Fall 2025 "contortion"

“All the contortions we go through just not to be ourselves for a few hours.” -Keith Richards ATLAS | 3

A note to our readers from the Editor-in-Chief & the Creative Director

This semester we asked writers and photographers to consider how they contort themselves, the ways in which they bend to different situations, twist and grow. For Atlas, this fall was a semester of contortion. With one of our biggest recruitments of the past few years and many new E-Board members, the magazine itself was shaping into something new.

As first time Editor-in-Chief and Creative Director, there were many learning experiences. Contortion can be a state of confusion, the body and its surroundings lacking clarity and structure. But contortion can also be the experience of untangling oneself, growing into new shapes and forms. We asked many questions this semester and relied on teamwork to reach deadlines and create this magazine. Contortion can be uncomfortable, it asks us to push ourselves. Contortion can also be beautiful, as you are sure to see in this semester’s photoshoots and articles. We want to thank everyone on staff for their patience and dedication to Atlas this semester. We are honored to share your work.

This semester we learned more about what goes into making Atlas — the rounds of edits, the busy design period, the purchase requests on EmConnect. And while it would be nice to think that we will settle into this new contortion, all of these tasks becoming mere muscle memory, we have also learned that contortion does not stagnate. Next semester, we will learn new things, grow in new and unexpected ways. Atlas will continue to contort. We are excited to see it take change, and change again. We are so excited to share what our contortion has produced.

Sydeney & Lily

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Executive Board

Editor-in-Chief

Creative Director

Managing Editors

Sydney Flaherty

Lilian Holland

Sidnie Paisley

Thomas & Lily

Suckow Ziemer

Treasurer Elisa Ligero

Web Director

Jadyn Cicerchia

Photography Director Laith Hintzman

Illustration Director Lauren Wockenfuss

Style Coordinator Audrey Stiefvater

Beauty Director Talia Kahwajian

Style Editor Rowan Wasserman

City Editor Grace Grandprey

Globe Editor Gray Gailey

Arts Editor Sidnie Paisley

Thomas

Wellness Editor Lily Suckow Ziemer

Head Copyeditor Rachel Dickerson

Social Media Director Mia Rodriguez

Head Designer Ugne Kavaliauskaite

Diversity Chair Gray Gailey

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Staff

Editorial

Lucy Latorre

Rowan Wasserman

Keanna Grigg

Audrey Stiefvater

Vara Giannakopoulos

Alyssa Walker

Jadyn Cicerchia

Harper Pebley

Charlotte Farrar

Ella Sutherland

Lily Suckow Ziemer

Madison Smithwick

Meghan Boucher

Elizabeth Gomez

Sydney Flaherty

Sidnie Paisley Thomas

Jasper Chen

Emma Ross

Brenna Sheets

Matthew Provler

Copy Editors

Rachel Dickerson

Jadyn Cicerchia

Grace Grandprey

Lauren Wockenfuss

Keanna Grigg

Julia Chen

Jasper Chen

Photo

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Virgil Fionn Durkin

Emma Fisher

Keira Alana

Mari Silva

Grace Thayer

Style & Beauty

Mia Rodriguez

Virgil Fionn Durkin

Sophie Corbissero

Audrey Stiefvater

Design

Ugne Kavaliauskaite

Lilian Holland

Ella Sutherland

Audrey Stiefvater

Natalie Alpert

Lauren Mallett

Emma Fisher

Kaitlynn Hungate

Marketing

Mia Rodriguez

Virgil Fionn Durkin

Sophie Corbissero

Audrey Stiefvater

Visual Arts

Lauren Wockenfuss

Natalie Alpert

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A R T S

Photographer Kiera

Schuett

Models

Illustrators

& Natalie Alpert

Design Natalie Alpert

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Madison

Smithwick

Lauren Wockenfuss

Disappear Before You’re Spotted: Woodworking’s Invisible Woman

By Jasper Chen

About a quarter of the way through Emily St. James’ novel Woodworking, Erica Skyberg paints her nails and counts the people who notice. Erica, a closeted transgender woman and high school English teacher living in a conservative town, has good reason to be nervous.

A few people notice. There’s Abigail, Erica’s openly transgender student and the only person she’s out to; Megan, Abigail’s friend and an enthusiastic ally; and Helen Swee, a progressive political candidate who is about to lose a local election to the incumbent conservative transphobe. And then, oddly enough, there’s Brooke Daniels.

