Media Recap: September 2026

Each month, Barricade’s co-founders share the music, video games, films, and media that they’ve enjoyed.

Written by Barricade Co-Founders

Images courtesy of Atlantic Records/Nice Life, Team Cherry, Larian Studios/Luna Harper, Love Productions/Channel 4, Sony Pictures, Daniel Topete

Luna

Image courtesy of Catapult Books and Elham Numan/Xtra

Please note: This blurb contains spoilers for Benedict Nguyễn’s Hot Girls with Balls.

Reading: I finally finished reading Benedict Nguyễn’s Hot Girls with Balls, which I had started back in July. I’m a mood reader to a fault, which means I’m better at starting books than I am at actually finishing them. Once my “currently reading” pile shot up to ten novels, I decided to finish Hot Girls with Balls this month for good. It’s a solid debut effort, with a lot of satire and a surprising amount of heart. It follows Six and Green, two Asian American trans women who are the it couple of men’s volleyball. My favorite parts of the book are definitely the comment sections, in which fans spill all sorts of thoughts about the athletes, from the fangirling kind to the transphobic kind. The book’s playful tone takes a turn when news breaks of the murders of three Asian American trans women, which casts a shadow over Six and Green as they prepare for the Sonus annual volleyball tournament. Later, a sex tape leak further tests the heroines’ relationship, but it doesn’t stop the titular hot girls with balls from reaching the tournament’s finals. The book ends with Six and Green’s announcement of 6&G Moves, a community platform for trans athletes. Although the abrupt ending leaves some loose ends and Nguyễn could have integrated some plot points better, I thoroughly enjoyed reading her debut novel.

Playing: After wrapping up my first Baldur’s Gate 3 campaign last month, I did what any sane person would do: start the game all over again. This time around, I’ve been playing as a cleric named Valerian, a zealous Lolth-sworn drow who stops at nothing to please his spider queen. Paired with some gameplay mods, Valerian’s lawful evil alignment has made for a dark run that makes the game feel new again. Even though I already know the main storyline, I feel like I’m rediscovering BG3. I’ve stumbled upon side quests I missed the first time around, like the harpy battle at the beach by Emerald Grove, along with additional combat thanks to the extra encounters mod. My favorite part of the game is romancing the companions, and Valerian has rivaled my previous character, Benvolio, with his sex game in Act One alone. The drow bicon has slept with githyanki warrior Lae’zel a couple times, and he’s been bitten by vampiric elf Astarion, who propositioned him at the most inopportune time (literally in the middle of a rancid goblin dungeon). As I transition into Act Two, I’m excited to keep exploring the realm of Faerûn through Valerian’s (scarlet-tinted) eyes.

Listening: Move over, sad girl autumn—my summer of poptronica has spilled over into September. Although songs like Arca’s “Ripples” and Woesum’s “HowManyDays?” accompanied me in the first few weeks, Tinashe’s Popstar became my ultimate hyperfixation in the month’s final days. Popstar is, dare I say, pop perfection. As an outsider to the singer’s fanbase, I was surprised to be as captivated by this album as I have been. To no one’s surprise, Arca-produced “Sunglasses” is one of my favorite songs on Tinashe’s eighth record. It’s a deliciously offbeat opener that melds Jersey club beat switches with the starlet’s falsetto croons. “Melatonin,” one of the singles, has also been on repeat for me. It’s anything but a run-of-the-mill pop cut, blending disco and house into a sultry dancefloor odyssey. As a former classical pianist, I also adore “Pillow Fight,” which sounds like what Claude Debussy might’ve made if impressionist composers had used Logic Pro. Like colorful patches in a quilt, each track on Popstar feels refreshingly distinct, yet they blend seamlessly into a masterful pop opus. Tinashe’s latest is a 10/10 record for me with no skips, and it’s easily my favorite album of the year.

Arundhati

Reading: I’m reading Edmund Spenser’s The Fairie Queene and comprehending very little of it in terms of allegory and allusion, but at least the process of enlightenment has seen me rereading some of my favorite passages from Le Morte D’Arthur. I don’t think I’ve read a single thing for personal pleasure this month, if I’m being honest. I’ve also been reading my students’ rhetorical analysis essays, which has been thoroughly enjoyable. I did just buy Stoner by John Edward Williams, so let’s hope I both start and finish it in between reading for class and reading for teaching and reading for writing.

Image courtesy of Signature Entertainment/PA

Watching: I’ve been watching Major Crimes and far prefer the kind-hearted, rule-following character of Sharon Raydor to The Closer’s frenetic genius Brenda Leigh Johnson. I won’t even try to dissect why this is the case. Major Crimes directly follows The Closer but delves deeper into the lives of the LAPD’s Major Crimes squad members’ personal lives, which I typically care very little for, but am now finding myself charmed by. I know that it’s copaganda, but that doesn’t matter much to me when I use the show as background noise to my attempted Latin-learning. The Great British Bake Off is back, and I set my oven clock by that series, so I’ve been barely reigning in my enthusiasm for airy sponges while getting to know a new set of lovable amateur bakers. Only one episode is out so far, but there’s a nonchalant South Asian man who’s already given my sister and I endless entertainment from his lack of reaction to anything, so I’m interested in just how far he’ll go. He started from the top (won star baker on week 1) so the sky really is the limit. 

I’ve watched two movies this month: Our Hero, Balthazar, and Resident Evil (2026). The former was almost painfully witty, and dare I say perfectly paced. Jaeden Martell and Asa Butterfield became their characters, making for an absurd dramedy that balanced itself exquisitely on the thin line between egregious and inscrutable. I refuse to give plot spoilers at all: do yourself a favor and go watch it (content warnings for incel culture and mentions of mass shootings). I also thoroughly enjoyed Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil, which surprised me—I am by no means a Cregger loyalist. I did not like Barbarian, and adequately liked Weapons. Resident Evil, however, was beautifully blocked and shaded, and the coloring choices alone kept me on my toes. It was brimming with bits that both added levity and furthered the suspense, and not once did I turn away from the screen. I’m not even sure that I blinked. Tightly paced film, and in some ways a really perfect love letter to the games.

