Star Vs. the Forces of Evil is an action comedy cartoon about an interdimensional mage-warrior princess visiting Earth. Season 1 aired on Disney XD between January and September 2015.
Star Butterfly (Eden Sher) is a princess of Mewni, a magical parallel dimension. On her 14th birthday, her parents the king and queen give her the family heirloom magical wand. When she accidentally sets fire to the castle, they send her away to Earth for training. She ends up enrolling at Echo Creek Academy where principal assigns her to pair up with Marco Diaz (Adam McArthur), who has a reputation for being very straight-laced and by-the-book. Soon after Star is attacked for the first time by the monster Ludo (Alan Tudyk) and his gang of henchmonsters who want to steal the wand and she discovers her magical abilities and finds out that it’s also fun kicking monster butt.
Star is fun-loving, impulsive, has a low tolerance for boredom, and gives her everything to everything she decides to do. Marco, in many ways, is very different very careful, nervous, risk-averse, and more likely to talk himself out of doing something than to just dive in as Star would. But they very quickly become best friends, complimenting each other as friends, each acting as a kind of balancing force on the others extreme tendencies. Ludo and his gang of monsters are a recurring element as he continues to try to attain the wand, and Marco and Star work together to fend him off.
Most of the episodes feel largely episodic, small standalone adventures, but many of them do add elements to build backstory for larger arcs, more about Star’s family and the history of Mewni.
A lot of the appeal of the show is the fun drawing style that goes along with Star’s unique and powerful spells like “narwhal blast” and “blueberry cupcake bazooka”, and the writing and voice acting is superb.
And if you like this season, there are three more! Highly recommended, one of my favorite shows.
This is one of a series of articles wherein I examine a music video as a short film, focusing on the story rather than the music, trying to identiy the story arcs and characters motivations, and consider the larger implication of events.
The film this week is Run Boy Run by Woodkid, a black-and-white fantasy thriller chase.
The first image we see is of an isolated stark white building in the mountains, with a narrow tower that resembles a skyscraper design, though much smaller. The only sound is the deep and resonant ring of a deep church bell. On the third stroke of the bell the visual stillness of the scene is broken as the title character, the boy who is never named, exits the building on the right, sprinting as though his life depends on it.
After the fourth toll of the bell we see the boy much more closely. He is wearing what appears to be a schoolboy’s uniform with short pants, a lapeled jacket, a collared shirt, and a backpack. Even as he runs at an incredible pace, he checks over his shoulder for signs of pursuit and his terror is evident as tears stream down his cheeks. The pounding percussion of the music underscores the urgency, as do the lyrics: “this world is not made for you” and “they’re trying to catch you”. It’s not clear what exactly is pursuing the boy, but with his evident terror and the superhuman effort he is putting into escape, I can’t help but root for him every time I see this.
He is joined by a pack of crows flying in the same direction, and at first we have to wonder if these are what he is fleeing from, or at least if they are agents of what he is fleeing from. And soon the boy outpaces the flying crows anyway.
After the lyrics say “this race is a prophecy” and “break out from society”, a new creature joins the scene: what appears to be an earth elemental of moss and grass and stone with long pointed horns rises up from the level ground directly under the boy, and the boy falls. The pace of the music slows as the creature rises to its full height from the ground, humanoid and as tall as a tall man, and it appears that everything may be lost; he may have lost the chase. The boy struggles to raise himself back to his feet but before he can the creature scoops him up under its arm (roughly but the roughness appears to be from a sense of urgency rather than malice) and begins running in the same direction the boy had been running.
When the boy has had a moment to catch his breath, the elemental returns the boy to his feet and they run together. Meanwhile the elemental beckons offscreen and soon more and more elementals of a similar size, some that appear to have cattle skulls for heads. The original elemental hands him a sword, and others arm him with a two-horned Viking helmet and a round buckler shield. At this point in the film the boy no longer appears scared–he looks determined and fierce. This support from an unexpected corner has bolstered his courage, though we still have not seen what pursues him.
When the boy leaps from a rock he lifts off up into the clouds before landing safely back among the elementals again–clearly this boy is just beginning to discover his extraordinary abilities, and reveling in his newfound freedom! He beckons to the elementals and yet more of them rise from the ground, and in more variety, ranging from tiny ones that run on all fours, to ever larger and larger that are dressed and armed as warriors and seem to be built of stone and tree trunks. An airship rises in the distance, presumably associated with the rest of these warriors supporting the boy. The boy at this point appears happy for the first time in the film, smiling and joyous and confident.
We see ahead to his destination: a major metropolitan center of immaculate white buildings that recall the style of the building he is running away from, but many more and denser. We see one building with banners flying a sigil of two crossed keys: the symbol of the rulers of the city? The boy finally stops on a rocky promontory with a view of the city and he raises his sword to it, though it’s unclear whether this is a sign that he is saluting it as a sign of safety or home or if he has hostile intent. Are the elementals merely an escort to ensure his safety, or does he plan to lead them in an assault on the city? Why do the elements follow him? Does he have family or friends waiting for him? What is the prophecy that speaks of his escape? At no point in the film do we see his pursuers–is he trying to run away from responsibilities, from becoming a man? Or is there a real pursuer, and what is their intent?
The film ends there with more questions than answers, but in a way that left me hungry for more: I have seen at least one other by Woodkid that seems to tie into the events of this one somehow, with the boy and the sigil of the crossed keys, though I haven’t seen enough to understand the story of this one better–I will try to watch more and give my interpretation as I can!
(Next up in the Music Drilldown series will be Genghis Khan by Miike Snow)
Patternmaster is a 1976 science fiction novel by Octavia Butler, first book in the publication order of the Patternist series, and the final book chronologically in the storyline.