Brooke is a loving mother of two who works with Erica at the community theater. Her family sometimes campaigns for the aforementioned conservative transphobe. Her son, Caleb, is dating Abigail, but she doesn’t know that yet. She’s a traditional, religious, affluent woman who realizes that the high school English teacher has his nails painted.

Brooke suggests that Erica purchase nail polish remover.

Much later, we discover Brooke’s secret: she is a transgender woman who ran away from home, transitioned at a young age, and never told anybody about her gender posttransition. Well, her husband knows, but he refuses to acknowledge her identity and is sworn to secrecy.

Erica and Brooke are two transgender women wearing different costumes. Erica pretends to be a cisgender man, living as Mr. Skyberg until she physically can’t anymore. Brooke pretends to be a cisgender woman. She supports transphobic politicians and scolds Erica over her painted nails. Neither one is telling the truth. Woodworking spends much of its page space dissecting how painful these women’s pretenses are.

Erica’s pretense makes her deeply paranoid, convinced she’s on the verge of being found out. She is intensely aware of how her conservative community would react to the truth: “In a town like Mitchell, South Dakota,” St. James writes, “[Erica] had to disappear before she was spotted” (1). Erica inches out of the closet, only to leap right back in. The situation makes her hopeless. “At a certain point, you’ve invested too much in your life,” she reasons, explaining 12 | contortion

why she should not transition. “It becomes a sunk-cost fallacy” (86). In other words, she’s spent so much time miserably trying to be a man that she might as well stick with it.

On the other hand, Brooke’s pretense leaves her lonely and cruel. She throws away letters from transgender people who mentored her when she was younger. She argues for bathroom bills, saying they “[protect] us…from men who wear costumes and pretend to be women” (182). She is without a single loved one who knows and accepts that she is transgender.

Woodworking switches between the perspectives of Abigail, Erica, and Brooke. The characters speak from different points of view. Erica speaks in the third person. She is separated from herself, a passive observer of her own life. When she finally comes out to her boss, pushing herself so completely out of the closet that she knows she will never return, she begins to speak in the first person. Coming out shifts her narrative to this point of view; in other words, it allows her to become an active participant in the world she inhabits.

Brooke’s chapters are told in the second person. “You will always remember the song playing on the radio when the guy gives you your first hormone pills…You know your name is Brooke before you know you are a woman” (224-225). However, a first-person voice slips into her story. “...I hang out in the subbasement of yourself…and I wait and wait and wait for you to notice me” (245).

Here, St. James literalizes the idea that Brooke is living as a wholly separate person from her true self. The first-person voice represents Brooke as a transgender woman. She is trapped behind Brooke’s false identity, speaking only in short sections before Brooke hides her once more.

The use of changing points of view is bold, but ultimately does not interrupt the flow of the novel. Woodworking uses the narrative device to suggest that Erica and Brooke can find their true selves only by being openly transgender women. This would be a straightforward, easy-to-understand moral were it not for the existence of Abigail.

Abigail is not closeted. Her chapters are always in the first person. Abigail complicates the narrative that a transgender person can fix their life by simply coming out. She is out, she is not-so-proud, and she hates her life. A local politician tries to pass a bathroom bill as soon as she starts attending school in his district. Her parents refuse to accept her, so she lives with her sister. She fantasizes endlessly about the exact scenario that causes Brooke so much grief: “I’ll get my surgeries done and change my name and never, ever tell anybody else again” (15).

The breaking point comes when her boyfriend, Caleb, shows her his college essay. It is about how his girlfriend is transgender, but he bravely loves her anyway. It shares Abigail’s deadname; it talks endlessly about how he is “so inspired” by her “perseverance and beauty” (220).

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“Abigail complicates the narrative that a transgender person can fix their life by simply coming out.”

Abigail is open about who she is, but all this means is that people view her through the lens of whatever beliefs they already hold regarding the transgender community. Her gender identity defines her; it turns her into a cardboard cutout in everyone else’s life. To conservative politicians, she is a deviant who threatens the well-being of other girls. To Erica, she is a lifeline who is obligated to listen to her secrets. To Caleb, she is a vaguely “inspiring” person to write about in his essay for Northwestern. After she reads the essay, Caleb tells Abigail he loves her. “You love a character in a story,” she retorts (221).

Abigail is hardly an active participant in her own life, either. Mostly, she is swept around by what other people think of her. When she talks about her life and desires, she sounds uninformed and helpless. “I hadn’t ever really thought about what I want,” she says. “I wanted to be a girl, and then I did that, and a whole bunch of life met me on the other side” (199).

