Issue 64
Welcome!
Ahoy, Scribblers! Are you feeling better after a break? Welcome back to Spilled Ink for week ten. The end of our 2024 season is in sight, but before we get there, ScratchThat has plenty of content for you to enjoy. Just before the break we published our Dread-themed content. We’ll continue to publish website content through to the end of week twelve, wrapping things up just in time for our launch party.
With just a few weeks to go until the launch of the Emotion Spring 2024 Zine (October 23rd!) submissions are unfortunately closed, but the team is working hard to put together what we think is going to be our best magazine ever! Make sure you’re following our Instagram and TikTok to keep up to date. Tickets for the launch are on sale now!
With the end of semester looming, that also means that Uni events are also about to start taking off! Think barbeques, balls, parties, and more. For arts & culture aficionados, we’ve got you covered for anything interesting going on in Brisbane. We’ve collated a bunch of submission opportunities for our devout writers and, as always, we’ll have a writing prompt to help get the creative juices flowing. ScratchThat has closed its submissions for the semester, but don’t let that stop you writing!
Finally, in “Devour Weekly”, Sean spent his week trying to survive in Dead Space, Dylan is rewatching his favourite movie of all time: Forrest Gump, and Karma is keeping things in fashion with the latest season of Emily in Paris.
Writing Prompt
Devotion
While we have closed submissions for the semester, we want you to keep on writing, so we are still coming in with the goods to help break your creative block. Keeping on track with the emotions theme, our prompt this week is inspired by the emotion Devotion.
You’ve been following your favourite artist ever since you can remember. You’ve bought all their albums, merch, been to every concert. You like and share every post on social media. Lately though, things have gotten a little weird. It looks like that artist might be about to join a cult?
Devour Weekly
Sean’s Review: Dead Space
Alien: Romulus really stuck with me when I reviewed it a few weeks ago. I wouldn’t say I want to be trapped on an abandoned space station fighting to survive while being pursued by horrifying creatures, but I’m also not totally against the idea either. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to an abandoned space station and murderous aliens only exist in fiction, as far as we know, so my best option to live out this science fiction, horror fantasy would be a video game. So, I chose to play the 2023 Dead Space remake. Again.
Dead Space follows Isaac Clarke, an engineer who has joined a rescue crew investigating the USG Ishimura starship that has gone radio silent, overrun by monstrous beings called Necromorphs. Necromorphs are mutated creatures that are a result of experiments carried out by the crew of the Ishimura following the discovery of the marker, an ancient alien artifact believed to have ties to the religion-turned-cult, Unitology. While the story is great and keeps the player engaged, it isn’t why I enjoy this game. What I truly love about Dead Space is its atmosphere and how uneasy it makes me feel. All elements of this game, particularly the audiovisual design of the damned starship and the grotesque, unrelenting Necromorphs, work together to make sure you never feel safe as you make your way through the ship’s suffocating interiors, creating one of the purest horror experiences I’ve had in years.
Yes, there are Alien video games out there, some quite good ones in fact, but it was Dead Space that gave me the Alien fix I desired. So if you are in the mood for some sci-fi based horror or you enjoyed Alien: Romulus as much as I did, Dead Space is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox, or PC. It’s difficult, it’s tense, it’s terrifying, and I can’t recommend it more to fans of horror.
Dylan’s Review: Forrest Gump
It’d be an actual crime if we made it all the way through the semester without getting the opportunity to watch my favourite movie of all time. I can never quite articulate what it is that makes Forrest Gump so dear to me. There’s something about the way Tom Hanks brings the character to life that feels entertaining, heartfelt, and authentic.
If you’re one of those many people who has always heard about Forrest Gump but never seen it, the movie follows the life of titular Forrest Gump, born with a below average IQ in the great state of Alabama. Forrest unwittingly finds himself scattered throughout many of the major historical events in the US (and around the world) that occurred during the years of his life, like the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. His entire life he just goes with the flow, every now and then crossing paths with the love of his life, Jenny.
Forrest narrates his own story, using his own ignorance to highlight some pretty dark themes in a rather innocent way. Early in the film, he explains that he was named “after the great Civil War hero General Nathan Bedford Forrest” who “started up this club called the Ku Klux Klan”. Forrest then goes on to say that the name was “to remind me that sometimes we all do things that, well, just don’t make no sense.” Forrest is able to move seamlessly from one story to the next, weaving them together as though their connection was obvious. The story is funny, beautiful, tragic, inspiring, and just a whole host of emotions. If you haven’t seen it, you’re doing yourself a disservice!
Karma’s Review: Emily in Paris Season 4
Emily in Paris is a show that is so easy to mock. I remember when it first aired, and I could not get over how ridiculously embarrassing it was. An American making a fool of herself in front of her new French co-workers and even more of a fool of herself romantically. And yet, for some reason, I ate up that first season and every season since. With the second part of season four just dropping now, I have some thoughts.
First of all, as silly as the show is, I must give it some credit. It has a heart, it’s entertaining, and I’m often pleasantly surprised at its self-awareness. Like many multi-season shows, it suffers a little from continually having to find new conflicts and issues for the sake of content. It sometimes feels like the characters don’t learn from their mistakes, going over the same problems to keep Emily from the obvious final love interest. Despite this, I am actually pretty impressed with the new season: we have some newer problems, new characters, and a glimpse at a new city.
One such example is the moral dilemma posed in the first half of the season, which looked at a case of workplace harassment. A heavy topic that many might try to stay away from in a show of this tone, and yet I think they handled it as a side plot quite well. I was especially impressed with the honest and realistic character work done for the characters that had higher and more complicated stakes. Harassment claims, for some, are seen as career-killers, and the show didn’t shy away from how sometimes when a claim like that is made, doors might shut to people who are only doing the right thing. On the smaller side, I also loved the fact that this season, when there was a scene with only French people, they only spoke French! Details like that really made the side character’s personal lives come to life.
Overall, yes, the show is cheesy and trashy. But it also doesn’t try to be anything it is not, and honestly, I am excited about the season five announcement and not ashamed to admit it! Guilty pleasures are important.
Author: Karma O’Reilly is a writer, creator, and dancer currently finishing her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. She has held a passion for all things bookish since childhood and has a particular love for high fantasy. As well as working on ScratchThat Magazine, Karma has also worked as a choreographer, treasurer, and dancer with QUT Burlesque Society.
Author: Dylan Oliver is a Meanjin-based writer. He’s had his work published in ScratchThat Magazine and is currently working towards his Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing at QUT. Dylan enjoys writing authentic queer stories that speak to his own experience as a queer person. He is hard at work on what he hopes will be his debut novel.
Author: Sean Sutcliffe is a writer who is currently in the final year of his Creative Writing degree. He has a deep love for all forms of creative media, particularly horror or horror-inspired work, and selfishly plans to indulge this love while broadening his knowledge and sharing his thoughts on current and past media with the readers of this newsletter.
Artist: Phoenix Sunrider (they/she) is an aspiring author with several works in the making. They love all kinds of animals, and add as many as possible into all their works whether that be high fantasy, magical realism, or even fan fiction. They currently have no social media platforms, but hope to develop some when more work is completed.
Edited by: Ricky Jade and Benjamin Forbes