If you’ve ever met one of our wonderful F(r)iction staffers, you’ll quickly learn that almost every one of them was once an intern in our Publishing Internship Program.

This program is run by our parent nonprofit organization, Brink Literacy Project. While our publishing internships are a great way to get a crash course in the literary industry, they can often provide a path to what can become a long and rewarding professional relationship. For more information, please visit the internship page on the Brink website.

Franchesca Nicole Lazaro

she/her

What is your favorite place to read?  

My room, either on my bed or at my desk! I get distracted easily by outside noises, so I need the quiet of my room, sometimes with music in the background, to really focus. I like the smell and ambiance of cafes and libraries, but their seats are usually too hard to sit on, and it gets a bit rowdy sometimes!

You’re walking down the street and suddenly spot a key on the ground! What does it look like? What do you do with it?  

It would look like the skeleton key from Coraline. With it, you could draw any door on a wall, unlock it, and step into another place entirely, kind of like from Beetlejuice!

How do you take your coffee? If you don’t drink coffee, describe your favorite beverage ritual.   

I don’t drink much coffee, but I love hot cocoa!!! I usually make it with Swiss Miss packets or K-Cups. My one struggle is that the marshmallows always shrink in the water… I haven’t figured out how to keep them big.

What is your favorite English word and why? Do you have a favorite word in another language?  

For a long time, my favorite word has been shenanigans because it sounds funny and a little foreign. Lately, I’ve been attached to tomfoolery because it feels old-fashioned, almost Western, and charming. It also reminds me of my favorite character, Tom Sawyer! In another language, I like the German word for university, Universität, and the German pronunciation of the name Michael.

You’re on a deserted island. You have one album and one book. What are they and why?   

I’d bring Memento Mori by Flyleaf, because it’s the album I return to most often, and The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt by Caroline Preston, which is such an inspiring way of bringing collages and narrative together. I love reading books about girls who study or try to make it big!

If you could change one thing about the literary industry, what would it be?  

I’d like to see more space for women to write about religious experience—especially when it’s not about leaving or rejecting faith. Religion shapes girlhood for many people, yet it’s often overlooked or dismissed as preaching. I think those stories should be taken more seriously in literature because they definitely had a hold on classics, but it seems like nowadays, they’re seen as taboo. Isn’t the whole purpose of writing to see what you want to read?

Melissa Chew

she/her

What is your favorite place to read?   

Definitely sitting on my bed at night with the warm light of the lamp! It’s very cozy. 

You’re walking down the street and suddenly spot a key on the ground! What does it look like? What do you do with it?  

I see a small metal key with simple biting, attached to a split ring. It looks like those keys you get when a relative gifts you your first diary with a lock on it. Those keys always go missing, no matter where you put them. Some kid probably dropped it, so I end up leaving it alone. I shouldn’t interfere with its fate. Perhaps it’ll find its owner, just maybe not today. 

How do you take your coffee? If you don’t drink coffee, describe your favorite beverage ritual.  

As the average tea enjoyer, I get a sachet of jasmine green tea in a mug and fill it with boiling water. No sugar. No milk. Sometimes, simple is best.   

What is your favorite English word and why? Do you have a favorite word in another language?   

I used to have a few favorite words in the past, like “iridescent” and “nostalgia,” because they sounded so mysterious. Nowadays, I lean towards “miasma” and “rot.” I can’t explain why, but I’m drawn to very visceral words. I don’t think I have a favorite word from another language. 

You’re on a deserted island. You have one album and one book. What are they and why?   

The album would be jshlatt’s Christmas album,  A Very 1999 Christmas, because I love festive songs from Frank Sinatra’s era, and jshlatt’s voice just scratches that itch. The book would probably be  Demian: The Story of Youth by Hermann Hesse. It’s an endearing story that’s good for both leisure and making me contemplate too much about life (gets the brain working, you see). 

If you could change one thing about the literary industry, what would it be?  

Better industry practices, increased wages for entry-level roles to senior roles, and combating crunch culture. I know it’s three things, but I think they all interconnect with one another. The industry has a long way to go regarding how little workers are rewarded for their immense efforts. I believe we shouldn’t settle for low wages because it’s a competitive industry or because we’re passionate about what we do. It’s time the industry changed the way it thinks about itself and the people who put everything into their craft.  

Mika Ellison

she/her

What is your favorite place to read?   

I love reading in airports, because absolutely nothing is expected of you, and you usually have ridiculous amounts of time if you are anxious about missing your flight like I am.

You’re walking down the street and suddenly spot a key on the ground! What does it look like? What do you do with it?  

It’s a friendly looking key, bright gold, a little scuffed. It calls to me, somehow—it feels familiar. It’s not until I get back home I realize that it’s my key, to my own front door, and I hadn’t even realized I dropped it on my way to work.

How do you take your coffee? If you don’t drink coffee, describe your favorite beverage ritual.   

I have a weakness for Earl Grey tea with a criminal amount of sugar and milk, which I make with absolutely boiling hot water and then burn my tongue, every single time.

What is your favorite English word and why? Do you have a favorite word in another language? 

I love “ostensibly,” because it’s a great way to say you heard something from someone and you’re pretty sure it’s true, but leave a little bit of room to be horribly wrong. Plus, it sounds fancy.

You’re on a deserted island. You have one album and one book. What are they and why?   

It’s Julien Baker’s Turn Out The Lights and George Eliot’s Middlemarch, the first because any album that almost singlehandedly gets you through middle school should be in a Hall of Fame somewhere, and the second because god knows I could probably only read it a couple more times before getting rescued or perishing.

If you could change one thing about the literary industry, what would it be?

I would make it more accessible! There are so many people that don’t have the resources or time or energy to spend breaking into the industry, but have ideas that would revolutionize it.

Olivia Ocran

she/her

What is your favorite place to read?   

My favorite place to read is anywhere with a lot of natural light and a comfortable place to lie down. This environment is extremely calming, which helps me get in the mindset for reading. 

You’re walking down the street and suddenly spot a key on the ground! What does it look like? What do you do with it?  

Mine is a rusted silver key, because I live in D.C., so this is the usual type of key people have. This key, however, has a half-covered engraving in Latin on the back. As I wipe away the dirt, a stone-lined pathway leading away from the sidewalk reveals itself to me—the stones covered with matching Latin phrases. I follow the path until I reach an old, wooden trapdoor hidden in the grass with a single iron keyhole. I use the key to open the door and climb down into a forgotten passageway. I’ve discovered a secret archive right underneath the D.C. streets! 

How do you take your coffee? If you don’t drink coffee, describe your favorite beverage ritual.    

My coffee taste changes depending on the day, but my go-to is a latte (double shot) with cinnamon and vanilla syrup, topped with cold foam. Also, fun fact, I actually make some of my own coffee syrups. 

What is your favorite English word and why? Do you have a favorite word in another language?   

My favorite word is flabbergasted. There’s no real reason why I like this one, but I love the way it rolls of the tongue and it’s just a fun word to use. 

You’re on a deserted island. You have one album and one book. What are they and why?   

The album I would bring is Laufey’s new album A Matter of Time because it checks all the boxes for me as someone who has been a musician for most of my life. You can tell she writes music because she truly loves it, simply from the composition, and her lyrics are absolutely beautiful. The book I would bring (even though this is an impossible question) is Babel by R. F. Kuang because Kuang is the type of writer where you’re going to notice something different every time you read. She is an academic, and this background gives her the ability to include so much background and context for her novels that it’s impossible to find all of it on the first read through. So, if I’m on a deserted island, this book would give me more than enough material to keep me entertained. 

If you could change one thing about the literary industry, what would it be? 