The story takes place in a distant future where the two dominant groups of humanity are the Patternists (powerful networked telepaths that are the result of selective breeding for telepathic traits) and the clayarks (semi-human creatures created by mutated human DNA altered by an alien plague). The Patternists have long been the dominant group, with their powerful telepathic, telekinetic, and healing abilities (with individuals being stronger at certain abilities), and the clayarks mostly living as roving bands with stolen weapons in the wilderness between defended compounds.
But the order of everything is in jeopardy as the Patternmaster, the most powerful telepath who ties all the rest together, may not have long to live. The clayarks seem to sense the uncertainty and seem to be massing for greater attacks.
The protagonist of the novel is Teray, one of the children of Rayal. With the upcoming succession, assumptions and understanding about the existing order no longer stand and Teray finds himself just trying to find a place to stand in the world that seems to be shifting all around him.
This is the chronological conclusion that the rest of the series was backstory to. Wild Seed is still my favorite but I can see why this spawned the rest of the series–political intrigue between powerful telepaths and their powerful enemies. Well worth a read!
You place the urn carefully onto the examination table. The doctor opens the lid, takes a peek inside, sniffs a little. He nods, like he’s evaluating a new blend of coffee, then dumps half of your husband’s cremains into a big metal mixing bowl, the kind they had in the restaurant kitchen you used to work at. He uses a large copper whisk to mix in a bottle of purified water.
Your eyes scan the renovated warehouse where the doctor has set up shop, which doubles as a Pilates studio at night. You ask how many times he’s done this before.
The doctor stops whisking and cracks open a soda can. He says he’s performed this procedure literally dozens of times. Several droplets of Diet Mountain Dew splash into the mixing bowl, but the doctor appears unconcerned. You look for reassurance in the form of laboratory equipment, all of which looks state of the art, judging by the assortment of alembics, vials, and tubes on his table, and the size of the 3D printer, which has been whirring since you arrived, churning out a neon-orange human skull. (The Pontius Pilates T-shirts sold at the front desk also appear to be tastefully designed and a flattering fit.) The doctor resumes whisking, mixing in three cups of plaster of Paris and most of an already-open box of baking soda from the break-room refrigerator. He adds the last of the cremains to the cremixture. With each stroke of the whisk he counts aloud, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty. You don’t want to over-beat the batter, he says.
The 3D printer stops, and the doctor remarks on its perfect timing. The skull is the last piece of your husband’s new skeleton. He picks up the skull and examines it like Hamlet pitying Yorick. Think fast, he commands, tossing you the skull. You drop your keys to the table as you grab for the plastic skull. You bobble it, but manage to clamp your hands around it before it hits the floor. The doctor laughs—what fun! You nod as your blood pressure de-escalates out of hypertension. You carefully hand your husband’s skull back to him as he makes the “gimmie-gimmie” gesture. He then wheels a gurney out from behind a curtain, upon which rests a plastic skeleton rendered in lemon yellow, except for the collarbone and left shoulder blade. He had run out of the yellow resin, the doctor says, and used the next closest color to finish up. The hues clash, but God willing, you’ll never see your husband’s candy-corn-colored skeleton again anyway.
He jams the skull onto the spine in a manner resembling, both in physical strain and amount of cursing, the time your husband replaced the front axle of the Hyundai. A loud click makes you think his plastic spine has snapped, but the rapidity with which the doctor extends his hand toward you for a fist bump suggests the skeleton is officially ship-shape.
The doctor startles, realizing he almost forgot an important step. It’s the third important step he’s almost forgotten, but who’s counting? You hand him the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone that will serve as your husband’s new brain, which will regulate all bodily systems, including the Briggs and Stratton lawnmower engine that will be his new heart. You were up all night loading photos of you and your husband, the honeymoon, the house, Max the doggo, and your vacation to Colorado that one time into the special Dropbox folder labeled “FRIENDLY_FILE.” You also sprung for Spotify Premium and loaded it with playlists of his favorite songs. And for good measure, you pirated Seasons 1-5 of Game of Thrones. The doctor snaps the brain into place, plugging the USB cable into the complex system of wires that snakes through and around the skeleton. Several times he pauses and rewinds a YouTube tutorial on how to wire a drone helicopter to make sure he’s got things right. The doctor sees you looking and reassures you that he’s done this literally dozens of times.
Now it’s time to add the chicken wire. Wrapping it around the bones like he’s taping a sprained ankle, he explains the wire mesh gives the new flesh something to grab onto, like patching a hole in drywall. Most importantly, it functions as a cage for the skeleton. Did you know we’ve all got a spooky skeleton trapped inside us that wants to escape? You point out that this skeleton is plastic. The doctor shakes his head–a well-made skeleton knows it’s a skeleton, ready to burst out of at the first sign of weakness. You can find no fault in his logic; they can do amazing things with 3D printers these days.
The doctor secures the chicken wire with a bag of zip ties from Home Depot. He then grabs a drywall knife and scoops a big pile of the cremains mixture onto the wire-encased right shin. He mentions his patent-pending skin formula is completely full-moon proof. You ask what happens on a full moon. The doctor beams—NOTHING, thanks to his secret formula! His hunched-over posture of concentration reminds you of the tattoo artist when you and hubby got matching pinup girls with the word “LOVE” inscribed underneath. The doctor draws several occult-looking symbols onto your husband’s chest with a chopstick you’re not sure is unused. You decide not to remind him of his promise to re-create the tattoo.