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“Woodworking spends much of its page space dissecting how painful these women’s pretenses are.”

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Pretending not to be transgender is a lie. But being openly transgender is not necessarily the truth. All it means is that you must contort yourself in increasingly uncomfortable ways to fit societal standards for what a transgender person should be.

Abigail is plagued by this. Her parents want her to let them call her by her old name. Her boyfriend’s family wants her to be quiet about her identity. Her school wants her to stop talking about how bathroom bills harm transgender students. She loses her personhood in the haze. But Erica and Brooke, who take opposite approaches to Abigail, suffer as well.

Woodworking is about the impossibility of a transgender person living as their true self. They are always forced to conform to someone else’s idea of what they ought to be. There is no way to escape this external pressure.

But, Woodworking suggests, maybe you can lessen internal pressure. Abigail doesn’t have a perfect life. She struggles. She is brash and incautious, and depressed. Still, she is more herself than Erica or Brooke. She cuts off people who misgender her. She loves and is loved as a transgender woman. She lives in the first person.

Woodworking opens with Erica meeting Abigail. Erica, trying desperately to come out to her, asks, “...what do I do…now that I know?” (7). Abigail looks at her, understands what she means, and buys her nail polish.

The novel ends with Abigail spotting another transgender girl being harassed by some guys. She approaches and attempts to comfort her. The other girl “reads [Abigail] the second [she walks] up to her” (342) and smiles.

Maybe that’s the more important message of Woodworking. Transgender people will always face impossible choices as they try to balance being safe with being themselves. But when they are with each other, for brief moments, they can be honest and unafraid of harm.

“That’s all we are, maybe,” Abigail muses, “...people who pick each other out in a crowd and realize that the face of someone you’ve just met can feel like home” (343).

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“All it means is that you must contort yourself in increasingly uncomfortable ways to fit societal standards for what a transgender person should be.”

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Cosmetic Surgery: Are Celebrities Twisting the Knife, or Are They Victims of Its Violence?

By Alyssa Walker

“We cast away priceless time in dreams, born of imagination, fed upon illusion, and put to death by reality.” – Judy Garland

If you were to log onto YouTube in 2015, your home page would likely show thumbnails of swollen lips and shot glasses with titles reading “Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge,” often, “Gone Wrong.” At the time, the titular reality TV star had people, primarily younger girls, speculating on how she got her lips so big, since Jenner very much denied any kind of filler.

So the public got creative.

The trend, primarily partaken in by teenagers, involved inserting your lips into a shot glass and sucking in to hopefully recreate Kylie Jenner’s full pout. Instead, the results left users with bruised lips and the chance of having glass shatter all over their faces.

Finally, in May of that same year, Kylie Jenner shocked nobody when she admitted to having temporary lip filler.

Jenner’s lip filler was never the problem; her denial of it was. Gaining her fame from Keeping Up with the Kardashians, a reality show whose primary audience was impressionable teenage girls, turned her into a role model, a beauty standard. Being a teenager herself and admitting during her “confession” that it was her insecurities that led her to fillers, couldn’t she have known how the girls watching her felt? Given societally situated beauty standards, it is only natural, especially during the most self-deprecating years of your life, to want to change, to want to look like the conventionally attractive people on your TV. When you are made to believe that Kylie Jenner’s unnatural looks are natural, sometimes the only viable option is to put lips to shot glass and suck.

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However, Jenner is not entirely to blame.

Beauty standards are a chain, moving from those who run Hollywood to celebrities to consumers. And when you are at the very top, the standards are yours for setting. This is why all the guilt cannot be entirely forced upon Kylie Jenner’s shoulders, as she was just sixteen years old when she began getting filler. She herself was just a link in the chain.

We see the beginning of this chain in movies such as Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, where celebrity Elisabeth Sparkle is fired by her producer because her age is making her less marketable. In response to this, Elisabeth takes The Substance, an injection that allows her to change into Sue, a “younger, more beautiful, more perfect” version of herself. Though this is what societal standards tell Sparkle she wants, she quickly realizes that seeing the world fawn over her “more beautiful” self is devastating to her mental well-being. The overuse/misuse of The Substance also causes eventual physical damage, the sad irony of course being that Sparkle took it to improve her appearance. The Substance leads to grotesque and eventually fatal effects for Sparkle, who dies on her own Hollywood Walk of Fame star. The industry built her up, kicked her out, and killed her.