I would change the accessibility of the industry. There are so many incredible writers or literary enthusiasts who get left behind because they don’t have the right connections or they come from an unrepresented community. There’s a large emphasis on working with the Big 5 publishers or one of their imprints, but I feel that makes the industry more exclusive than it needs to be. Bring back the smaller presses scattered across the country, and more mid-sized publishers for people to flock to without the stigma surrounding any literary company outside of the Big 5. 

Taylor Pittman

she/her

What is your favorite place to read?   

I love to read cozy in bed or sitting in my book nook in my home office. 

You’re walking down the street and suddenly spot a key on the ground! What does it look like? What do you do with it?  

I’m walking down the street, most likely on the way to the dog park with my chihuahua, Goliath, and I see a key buried in the grass. It is a cerulean blue and catches the sunlight as we walk by. It’s a long, old-fashioned key, but it looks shiny, almost glittering, with intricate swirling designs across the handle. I pick it up, and a shimmering dust falls from it. I pocket it, of course, as Goliath impatiently tugs on his leash. 

How do you take your coffee? If you don’t drink coffee, describe your favorite beverage ritual.  

I take my coffee black with three tablespoons of sugar. 

What is your favorite English word and why? Do you have a favorite word in another language?   

My favorite English word is cosmic because it makes me think of space, bright colors, ethereal, and otherworldly things. 

You’re on a deserted island. You have one album and one book. What are they and why?   

The album is EPIC: The Musical by Jorge Rivera-Herrans. It is my absolute favorite musical, and it tells the story of Odysseus, who is also deserted on an island. Seems fitting. The book would have to be HEY, U UP? (For a Serious Relationship) by Emily Axford and Brian Murphy because they are part of my favorite comedy podcast, and it would be the closest I could get to them. 

If you could change one thing about the literary industry, what would it be?  

The one thing I would change about the literary industry is to make it more inclusive. There have been significant strides, but certain communities still have limited access to literary works and programs. Having more remote literary businesses and publishing presses, or expanding further beyond the East Coast, would make it more accessible to others. 

Tania slipped off her shoes and sat on the edge of the dock, lowering her bare feet into the water. She faced west, toward where the marina opened into the ocean.

A movement in the distance attracted her attention. Was that dark spot a fin?

A few seconds later, a dolphin surfaced next to her. It had a scar over its left eye—and a plastic water bottle in its mouth. The dolphin tossed the bottle onto the dock and swam away.

Tania grabbed the bottle before it could roll back in. It was dirty, dented, and most of the label was gone. She carried the bottle with her as she headed to the ticket booth of the parasailing company where she worked as an assistant and photographer.

She told her boss, Ed, about the encounter.

“I bet it was trying to play with you,” he said, sliding open the metal gate above the ticket counter.

“Maybe,” she said, but the dolphin’s behavior hadn’t felt playful. It felt purposeful in a way she wasn’t sure how to explain.

As a kid, she’d watched The Little Mermaid over and over, wishing she could talk with sea creatures. Over the years, she’d streamed countless ocean documentaries, but they offered mere glimpses into how the animals communicate. She’d planned to study marine biology in college but hadn’t been accepted into the program. The parasailing job wasn’t a career, but meant she could be near the water every day. It never quite felt like enough, but it was something.

A family of French tourists arrived, and Ed greeted them with an enthusiastic “Bonjour!”

On days when the ocean was relatively calm, parasailing tourists might see dolphins leaping through the waves or a school of manta rays swimming just beneath the surface. In the off season, they might get lucky and see a pod of migrating whales. When the water was rougher, they wouldn’t see any animals—just waves and waves and waves.

First-timers were usually nervous, but once they were up in the air, almost everyone found the experience peaceful and relaxing. Tania had been up a bunch of times. With a two-person harness, she had to go up with odd-numbered guests, Ed steering the boat and taking the photos.

The French family’s outing went smoothly. As Ed steered the vessel back toward the marina, Tania asked if they had spotted anything exciting from the air. The girl, Celine, told her in decent English that they’d seen a bunch of “flat fish swimming toward the beach.”

Tania knew she probably meant “stingrays swimming along the shore,” but she didn’t correct her.

Back on shore, Tania walked to the nearby minimart to grab a breakfast sandwich before the next set of tourists arrived. She overheard a surfer telling the cashier, “The beach is a mess, man. It’s covered in trash. Jet stream must’ve shifted overnight or something.”

Tania had seen that happen once before and she didn’t understand what caused it. One day, the beach was clean, except for a cigarette butt here and there, and the next day, there was garbage everywhere—old candy wrappers, plastic bottle caps, disposable cups, potato chip bags… Even after the sand-combing machines had raked it up, the mental image of the trash-covered beach haunted her.

She wondered if the parasailers had seen the mess from the sky. They hadn’t mentioned it, so probably not.

Three college girls from Kansas arrived next, and Tania went up with one of them. The girl gave an ear-splitting shriek when the parachute yanked them into the air.

As they climbed in altitude, Tania was surprised at how much trash she could see on the beach. She also saw loads of rays, dolphins, and sharks. Like the French girl had said, they were all moving either toward the coast or away from it instead of in the usual channels parallel to the shore.

The college girl didn’t know she was witnessing anything unusual. She took photos and videos with her phone, and exclaimed, “This feels so California!”

Tania retrieved her own phone from the inside pocket of her life vest to capture the animals’ behavior. Maybe the same tidal shift that had dumped all the trash on shore was affecting the sea creatures, too.

She racked her brain. Was there a type of seasonal algae or migrating fish on which they might be feeding? It bothered her to see the animals acting so strangely.

By mid-afternoon, news teams were reporting live from the trash-filled beach.

Nobody wanted a sunset flight over the garbage, so after work, Tania drove home feeling anxious. She heated some leftovers for dinner, watched half an episode of a forgettable sitcom, and fell asleep.

The next day, she arrived at the marina as usual and was surprised to see plastic trash all over the docks. She walked up to the beach to see how things looked there.

The sand near the high tideline was completely covered in trash. If she hadn’t worn sneakers, she would’ve had to turn back.

She stepped onto a layer of trash and heard the hollow crunch of a plastic bottle flattening beneath her. Walking on the plastic unnerved her.

At the water’s edge, she saw several mollusks. She exhaled. At least they had survived this bizarre flood of plastic. A speck of hot pink near one of the shells caught her eye. She bent down for a closer look just as a mussel shell opened a crack and released what appeared to be a tiny green pebble. It was plastic. The mussel must have mistaken it for food and then spat it back out.

About ten feet out, she saw a Snickers wrapper floating on the surface, before being yanked underwater. She watched as a sea lion carry the wrapper toward the shore in its mouth, pushed it onto the beach with its nose, and then slid back into the water.

Tania walked back toward the marina, trash crackling beneath her feet.

When she reached the parasailing stand, she told Ed, “Something crazy is happening. I just saw a shark shove a piece of trash onto the beach.”

“It’s happening all over,” he said. “This morning, I talked to my brother up in Oregon. All sorts of animals are doing it. Some of them push the trash and some of them puke it up.” He made a face as if he, too, were spitting something out. “Jesse saw an octopus carrying a plastic fork.”

“Dude! It’s horrible. What can we do?”

Ed shrugged and closed for the day.

The next morning, he texted her not to bother coming in. She waited until traffic died down and drove out to the beach anyway. TV vans and army trucks lined North Venice Blvd. Near them, she saw workers in hazmat suits.

Tania parked on a side street and headed for the sand. As she approached, all she could see was plastic. It was all dirty, wet, and tangled in seaweed, but none of it showed signs of decomposing. Tania slipped on a Ziploc bag and managed to catch herself with a quick sidestep. As she stood there, a sudden gust lifted an empty plastic bottle over the other trash and blew it into the water.

