Culture Consumption: October 2024

Books

Linghun by Ai Jiang is a gorgeous novella about a neighborhood known for its hauntings. Families move into homes and are able to call forth their loved ones from the beyond, allowing their spirits to live with them in the house. These haunted homes that allow the owners to call their dead loved ones in are in limited supply, leaving those on the outside desperate to gain access, so there are those who linger, sleeping on lawns and sidewalks, waiting for a home to open up and allow them a slim chance to bid for a home and the opportunity to connect with their dead. This novella is told from three points of view — Wenqi, a young girl whose parents move to one of the homes to connect with her brother; Liam, one of the lingerers desperate to leave this place once and for all; and Mrs., a mysterious resident who has lived in this neighborhood for decades. All three stories weaves together into a stunning exploration of how grief consumes us. Highly recommended.

The Angel of Indian Lake concludes Stephen Graham Jones’ phenomenal Indian Lake Trilogy. Jade Daniels returns to Proofrock, Idaho, following another stint in prison, now working as a history teacher thanks to her friend Letha. Once again the killings start up, with deaths occurring around Halloween — and there are signs of another massacre about to begin. At first Jade is adamant that she is out of it, that it is up to someone else to be the hero, but she quickly finds herself drawn back into the mess, with a deep desire to save the people of Prufrock, especially those she loves.

What I love about this conclusion to the trilogy is how much Jade has grown as a character. She’s strong and capable and fully herself, able to embrace her knowledge and love of horror, while also being apart of the community she once rejected and hated. Where in the first book, she was practically begging the universe to bring a slasher to town and burn everything down, now Jade cares about the people around her, wanting to protect them even if they’re not her friend. And importantly, she reassesses her definition of the “final girl” as she comes to realize she’s not truly alone in this fight. A fantastic trilogy and I’m so glad I read it.

Books Finished This Month:

1. The Angel of Indian Lake by Stephen Graham Jones

2. Linghun by Ai Jiang

Total Books for the Year: 30

Still in Progress at the End of the Month:

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, Even Greater Mistakes: Stories by Charlie Jane Anders, Procedural Storytelling in Game Design edited by Tanya X. Short and Tarn Adams, The Source of Self Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches and Meditations by Toni Morrison, Wandering Games by Melissa Kagen Fullerton, and The Mothman Prophecies by John Keel.

Short Stories & Poetry

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

SciFi Horror (CW: I don’t know what to label it, but it’s very disturbing): “Five Views of the Planet Tartarus” by Wendy Wagner (Lightspeed Magazine) —

Poem: “Asian Cowgirl Just Wants a Drink (And Maybe Also Your Body and Soul)” by Kimberly Ramos (Only Poems) —

Poetry: “October” by Stephanie Athena — 

Movies

I did a lot of travel this last month. Since I find myself trapped on planes for extended periods of time, I always use these flights as a time to catch up on movies that I’ve been meaning to watch. Here are a few of the ones I had the most fun with.

In Bodies Bodies Bodies, a group of twenty-somethings gather together at a mansion for a hurricane party. Most of the party is shocked when Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) arrives (since she may or may not have been invited) with a new girlfriend, Bee (Maria Bakalova), in tow. As the lights cut out and the party revs up, the group decides to play a murder mystery game, called bodies bodies bodies — except the game turns suddenly real when one of them ends up dead.

There’s a mystery-thriller element to this movie, but I would call it a dark comedy. All of the characters are entitled in some way, coming from wealth and privilege (except perhaps for Bee, who has her own secrets). What enfolds as the group panics following the first death is kind of a comedy of errors, in which things continue to go increasingly wrong and everyone’s deep dark secrets get dredged up to the surface. This leads to a perfectly pitched ending that left me completely satisfied and delighted.

I Saw the TV Glow is a beautiful, vibrant, and strange film about a pair of teens who share a love for a late-night kids show, called The Pink Opaque, about two psychically linked girls fighting evil monsters. Owen (Justice Smith) is socially awkward and over-protected by his family, while Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) is socially awkward in a different way — but their connection through the show helps them through their awkward years in the suburbs. As they continue watching the show, it almost seems to leak out into their world, and it’s difficult to know where reality ends and the show begins.

Honestly, I found this movie captivating — the cinematography, the writing, and the music all drew me in. And I also think it’s one I need to watch again. There are layers to the storytelling I didn’t quite absorb (as a straight, cis, neurotypical person), and I plan to read some essays and different perspectives before a rewatch in order to better understand what I might have missed. Even if I didn’t understand every cultural nuance, I still thoroughly enjoyed this experience.

Abigail is bloody good fun. The story revolves around a group of kidnappers who nab a young girl, Abigail, out of her bedroom and are told to sit tight for 24 hours until the ransom is obtained. While they’re waiting and “getting to know each other,” things start to get weird — and then they discover a terrifying truth that Abigail is actually a vampire and starts ripping them apart (this is not really a spoiler because they show this in the trailer, though it would have been fun going in not knowing this). Everyone is kind of terrible, but also uniquely quirky enough to be interesting, so watching this group of good-for-nothings attempt to fight, survive, and escape the house — only to meet their bloody end — was highly entertaining.

