Culture Consumption: November 2025

Books

Never Whistle at Night, edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., is a phenomenal anthology of indigenous dark fiction. The stories in this collection are unsettling, brutal, and bloody, presenting supernatural thrillers and the horrors of humanity—all from a range of voices both new and well established. I had so much fun reading these tales, and I’m looking forward to a new collection from these editors, which is reportedly on the horizon.

Rosa's Einstein is a stunning collection of poems by Jennifer Givhan. The collection is a lyrical, Latine retelling of the Brothers Grimm tale, “Snow White and Rose Red,” blended with story of Lieserl (Albert Einstein’s forgotten daughter). The text blurs the edges between the scientific and the fantastical, offering whispers of hope and healing in a harsh world.

Books Finished This Month:

1. The Stand by Stephen King

2. Rosa's Einstein: Poems by Jennifer Givhan

3. Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

Total Books for the Year: 43

Still in Progress:

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark, Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, and Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown.

Movies

Weapons was a tense, stressful, delight of a horror movie. Following the mysterious disappearance of an entire class of students — all of whom go running out into the night — a local town turns its suspicions to the teacher, Justine (played by Julia Garner). I was floored by the creativity of this film, regarding its structure and visual storytelling. At no point was I able to fully predict what would happen as we learned more about what led to this series of bizarre events. In addition, Amy Madigan gives a show-stealing performance, and ending is just so wild.

New-to-Me Movies Watched Last Month:

1. The Maze Runner (2014)

2. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015)

3. Weapons (2025)

4. The Neon Demon (2016)

5. The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker (2023)

6. Sinister (2012)

7. Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015)

8. Satan Wants You (2023)

Television

I’m enjoying Welcome To Derry, a prequel to Stephen King’s It, portraying the town of Derry in the 1960s during a cycle of violence created by an ancient creature that feeds on fear. The show has a core cast of kids who face immense horrors of the clown-monster stalking and terrifying them and are forced to take events into their own unprepared hands when the adults refuse to believe them (a staple of the original novel and movies).

However, the show has an interesting twist in that it brings a secret government program into the fray. The military wants to claim and use the creature for their own ends and has employed a psychic to track it down. It creates an additional layer of tension, because it’s clear that achieving this goal would be very, very bad for not just Derry, but the world as a whole.

I’m curious to see what this is all building to (at first, I assumed a grand finale that ended the story, but I just noticed that there might be two more seasons coming, so who knows).

Secret Level is an anthology TV show that presents short animated tales from popular video games. I recently scrolled through the list of episodes, curious about what games were included in the episodes. The vast majority were franchises I never played or were not particularly interested in. But since I am currently in the midst of playing The Outer Worlds 2, I decided to watch the episode, “The Outer Worlds: The Company We Keep.”

When Amos, an orphan doing odd jobs on a backwater planet, learns that his childhood friend is now a scientist on a research project funded by the Auntie’s Choice corporation, he signs up as a test subject to see her again, even for just one small moment. The episode perfection captures the satire of the game, exploring the way people are exploited in these corporation-run communities. It’s both humorous and heartbreaking in just the right ways.

In NOS4A2, a mysterious man driving a 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith kidnaps children and vampirically feeds off of them to maintain his immortality. The only one capable of stopping him is Vic, a young woman struggling to figure out her place in the world, who discovers she has the power to open a bridge to what’s lost. The show is fun and well acted, and I am particularly in loved with Vic and her amazing hair.

The only part that really throws me off is the whole “Christmas Land” tale that the villain tells, claiming that’s where he’s taking the children. Every time it’s mentioned, I’m pulled out of the story. Nevertheless, I’m planning to keep watching to see how the series wraps up in the second season.

I also watched The Manhattan Alien Abduction, a three episode documentary about an alleged alien abduction in which a woman is pulled from her bedroom out of a Manhattan skyscraper. According to one side of the story, this event has the most witnesses out of any abduction and is therefore the most legitimate case ever reported. According to others, it’s just a massive hoax. An interesting doc, if you like paranormal stories.