Without thinking, Tania stepped in and grabbed it, throwing it back onto the shore. Standing in the shallows, salt water soaking through her jeans, she looked at all the trash on the beach. The endless wrappers, bags, and bottles sparkled in the sunlight. Instead of disgust, Tania felt weirdly calm in the knowledge that the plastic was back where it belonged.

A wave approached, carrying a snack-size Doritos bag in her direction. She picked it up, shook it off, and shoved it into her back pocket. Next, she plucked a broken takeout container and a child-sized Croc from the incoming waves. She wasn’t the only human picking plastic from the water. A few others, alone or in groups, waded through the low waves, collecting what they could. She watched as a dark-haired man, in the water up to his chest, gently took a crushed two-liter bottle from the mouth of a dolphin and carried it back on shore. The interaction looked smooth and natural, as if the two were teammates or old friends. Tania stared in awe as the dolphin turned and swam back out to sea.

Then, she heard shouting. She looked inland and saw someone in a hazmat suit, yelling into a bullhorn, “Get out of the water!”

She didn’t have the energy to argue. She tromped across the layer of trash, making her way back to her car. As she passed through the parking lot, Tania saw two women in military fatigues setting up a fence of orange plastic webbing. A man nearby had an armful of “Beach Closed” signs.

She drove home, wet and exhausted.

Back in her apartment, Tania sat on the couch and clicked on the TV. She heard a news anchor say, “…seashores all over the world.” They showed video clips from Scotland. Malawi. Ecuador. Every shoreline was covered in trash. A NOAA scientist admitted she was baffled by the animals’ behavior, wondering, “How long have these species been able to collaborate?”

They cut to a beach in New Jersey that looked even worse than what Tania had seen in Venice. She turned off the TV and fell asleep on the couch.

A few hours later, she turned the TV back on and saw the CEO of one of the big bottled water companies, whose bright blue wave-shaped logo was easy to spot on the trash-filled beaches. The interviewer asked if he felt any responsibility for the environmental disaster. He deflected, “The problem isn’t plastic. Plastic only becomes a problem when individual consumers don’t recycle.”

When the interviewer mentioned a recent study showing that plastic recycling was a failure, the CEO cut the interview short.

Tania changed the channel and saw activists protesting in front of city hall in Downtown Los Angeles. Their signs said things like, “Save Our Seas” and “Ban Single-Use Plastic.” One person was wearing a whale costume.

The next day, the county supervisors held an emergency meeting. The beaches were a big tourism draw and the plastic trash was keeping people—and their money—away. The clean-up job was too big for the usual sand-combing machines, so they signed emergency contracts for backhoes and diggers and dump trucks. The trash removal crews worked around the clock, but they couldn’t keep up.

California joined other coastal states in requesting federal emergency aid.

Debates in Congress turned nasty. One senator suggested killing off all animals within a mile of the shore to stop them from dumping more of their trash. She stopped her rant when a colleague pointed out, “It’s not their trash. It’s our trash.”

Meanwhile, the plastic kept coming. The trucks carried load after load to landfills. Tania saw a video clip of a humpback whale nosing a broken kayak through San Francisco Bay.

More plastic, day after day. More trucks carting it all away.

Oceanfront communities around the United States—and all over the world—struggled to dispose of it all. Landfills in coastal states reached capacity, and landlocked areas refused to accept any of their neighbors’ waste.

On social media, a billionaire proposed a solution: blast the old plastic into space. In the comments, some people called him a genius. One comment pointed out that if aliens existed, they might do the same thing the sea animals were doing, with even more frightening results.

With parasailing excursions totally cancelled, Tania got a job doing data entry at an office in Sherman Oaks. The work was so dull that her thoughts often drifted to the ocean. She missed being out on the waves.

Eventually, the influx of plastic slowed. The oceans were cleaner than they’d been in years—but on land, people continued to argue about how to dispose of all the trash.

The billionaire who wanted to blast it all into space was back in the news. He’d paid a team of engineers to develop a space cannon he called the “Plastoblast.”

In early tests, the trash failed to break free of the earth’s orbit. Three compressed, 100,000-pound bundles of plastic were now circling the planet as unwanted satellites. The billionaire said they’d “make a few tweaks” and the upgraded cannons would blast the plastic “out of our solar system.” Even without evidence, people believed him. His company began shipping cannons to countries around the world.

A few weeks later, he announced a simultaneous global launch. People headed to the launch sites, eager to see the Plastoblast in action. After a thunderous liftoff, the trash bundles lost momentum. They failed to break through the outer atmosphere. Instead, they hurtled back to earth. The friction of their fall caused them to break apart and burst into flame.

Almost instantly, thousands of manmade meteors rained down on the unprotected planet, igniting wildfires and citywide conflagrations.

At home in her apartment, Tania watched the chaos on TV. She saw the Santa Monica Pier in flames. The Ferris Wheel tilted at a precarious angle.

The next day, Ed texted and asked her to come to work. “People want a birds-eye view of the wreckage.”

Numbly, Tania returned to her usual routine.

Over the next few weeks, she watched as sea creatures pushed the burnt plastic remains back onto shore.

The fed-up leaders of coastal states were unsure where to direct their anger. After a contentious conference call, they shipped the collected clumps of burnt plastic to Washington, D.C., on flatbed trucks, and dumped it all on the National Mall.

The impromptu monument was an eyesore and an embarrassment, and Congress responded. Ignoring the pleas of plastic-industry lobbyists, they banned all non-medical use of disposable plastic and required companies that had manufactured it previously to take responsibility for any future waste.

The plastic manufacturers sued, but public sentiment had turned against them. Nobody wanted to be seen carrying a plastic bag or drinking bottled water.

One morning, as Tania sat on the edge of her dock and listened to the seagulls overhead, something brushed her ankle. She saw a piece of burnt plastic floating next to her foot. She leaned forward and grabbed it.

A dolphin surfaced, facing her, with a scar over its left eye. Another dolphin, slightly smaller, popped up nearby. Tania felt a jolt of energy, as if something inside her had come back to life.

She reached down and splashed the water with her hand.

The bigger dolphin splashed back.

Nate Ragolia

Superman

If you’re looking for a movie that flips twenty years of anti-hero storytelling on its head, James Gunn brings us the most true-to-Superman movie we’ve had since the time of Christopher Reeve.

Superman (2025) so perfectly understands the boyish do-gooder vibe that makes Superman someone to aspire to and someone to love that it’s impossible not to love him. (Though from what I read, it’s possible not to love him for curious reasons.) David Corenswet’s Supes/Clark is sweet, uncomplicated, and good-natured. He’s a man on a mission to protect humanity from itself and who always sees the most moral and ethical choice as the Good and correct one. You won’t see this Superman creating rhetorical hoops for himself, or battling the weight of his responsibilities. No. He loves being a hero. He wants to help. And he’ll take any number of wallopings on our behalf to do it.

And to Gunn’s credit, Superman/Clark Kent’s not funny. For a director who thrives with fast-talking, witty dialogue this film does a brilliant job of giving all those lines and jokes to side characters, so that Supes/Clark can be an earnest fount of hope, and a selfless defender of the small, weak, and innocent. Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane rules, too, and gets to be in the mix and never the damsel-in-distress. But the highlight is Nicholas Hoult’s performance as Lex Luthor—whose jealous-man-boy-tech-mogul-seeking-revenge demands your attention and your disdain.

