanwhile, Toni Collette gives a powerful performance as the charismatic Evelyn Wade, head of the school. She’s obsessed with controlling everything and carries all the intensity of a cult leader, accustomed to bringing people under their whim.

Wayward is intense and deeply unsettling. Nothing really resolves in the way I would have expected it to, and I would love to have a conversation with folks about it.

The second season of Fallout wrapped up, and it was another great ride. Lucy and the Ghoul have teamed up to look for their father — and some of the best humor early on surrounds the Ghoul being delighted by Lucy becoming increasingly corrupted by the wasteland. Meanwhile, Maximus is back with the Brotherhood and wrapped up in the system, and Lucy’s brother is sowing chaos within Vault 31 in order to survive.

It’s been interesting to see how each character continues to change and grow throughout the new season. The question of who could and should get an opportunity to “save” the wasteland — and how — continues to be in question, with each faction bringing its own terrible ways into the fray. I really enjoyed this season, and I’m sad it’s over so soon.

Games

Sorry We’re Closed (á la mode games) is a survival horror game with immense amounts of style. The art (which is one of the first things that attracted me to it) is stunning, both the nostalgic computer graphics and the character portraits. The music hits the perfect vibes and the gameplay adds to the survival horror experience.

Michelle is a young woman working in a corner shot in a small neighborhood in London. Though on another continent, the community feels very much like some of the counter-culture neighborhoods I’ve seen in San Francisco, being full of charming punks, oddballs, and weirdos. Everyone seems a bit on edge, considering the number of disappearances in the area.

Michelle is struggling after breakup with her ex girlfriend, who is now a TV star with episodes of her constantly playing and reminding her of what she lost. One night, a terrifying nightmare enters her bedroom and places a curse on her. It marks her as the property of a demon, known as the Duchess, who demands that Michelle love her and/or end up as one of her many victims being tortured for all eternity.

In order to combat the curse, Michelle has to enter nightmare realms full of demons bent on tearing her apart. These segments of survival horror contrast with the other areas of the game, in which Michelle wanders around her neighborhood and chats with her friend and neighbors. In the nightmare areas, she faces these demons with a combination of weapons and a limited ammo.

The actual combat mechanic is both fascinating and sometimes frustrating. It involves exploring the areas with a third-person fixed-camera perspective, and then switching to first person perspective in order to use weapons and attack. At times, this switch can be disorienting, causing me to be wildly off with my shooting or escape. But I eventually got used to it (for the most part).

Another element is the Third Eye ability, which shifts perspective between the real world and hell worlds in which she finds herself. The technique helps to solve puzzles and get past impossible obstacles. It also stuns enemies, making it easier to combat them.

Everything kind of circles around themes of lust, love, and obsession, with certain aspects that feel inspired by Hellraiser. All of the community members seem be caught up in their own relationships and desire for love, while the Duchess herself is desperate to get back the love she lost when she fell from heaven. Even the combat reflects this, with the demons having hearts that can be broken to take them down more quickly.

Sorry We’re Closed was such a cool experience, and I’m planning on playing it again (despite the wonky, for me, combat). I have many more thoughts, which I will write up soon.

Stray (BlueTwelve Studio) is a cozy cat game set in a post-apocalyptic scifi world. A ginger tabby is separated from his family, after a pipe breaks casting him down into the dark depths of an underground city. After finding a tiny flying robot with spotty memories, kitty and bot attempt make their way up through the depths and back to the surface. Along the way, the kitty meets and befriend a number of companion bots, and the player gets a look at a world in which humanity is lost, but remembered through the manners and longings of the robots left behind.

I intended for Stray to be a break from playing SOMA — only to realize that Stray is also a horror game at certain points. The Zurks, tiny little offshoots of a virus that has grown wildly out of control, attempt to consume everything that crosses their path, both flesh and metal alike. As the player delves deeper into their nests, they grow increasingly terrifying in ways I wasn’t prepared for.

Despite the unexpected horrors, I loved the game. It does a wonderful job creating the experience of embodying the life of cat, while creating a haunting and wistful world. (My full review of it is up on Once Upon the Weird.)

Soma (Frictional Games) is absolutely terrifying. I’ve played Layers of Fear, Resident Evil 2 Remake, and Resident Evil Village (particularly the Dollhouse level), but nothing has gotten to me quite as much as Soma. The level of “nope” is intense.

The set up is interesting — a man with brain damage after an accident goes for an experimental medical scan, only to wake up in a derelict underwater station infested with rogue robots bent of killing anything that moves. Considering the set up and a number of “glitchy” moments, the game seems to be suggesting that this is all a simulation. But simulation or no, I’m so stressed trying to get through this game.

I’ve been taking a break for a couple of weeks, but plan to get back to it. I’me genuinely curious to see where all of this is going.

I’ve had some new ideas for a puzzle game I’d like to make, which would require me to learn some coding. As part of the planning process, I decided to pull up some games that a similar style fo simple puzzle that I’m going for with this project.

The first is Landlord of the Woods (Madison Karrh), in which the player character is frustrated by their life and escapes into the woods to take up the role of landlord for a bunch of odd creatures. Each one requires collecting a specific kind of rent, reflecting their personality. To collect the rent, the player has discover where it is by solving a variety of simple puzzles. I particularly like the way Karrh layers her puzzles, with the solutions being hidden inside other puzzles, which might be a way to approach things with my game.

A Little to the Left (Max Inferno) is a charming puzzle game in which the player organizes various objects. In some cases, it’s a junk draw of screws, tape, and tools. In other cases, it might be books, pencils, or other objects. I’m interested in the way these puzzles are deceptively simple. In some cases, the solution is so obvious I overlook it entirely, and I’m wondering how I might use simple design like this to reflect a specific narrative experience.

That's it for me! What are you reading? Watching? Loving right now?

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