In other films, we can see how striving for on-screen perfection has real-life consequences. Darren Aronofsky’s 2010 film Black Swan portrays how the main character, Nina, is forced to undergo a severe mental change in order to be the ballerina that her New York City Ballet director wants her to be. To play the role, Natalie Portman was made to lose 20 pounds, restricting her eating and spending her days sweating in rehearsal. In a 2010 interview with The Independent, Portman said of the role, “There were some nights that I thought I literally was going to die.” Hollywood rewarded her with an Oscar.

It is those who control even the most famous celebrities—producers, directors, and management teams—who make them change, either forcefully or unintentionally, with the promise of money, fame, and awards. The actual substance taken by Sparkle is, of course, a not-so-subtle metaphor for the aforementioned lip filler, various types of vanity-enhancing cosmetic surgeries, and even the recently popularized misuse of Ozempic.

This is not to say that cosmetic surgery is inherently bad and that celebrities owe the public explanations surrounding their body—it is not, and they do not. However, there is always a blurry line that accompanies this subject. Cosmetic surgery is not bad, but there are mental and societal impacts that come with changing yourself. Celebrities are still people, but they are people with influence. No, it was not Kylie Jenner’s fault that young girls felt insecure about their appearance, but there is a sense of blame due to her lies about her lips, leading to the bruising of others.

Though it may seem like it, cosmetic surgery is not a new concept. It has actually been around since the late 1800s—with the umbrella term plastic surgery having existed since 1600 BCE—and a majority of these original surgeries were done to amend injuries gained in war. However, there are a handful of documented rhinoplasties and breast augmentations done for vanity. A change in

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“No, it was not Kylie Jenner’s fault that young girls felt insecure about their appearance, but there is a sense of blame due to her lies about her lips, leading to the bruising of others.”

appearance to make oneself more conventionally attractive (or even more beautiful than that) has been desired for years. However, it is only in the last couple of decades that this desire has become more widespread and somewhat accessible. The rise of TV and social media has influenced countless people to warp their appearance with plastic. Globally, there were around 16 million reported cosmetic procedures in 2023.

Another rising (and arguably more controversial) appearance-altering trend is the use of Ozempic and similar weight loss drugs. This is because it is not meant to be a cosmetic accessory. Originally used to treat type 2 diabetes, Ozempic (and other GLP-1 drugs) usage has become the 2020s ‘heroin chic.’ It is incredibly disappointing to witness celebrities like Meghan Trainor, whose claim to fame is a song about being happy with a bigger body, or Serena Williams, one of the most accomplished female athletes of all time, publicly endorsing a body-altering drug. The medication becomes widely craved and more easily prescribed, yet more inaccessible for those who actually need it.

Since its popularized vanity usage, Ozempic has constantly fluctuated in price and has frequently experienced shortages. Arguments can be made that yes, these celebrities are selfish, while also acknowledging that they are victims of beauty standards themselves. However, as public figures, they also set said standards and therefore influence the general public to follow in their footsteps.

Is there a middle ground? It depends on how you view it. Celebrities are going to keep changing their appearance—whether by choice or force—and the public is going to keep falling into the trap of influence, and everybody is going to look like somebody and nobody is going to look like themself. We live in a world where we are taught to strive for perfection when the definition of ‘perfection’ is always changing and has never been objective. Yes, you can try to remove yourself by not getting cosmetic surgery or taking Ozempic, but there’s always going to be that tricky loophole where saying “I’m not a part of the system” actively places you in it. Like people, though, beauty standards change constantly. A world where everyone breaks free of the chain is possible, where everyone accepts their natural selves and appreciates the beauty of looking like an individual. The only question is when it will happen.

“ We live in a world where we are taught to strive for perfection when the definition of ‘perfection’ is always changing and has never been objective.” 20 | contortion

“When you are made to believe that Kylie Jenner’s unnatural looks are natural, sometimes the only viable option is to put lips to a shot glass and suck.”

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The Altercation in Arts Alteration

By Harper Pebley

The loveliest of Athena’s priestesses was caring for the goddesses’ temple, as she did most nights, when her story begins. The mighty Poseidon, enemy of Athena, appears at the temple in pursuit of the loyal priestess. She resists, but still the young woman is assaulted by the god. In response, Athena grants her suffering servant a way of self-defense. The priestess’s bright eyes become sharp and serpentine, her long locks of hair join together to make several snakes spring from her scalp. With her new appearance, the woman had a defense: from now on, anybody who so much as looked upon her would meet the fate of stone. She was safe.