By the by, the doctor wants to know how your husband will be spending his time once he comes back to life. There’s lots of red tape about reasons for reanimating a loved one. For instance, valid reasons include appearing as a surprise witness at a murder trial, spending one last Christmas with the fam, or firing their loathsome successor at the family business. Activities such as acting as a human shield, digging their own grave, or being the patsy in an elaborate jewel heist are strictly verboten (though for jewel heists, the role of “the brains of the outfit” is acceptable). You respond that your husband is dead, isn’t that reason enough? You miss the conversations, the cuddles, the creature comforts of living with your best friend. You can’t cope with your husband’s death without him, and yes, you know how crazy that sounds. The doctor nods—moving on is a lot harder for the living than the dead.
The doctor positions several oscillating fans next to your husband, and invites you to join him outside for a smoke while the new flesh dries. You confide to the doctor that you feel like you should stay there with your once-and-future husband, but part of you doesn’t want to be alone with this mound of corpse batter. He says that’s a perfectly natural response. Also, could he bum a smoke from you?
The mixture has dried, and the doctor tells you—and these are his words—it’s time to turn and burn, baby. Or perhaps he was talking to your husband, and you’re not sure which makes you more uncomfortable. He grabs a series of electrodes connected to a thing, licking each one like it’s a postage stamp, and attaches them to your husband’s new flesh. The doctor dons a pair of heavy rubber gloves, a welding mask, and a lead vest. He then hands you a pair of safety glasses you wouldn’t trust if you were making a homemade birdhouse. When he tells you to stand back, you backpedal behind a reinforced shield wall at a velocity that will leave your muscles sore for two days.
Before he throws the master switch—one of those oversized red buttons labeled “easy” they sell at Staples for six bucks—the doctor rattles off the safety concerns you’d already learned from his website, but which he’s required by law to mention again. For example, your husband will go out looking for those responsible for his death. You reply that he was killed in an unsolved hit-and-run accident. The doctor winks and points at your husband. He knows who did it. Oh-ho-ho-ho, he knows.
The doctor asks if you have pets. You mention your corgi, Max, whom the doctor advises you to give away. When you protest, the doctor purses his lips and puts a hand on your shoulder. In his gentlest voice he tells you that, two weeks from now, one way or another, the dog won’t be living with you. This information was not on the website, and you mention, rather forcefully, that Max had been your husband’s dog and without him you couldn’t have held it together, and it would’ve been good to know he couldn’t stay before you started this process. The doctor thanks you for this constructive criticism. You ask the doctor if anybody loves him enough to reanimate him after you strangle him to death. He laughs and says yes, his credit card company. You don’t know what to say to that.
The doctor asks if you have any final questions. Just one, the one you’ve been dreading, the one about which the website was very vague—will your husband still be capable of love? The doctor’s face contorts to one of revulsion as he tells you no. You only meant to ask whether your husband could still feel love as an emotion. He chuckles, relieved, saying the answer to that is also no. All his favorite sports teams? Hubby hates them now. He will harbor a deep, unspoken resentment toward all living creatures, and you especially. Maybe it’s because you disturbed his rest, or you dragged him away from Heaven, or who knows what. Your husband won’t really know, either. He’ll probably lash out at you. He might say something passive-aggressive while watching TV. He may lift the car over his head and hurl it at you. He might start a petty argument for no good reason. This is all perfectly normal and expected. While you will be legally responsible for him, he still has his own will and desires, and he’ll want more out of his new life than reliving his old one; the dead are, by necessity, better at moving on than the living.
The doctor asks if you still want to go through with this. His face shows none of the mirth he’d exhibited up to that point. You pause, contemplating how easily you could tell your friends the doctor turned out to be a flake. You could walk away and keep your dog with nothing lost but your deposit. Well, that and the idea of seeing your beloved’s face again. And he would still be your beloved, no matter what the doctor said. You give the final okay.
The doctor presses the button. You’re half-expecting lightning to course into your husband’s new body, for him to let out a monstrous growl as raw animal life surges into the waiting vessel. What actually happens is much less dramatic, more like a vibrating massage chair; you hear the muffled ringtone of your husband’s Samsung brain, like when your iPhone slides between the couch cushions.
It takes a minute or so for your husband to boot up. The skin starts to move, then all at once, it sucks inward like a vacuum sealer, forming the contours of your husband’s face.
He rises. The doctor had warned you about the eerie red light that now pours from your husband’s empty eye sockets, but you can’t really prepare yourself for the first time you see a living, breathing monster. The doctor corrects you—the scientific term is “abomination before God,” which his lawyer has assured him is very different, legally speaking.
Your husband looks at you. You go weak in the knees—his loving gaze always made your knees weak, but this is different. He opens his mouth, and the light pours forth from there as well. Oh, God, it’s weird. His voice sounds delayed, like he’s speaking to you via satellite from somewhere far, far away. OH HEY. I MUST’VE. DRIFTED OFF FOR A. BIT. But at bottom, it’s his voice, and you throw your arms around him. He freezes. The light inside him intensifies, redder and redder, so bright you can hear it. He puts his arms around you. For a moment, you think (hope?) he might crush you, but he does not. He pats you on the back a couple times.
Tears overflow from your eyes. You want to kiss him, but you don’t dare, lest that red light enter your body. You just tell him how much you love him and how you’ve missed him and you can’t believe he’s back, and so on.
The terrible red light now glows through his flesh. DID YOU. WATCH GAME. OF THRONES WITHOUT. ME?
You shake your head and wipe the tears away. You were waiting for him.
He shrugs and the light subsides. WHATEVER YOU. WANT, BABE.