My favorite things about the movie? So glad you asked:

1. Superman saves a squirrel!

2. This movie is about how being a good person is something anyone can be regardless of where they are from.

3. As a person currently residing in Delaware, having this movie take place there is delightful.

Superman (2025) crams a lot of action in at a relentless pace, and still manages to find emotional beats and the space for a little exposition.  For anyone who loves Metropolis and has been hankering for a superhero movie that’s all-thriller-no-filler, this is the one. The Last Son of Krypton’s return to the screen is about having the power to make the world a better place and being the kind of person who actually does. And I think that’s a damn cool thing.

Ari Iscariot

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

As an Aquarius, I’m usually loathe to jump on popular bandwagons. But for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, I will make a complete and categorical exception. I’m not here to claim this is a perfect game, but I am here to claim it’s worth the hype it’s receiving, and it’s a monumental achievement for the small indie company that made it. To name only a few of my favorite highlights, Clair Obscur possesses astonishing visuals with vast and unique biomes that feel tangible and enchanting, from glittering ocean floors to rain-slick caverns to crumbling desert plateaus. It has a stunningly gorgeous soundtrack, which accompanies every scene with perfect grace and amplifies every plot beat and character interaction. Its mechanics are satisfyingly complex without being overly complicated, and its skill trees boast character builds that can eventually one-shot even the most ridiculous of bosses. The enemy designs are completely unique, their move sets challenging, and the dodging and parrying system used to counter their attacks allows for a level of engagement that most turn-based games cannot boast.

But what makes this game such a strong contender for game of the year is its storytelling. It’s difficult to talk about the story without spoiling it—the intro sequence alone is brimful of emotion and consequence, raising the stakes to heartbreaking heights. For me, the waterworks were already flowing twenty minutes in, and the characters had instantly established themselves as people I was ready to fight tooth and nail for. And this attachment to them only grows as the plot progresses. There are games that have similar relationship building mechanics to Clair Obscur, like Persona 5 or Final Fantasy, but I don’t think I’ve seen any game tend to interpersonal relationships so caringly and accurately as this one. The dialogue is superbly realized by writers and voice actors alike: it’s stunningly realistic, filled with awkward pauses and muttered asides and stumbling confessions. The connections you build feel personal and consequential, not like afterthoughts in the broader story. These characters and their personalities move you, funny and heart-wrenching and raw and impossibly human. Their dreams, their hopes, motivate you through every battle, keep your teeth grit in determination as you strategize how to trounce the most challenging of bosses, and break your heart in two as you decide your characters’ fates. A game can be the most visually stunning, perfectly run piece of programming you’ve ever seen, but if it doesn’t have a hook that gets up in your guts and pulls, then it doesn’t matter how wonderfully made it is. But Clair Obscur has the fortune of being both well-made and devastatingly well-written.

We are in a time when games are frequently put out too early, where industry abuse of creators is rife, and where profit is paramount and making art is secondary. But amidst this, Clair Obscur emerges as a beacon of potential. It shows what a small team can do when creativity is allowed to thrive, when the process of creation is given time, and when creatives care about the story they are telling and the impact it will have on their audience. This game will linger in your memory not because it’s perfect (though it’s very close to it) but because it was made with love and care, and that compassion and creativity breathes through every element of the game.

Kaitlin Lounsberry

K-Pop Demon Hunters

Even if you’re unaware, K-Pop Demon Hunters has infiltrated the social scene this summer. From their Billboard ranking original soundtrack to the funny, yet tender storyline, this Netflix-original film has taken everyone by surprise and for good reason.

I wasn’t expecting to find this movie anything special. As someone who enjoys K-Pop, I was hesitant about the hype I was hearing around this movie. Was it going to poke fun at a genre of music I’ve come to understand and hold fondly? Would it disgrace a (largely) young, female fanbase and make them seem silly and their passion something to point at and poke fun? Did it stereotype the male artists in this industry, reducing them based on their perceived femininity?

To say I was mistaken would be an understatement. It’s evident that the creators behind K-Pop Demon Hunters care deeply about this world. Director Maggie Kang delivered a film that has bulldozed the summer film season. She’s delivered a movie where a fictional girl group (Huntrix or HUNTR/X) is charting real music charts. She’s presented a plot that explores themes of identity, acceptance, self-love, redemption, and found family. The animation style is vibrant and colorful and pulses like a neon sticker in your brain. I cried, which I certainly didn’t expect when I tossed it on thinking it’d play in the background as I multitasked around my apartment. This film has become such a sensation the Netflix original is now being shown in movie theaters, a transition wholly opposite form the majority of the film industry.

Watching this movie climb the ranks and getting people who traditionally don’t spare K-Pop a chance has been a delight. It reminds me of the power of storytelling and how crucial a common interest is in a time when everything is so divisive. Sometimes we just need to give a group of demon hunters who happen to be star-studded K-Pop artists a chance.

Nate Ragolia

Friendship

Kick off summer with a film comedy that doesn’t aspire to be like any other film, and ends up carving new paths of originality, awkwardness, and surprising humor.

Friendship, which bears the tagline “Men shouldn’t have friends,” stars Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd as two men brought together by one misdelivered package. Robinson plays a nervy husband and father who is stuck in a rut, but everything changes when he meets Rudd’s cool, mustachioed TV weatherman. As a new connection forms, the men go on an adventure through the sewers, share beers, and seem on the precipice of lasting friendship… And then the rest of the movie happens. Robinson’s character, obsessed with Rudd’s, grows increasingly stranger, bolder, and more unhinged until he discovers a valuable secret.

If you’re familiar with Robinson’s comedy and his sketch show I Think You Should Leave, then you’ll be well-prepared for what comes. This movie is a wild ride, overflowing with laughs that will catch you off guard, and a look that’s uniquely its own. This is definitely a rewatch kind of comedy, too, because almost every line has a joke embedded, whether they are raucously delivered in Robinson’s boisterous style, or more quietly left for attentive watchers to clock and mull over, laughing long after leaving the theater. Bonus points: This movie is weird in both structure and content, so take that as you will! 

I noticed you have degrees in Economics and Public Policy from Stanford. Could you share the story of how you transitioned from those fields to becoming a published author?

I didn’t transition so much as I came into college knowing I was interested in many things. I was a lifelong avid reader and writer and had cobbled together an education of sorts by attending local author events, reading fiction and craft books, and voraciously consuming any advice that anyone had to offer. At the same time, I was interested in other subject fields—namely, how economics and public policy affect our day to day lives. I wanted to construct a life in which I could meaningfully participate and contribute to the subjects that interested me.

You published Ruby Lost and Found in 2023, True Love and Other Impossible Odds in 2024, and now The Manor of Dreams, your adult literary debut, in 2025. That is amazing! Were you working on these projects simultaneously?

As publishing a book takes years, sometimes things are happening concurrently, or out of order! I wrote Ruby Lost and Found in the summer of 2021 when I graduated from college. I did a one-year graduate program, in which I first drafted Manor (January 2022). I then rewrote True Love and Other Impossible Odds the summer of 2022, which I first drafted in the fall of 2020. I wrote whatever project compelled me at the moment.

What inspired your shift from children’s literature to adult fiction? How did that transition feel to you?

Again, I write about themes that interest me. I grew up loving children’s fiction, so I was interested in tackling ideas of growing pains and self-discovery. But I knew immediately the Manor was going to be an adult fiction project because it wasn’t about coming of age—it was about inheritance and consequence—which are very adult ideas.

What sparked the idea for Manor of Dreams?

I went to a university founded by a man who had amassed an incredible amount of wealth from building the Transcontinental Railroad. In its construction, thousands of Chinese immigrants were exploited for their labor, working for less pay than their white counterparts in terribly dangerous conditions. It is said the ghosts of the Chinese workers who perished in its construction are stuck in the Sierra Nevada mountains without proper burial, and their screams echo in the wind. Being Chinese-American myself, I was dealing with the cognitive dissonance of going to a beautiful institution that had such a hidden and conflicted past. This heavily inspired the core of Manor of Dreams.