This is the story of Medusa as most know it: an empowering tale of survival, yet it is not the original myth. As Ovid first tells it, Athena does not bless Medusa but curses the girl with hideousness in an act of revenge. Poseidon, the true perpetrator of the unholy act, goes unpunished while the victim is mutilated and ostracized. The older version of the tale is, unsurprisingly, disturbing to modern audiences, however reflective it may be.

Via online discourse and recent cultural conversation, the myth has changed to the first version I described. More recently, a collection of Trista Mateer poems titled “Aphrodite made Me Do It,” released in 2019, includes the lines “They made a monster of Medusa… They made a war ground of her body, so she made one of theirs.” It is this developing rhetoric that has inspired a popular tattoo. Many survivors of sexual violence will now get an inking of Medusa’s iconic head as a representation of their resilience and empowerment.

For the ancient Greeks, who lived in a time period that valued power over the individual, a telling of Medusa’s tragedy that reinforced the omnipotence of the gods would likely be comforting and informative. For contemporary audiences, whose more romantic stories tend to surround heroes fighting the power, that version of Medusa is terrifying. So we alter the myth, casting Medusa as an icon for survivors of sexual assault, which resonates with the current society much more than viewing her as a villain.

Ovid is far from the only artist to have his work altered by and for the general public. William Shakespeare is perhaps the king of this phenomenon. Many of his iconic works have been interpreted in thousands of different ways since their sixteenth-century debuts; the tragic Romeo and Juliet is perhaps the most infamous. Sometimes productions of the show, such as its most recent Broadway revival directed by Sam Gold, change the costumes and setting to give it a more modern appeal. Other times, the story is changed from a tragedy entirely. Taylor Swift’s song “Love Story” does exactly this. It retells the star-crossed lovers’ story with a happy ending, where the titular Romeo gets Juliet’s father’s approval and the two end up wed and alive. The song and its re-release currently have over one billion streams each on Spotify. There is a unique power in granting two characters who have been resigned to tragedy for hundreds of years a “happily ever after.” When an audience declines an ending, they assert the power they have.

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To further understand this dynamic, I spoke to a freshman student here at Emerson, whom we’ll refer to as “Max.” Being a Media Arts Production major and aspiring filmmaker, Max told me she is always aware of the tension between artists and their audience, bringing up the notorious rift between J. K. Rowling and her audience. “I think of the phrase ‘money is power,’” she told me. “The money is what makes it. If J. K. Rowling didn’t have this much money, she wouldn’t have this much influence… nobody would hear her.” Rowling is rich off of her stories, namely: The Harry Potter franchise. The saga is currently recognized as one of the most financially successful franchises of all time, having made roughly $34.7 billion.

Harry Potter, as a work of art, maintains an active fanbase to this day—you can watch fan theories on YouTube, go visit the Universal theme parks, read fan-made stories, buy fan-made merchandise, and the list goes on. However, Rowling herself has only declined in popularity due to her interaction with outwardly transphobic rhetoric online. The author recently posted about her excitement over the UK Supreme Court’s ruling that limits the legal definition of a woman to strictly “biological women,” therefore excluding trans women from discrimination protection under Britain’s Equality Act. On the social media platform X, she referred to the ruling as “TERF VE Day,” comparing the decision to the end of World War II. “I just recall feeling disappointment and confusion,” Max said about Rowling’s public opinions on the trans community. “...because how can you write a book series with a fictionalized marginalized group, and then go out of your way to do the very thing you wrote against?… It’s like an abuse of power, it’s very odd,”.

Rowling’s opinions have been a kind of betrayal to many people who grew up feeling seen in the books’ themes of ostracization. “I know many people who it hurts them too much to even look at a copy of Harry Potter, which I have complete empathy for, and I understand, but I don’t know,” Max said. “Those books are very near and dear to my heart… I don’t think anything could make me hate them forever.” When I asked how she currently interacts with the story of Harry Potter, she brought up how she gets creative inspiration from both fan edits and fan fiction. Specifically, she referenced the Marauders Fandom—a subsection of the fanbase that focuses on creating stories surrounding Harry Potter’s parents and their friends. She describes it as “this idea of taking characters we know a little bit and filling in the gaps.” Max adds, “[The Marauders Fandom] comes up with these creative little side stories. There is such creativity in that, it’s excellent.”

Fanworks, as Max mentioned, are perhaps the most direct and clear examples of “separating the art from the artist.” It actively decides that the interpretation of a work is more important than the intention.