You scoff at the doctor’s notion that the dead are better at moving on than the living: you’ve moved on from the very concept of moving on. You forget about the life you may have had as a family of one. You forget about the dog, for what living creature can compete with nostalgia in (mostly) human form? You can sit on the couch with your sweetie again, or a reasonable approximation thereof. The doctor was right, it’s the little creature comforts that make life worth living, as long as you don’t think about it too hard.
During your reverie, your husband had started to strangle the doctor. You put your hand on your husband’s shoulder, and at your touch he releases his grip. The doctor gives you a thumbs-up to show he’s okay, this happens all the time.
Bill Ferris writes mysteries, fantasy, science fiction, and horror. He has published several short stories in literary journals, and writes an advice column at Writer Unboxed designed to help dilettantes and hacks learn nothing whatsoever. When he’s not typing words into a thing, Bill develops online courses at an organization his lawyer advised him not to name. He has two sons who asked not to be mentioned in this bio, but Elliott and Wyatt forgot to say “please.”
Clay’s Ark is a 1984 science fiction novel by Octavia Butler, in her Patternmaster series. It was the last of the four of the books to be published, but is the third in the chronological storyline. It is the next book chronologically after Mind of My Mind (reviewed here).
Chronologically it is the first to introduce the clayarks, a race of mutant humans created by an infection from outer space. Between the last book and this one, an exploration spaceship was sent out called Clay’s Ark. The expedition encountered an alien infection and one survivor brought it back.
It is a few decades in the future on Earth, and conditions in America have decline enough that most people either live in gated communities or as “car families”, militant nomadic bands that prey on anyone trying to travel. Physician Blake Maslin and his twin daughters Keira and Rane are kidnapped by Eli Doyle, the survivor from Clay’s Ark. Eli is not at all what they expect, just another car family henchman looking for theft or ransom. They’re taken back to an isolated compound with a bunch of others who are all acting very strangely. The infection is isolated for the time being, but how long until it breaks out?
If you have read Patternmaster, the final book chronologically, you already know where this ends up on a macro level, and so if you read them in the order of actual publication you would have already known, but in the collection I read them in they were ordered chronologically so I did not know. I think this added to the overall tension of my reading but I did also still care how the individual characters would survive in this tense setting caught between kidnappers and an alien disease. Tense, gripping, kept me interested until the end, worth the read (though Wild Seed is still my favorite in the series).
If you have read Wild Seed and Mind of My Mind, which both focused on a group of earthlings who over generations of selective breeding have led to increasingly powerful psychic abilities, you might wonder why this book is in the same series as those, when this seems to have nothing to do with those. The storylines have some minor ties you can discern, but the major ties come within Patternmaster book.
You are a high school student, and you have been arrested on suspicion of terrorism for being near some kind of terrorist act at the the time that it happened. Your only chance at freeing yourself is to hack into the smartphone of one of your classmates to gather evidence. Replica is a puzzle game by Somi published on Steam in July 2016 where you are tasked by Homeland Security to hack into a phone and gather evidence.
Many features of the phone are locked down before its given to you (which given that they haven’t cracked the password yet, is a little inconsistent), and other features appear to be inaccessible with only a point-and-click interface–for instance, there is a Search app but you can only view the search history and search for things in the search history, not freely typing. You are given a series of tasks to prove that you’re able to figure this information out from text history, call history, phone history, cracking social media apps. You gather evidence simply by clicking on things that fit the criteria. One of your first tasks is to find the name of the owner of the phone, so you find that somewhere in the settings and click on it.
The game seemed a lot more wide open and interesting in theory than it ended up being. The point-and-click-only interface was pretty limited in that you couldn’t even bring up a touch keyboard for the Search app, and other features were locked by Homeland Security. There just ended up not being a lot of areas to explore in the phone, and so the answers sort of had to be conveniently placed in one of these few small areas. Not only that, but the owner of the phone is in the habit of deleting everything, so there are only like 5 pictures, only a few short text conversations. You could get through the game by just clicking on everything you see and it wouldn’t take that long to complete the major tasks because there just aren’t that many options. I feel like this game could’ve been really extraordinary if it had opened up more of the space and given more area to search through and more things in each area (interesting things to read, so it would have to be interesting content certainly).
Visuals
Grainy, low resolution, if it’s supposed to be smartphone era it would’ve made more sense to up the res.
Challenge Finding all of the hidden parts in the phone is somewhat of a challenge, but the main throughline of the story you can get through without too much difficulty, or if you’re hardpressed you could just click randomly.
Story Pretty slight on story. After the premise, and the tone the game is presented in, it’s pretty clear where it’s going to go.
Session Time I couldn’t find any way to save the game, so unless you want to start completely from scratch, the session time seems to be however long it takes you to reach an ending, which took me maybe a half hour through the main throughline.
Playability It seems like it should be more playable, it should be more like a phone interface, with more things to look at. But most of the programs are locked down by security and the Search program that seems like it should be the most useful is basically useless, because you can only click and there are no keyboard controls on that app.
Replayability You could get some replayability from trying to reach the different endings, though the 3 endings that I saw were all along my expectations, so I didn’t feel driven to seek out more.
Originality The premise strikes me as original, and something very timely, but I didn’t think the execution really followed through with that.
Playtime With no particular skill, I finished 3 endings in less than 2 hours.
Overall It’s an interesting idea I haven’t seen in another game, but I feel like there might be another out there that’s executed this better. $3 on Steam.
This is the third in a new series of articles wherein I examine a music video by a well-known artist as a short film, trying to identify the story arcs and the character motivations, and consider the larger implications of things that we get glimpses of in the story.
This time we are taking a look at Bad Blood by Taylor Swift, featuring Kendrick Lamar, a 2015 blockbuster action film with an all-star cast.