Manor of Dreams has a gorgeous blend of mystery, horror, romance, and familial legacy. Were these elements part of the story from the beginning, or did they develop as you wrote?

They were all a core part of the book when I started. It was a big challenge when first drafting this book because I wanted to touch on so many themes—from the familial dynamics, to the romance, to the mystery of Vivian Yin. It was tough to maintain focus. But through edits with my brilliant editor, Margo, we were able to individually hone those elements and cohesively bring them in conversation with one another.

Your novel has been compared to Mexican Gothic and The Seven Husbands of Evenlyn Hugo. Are there any films or books that inspired the eerie atmosphere of your novel?

Yes! I wanted it to evoke the chaos of Knives Out (I always pitch this book as “Knives Out but set in a haunted house”), and also have the emotional, gothic timbre of Mike Flanagan shows such as The Haunting of Bly Manor or The Fall of the House of Usher.

Imagery of rotting land, thorned roses, and crumbling foundations plays a significant role throughout this narrative. How did you approach crafting vivid, foreboding images to create intricate layers of thematic and metaphorical richness?

I wanted to create a consistent mood of dissonance to flesh out the story: the flowers in the garden are beautiful, but deadly. The house is massive and grand, but the ceilings are warped, and the interior is falling apart. I wanted these aspects of setting to all conflict with each other. There’s also something compelling about the garden metaphor along with the house—about roots and foundations and what happens when the very foundations of your family, or your dream, or your aspirations are rotten.

I was also enamored with the multi-POV that spanned across three generations of the Yin family. Can you talk about the importance of threading each of these generations of women together?

I am so sentimentally enamored with multigenerational stories. The question of what we knowingly and unknowingly inherit from our families will always be something that fascinates me. Manor is about the inheritance of a physical home but also about the inheritance of so many intangible things—ambition, expectations, traumas, secrets, love, and everything that makes up a family. I also wanted the multigenerational lens to explore the potentials of learning and growing—how one generation could fall into the same cycles of keeping secrets and burying traumas, but how the next generation could break those cycles and move forward.

The publishing process can feel more daunting than writing a book itself. What was that process like for you, especially moving between genres? What advice would you give to aspiring authors who are about to start or in the midst of the publishing phase?   

I am incredibly lucky to have a literary agent (we’ve been working together for about ten years) who has eagerly championed all the works that interest me, from my children’s fiction to YA to this general adult fiction. Aside from that, it’s a matter of cultivating trust with your publishing entities. I’m also very lucky to work with brilliant editors who can intuit what I’m trying to do with a book and provide feedback on how to get there. The advice I would give now is to keep writing, and that there is no effort or words ever wasted, and that effort will all go somewhere someday.

Okay, final question! I’ve seen a few intriguing hints about a new project on your social media, and I have to ask—what’s next for you?

I’m so excited to talk more about it! For now, what I can say is that I’m currently in the middle of working on a YA thriller (I’m going back to my kidlit/YA roots!) and it’s been the most fun, mind-bendingly, twisty time of my writerly life.

This title will be published on June 10, 2025 by Peachtree Teen.

*SPOILER ALERT* This review contains plot details of Vesuvius.

“It’s less that I think there is a reason for hurt, and more that faith gives us grace to heal. To come out the other side and try again.”

Don your togas, buckle your sandals, and travel back in time to the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. Cass Biehn’s debut LGBTQ and young adult historical fantasy novel, Vesuvius, tells the story of Felix, a clever thief with a mysterious past, and Loren, a tender-hearted temple attendant plagued with nightmares of the future.

When Felix steals the Helmet of Mercury, a coveted artifact no mortal can touch, he seeks shelter in the Temple of Isis. Felix’s stay is anything but pleasant as he’s knocked unconscious by Loren, who’s been haunted by strange visions of Felix burning down the city. Together, Felix and Loren must discover how their fates are connected to prevent Loren’s visions from becoming reality and unleashing disaster upon Pompeii.

Biehn’s creation of two angsty, authentic, and well-developed main characters is excellent. Through alternating perspectives, Biehn gives Felix and Loren clear, distinct voices that serve as foils for one another. Felix is a brash and sarcastic young man who’s quick to think on his feet and constantly in motion. Loren is anxious and compassionate, often putting the good of others above himself. When Felix awakens in the temple, the juxtaposition of their personalities shines. Felix is untrusting of Loren and believes “kindness came with limits,” whereas Loren arrives with grapes and gauze and immediately offers to tend Felix’s wounds. Loren goes so far as to vouch for Felix’s honor, knowing any trouble Felix causes would fall onto his shoulders.

As the old saying goes, “opposites attract,” and Biehn uses this technique to create a slow-burn romance between the two boys without feeling too contrived. Felix grows protective of Loren, feeling seen when “other gazes skated past” him, and Loren admires Felix’s “clever mind” and how he listens to Loren when everyone else dismisses him and his visions. The thread connecting Felix and Loren is that they’re two lost boys looking for a place to belong. Thankfully, their love story is riddled with highs and lows, making it feel less like a tropey YA love story and more like a real relationship with misunderstandings and forgiveness.

The world-building is also well researched. From page one, Biehn grounds us in their rich imagining of Pompeii as we follow Felix on the run, tasting the dust from the street, feeling the warmth of the Mediterranean sun on our skin, and fearing the swift unsheathing of a sword behind us. Biehn sprinkles in plenty of historical context with the inclusion of villas and socio-economic differences in ancient Roman society, the primitive drug of poppy sap, accurate temple layouts, and Roman mythology sure to make history buffs happy.

But the strongest aspect of the book is Biehn’s refusal to hold back from exploring serious social issues like inequality and sexual abuse through Felix as he reflects, “power is under the control of the wealthy, not the masses.” An essential aspect of Felix’s character development is his past trauma and learning to find hope again through his healing relationship with Loren. As a child, Felix was raped by a priest while in the Temple of Mercury. Biehn does a nice job of showing this trauma through Felix’s aversion to physical touch. But when he’s with Loren, Felix realizes, “despite the hurts he had known, there were other things worth believing in … Touch often settled sticky over his flesh, and even gentle hands triggered his instinct to flee. But there was something different about Loren. He didn’t touch in order to take.”

While Vesuvius’s central theme revolves around trauma, survival, and healing, Biehn’s short sentences and casual writing style do a nice job of balancing the more serious moments with the comical ones. Part of this book’s charm is Biehn’s humor erupting through sentences like “Gods, youth are so mouthy these days.”

However, Biehn’s voice was a bit of a double-edged sword and got distracting at times. One of my biggest hangups was Vesuvius’s use of modern-day slang, which jarred me out of the historical setting, like Felix introducing himself as “Fuck” to the temple priest and Loren telling a guard to worry about “the state of his balls” as he attacks. These moments felt inauthentic and immature, decreasing my enjoyment of the narrative. There was also a heavy reliance on similes throughout the book, which made the story feel slightly too “authorial” than character-driven at times.

The pacing and plot were also inconsistent. The novel starts strong as we follow Felix on a heart-pounding chase and quite literally crash into Loren inside the temple of Isis. However, after their initial introduction, there’s a lot of talk and not a lot of action as several mysterious subplots compete. I wished Biehn kept their focus on one of these threads, like Felix and Loren’s backstory and the sure eruption of Mount Vesuvius, rather than adding murder mysteries and political turmoil.

