Culture Consumption: July 2025

Books

In Hollow Tongue by Eden Royce, Maxine returns to her family home to get back on her feet after losing her job. Although she remembers the verbal abuse both she and her mother endured, she believes that she can handle her father now as an adult, especially since her mother has escaped and moved on. The house she returns to is mostly as she remembers, but older with signs of mold and disrepair — and notably with no sign of her father. Wandering alone through the empty rooms, she begins to sense something is wrong.

This book is brilliant in the way it handles its portrayal familial abuse and the need to claim what’s yours despite the horrors. While there is quiet and solitude in the early chapters, they nevertheless are incredibly tense and build to a truly horrifying end.

Books Finished This Month:

1. Hollow Tongue by Eden Royce

2. Alley by Junji Ito

3. Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games, edited by J. Robert Lennon and Carmen Maria Machado

Total Books for the Year: 29

Still in Progress:

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix, Synchronicity by Tureeda Mikell, and Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

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: "Quietly Gigantic" by K.C. Mead-Brewer (Strange Horizons):

Two Poems by Lisa Marie Basile (Lover's Eye Press):

Fantasy: "Little Gardens Everywhere" by Avra Margariti (Giganotosaurus):

Poetry: "Bees in supplication" by Lee Potts (Verse Daily):

Science Fiction: "Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy" by Martha Wells (Reactor Mag):

Poetry: "An Octopus" by Marianne Moore (All Poetry):

Movies

Final Destination: Bloodlines was a fun, brutal ride. The story opens, as Final Destination movies typically do, with a terrifying vision of a host of people dying in a traumatic way. In this case, a date night at the most up and coming venue at the top of a tower comes tumbling down (which in now way evokes the brutal and gory series of deaths that ensue).

Decades later, Iris’ eldest granddaughter, Stefani Reyes, is having terrible nightmares of that night, even though she was never there. After family members start to die, she comes to realize that death is killing off her family, because Iris was supposed to have died and none of them should have existed. Over the course of the movie, Stefani attempts to find a way to save everyone, while family members are picked off one by one in a series of gruesome deaths. The script is solid, but a chunk of the fun is watching each impossibly Rube-Goldberg-esque death unfold in creative and sometimes humorous ways.

After watching the whole of Andor, I immediately returned on Rogue One, which I haven’t watched since it first came out. I always thought the movie was fun, but within the context of the show, the movie — in which the character’s give their all to the cause — was all that more powerful.

New-to-Me Movies Watched Last Month:

1. Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025)

2. Jackass 3D (2010)

3. Fear Street: Prom Queen (2025

4. Enter the Anime (2019)

Television

I’ve been meaning to watch Andor for a while, and with all the recent praise for season two, it seemed the right time. The first season was a great introduction to Cassian Andor, a young man who starts out just trying to survive amidst injustice before finally becoming a true rebel. His journey takes him from a heist to prison and into other dangers that reveal to him the need to take a stand against the oppression of the Empire.

It also introduces a host of other characters, ranging from spies to politicians to Empire employees — presenting various perspectives on the universe. Each one has their own complexity as they manage their need to work for or against the Empire while trying to hold to the meaning behind their work and balance the importance of their family and relationships. This made the Star Wars universe feel more grounded in reality than any movie or show that came before it.

As good as the first season is, however, Andor’s second season is where it really shines. Each three episode arch represents a single year, counting down the events of Rogue One. I was awed by the depth and brilliant storytelling brought forth for each character and their journey. Definitely one of my favorites for the year.

The last two episodes of Murderbot were wonderful, especially the final episode, which further explores the Corporation’s focus on profit over people. We also get to see the Preservation Aux team come together in a concerted effort to save Muderbot after all its efforts earlier in the show to protect them. The ending hits a perfect note — and I’m excited that a season two is coming and can’t wait to see how they approach the stories and characters to come.

Late one night, I was looking for something with Stephen King vibes and turned to Castle Rock, an anthology TV show based on King’s fictional town of the same name. The first season is set in the modern day. A kid (Bill Skarsgård) is found locked up in a secret cell in a closed off section of a prison, creating a problem because no one knows who he is. When brought out, he says only one thing, “Henry Deaver,” the name of a death row lawyer (played by André Holland). Drawn back into town, Henry has to face the past — since most of the town blames him for the death of his father, who was also the local preacher. The show unfolds an interesting mystery that builds to a strange supernatural reveal. On the whole, I enjoyed the show, even if the ending didn’t quite hit that mark for me. But it definitely scratched that King-esque itch.

However, my favorite episode by far was solely focused on the perspective of Ruth Deaver (Sissy Spacek), Henry’s mother who is beginning to experience dementia. The episode portrays the experience like living out of time, jumping between moments with no control of when you’re going. Meanwhile, there’s a looming threat in the present that Ruth is trying to defend herself against, but the shifting keeps throwing her out of focus. Her only link to the now is a set of chess pieces left around the house and yard, like markers in time to draw her back out of the past. Spacek’s performance is powerful, and the episode is incredibly moving. I might have to write something on just this episode alone.