The film begins with an opening shot of a city skyline at night and transitions inside to an office space that appears to be empty until a man wearing a business side and a headband-style mask slams onto the top of the frontmost desk and a security alarm blares and we see a woman (Taylor Swift) attacking another suit by locking her legs around his head and throwing him before calmly applying fresh lipstick while her character name “Catastrophe” displays next to her.
She is not alone in this infiltration as Arsyn (Selena Gomez) enters the scene, disabling yet another suit. Together they make quick work of a whole squad of… enemy agents? My first thought on this scene was they were infiltrating to steal something, but it seems unlikely that security guards in an office building would wear masks as a matter of course, even if they are security guards working for a villain.
Catastrophe lays her hands on a silver briefcase that appears to be of some importance–though it’s not clear where it comes from, flying through the air in the middle of the scene, accidentally thrown by a disabled suit? If it is so important, why does the guy run toward her while carrying it, rather than running away? When Catastrophe lets her guard down Arsyn blows powder in her face from a makeup kit and kicks Catastrophe through a nearby window where she falls a great distance and smashes into a car and Arsyn leaves her for dead. (I wouldn’t want to pay the insurance on that building if they have a high-rise with floor to ceiling windows and don’t have shatter-proof glass).
Catastrophe is badly injured but not dead, and she is mended by the futuristic machines of tech expert Welvin Da Great (Kendrick Lamar) with the assistance of a trio of women (androids?) called The Trinity (Hailee Steinfeld). This high-tech, presumably high budget suite suggests that Catastrophe works for a high-budget spy organization, or mercenary I suppose since they are probably way too noticeable to be proper spies.
About three-fourths of the film from this point is an extended training montage as Catastrophe sharpens her skills in various areas with different specialists within the organization. The cast is too large to list here, but they include Mother Chucker (Carla Delevingne) a nunchuck specialist, Cutthroat (Zendaya) throwing knife specialist, Domino (Jessica Alba) motorcycle specialist, and Destructa X (Ellie Goulding) who carries a missile launcher everywhere she goes, even indoors. Each appearance is little more than a brief cameo as Catastrophe hones her skills with each of them. Lucky Fiori (Lena Dunham) seems to be the leader of the organization–at least, it’s hard to imagine she plays any other role since she is not seen doing anything but smoking a cigar.
The organization is certainly formiddable and presumably has some deep pockets considering the weaponry and facilities, and given that Catastrophe and others appear to routinely damage the architecture and no one seems to care. The fact that Destructa X carries her missile launcher around indoors does raise some questions about the organizations friendly fire record–since they appear to be some kind of mercenary or special forces group, I imagine that everyone there is accustomed to risking their lives, but still one would think they would want to avoid one of their own accidentally wiping out a dozen or more of their own agents with a slip of the finger–I would be much more worried about that than about applying so many resources to stopping Arsyn.
Another significant feature of the organization is that it appears to be women-led and almost entirely woman-staffed–Welvin Da Great appearing to be the sole exception. Some of the wardrobe choices are a little bit perplexing for a merc or special forces group–particularly platform shoes and that sort of thing that can’t be conducive to running though they certainly look nice.
In the final scene, Catastrophe and an entourage of six other agents face off against Arsyn and a matching entourage ringed by a truly apocolayptic ring of explosions that no one seems at all worried about. Arsyn’s entourage all wear full leather face-masks–is this the uniform of a rival organization, or are these moles who are still trying to conceal their identity? Despite the heavy weaponry including missile launchers and bullet-bandoliers, the two groups don’t attack from a distance or attack undercover, but instead walk up to within arm’s reach of each other before Catastrophe and Arsyn and simultaneously attack each other with their bare hands.
This action film has an all-star cast, and certainly plenty of action. Who doesn’t love a good training montage between well-matched and imposing opponents, or a big action star face-off at the end. If you’re looking for just action, there is plenty of that. Considering the short length of the film, the size of the cast leaves little room for character development as the film breathlessly runs from one character to the next. I would be interested in watching spinoff films for any number of these characters (Cutthroat and Domino in particular, because I’ve liked Zendaya’s and Alba’s previous acting work).
The one character that has significant screen-time is our protagonist Catastrophe, and I’m not sure that I ever fully understood her either. She is excellent at what she does and was only defeated in the film by a betrayal by a trusted ally at a distracted moment. It’s understandable that she would want revenge for that betrayal, and to make sure that Arsyn can never do it again. But I would have liked to know more about why the organization thought it a worthwhile use of so many resources–why is it so important for Arsyn to be killed and to risk so many agents to do it. Is it driven primarily by Catastrophe’s vendetta or does the organization have its own purpose apart from that? What was in the briefcase? Who were they stealing the briefcase from, and why weren’t they smart enough to send the briefcase away from the attackers instead of toward them? The film does not answer any of these questions, though Lucky Fiori seems generally unconcerned with anything besides smoking her cigar, so I got the impression that Catastrophe has the free reign to direct this operation at her own directive.
(Next up in the Music Drilldown series will be Run Boy Run by Woodkid)
ZOMBIES 2 is a 2020 Disney Channel original movie musical romance, a sequel to the 2018 Disney Channel original movie (reviewed here). Headlining the cast again are cheerleader Addison (Meg Donnelly) and the zombie football player Zed (Milo Manheim) after the school integrated rehabilated zombies into the human culture in the town of Seabrook, the zombies rendered mostly normal by a newer technology called “Z-bands” that use electric current to help zombies retain self-control.
Zombies are gaining wider and wider acceptance, and now they will even be allowed to attend Prawn (the school’s super-prom, renamed because of their shrimp mascot). That doesn’t mean that everyone accepts the zombies as equals, but steps are moving in the right direction. Until now that zombies have started to be acceptable as normal, the whole town is thrown into panic when a pack of werewolves comes into town, with unknown intentions.