Additionally, there were moments of tension that resolved too quickly. Namely, Loren’s pivotal decision to either let Felix wear the Helmet of Mercury and “learn his memories at the risk of him turning cruel” or to keep the helmet away from Felix to try and protect him from his dark past. Loren only confesses the truth to Felix about the helmet’s ability to restore his memory when Vesuvius erupts. Felix saves Loren’s life by slapping the Helmet of Mercury onto Loren’s head to protect him, ultimately destroying the magic relic and Felix’s chances of making peace with his damaging past. After all the intrigue about the Helmet of Mercury and scenes where Loren communicates with Felix’s “ghost” (or traumatized self) in his dreams, the destruction of the helmet and the boys’ safe arrival at Loren’s family estate in the final third of the book felt like a letdown. I wanted Biehn to linger more in Felix’s losses and grief. But the story rushes past all this to focus on Loren’s self-pity and survivors’ guilt rather than the repercussions of Mount Vesuvius obliterating Pompeii and Felix’s discovered identity as an heir of the Roman god Mercury.

Overall, Vesuvius is a promising debut with an intriguing concept. I admire how Biehn doesn’t pull their punches about the lingering effects of abuse and trauma while still emphasizing the importance of restoring faith and trust in humanity. Biehn’s approachable and sarcastic style makes Vesuvius a fun read and a good fit for fans of Casey McQuiston and Adam Silvera. 

The knell at the door tolls. 

I turn. A black paw swipes mercilessly at my face—claws sharp, bloody, and vicious. I snap my fingers. He freezes mid-snarl. I hum indifferently.

He is sleek, his coat gleaming under the club’s cold neon. This panther will drink Death in the Afternoon. 

“Welcome to the Nightclub for the Newly Departed,” I say. “Denial, yearning, and violence are not permitted here.” I nod to one of the many signs plastered around the club:

RULES—Once you step into the premises . . . “What will you have today?”

It’s a meaningless, ritualistic question; I’m already retrieving a coupe glass. The panther drops to his haunches, growling. His eyes are the color of a split lime. 

Perfect, I muse as I work. The right absinthe, topped with champagne, creates a heavy cocktail as green as his gaze. 

“You look like one of them.” He hisses. 

Lemon twist on the rim. I slide the coupe glass over to him and press my fingers together. Snap,and the glass is replaced with a broad glass dish. “I was born millennia before your poachers. I did not know them.”

“Why did they kill me?”

Arrogance. Money. Boredom. Desperation. “Drink,” I say. “Be at peace.”

The panther growls. “My life was unfairly ripped from me. Peace?”

I can see his fury; it coils off him like smoke and hisses like a lit fuse. 

Murder victims are all the same. Rage blankets helplessness, but never extinguishes it.

They are not my favorite customers.

“Drink,” I repeat.

“No.”

“What do you want? Revenge?”

His tail lashes. “I want them to burn in the wildfires they set to my home. To feel their own bullets tear through their hearts.”

I spin into the usual rhetoric. “Revenge is a fantasy. We are on an entirely different plane from reality. You will never see them again. Will you let that anger consume you? Drink.”

The panther does not consider my words; his unwavering gaze does not break. “You,” he hisses, prowling the table. “You are worse than them.”

“I told you I never associated with your poachers.”

“No. You. You, with your monotone voice and your indifferent gaze. I would rather see hate, or the pride in my killers’ eyes. Have you spent your millennia holding yourself above the pain of others? Have you been so devoid of life that you have lost your heart?”

My fingers falter on the counter. 

“This job calls for no empathy,” I say, after a beat too long. “I serve and endure.”

He studies me, head tilted, tail curling in silent question. Then, finally, he dips his head and laps at the cocktail. The dish is empty in seconds.

“Acceptance,” I say, my voice thinner than I intend. “To drink is to accept.”

The panther looks at me one last time, searching for something I cannot name. Then he leaps off the counter, vanishing into the scattered crowd. I watch him go, tasting absinthe on my tongue.

It is bitter, sharp, and green.

Hidden in the alleys of Montmartre, where the cobblestones remember revolution and romance, The Velvet Requiem is whispered about in passing, in prayer, and in dreams. It’s not a place you find—it finds you. When your pulse stops but your soul stirs, when regret clings to you tighter than skin, it opens its doors.

Tonight, like every night, the velvet curtains breathed in rhythm with jazz.

Dazai Osamu sat in the booth farthest from the stage, shadowed and silent, with his long coat slung over his shoulders like fallen angel’s wings. His glass of absinthe was untouched, its pale green hue casting strange ghosts on the polished table.

He was dead but not gone.

The dead don’t stay dead at The Velvet Requiem, not when their stories are unfinished.

He leaned back, eyes closed, half listening to the band warm up. And then, the stage lit gold. He opened his eyes.

In a suit and a hat tipped low, stood Chuuya Nakahara.

Not a singer tonight—the singer.

He stepped into the light like it owed him something. And when he sang, the whole room tilted like iron to magnet.

The first note hit like memory. His voice was a low-throated lament, velvet and ruin, sliding down every spine and soaking every thought in longing. Dazai couldn’t look away.

He recognized him. He always did.

Every soul remembered who made them feel alive, even in death.

When the song ended, the room exhaled.

He found Chuuya later in the side lounge in a haze of red lamps and lonely melodies.

“Still haunting the place?” Dazai asked, leaning in with a lazy, melancholic charm he

wore like a second skin.

Chuuya sipped his wine dark as blood and twice as dangerous. “Still pretending you don’t belong here?”

“I don’t,” Dazai said. “I’m only here until I forget what I died for.” Chuuya turned, eyes glowing under the dim light. “And have you?”

“Not tonight.”

They sat in silence, the kind that tastes like grief and unspoken desire.

Chuuya’s voice cut through it. “You ever think maybe this place isn’t purgatory? Maybe it’s… salvation.”

“I don’t believe in salvation,” Dazai said. “Only detours.”

Chuuya smiled—sharp, tragic, unshaken. “Then let this be a beautiful one.”

His hand touched Dazai’s across the table. The contact was soft. Real. Too real. And suddenly Dazai felt there again. Not quite dead. Not quite whole. But feeling.

“I remember you,” Dazai whispered, as if the words could bring back the heartbeat he lost. “I remember how you sang in the rain the night the world ended.”

Chuuya tilted his head. “That night… I think I was singing for you.”

They didn’t leave together, not exactly. The Velvet Requiem doesn’t allow endings—it only offers interludes.

But as Dazai followed Chuuya through the hall of mirrors, past dancing phantoms and

tearful saints, he realized he didn’t want to move on yet.

Some songs are too beautiful to end.

And some souls… are too entangled to part.

I.

You can’t remember when the rash first appeared. The little buds, poppyseed size, have barely faded since making your forearm their homestead. They were flush, defiant little things, untouchable by creams.

There’s a ritual you do that helps, though. Fifteen minutes soaking in Epsom salt water. Lit candles scented like sugared almonds. You don’t need it, not anymore, but it relaxes you. Soothes the itch.

Your eyes drift to your arm as it rests below the surface. The clotted blooms stare back at you. Blood-red, you think, like your favorite going-out lipstick—the color you’d wear each night to Club Eden, a crimson offering to God in the hopes He’d send “the one.”

Moonlight slivers through your moth-eaten curtain, and in its glow, you watch as paper wings flutter and dance.

II.

The rash spreads to your collarbone. It slinks between your breasts like crawling ivy. In some sick, slightly Freudian way, they remind you of flowers; you want to nourish them, water them, tell them it’s okay.

You inspect the growth at your vanity. The little red clusters have swollen into being, almost pulsing with life. Your hands ghost over the fields, stopping right below the abdomen.

You’re beginning to think this is your fault.

