Photo by Tracy Fuentes By Natalia Lee I’m meeting myself for the first time; I have new legs, new stems, new leaves. After long winters of no snow, little to no frost; I bloom once more. I walk in a different size now and I expect more in some areas and less in others. Pink blush powdered across my lips nose and cheeks I am a different color every season. And sometimes you don’t bloom until next year; or the next. And that’s ok. It is not your job to flourish by expectation. And just because the weather is warmer and others have seen their time doesn’t mean you must rush your process. Now ..read more

Photo by Aidan Hurley By Aidan Hurley ** Warning: Spoilers ahead! ** Content warning: discussion of fictional death, homicide, suicide Innocence in horror is a divine tool, a weapon wielded by horror creators across the board. No one utilizes it to evoke as much panic and disgust as Ari Aster does in his films Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019). Aster follows the trend in horror of establishing the innocence of characters the audience is meant to care for, but what he does with the characters afterward is unorthodox in most popular horror and makes both of these films especially cutti ..read more

By Bailey Blundell all I remember is plowing through Route 1 in a Mini Cooper for a nighttime drive along the seaside but there is no driver and the hood is down, and my arms are straitjacketed by my own French braids. I stretch these restraints and point my index skyward, and spread Lisa Frank stickers until the sun flips on and baptizes the earth in bright glittery light. grape-soda dolphins and taffy-tongued puppies jump rope with chemtrails, neon-spotted leopards and angel-winged kittens hopscotch on cumulus clouds, and seven of every kind boogey amongst rays of dawn in a neverending disco ..read more

Photo by Carlin McCarthy By Carlin McCarthy Both of these 35mm photographs were captured while walking around Los Angeles and Brooklyn, respectively, and capture seemingly innocent street art. They’re both stark contrasts to the surrounding cityscape of whizzing cars, overlapping street signs, privacy-barred windows, and decaying walls. There’s a child-like wonder when confronted with these artists’ renderings out of the blue, a reminder that even in these cities filled with soaring rents, instability, and chaos, there’s humanity, a desire for freedom, for a time when we all didn’t know so muc ..read more

By Jennifer Prewitt Generational groups love talking about other generational groups – a constant Venn diagram of the struggles we share and those that differentiate a Boomer from a Gen Z’er. As a Zygote Millennial, which is what I call a 26-year-old, I don’t foresee owning a home any time soon, nor do I understand how to take advantage of social media to its full capability. I am, however, the perfect age to have a Dazed article written about them: “Everyone needs to grow up,” an article about how we in our twenties and thirties are too obsessed with the cutesy aesthetic, or with taking our H ..read more

Photo by Alex Panzer By Alex Panzer Let’s get back to basics! This piece focuses on the “good” side of innocence. A time in our lives when our only worries were our favorite color, the cartoons we were watching, and when our next nap was. The list of basics not only pays homage to our inner child, but also acts as a guide to giving ourselves a reset whenever life gets too stressful, or just any other time we may need it ..read more

By Ahri Vi ** Warning: Spoilers ahead! ** Guillermo del Toro is upheld as one of the most visionary horror directors of the modern era. His distinct brand of horror emphasizes that those traditionally labeled as “monsters” are often the most vulnerable, while the true threat to mankind is man himself. Instead of demonizing the supernatural, del Toro scrutinizes manmade injustices such as racism, nationalism, sexism, and even more daunting, fascism. None of his films achieves this as masterfully as his magnum opus, Pan’s Labyrinth.  Admittedly, when I watched Pan’s Labyrinth for the first ..read more

By Emma Rosenstein Oh Sweet Teenage Emma How Naive You Are. Is it because he was nice to you? Is it because he played guitar? Once upon a time, a nice guy stood, His charm is a facade, his intentions not good. You gave him your heart, a gift so deeply bestowed, Not knowing the depths of where it could erode Wrapped in illusions, a fantasy spun, Blinded by the radiance of a golden, bright sun Is it because he called you pretty When your self esteem was low? Is it because he held your hand And promised to never let go? He helped you through your pain, so it’s understandable why You forgave him e ..read more

By Brigita Przybylski Bluey is an Australian children’s animated show created by Joe Brumm for Disney Plus. The show centers six-year-old Bluey Heeler and her family: dad Bandit, mom Chilli, and 4-year-old sister Bingo. Although the show’s target audience is kids, I discovered Bluey on social media, after seeing videos of parents saying that they watch Bluey even when their kids aren’t in the room. Even though I don’t have any kids in my life, with episodes only being 7 minutes in duration, I knew I needed to check out the show. Three seasons in, nothing has ever made me laugh and cry more tha ..read more

Photo by Rebecca Reyes By Rebecca Reyes My work is often very personal, making use of and drawing inspiration from old family pictures and videos. This piece, however, is probably the most personal work I have made. Using scans of diary pages from when I was 5, 7, and 10 years old next to notes I have written in the last year, I am exploring coming into adulthood and the nostalgia that grows as we age. In times when I feel really low, I always end up thinking about being little, the time when growing up isn’t such a big, looming thing. So, in looking through my old diary entries, I expected to ..read more