As with the previous movie, it’s less about a sensible plot and more about setting up the musical numbers. There were more catchy songs in the first one, and in my opinion too much of the plot was spent with jealousy between the young romantic leads, particularly Zed’s jealousy when Addison starts showing more and more interest in the werewolves because she doesn’t feel like she fits in with any group.
But, not a bad teen musical movie, though the first one was catchier.
It is a long way down to the sea. A long way down, and treacherous. But I must make this journey today from my uncle’s castle, carrying his bones. I must make this journey, both for my uncle’s bargain, and for my own.
The way starts in the morning, when the frost’s sheen at the top of the mountain wants to blind me. This is the first obstacle of the day, to avoid the harsh winter sun as it shines against the rocks and the meagre grasses that dare peek out in my uncle’s deadlands. A place where I am one of the last living things.
One of the last living things still holding on.
I cradle his bones in my right arm, as my left one is the one that will need to hold the rope. The rope, this high on the mountain pass, which is now slick with frost and will become wet under my warm, living hand. The frost will fall off the rope as the seasons change down the mountain, as it will become warmer later.
The Mountain of Three Seasons carries its intent in its name.
I carry no weapon with me. I wear no armor. This is important, both for my task and for my uncle’s promise. I know I will find weapons later, down by the sea, in the cave that I seek. I know that armor has collected there, and gold, and bones.
And a dragon.
Or what is left of one.
The mountain path is narrow and sheer. The winds whip and whisper my death down below. They promise me things. They promise me, “Itta, no more loneliness.” “Itta, no more pain.” But I know these are lies. I know how my uncle lived.
I know that his pain did not end upon his first death.
So the wind’s whispering and promises go ignored as I travel down, down, down the mountain pass. I grip tight to the rope, grip tight to my uncle’s bones; my chill visible, my breath visible. Then less visible. Now invisible.
As I am now in spring.
*
It was spring when I came to live with my uncle, some ten years ago. I came from the lowlands. From the burned lands. From lands which will now be forever warm. Because dragon fire upturns not only treasure, but family.
My uncle welcomed me into his castle with a hand so cold, I thought I would never be warm again. His touch was like anticipation—it made my heart flutter, made my eyes grow wide with wonder. My eyes that took in his tapestries on every wall. Tapestries of unicorns and of knights and of dragons that hung so thick they made my boots whisper on the stone.
But I did not whisper. I turned to him, precocious as I was, a girl of seven. I turned to him and I asked, “Uncle, why is your hand like ice?”
“I am a ghost, my dear Itta,” he said. “I have been a ghost for many years.”
I was too young to be shocked by such things then. Too small to think the answer odd.
“How did you die?” I asked.
“Magic,” he said. “And I am kept here by magic, magic that I will teach you, and magic that you will help me do. Would you like that, my dear girl?”
Again, too young to disagree, I nodded. “I would, Uncle. Yes please.”
A young girl wants only to please her elders, after all.
What he taught me was how to read from books whose pages smelled sweet and were fragile in my fingers. Books that held stories of dragons, and the fighting of them. Then stories of old mages, and how they fought dragons, and then stories of powerful maidens and their own battles with the beasts.
Some three years later, I brought eggs to a boil for my supper.
“Would you like to kill a dragon, my dear Itta?” my uncle asked.
“Am I going to learn to kill a dragon, Uncle?” I asked back.
“Yes, my dear,” he said. “That is exactly the reason you are here.”
*
The reason I am here is to travel down the mountain, as the rope becomes wet, simply wet beneath my fingers, now that winter has gone. The reason I am here is to deliver my uncle’s bones to that cave by the sea; the cave holding such treasure, but I do not want this treasure. I want the dragon who keeps it.
I travel to this cave as the sheer pass tries to show me other promises. Crocuses here. Forget-me-nots there. Three daisies clinging to a rock, what a pretty thing they would be as a crown on someone’s head.
But this thought is a trap.
I seek no crown.
The daisies whisper to me. “Itta, Itta,” the daisies say. “Come, come and take me. Place the bones here. Surely they are too heavy a burden. Surely they are too heavy for you.”
This is another trick of the mountain pass. To unbalance me, to make me forget my promise to my uncle, to forget my task. Forget all it is I am meant to do. Without this task, I have no future—only my past. Only what I was.
So I say nothing to the daisies; I ignore their request. The path stretches longer and thinner out in front of me, and I must go. I hold fast to the rope as I look ahead. Look ahead into summer, where I will wander into tall grasses. Where I will follow the grasses as they lead to the sea, clutching my uncle’s bones tight to my chest. Hold them with my sword arm, my fighting arm, now holding my uncle close.
As I have every day since his death.
Every day since I refused to bury him.
I walk into summer, and pass through the tall grasses whose seeds tickle my nose, tickle my skin. My body writhes and twitches, but I do not drop what I carry. I cannot. I carry too precious a thing. I understand that.
I understand that all too well.
“Itta,” the grasses say, “lay down here with us. Stay a while. Look up at the bright beautiful sun. Let it warm you.”
But I do not. I will have a lifetime to look at the sun. I will have a lifetime to remember the feel of warmth upon me.
*
The days were warm when I learned the name of the dragon I was meant to kill. She was called Nomathstep and she kept a cave by the sea. A cave filled with the bones of wizards and knights, with their swords and their staves, with gold stolen from the villages she burned. Soon, after that meal of eggs and that talk of dragons, my reading went from stories of maidens killing dragons, to books on the anatomy of dragons, mages’ treatises on what sort of magic to use on a dragon, and, finally, what sort of sword a girl like me should wield.
