ISSUE #01 - MAY 2026

may '26 favorites

MAGNETIC ROSE (FROM MEMORIES, 1995)

bonkers good short film. gothic horror in space is a genre i love, even if it’s not often executed well, and this one is executed WELL. i really miss this style of animation and it is just gorgeous, here. the character designs are lovely. the unravelling of the mystery of the rose is horrifying in all the right ways. love a story where everyone is deeply doomed.

DISTURBING THE PIECE (SEASON ONE)

what a good concept for a podcast & what a well-executed take on it. 2 hour skeleton season finale is maybe one of my favorite episodes of a podcast, ever. a lesser podcast focusing on this era of lego would not have taken such a hard stance against harry potter, which feels like it should be SUCH a low bar at this point, and yet. it does make me laugh every time they call it the child wizard series. my other favorite episodes from this season: the one about the small rock panel that neither of them like, and the one about the lego spider. lego spider classic for a reason!!!

AFTER HOURS AT DOORYARD BOOKS (CAT SEBASTIAN; 2025)

sebastian’s dual-pov, midcentury romances pretty much never miss for me, and this was not an exception!! she has such a deft hand with making the love between her leads feel slow and earned and grounded. plus, in a literary scene where found family as a trope has become wildly overplayed, the found family here feels equally as down-to-earth. i love it.

books & short stories

  • how to fake it in society (kj charles; 2026) – i have not liked anything else i’ve read by charles, but i keep giving her books a shot because so many authors i DO enjoy rave about her work. she has finally published a book i really, really enjoyed. i have my minor issues with it, but it’s a delightful mix of two good protagonists, an interesting overarching plot, and a legitimately surprising execution of the “scammer falls for their mark” plot.

  • saltcrop (yume kitasei; 2025) – really interesting worldbuilding, very compelling sibling dynamics

  • dungeon crawler carl (matt dinniman; 2020) – my first outing with dinniman’s work was earlier this year with operation bounce house, a book that surprised me in how much i enjoyed it; i’d gotten the recommendation of DCC from several people i trust but my experience with gamelit made me wary of jumping into a big series. bounce house made me confident enough to try. turns out that DCC is pretty fucking good actually!! the characters are enjoyable, the game elements are executed well, and i am in love with odette for real. i’m trying to take the series slow, but i’m looking forward to continuing it!

  • acceptance (jeff vandermeer; 2014) – not my favorite of the trilogy but ghost bird & the biologist drive me nuts. all three of these books will Stick With Me

  • isn’t it obvious? (rachel runya katz; 2025) – good romance but truly i do not think ‘awkwardly extracting yourself from the house of a one-night stand after trying very hard to politely turn him down’ is actually enough of an inciting incident to keep the “enemies” part of enemies-to-lovers convincing. it felt SO overblown like comically so

  • “archaelogical evidence for the time traveller” (tia tashiro; clarkesworld issue 236)

  • the build-a-boyfriend project (mason deaver; 2025) – DNF. however much i was looking forward to this one it turns out that all protagonists from the west coast are fucking insufferable

  • and now, back to you (b.k. borison; 2026) – Disappointingly Mid

  • second chance romance (olivia dade; 2025) – sexy and sweet and while i can always sniff out who the next romance protagonist would be in these novels i DO want to see what’s up with the sex shop owners. please

  • for whom the belle tolls (jaysea lynn; 2025) – DNF. i mostly enjoyed my time with the book but it was so long and eventually lost my interest. you can really tell it was adapted from a tiktok series in its writing and structure.

  • in the hand of the goddess (tamora pierce; 1984)

  • the protector of the small series (tamora pierce) – kel truly one of the protagonists of all time. her relationship to the chamber of ordeals will be rotating in my mind for quite a bit i think

  • the word for world: the maps of ursula k. le guin (2026) – haven’t finished this one yet, slowly making my way through it when i go out for lunch

  • after hours at dooryard books (cat sebastian; 2025)

  • trickster’s duet (tamora pierce) – i <3 spy intrigue

  • for my lady’s heart (laura kinsale; 1993) – haven’t finished this, hoping to but not sure if i will. reading the old english version of course. my fondness for melanthe was strong in the beginning and has started to tilt towards irritation with the book for just how much of a turn her relationship with ruadrik took… wish she was more ruthless throughout. i know she’s healing from being constantly under threat of assassination but come on

  • “the test of time” (kristine kathryn rusch; lightspeed magazine issue 192)

  • agnes aubert’s mystical cat shelter (heather fawcett; 2026) – i did not enjoy this one at all which is SO disappointing. i won’t repost my whole review from storygraph here but needless to say, the fact that there is the glimmer of a good book beneath all of its weirdly high stakes, constant threat to cats, and terrible terrible romance w/ a howl knockoff Does Not Make It Better.

  • ms. mebel goes back to the chopping block (jesse q. sutanto; 2026)

  • sandry’s book (tamora pierce; 1997) – rattling the bars of the expired license on the rest of this series on my library’s overdrive because the magic here is SO interesting

  • angels’ blood (nalini singh; 2009) – with the exception of some writing that has TRULY not aged well, this is such an incredibly fun ride with some WEIRD worldbuilding. i am on nalini singh’s wild ride

games

  • forbidden solitaire (2026) – i’m a huge fan of tripeaks solitaire so obviously i loved the gameplay of this; it was clean and addictive. the art style was phenomenal. the story was… well it was ok! it didn’t break any new ground and it won’t stick with me, but i had a good time.

  • minecraft – a few months ago the polycule started a new vanilla server to play on for the foreseeable future, and i’ve been really into building farms off youtube when i have no energy to do anything else. this has been my first time playing longform vanilla minecraft since like? maybe a decade ago? it’s simultaneously very nice to actually play with new features, and fucking infuriating to realize how many quality-of-life features mojang has still not added IN THE LAST DECADE.

  • no man’s sky – i can’t believe they’re still pushing updates to this game. swarm expedition is very cool except for the fact that i hate the combat in this game so, so much. go team sage :]

movies & television

  • gurren lagann (2007) episodes 1-9 – the date night staple for this month. i have to trust when people say it’s classic for a reason because mostly, i think it’s mid as fuck

  • memories (1995)

  • project hail mary (2026) – good movie! the puppet work on rocky was delightful! i love eva stratt!!

  • iron lung (2026) – rewatch that i fell asleep on halfway through because a lot of the tension is taken out when you’ve already seen the damn thing. however being able to actually SEE the details of the movie, and have closed captions on for some of the more greebled dialogue, did a lot for my engagement while i was awake.

podcasts

  • disturbing the piece (season 1)

  • shelved by genre – i’ve been slowly making my way through their fellowship of the ring episodes on my commute to/from work. always really interesting to hear the context around tolkien’s work!

  • dead teen house party – new season about harper’s island is great. you can’t do a slasher movie as a tv series.mp3