New-to-Me Movies Watched Last Month:

1. Joker: Folie a Deux (2024)

2. The Batman (2022)

3. Misery (1990)

4. Split (2016)

5. I Saw the TV Glow (2024)

6. Atomic Blonde (2017)

7. Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story (2020)

8. Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)

9. Abigail (2024)

Games

With it being spooky season, I decided to take a break from Cyberpunk 2077 and jumped into a game I’ve been wanting to play for a long while — Alan Wake II (from Remedy Entertainment). I absolutely adored the first Alan Wake, and I was excited to delve into the sequel (which arrived 13 years after the first game) — and I’m having great, if semi-stressful and terrifying, fun so far.

When the game opens, the player takes the perspective of Saga Anderson, an FBI agent sent to investigate a murder in the town of Bright Falls (where author Alan Wake disappeared following the events of the first game), alongside her partner Alex Casey (coincidentally, the name of one of Alan Wake’s characters). As they investigate, they begin to uncover evidence of a cult obsessed with the writings of Wake, who are committing some kind of ritual sacrifice. Along the way, Saga and her partner come face to face with the Taken (people possessed by shadows), revealing that they’re mystery is more supernatural than they first realized.

Saga seems to have a deep connection to her intuition and uses a mind palace — which appears as the hotel room in which they’re stationed — to mentally store and analyze the details in front of her. The player can dip into this mind palace at any time to look at the information and clues uncovered while playing the game, and by analyzing these clues, new elements of the mystery open up, which is quite fun.

Later in the game, the player switches to Alan Wake’s perspective — trapped in in the ocean of darkness that he’s desperately attempting to escape. Represented as a version of New York, the dark place is strange, surreal, and chaotic. It exists on its own terms, but can also be influenced by Wake’s writing. Like Saga, Alan Wake has access to a room, his writing room, where he is attempting to use his skill as a writer to escape the darkness. Gathering more information allows Wake to rewrite scenes and change the reality of the dark place in order to progress — which I love.

One of the things I found most challenging about the first game — the clunky combat — has now become much more polished in the sequel. As with the first game, the player has shine a light on the taken to disperse the shadows (which act like a shield) to then open fire with a gun and destroy them. Fighting the Taken is still difficult at times (especially when there are a lack of bullets and more than one enemy swarming around), but it feels reasonably fair so far. It’s a challenge I can appreciate, instead of being frustrated by.

So, all of that is to say, I’m having a great time with the game, and I’m especially loving all the Easter eggs from the first game and from Control as part of Remedy’s connected universe (and maybe a connection to their other game, Quantum Break, because Shawn Ashmore’s in this, though he seems to be playing a different character, so maybe it’s just shemping (same actor playing multiple characters)). Anyway. creepy good times.

In Spiritfarer (Thunder Lotus Games), Charon retires from his role of ferrying the dead to their place in the underworld and he tasks Stella with taking his place. As Stella, the player gathers spirits and helps them to move on by satisfying their needs and final desires. Stella travels between various islands gathering resources and meeting new spirits to help, and she upgrades her boat to make the spirits she is ferrying happy. It’s a delightful cosy management sim, with from what I understand some deep, heartfelt moment (but I haven’t gotten that far yet). Right now, I’m just enjoying the charming characters, the beautiful animation and running around and completing my tasks. It’s a very satisfying and soothing gameplay loop.

June’s Journey (Wooga) is a hidden objects game, a simple puzzle mechanic in which the player must search and find objects in a specific scene. Completing a search earns points, allowing the player to progress the story. The in-game economy is a kind of a loop — completing hidden objects scenes provides coins and other objects that enable the purchase of buildings and plants to decorate the estate, and in turn, decorating the estate supplies flowers that enable the player to open new scenes. There are also side storylines and games that have their own economies and everything kind of feeds into each other.

As with many mobile games, there are timers to slow down the player, and this with the various game economics seems to designed to encourage the player to spend real money using in-app purchases (so it’s not free free) — though it is possible to progress, albeit much more slowly by simply playing the game and waiting for timers to finish (which is basically what I’m doing). There are also optional ads that provide a boost in coins or to hurry up a timer, which in my opinion is the right way to do ads (since they are opt-in).

The story is interesting enough. Set in the 1930s, June travels to her sister’s mansion, where her sister and brother-in-law have been murdered and her niece has been left all alone. Once she arrives, June begins to investigate the murders. In line with the casual gameplay, the storyline also progresses at a casual pace — and I’ve managed to wrap up the main storyline, with a new main story now starting. I’ll continue playing for a while, since I enjoy the gameplay and June as a character.

I also played several tiny browser games, all of which were submitted to Bitsy Jam #84: Petrichor. Each participant was invited to interpret the theme however they liked, and here are some lovely little games I enjoyed:

• "i get it now" by Zhanko - About feeling lost and the desire to escape life into the woods.

• "Feeling things out" by cosmicdeers - About bottling up emotions and the importance of reaching out for help.

• "raindrops" by Wisp - A beautiful art experience, in which the player moves as a raindrop traveling down the survace of windows or other objects.

• "Greg Jones Simulator” by PTC_Andrew - A humorous experience about being a hairdresser.

• "The Road Trip" by bambuloid - Opening levels for a longer game that the dev is still working on, in which the player gathers a bunch of budies for a road trip.

(I also submitted a game to this jam, called “Petrichor,” which I’m hoping to put some more polish on and update soon.)

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