For seven years, I knew I was to learn to kill a dragon. So every day, for seven years, I took a sword in my hand to practice what I’d read. I practiced against air. I practiced against tapestries of dragons. I practiced with visions of the stories of Nomathstep. Stories of her fire, of her fury, of her golden eyes. All this time, I caught my uncle watching me from his spellrooms. Rooms I was not permitted to enter. Rooms that felt like anticipation; simply being near them made my heart flutter, made my breath catch.
In all that time, in all that training. I never learned a single spell. Still, I kept my uncle’s castle clean, kept myself fed with eggs and chicken and wild onions. I never saw another person my age, never saw another person at all. But the stories, they continued to arrive. Through my uncle, through the books left in my own rooms.
And each night, like every night, my uncle asked me, “Are you ready yet to kill a dragon?”
And each night, after training, after chores, I answered, “Perhaps tomorrow.”
And then my uncle said, “Then tomorrow, I will teach you magic.”
But he never did.
Because.
Because my uncle was in love with Nomathstep; he did not want her to die.
I knew this in the way my uncle spoke of the dragon. In the way he spoke of her beautiful red scales, of her fathomless golden eyes. He often muttered about her in his spellrooms late at night when he thought I was not listening from my own room below. The castle crags were deep and no longer good for keeping secrets. My uncle muttered about her voice, how it was like to singing. He muttered about the feel of her scales under his hand, smooth, and silky, and warm.
I knew by all these utterances that he was in love with her.
I knew then what I had to do.
One day. Because love is greater than revenge.
*
Today I am walking to a cave by the sea. I have walked down the Mountain of Three Seasons, and now I must cross the sands under the hot, hot sun. The heat scorches my tongue and my throat. My hair, once drawn up away from my face, has fallen limp against my cheeks. Sweat trickles down my arms, down my back, pools in my boots. But I have not felt the heat I seek yet. I know this.
I know the real heat is yet to come.
I clutch my uncle’s bones close, my sword arm easily bearing the weight. But my sword arm aches for something else. For that sense of anticipation, for the chill of my uncle’s ghost when he stood near me. That ache will not leave, wherever I go. Whether in my uncle’s deadlands, or wherever my future takes me.
But this I know, with my promise to him and the one I make today, my uncle’s days of heartbreak are over. His longing. His curse. His sense of betrayal. The curse remained only until final death. And now that day has passed. And now his pain has ended.
The sands climb up to meet me, dunes rising higher and higher on the way to Nomathstep’s cave. This is what one does for love, so the stories say. They traverse the impossible, they ignore the lies and promises of others, walking toward the one they know is true. The one they know is their heart. Even when that heart is dying.
Even when that heart was pierced long ago.
My legs tremble like the tall grasses of the mountain’s summer. My lips shake like the winds of the mountain’s winter. But I carry on, on toward Nomathstep’s cave for the promise, the promise I made to myself, on the day I found my uncle gone. The cave mouth beckoning closer, ever closer to Nomathstep’s home.
*
The cave was where Nomathstep killed my uncle after an accord. The two of them had reached an impasse: that neither of them could continue to go on dragoning and wizarding as they had been, without further harm to the general nature of dragons or wizards. At the time, both of them had beating hearts, both of them spoke with heated words.
Nomathstep asked my uncle, “Is it in your nature to simply kill a thing for being what it is?”
And my uncle asked her back, “Is it in your nature to bargain?”
They spent two weeks in Nomathstep’s cave, talking, discussing, sharing food. They spent two weeks among the bones of those that meant to slay her, clad in their armor and robes, swords cast aside, gold and jewels piled high below them. My uncle remained, alive… for a time.
In the meantime, the villages went unlooted and unburnt. In the meantime, my uncle’s work went undone and untended. However, the two of them reached a different accord. They grew closer, far closer. So close that my uncle wrapped himself underneath Nomathstep’s great wing, and she held him gently in the crook of her claws.
They stayed like this for days, for many days, until my uncle finally said, “I will have to kill you, you understand.”
“And I, you,” Nomathstep said back. “And then will you leave me alone?”
“Of course,” my uncle said. “But I will kill you first.”
But as he tried to stand, as he tried to gather his staff, Nomathstep was faster, closer.
She went first.
She cursed my uncle to a death of loneliness on top of the Mountain of Three Seasons. And then, as the story goes, she pierced his heart with a burning claw, the same one that had held him close. The same one that had cradled him so gently. He died then and there, forever and forever banished to the castle on top of the mountain. To a death of loneliness —for many, many years.
Until I arrived.
The stories say that Nomathstep herself died of a broken heart some months later. That she’d refused to leave from her cave, refused to eat or to drink. Refused to pillage or to burn a single thing.
She went against her dragon’s nature.
And a dragon going against her nature dies.
*
Nomathstep is still dead when I arrive at her cave and she stirs. She opens one dead golden eye, no longer brilliant, no longer shining. Her red scales are shedding, coated in a film of salt, claws dulled and pitted, heart no longer able to warm the cave. She is blinking at the sunlight off the sea as I stand against it. And when she sees me, she rises to her full, terrifying height.
She fills the mouth of the cave, her yellowed, broken teeth baring down at me. Her dead eyes narrowed. A bellows of breath upon my face.
And she says, “Who dares disturb my last dying days?”
Oh, and I do tremble. I tremble as I hold my uncle’s bones in front of me. I do tremble in my lack of armor, with my lack of a sword.
“I am Itta,” I say. “Of the Mountain of Three Seasons. I bring you the bones of the wizard who lived there, who died there.”