While I was visiting family, they turned on Community for several of the days. I’m not sure how many episodes I watched or in what seasons. What I do know is that is that I loved this charming group of misfits, who joined together as a study group, at a rather bizarre community college, where things can go wild at any moment. My favorite episodes were the paintball episodes, in which the school sets out a paintball challenge with a ridiculously high prize, resulting in everything churning into utter chaos.

Games

Braid: Anniversary Edition (Thekla, Inc.) is a classic indie puzzle-platformer known for its innovative time-based gameplay, in which the player rewinds time to solve puzzles. These puzzles often require a combination intuition and precise button timing to accomplish. Since I’m not great at platforming and suck at precise time-based actions, some of these sections were a challenge for me. In other cases, I could manage the platforming, but struggled with the puzzle, so I unabashedly looked up hints as needed.

Most of the narrative is presented at the beginning of each level through a series of pedestals holding books. As the player passes each one a passage opens, revealing pieces of the story. It’s a lot of text up front, and I can imagine some players skipping most of it. However, I like the way the gameplay elements (specifically time manipulation) reflect the game's overall themes regarding memory, regret, and the desire to do things differently. The final level — essentially a boss fight — also provides a twist on expectations, demonstrating the unreliable narration of the player-character up until this point.

I can’t say that I loved Braid, but I’m glad I played it. It’s such a classic, and I’ve heard it discussed often. So, I’m glad I now better understand what this game is and how it was designed.

Horizon: Zero Dawn (Guerrilla Games) is my comfort game these days. So, even though I had already finished it, I jumped back in and decided to complete some more tasks (such as killing six fireclaws), and that led me to working through the various achievements. So, I 100%-ed the achievements, getting my first platinum trophy — something of which I’m rather proud.

All I have left is to New Game+ on ultra-hard mode, which I’m not quite prepared to do. But I still find myself jumping into this beautiful world. One time, I found a mount and rode around, randomly exploring the beautiful landscapes. Another time, I battled some machines just for the hell of it. I could attempt to find all the data messages in the world (certainly an immense task). Or, I could just restart the story.

I have so many other games left half-played that I want to get back into and have even more games waiting in my backlog. And yet, I find myself reluctant to leave Aloy’s world.

One of the many delightful things on my recent trip to visit family was how excited my niece and nephew were to play video games with me. Each have their own favorite multiplayer game (that they’ve put hundreds of hours into), and each of them, in their own way, carried me though the experience. It meant so much that they didn’t care how good I was at the game — they just wanted me to play with them.

My niece is in love with Sky: Children of the Light, developed by Thatgamecompany, who also made Journey (one of my favorite games). Sky feels thematically and stylistically connected to Journey. It focuses on the restoration or light and the healing of spirits in the world, with some levels presenting a looming darkness.

I had fun exploring this world with my niece, who talked me through what to do and how to explore the game. At certain points, the game allowed me to even hold her hand, so that she could lead me through. On many of the darker, more dangerous levels, she literally carried me, hauling my character along with ease. She led me through the entire story to the end of the game. Thanks to playing through the whole story so quickly (thanks to her guidance), I’m not entirely sure about the full details of the game regarding story or even gameplay. But ultimately, the joy of it was her joy in sharing this experience with me.

My nephew is a huge fan of Fortnite (Epic Games) and we played round after round in the Blitz Royale mode. Blitz is a fast-paced, 32-player mode that can be completed in around five minutes. It’s super fun running around with my nephew, and mostly watching him annihilate other players, while I was lucky to get a single kill. He was very sweet about my skill level, always talking me up and telling me that I was getting better. All of the crown wins I have are entirely thanks to him, and I’m okay with that.

The communion of play, the joy of collaboration is a beautiful thing about game experiences. And I’m glad when I get to share it with loved one.

Since I took part in the Neo-Twiny Jam last month, I wanted to play as many of the games by other creators as I could. Here are the ones that stood out for me:

• “So, you want to be a vtuber?” by Lapys Aoneeris – Explore the sad and disturbing realities of being a vtuber.

• "Her Name Was" by star☆sapphire – An immortal tries to remember lost loves.

• "The City Leaving Your Eyes" by star☆sapphire – An attempt to find hope in the face of apocalypse.

• "Petrichor" by abby blenk – A poetic walk in the rain

• "Crowned in Vermilion" by halcyyyon – Explore the dark corridors of a castle to kill the king.

• "Nihilist Syndrome" by crotovane – A strange and haunting story, with beautifully unsettling art.

• "The Tightrope" by toothinajar – Ride the tightrope... chicken out, commit, or fall.

• "Cassandra" by manonamora – An interactive exploration of a classic myth.

I also really enjoyed Koway’s “A Dying Snake,” which uses the classic snake game to explore the ephemerality of life.

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