Games

The Outer Worlds 2 (Obsidian Entertainment) has been an absolute delight, consuming large swaths of my time (including a couple of ten hour days of play). Set in a different system of the galaxy than the first game, the player is a an Earth Directorate agent, who end up trapped in an escape pod after their team is betrayed on a mission. Ten years later, the only surviving member of the team manages save you, and you are faced with the task of tracking down the traitor who kicked off the series of catastrophes in the first place.

As much as I enjoyed the first Outer Worlds, the sequel resonates with me so much more. And I think that’s in part due to the core of the story having personal stakes. The traitor matters; they cost the player their team and lost them ten years of their life. It feels so much more narratively relevant (as opposed to being pulled into a situation without context by some kind of mad-seeming scientist to save the world). Having a former team member there also anchors that connection.

I also just really love the companions this time around. Niles is so interesting, especially seeing him go from a hopeful, eager kid to a traumatized survivor finding his hope again. Marisol is fascinating as an aging spy in hiding, bringing a sense of grounded wisdom and a desire to do better than her past. And Inez, Aza, Tristan, and Val are also fun and interesting characters to bop about on worlds with (though I do I wish I overheard more conversations between the characters as we were roaming).

The factions in this game are also fascinating. Of course, the corporations are present in the form of Auntie’s Choice, bringing their sense of “pull yourself up by your metaphorical bootstraps” commercialism and exploitation. But then there’s also the Protectorate (an authoritarian regime that relies on mind-control), the Order of the Ascendant (a science-focused society that believes the future can be mathematically deduced), The Glorious Dawn (a cult that worships space rifts), and Sub Rosa (black market traders). They each have uniquely interesting points of view, and it’s been fascinating to explore how they have shaped these worlds, especially if you’re trying to keep the peace as much as possible (like me).

Another interesting element is how you build out your character in the game, because if you fail to level up certain skills, it can lock you out of certain looting (such as needing Engineering to open broken doors) or dialog options. It’s also possible to acquire negative traits in the game, which are suggested based on how you’re playing the game. Eat tons of food to heal? Get offered the “Gluttony” trait. Sneak around using crouch a lot? You have the chance to get “Bad Knees” trait.

One of the early negative traits I picked up was “Jack of All Trades” in response to me spreading out my skill points a bit. The trait requires the player to spread their skill points out by only allowing them to choose from the lowest ranked skills (except for the traits with zero points). As a result, I couldn’t just dump points to level up a specific skill, which created some frustration points when I’m blocked by certain skill checks. I wouldn’t recommend this negative trait for a first-time play, but I decided to just roll with my choices and continued to enjoy the experience.

From a quality of life perspective, I only had a few quibbles. One of the bigger things is that I wish I could swap companions out on the fly, since certain factions don’t like certain companions and sometimes you need to have certain companions on hand to complete their character quests. It would be nice to be able to tell them, “Hey, head back to the ship, and send so-and-so out here.”

Overall, the quests are fun — with a good variety of requiring stealth, combat, and/or just negotiation (depending on how you want to approach them). One of my favorites is a small moment in "Forbidden Secrets of the Undisputed Claim," which was really impactful because I had coincidentally watched “The Company We Keep” episode of Secret Level before playing. Although such a small moment in the game, it just gave me so many feels.

At this point I’m close to the ending (I hope), so I should be wrapping up the game soon.

Messenger by Vicente Lucendo and Michael Sungaila is a lovely browser game about exploring a tiny round world and delivering messages. You’re essentially dropped into this tiny city and giving the task of delivering messages to different inhabitants, giving you small insights into their worlds. It’s beautifully animated with sweet music, and a character creator lets you swap out your clothing style. As you wander, you also see other players running about delivering messages — all of us just doing our thing together.

“For Gregg” by Leon Barillaro is a text adventure about a manager who is about to be replaced with an AI system. As the player reviews the employee files, the bot becomes confused by the fact of employee Gregg’s death and frustratingly attempts grief counseling. The game is a powerful portrayal of how AI fails to understand humanity in the slightest.

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