Nomathstep takes a step back, her chest rattling with the effort of her undeath. She lowers her snout to me, sniffing me. My heart is so afraid, it tries to escape through my fingers, my throat, my stomach. The heartbeat is so strong, it rattles me, shakes me.
“You smell like him,” she says. “Like anticipation.”
Now her voice is like singing, melodious and mournful, as she lays down upon her pile of treasure. She lifts a wing, her lips cracking into a smile. She beckons me with to her a claw, her dead golden eyes kinder now, gentler now.
“Come, Itta of the Mountain,” Nomathstep says. “Bring my love to me and rest a while, so that we may remember him.”
The cave smells like dust and memory, like hot metal and decay. I settle down onto pile of old robes as she holds me in the crook of her claw, as she folds a flaking wing over me. I lean into the cooling embers of her heart. I know now that Nomathstep is truly dying, I know it by the rattle of her sigh as she holds my uncle’s bones between us.
*
My uncle’s bones are two of his femurs, six fingers, and what remains of his skull. I found them myself, found them one morning when I arrived in the kitchen to make tea. I found the bones resting on the table, at the place he always sat waiting for me. Waiting to ask if I was ready yet today to kill a dragon, and I would answer every day: perhaps tomorrow.
Every night, I would hear his heartbreak from his spellrooms.
My uncle was truly dead; ghosts born of heartbreak only live so long.
This I have learned, in all my reading, in all the books that smelled of sweet or leather. In all the books that felt like velvet or Nomathstep’s scales in my hands. But what I did not learn, in all my books, was how to grieve for a ghost. Was how to take what remained of my uncle and cry for him, to do what he would have wanted.
To do what I would have wanted.
So I took the skull and the femurs and the six fingers. I wrapped them in a small dragon tapestry. I tied them neatly with twine. I refused to bury my uncle. I could not. As lonely as my uncle’s deadlands had always been, I was not ready to be alone.
My uncle had spoken often of the path down the Mountain of Three Seasons. The winds that whispered death, the tricks the flowers played, the promises of the grasses. And finally, the death of the sun. He said he tried to follow the path several times, but he could not make the journey himself.
I spent fourteen days in my uncle’s deadlands, carrying his bones. Fourteen days of loneliness, fourteen days of chicken and eggs and wild onions. All these days with no conversation, with my heart pierced over and over in my chest. All these days, I knew I had to walk the path myself. That I had to take my uncle’s bones to the dragon that he loved. To Nomathstep.
I had to end the curse.
This was my promise.
I had to end the curse and begin my own life. To save Nomathstep from her own heartbreak, to return the bones of the one she loved. I must save myself from the same, from heartbreak. I must cease cleaning an empty castle, one no longer haunted. Cease haunting the castle myself with my own wails and moans. A new life for me would not begin until I left my uncle’s deadlands; it would not begin until I put his bones to rest.
Until I saved another from his fate.
Saved both of us.
*
Both of us spend the afternoon watching the sun it passed into evening, then into night. Once darkness falls, Nomathstep stirs. Her wing cracks and shakes as it pulls away from me; her heart no colder than it was some hours ago. When she speaks, her voice is that same mournful song, but her breath is no longer that bellows. It is a kind heat, a summer wind.
“You are a good girl, Itta,” Nomathstep says. “You are a very good girl.”
“I know,” I say.
“You would make a terrible wizard.”
“I know this, too,” I say.
“But you will make a dragon very happy one day,” she says.
“Maybe,” I say.
“You will.” Nomathstep smiles then. She stands and reaches out with one of her dull and pitted claws. “I will take what is mine: the man I love. You will take what is yours: this cave.”
I offer her the tapestry, the tapestry containing what remains of my uncle. She takes it and holds it in her claws with the kind of gentleness as I have only imagined in books, in stories. The very sight of it makes my heart sting with tears.
“You will make a dragon very happy one day,” she says. “But only the right one.”
And then Nomathstep, love of my uncle’s life, terror of all the land, leaves me in this, my cave. And then she flies out, out over the dark, dark sea.
*
It is a difficult way to my cave by the sea. A difficult way, and treacherous. I have slain many dragons who have tried to claim what is mine, many dragons who tried to take, rather than bargain. But one day, the right one will find me. This was Nomathstep’s promise. One will find me, and we will share her legacy, and all that she left behind.
Jordan Kurella is a queer and disabled author who has lived all over the world (including Moscow and Manhattan). In their past lives, they were a barista, radio DJ, and social worker. Their stories have been featured in Apex, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Strange Horizons Magazines. You can find them on Twitter @jskurella.
The Lightning Thief is a 2005 modern day fantasy story about modern-day children of the ancient Greek gods living in the United States, which was adapted into a 2010 feature film as well as a 2014 Broadway musical.
Percy Jackson is a well-meaning but troubled teen who has been kicked out of five schools in six years for his impulsive behavior. He’s dyslexic and has ADHD and lives with his mom alone, his father having left when he was very young.
On a field trip to the Smithsonian the substitute teacher Mrs. Dodds draws him away from the group and transforms into a monster and tries to attack him. Percy manages to kill the monster with the help of a pen that magically and unexpectedly turns into a sword.
Soon he’s drawn into a hidden world of demigods, children of the ancient Greek gods, who have some of the powers of their godly parents but are still mortal and attract the attention of every monster in the area.
The book is a fun update to the old mythology, bringing it into the modern world and adding new layers of mythology on the old. It’s fun, appealing for kids, and gives representation for kids with dyslexia and/or ADHD, these being traits common to the children of the gods in this world. It’s a fun book, and the start of a series if you like it there are more where that came from.