Playing: Tumblr has a snake game built into the mobile platform and I’ve become addicted to it. I’m not kidding.

Listening: I attended All Things Go DC this month! Highlights include hearing “YES GODDD” and cranking it on a Friday afternoon, feeling God in the Ethel Cain crowd for the second time in my life, and having the privilege of hearing Mitski perform her growing catalogue of greatest hits live. My sister and I also witnessed Rebecca Black’s rebrand firsthand, reveled in She & Him’s folksy whimsy, got pulled into The Beaches’ war with their exes, and went to Loveland with Suki Waterhouse.

It’s already getting autumnal (meaning, it’s occasionally under 90 degrees in parts of Texas) so I’d given up on listening to anything other than Chase Atlantic and Ethel Cain’s entire catalogues… until Brakence dropped “ready or noT.” His vocals, as always, provide relief in the same way downing ginger and honey in the middle of a bad cold does. His rich voice against his chosen backdrop of grating instrumentals and choppy mixing makes for a simultaneously typical (of his discography) and wildly unique (overarchingly, sonically) experience. His upcoming album, marroW, drops on October 23rd, and you best believe I’ll be waiting for it with bated breath and unbridled excitement, just as I have been for the past four years or so. We’re glad to have you back, Brakence. The kids missed you.

Caroline

Reading: I read Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer this month, which to me was kind of like a better version of Backrooms (sorry, Backrooms). I am simply a sucker for stories that refuse to explain themselves; the more mysteries left unsolved at the end, the better. VanderMeer does an amazing job of establishing environment and mood—the lush wilderness of Area X jumps out of the pages, and I felt fully immersed in the narrator’s complex mix of terror, apprehension, and longing throughout. Annihilation was a brilliant exploration of the interplay between humans and our environment, and the consuming dread yet unmistakable allure of that which we can’t possibly hope to know. I look forward to reading the sequels at some point, but for now I think I’ll let the mystery sit for just a little while longer.

Image courtesy of Team Cherry

Playing: At the start of the month, I was on a mission to beat Hollow Knight’s fifth Pantheon, a challenge so difficult and time-consuming that it is not even included in the game’s completion percentage calculation, ensuring that anyone who attempts it is doing it purely for the love of the game. Hollow Knight’s five Pantheons are optional post-game DLC content—each of the first four Pantheons challenges you to beat ten or so of the game’s bosses in rapid succession, while the fifth includes all of the bosses from the four previous Pantheons and, at the very end, brings you face to face with Absolute Radiance, an increased difficulty version of the game’s final boss. 

After grinding out the first four Pantheons and finally starting on the fifth, I’ve realized how the format makes this DLC feel like almost an entirely different genre than the base game. The bulk of Hollow Knight is an exploration-centered Metroidvania where the challenge lies equal parts in navigation, platforming, and combat; the Pantheons then put fighting front and center, asking you if you’ve really bested all those bosses you managed to defeat the first time around. On top of this, the 42 boss fights of the fifth Pantheon ensure that each playthrough is an ordeal in itself—dying to any one boss sends you back to the start, making the gameplay almost roguelike in nature. At this time, I’ve decided to take an indefinite hiatus from attempting this Pantheon because investing 40+ minutes into a runthrough only to die to Markoth yet another time has started becoming actively detrimental to my mental health, but I’m sure I’ll be back at it at some point in the future. Maybe I’ll finally finish Silksong first.

Watching: I’ve been spending some time watching the stage play adaptations of Umineko: When They Cry, a ridiculously long Agatha Christie-inspired murder mystery visual novel that I spent the better part of the summer reading. Umineko is difficult to summarize concisely, but I will try: a rich family is stranded on an island during a typhoon, and they start getting picked off one by one. This is initially proclaimed to be the work of a magical being who refers to herself as the Golden Witch Beatrice, but things start getting more complicated as Battler, grandson of the family patriarch, becomes determined to prove that the murders were done through mundane rather than magical means. From here, the story steadily increases in scope to become a metafictional exploration of classical mystery novel conventions, the role of faith and belief in people’s lives, and why any of us choose to read or write stories in the first place.

The Japanese theater company Shindigan has produced and recorded stage plays based on the first seven of the eight visual novel episodes, with the eighth and final one slated to open sometime next March. I find that these stage plays are remarkably well done as adaptations, managing to remain faithful to the source material despite having to cut out or shorten a good 70-80% of scenes, all while using the medium of theater to enhance the story in entirely original ways. The witty exchanges between Battler and Beatrice are portrayed exactly as I would’ve imagined them, and the staging and choreography perfectly accentuate the drama and tragedy as each new murder is discovered by the characters. All in all, discovering new theater to enjoy is always big news for my inner high school self, and I eagerly await next year’s conclusion to the series.

Listening: I’ve had a hard time really getting immersed in music for the past few months for reasons that are yet unknown. Because of this, I’ve been trying to rediscover some of my old favorites, and recently it’s been Mitski’s first two albums, Lush and Retired from Sad, New Career in Business. There was a point in life that the all-consuming raw emotion of these two records was all that I needed, and, in looking back, I find that I may be somewhat past that point now. Yet I still can’t deny that they are truly a masterclass in chamber pop: nothing else since has ever hit quite the same as Eric, Pearl Diver, or Square. I’d implore any Mitski fan, or really any big experimental pop lover, to give these albums a try if you haven’t already.