How careless you’d been that night. You barely remember his name—but you remember how his hands snaked around your waist, how far he led you from Eden. The test read positive a week later, and in four more, you lost it. You couldn’t even bring yourself to see a doctor.

Beautiful Flora, your mama once called you. She’d roll in her grave if she saw you now.

III.

The moment you felt the itch on your face, you knew that nothing could be done. Every bump has become a slick, milky pustule. The swelling smothers your body like a strangler fig. You can no longer look at yourself.

You’ve confined yourself to the mattress. It’s the only way to reach Heaven, now. A thick white sheet covers your vanity,  your curtains, a veil from the outside world. You wonder, again, if this is His punishment for that night. As if losing the child was not enough. As if every second spent repenting since the blood came was not enough. Your hands clasp together in a desperate, trembling litany.

But a sudden, sharp pain stifles all thoughts of devotion. Your whole body tightens, tightens, tightens, until you’re grasping at your sheets, pathetic and shameful and writhing. It hurts, you think, it hurts, it hurts—

but this, in the end, will be your salvation.

IV.

It takes hours for the pain to finally subside. Your breathing slows to a deadened rhythm. A white-heat haze clouds your vision, and just barely, you make out the fruits of your labor.

Newborn larvae, departing from the petalled remains of your skin. Little crescent angels. A swarming, holy Primavera.

You watch them dance, the way you once did, as you sink into His restful arms.

Nate Ragolia

The Nineties: A Book

As someone born in the early eighties (Yes, we have a couple of oldies here at F(r)iction), the 1990s holds a special place in my heart. It was a “simpler time” in that we had still had a monoculture, even as it saw massive changes to how war was done, how the global economy was shaped, how we viewed race, gender, and sexuality, how politics would change irreversibly, how we’d confront terrorism, gun violence, cloning, the fall of Communism, and more…  And that was before the internet even took shape.

To process just how complex the world of my teenage years really was, I’ve been reading Chuck Klosterman’s 2022 book The Nineties. Klosterman’s thoughtful dissection of the era from Ross Perot to Michael Jordan’s retirement and unretirement to the Unabomber to Dolly the Sheep to The Matrix is riveting, not just because I lived it but precisely because living in the moment means missing so much. And that was especially true in a time when the news showed up in paper each morning or on TV briefly at night, but wasn’t the constant mood that it is in 2025.

If you’re seeking solace in near history and the lessons we could have learned, and maybe still can, this book might be for you. And if you just want to reminisce about Nirvana, early Tarantino, and the O.J. Simpson trial this book will hit the spot.

Sara Santistevan

Spilling the Chai

April is National Poetry Month, which means I’m more than inspired to read satiating poetry that leads me to the following question: What ingredients make a poem “good?” Pungent imagery, spicy metaphors, and a gut-punch ending that lingers immediately come to mind. So when I saw chocolate mints the other day and immediately thought not of Olive Garden, but rather, “the paradox of a chocolate mint / sweet and sharp / each flavor balancing / the excess of the other / like we used to do as people,” from Geneffa Jahan’s poem “Chocolate Mints,” I knew I had to revisit her delicious debut collection Spilling the Chai.

“Chocolate Mints,” like all the poems in this collection, uses food as a conduit to ask existential questions: how our cultural identities flavor our (mis)treatment in society, how complicated family histories echo in our present, and how the languages we grow up with can shape our understanding of life. What strikes me most about Jahan’s poetry is her play with language as both a poetic and therapeutic practice. Growing up in a multilingual, cross-cultural household, Jahan learned to speak a dialect entirely unique to her family, now wielding it as a tool to excavate emotional truths.

What I could say about this book would fill a seven-course meal, but instead I’ll leave you with an amuse-bouche to entice you to savor the collection yourself: the opening and closing lines from Jahan’s poem “Dizzy Means Banana,”* which showcase her stunning wordplay across languages:

“To my failing ears, chakkar and chakra sound the same / Chakkar the spinning of one’s head, crystals dislodged from the inner ear throwing the body off-kilter. // Chakra pronounced almost the same, a spinning of wheels within the body…//…In our house / dizzy meant banana, / and I could safely say I didn’t want one, / pale and raw, difficult to swallow / the texture of chalk / but easier to reject / than the / hand flying out / to tame my face.”

*“Pronounced “dizzy,” ndizi is the Swahili word for banana” (Jahan 4n2).

Dominic Loise

The Bondsman

The Bondsman is a new streaming show from horror production studio Blumhouse starring Kevin Bacon. The premise is similar to the television series Reaper or the movie RIPD, where the main character, here the recently deceased bounty hunter Hub Halloran, now collects escaped souls from Hell on Earth for The Devil. 

Hell works on a pyramid scheme for collecting souls and communicates via analog fax machines. Also, the episodes are incredibly binge-able as they flow into each other like chapters in a book. And the strength of The Bondsman is the bigger story it tells is Hub’s estrangment from family and whether he’ll be able to make amends with them.

Speaking of Hub’s family, a special shout out to Beth Grant, who plays his mother. I have been excited every time she has been in something ever since I saw her in Donnie Darko. Grant delivers an amazing performance as someone who both taught her son the bounty hunter business yet feels she failed him as a mother since he went to Hell when he died. 

Ari Iscariot

Mickey 17

So… Mickey 17. The trailer was weird, the advertising was weird, and the vibe was weird overall. But is it the kind of weird you wanna watch? Keeping vague on the plot details, allow me the honor of making my case through the acting, the characters, the color palette, and the messaging.

Throughout his career, Robert Pattinson seems to be building a repertoire of playing weird little guys. And Mickey, our protagonist, is a weird little guy. Fun weird. Put him under a microscope and do experiments on him weird. (Ironically, the same attitude pretty much everyone else in the movie has towards him, as Mickey is a disposable clone that can be replicated endlessly.) Flexing his weird little guy skills, Pattinson delivers a mind-boggling performance as two identical characters, the likes of which I haven’t seen since Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap. The distinctions between the two versions of Mickey are so clearly delineated: down to body language, personality, voice, line delivery, etc., that you have to actively remind yourself Pattinson doesn’t have a clone in real life.

In contrast to Robert Pattinson’s one man circus, we have Mickey’s partner, Nasha, played by Naomi Ackie. She perfectly compliments the pathetic, scraggly, wet-cat energy Pattinson exudes with her blunt confidence and care. One of the things I love about this dynamic is that Nasha is the rock in Mickey’s life. She’s the protector; she’s the brash, outspoken one; she’s the one ready to pick up arms and fight everyone to the death to make sure her poor little meow meow isn’t being abused. It’s a very delicious subversion of heteropatriarchal gender roles. (She also wants to fuck both clone versions of Mickey at the same time, and the movie does not slut shame her for this. It’s like Yeah. Obviously you would want to fuck two versions of Robert Pattinson. Wouldn’t we all? And I applaud them for saying that with their whole chests out.)

We also have Mark Ruffalo playing one of the villains. A perfectly creepy sleaze, his depiction of the politician Kenneth Marshall obviously apes the mannerisms and behavior of Trump and Musk. (And also, strangely, incorporates a heaping dollop of Marlon Brando’s The Godfather.) Suffice to say, Mark Ruffalo was having a grand old time playing the egomaniacal, narcissistic patriarch and you can feel the sheer joy he’s taking in the blatant mockery of the current state of politics.

To the point of color, there’s a lot of grays and off-whites in this movie as a consequence of the dominant setting being a futuristic, dystopian-esque spaceship. The lower-class members of the spaceship mostly exist in these spaces, devoid of coloring in gray or black jumpsuits, or washed out by white lab coats. In contrast, the rich characters’ clothes are very colorful and their spaces are glaringly opulent. But even in the lower class areas that Mickey, Nasha, and the rest of the crew populate, we still have lighting that is often vibrant and tonally poignant. (At one point, I turned to my partner and I was like Hey, I know I said this in the last movie we watched together but honestly, people don’t use yellow lighting enough and it’s really good in this movie. And she was like Haha. Yeah, I wonder if it’s the same guy who directed the last movie. Spoilers, it was the same guy. The cinematographer for Snowpiercer is not the cinematographer for Mickey 17, so I think this particular brand of yellow lighting is just Bong Joon Ho’s thing. Wild to be able to recognize a guy by the colors he uses in his films.) Anyway, the film has excellent environmental storytelling through color and costuming that rewards those who pay attention to those details.

Finally, and most importantly, this was a movie with a very satisfying ending. In an industry that seems ever more focused on fast-paced action, big displays of grandiose (and shitty) CGI, or high octane emotions without any impactful character arcs or messaging, a well-rounded plot is extremely refreshing. The recurring plot points in the film are built upon and resolved and Mickey’s personal arc and struggle are compassionately and directly addressed in a way that, once again, rewards the audience for their attention.

In conclusion, is Mickey 17 a weird movie? Yes. Is it going to be for everyone? No. But if you’re looking for a strange, heartfelt sci-fi romp that wraps up everything neatly and sweetly in a bow, has an incredibly diverse and colorful cast of characters, and keeps you interested for every single second that it’s playing, Mickey 17 is for you.

Each eccentric face that peered into hers had a tale written on it; locked away and hidden behind its owner’s expressions.

The nightclub, termed “Dearly Departed,” was brimming with chronicles of history, and Ophelia was interested in every single one. There was not a thing these strangers shared, except that Death came for them all.

Experiences with the living were treasured, and people’s narratives were remarkable, especially now that they would never encounter another living being again. This was the currency here. Tell a secret and be admitted into the club. Have no secrets to tell, or no secrets you wish to share, and remain excluded.

The music was a mix of nostalgia and absurdity. There were heartbeats woven into the notes, breaths integrated into the chords. It was so distinctly alive, yet they were anything but. The strangers were dancing discordantly, each one hearing their own beat, their past life. Some moved with melancholy, as though something was weighing them down, while others danced without inhibition, arms moving wildly and bodies twisting.

It was abnormally cold down there. The kind of temperature that would have them hiding under the covers, with a warm drink, cuddled with a loved one when they were alive. But now, the chill remains only as a nuance of the dead.

Ophelia was standing by the bar, watching the man with bones instead of flesh as he mixed various concoctions, when suddenly a cold hand grasped her bare shoulder.

“You look familiar … did I know you back there?” The voice is soft and melodic, and Ophelia almost instinctively relaxes.

The question causes her to pause and think. Ophelia doesn’t know what to say. Did she know her up there? Her life past now seems so far away, and things are starting to seem fuzzy. She glances at the woman, who is waiting expectantly.

“I’m … not so sure.” She replies, voice quiet and reserved. The woman in front of her looks as though she had lived a life complete. Her head full of gray hair, her face crinkled with eyes so full of wisdom. Ophelia suddenly decides even if she did not know this woman, she would like to get to know her.

The woman is still staring at her, the hand once placed on Ophelia’s shoulder now at her side, fingers clenched into a fist. Her ring finger displays a golden ring that glimmers beautifully under the beaming lights.

“I am Gertrude.” She says, introducing herself.

Ophelia nods and smiles, introducing herself and shaking the old lady’s hand. There’s a shine in Gertrude’s eyes, and the younger woman knows the story she has to tell will be legendary.

She’s staring at her with a faraway look in her eyes. “Ophelia,” she mutters. “That was my daughter’s name.”

I was still wearing the same pajamas I had on when they stole from me. 

Just a t-shirt and bottoms. 

Nothing special.

The neon pink light of the club beckoned me, whispering promises of a haven, where the fallen could finally be laid to rest. 

Inside, women clustered into small orbits, their voices hushed like a child’s lullaby. It wasn’t like the usual nightclubs I frequented—you know, the ones where pulsing blue strobe lights illuminated intoxicated bodies, illuminating the wild, the wicked, the darkest parts of man. 

Here, no one danced. No one laughed. The air was thick with screams unheard.

I made my way to the bar and leaned in.

“Sorry,” the bartender murmured under her breath. “Non-alcoholic drinks only.”

Her eyes roamed my face, sweeping over me before settling on the dried blood staining my sleeve.

“This your first?” she asked in a low voice. 

I nodded imperceptibly, glancing around to make sure the shadows weren’t listening.  

I tilted my chin towards her. “You?”

Her mouth was drawn into a tight line, and for a moment, she said nothing. Then softly, bitterly, “Second. But this time he finally went through with it.”

Her words seeped into my bones, rattling the cage that once held my soul. 

And then, from somewhere behind me—

“He spiked my drink.”

A pause.

“—left me on the side of the road.”

A whisper, barely more than a breath.

“I didn’t even know him.”

We gathered closer, stories slipping between us like a secret language, binding our fates together.

And then the door opened. A child entered the room. She couldn’t have been more than four or five, her Ariel dress trailing behind her, the pink sequins catching the neon light.

She was too young for this place. 

But innocence had never protected any of us. 

The people who stayed took it harder than the people who left. Those going could always return: if things didn’t work out in Float, they could have a fresh start on Earth. Wait half a year, and it would be a whole new planet—about a decade passed for every month gone. For those who stayed, the departure was just another death.

Minnie was a rare case: traveling alone. Few boarded the shuttle to Float without someone acting as a witness to who they’d been before. She savored the relative solitude of the trip, knowing on arrival she’d be installed in one of the living-housing communities. She’d chosen the Single Moms Clan, thinking some extra help would be welcomed, even if she didn’t quite match the Ideal Candidate description.

Her first look at Float was disappointing. The town mimicked Earth exactly, and Minnie felt like her Earth self exactly. Still, she smiled at Frida, her Clan Representative, who hugged her over the baby strapped to her chest. The sight made Minnie worry about dribbling milk, even though she’d dried up long before during the weeks on the shuttle. Frida acquainted Minnie with her Float responsibilities, only one of which caused Minnie chagrin: Dating-Pool Party Attendance. It was mandatory for unpartnered Floaters, but Frida assured her they were almost fun.

The DPP Organization Committee, ostensibly to increase the chance of population growth, threw themed parties, retrofitting the storage unit assigned to them into a new sort of date night each month. A seedy bar, complete with a sticky floor. A movie theater, minus the movie, popcorn inexplicably pressed into the recliner cushions. A downtown rave, with lights clipping every which way and too-loud music meant to draw people closer, into pheromone-range, if they wanted to be heard.

There, she met Nick, who had a mustache, who could somehow make a black t-shirt and jeans look pretentious. They would get drinks together. They developed a teasing sort of rapport, and their hours together would slip by, as quickly as Earth-time.

One day, they were laughing and joking and singing song lyrics at each other as a discotheque mirror ball orbited above them. Other single Floaters tried out the supplied rollerblades as pinks and blues strobed across Nick’s face. He belted out an old Earth song from their youth. “Hey-ey-ey baby, won’t you have my bay-ay-ay-ayby.” A strange sense of de ja vu: She’d somehow swirled back to the very moment that always undid her, where she would forget high risk had anything to do with her, where she’d misbelieve one more try would be enough to get it right—just one more try, and she’d show the little stone there was more to this world than sinking. Except this time, even the hope had turned rancid. Her old fashion tasted only of its bitters. The party was over.

Minnie boarded the next shuttle for Earth without telling a single soul.