The play Nachtland by Marius von Mayenburg beautifully tackles this very issue with one of the world’s most destructive examples: the paintings of Adolf Hitler. Two of the play’s central characters debate how important the artist is to the interpretation of art in the following scene:

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“ When an audience declines an ending, they assert the power they have.”

“For us, whose more romantic stories tend to surround heroes fighting the power, that is terrifying. So we alter the myth…”

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“

Judith: A work of art is only what an artist says, if there is no artist, there is silence –

Kahl: No, there are works of art that speak to me although I don’t even know who the artist is.

Judith: Of course, there are also people that talk to you although you don’t know them. And yet you know there’s someone there who is speaking to you.

Kahl: But what matters is what is being said, not who says it.

Judith: ‘I love you.’

Kahl: Really?

Judith: When I tell you that it provokes a different emotion in you than when, for example, your wife tells you

Kahl: My wife –

Judith: Or, for example Frau Dr Günther –

Kahl: That’s true –

Judith: And when my husband tells you he loves you, that’s also different, the effect changes according to who is speaking, there’s no statement without the person making the statement, there’s no art without the artist –

Kahl: But the artist died a long time ago and needn’t concern us any more –

Judith: But he’s still talking to you, and you’re dying to hear what he’s saying,”

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It is not my belief that either character in this scene is incorrect. Art is not selfdependent. It is never created in a vacuum, nor can it be viewed in one. An artist creates art for and from themselves, the same way a patron consumes art for themselves.

Stories, reflecting those who tell and receive them, are not fixed things but fluid. The myth of Medusa, once a cautionary tale of divine wrath, now stands for survival. Shakespeare’s tragedies are rebuilt into hopeful melodies. Beloved books like Harry Potter can be reclaimed by those who value the meaning they hold over the actions of their creators. As audiences become increasingly aware of the power they hold, they reshape narratives to better reflect their needs. Art cannot exist in isolation; it is shaped both by the minds that create it and the hearts that carry it forward.

“Stories, reflecting those who tell and receive them, are not fixed things but fluid.” 26 | contortion

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The Distorted Reality of Knights ofGuinevere

By Charlotte Farrar

In January of 2025, Glitch Studios, well-known for its smash hit web series The Amazing Digital Circus, announced it would be dipping into the world of 2D animation for the first time with its new show, Knights of Guinevere, a psychological thriller heavily focused on body horror. The show is being created by Dana Terrace, John Bailey Owen, and Zach Marcus, former showrunners of the popular Disney series The Owl House, with Terrace being its creator. Fans of The Owl House rejoiced at this news, as Disney canceled the show prematurely despite its large fanbase. People were ecstatic to see what Terrace and crew would do under an independent studio with more freedom. The official pilot was released on September 19, 2025. It quickly grew in viewership, surpassing ten million views only three days after being published.

On first impression, the show is visually stunning. The art style is reminiscent of Terrace’s personal work, while maintaining a similar charm to The Owl House. The animation is digitally hand-drawn rather than using rigs, making the character movement more fluid and stylistic. The use of color becomes very prevalent in the pilot, as the color stories for each environment further the audience’s knowledge of each place. For example, the more destitute urban areas are mostly desaturated, while the more lavish locations have rich coloring. Knights of Guinevere, or KoG, also utilizes shape language in an interesting way. While historically, shape language is used to show the personality of a certain character, i.e., an abrasive character’s design being composed of mostly triangles and sharper edges, KoG uses shape language mainly to differentiate the titular character, Guinevere, from the other characters. While human characters are shown with wrinkles and sharper edges, Guinevere’s design consists of smooth curves and round circles. This show certainly has the quality and care that have been missing from big-budget projects, making it a generous breath of fresh air in the current media zeitgeist.

The pilot opens with a narration from an unknown voice telling the story of a princess locked in a tower, scared and in dire need of rescue. A little girl tinkers with a life-sized android splayed stiffly on a bed with its eyes wide open. The girl is beckoned outside by her father, who gestures below at a fireworks display over a theme park floating above the stars. The girl beckons the android she was working on toward her. We see that the android has gooey cobalt blue intestines pouring out from its metal stomach. When it does not come fast

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enough, the little girl grabs one of the sprawling tubes and yanks it towards herself, like a cruel owner dragging their dog on a walk. The robot responds with a placid script before glitching, eyes rolling back, and face straining. She then bolts and jumps off the balcony the three are standing on, plummeting to the park below. The girl and her father are unfazed, commenting that the guards will simply find her and bring her back as they had done before. As the robot falls, we hear one final piece of narration, saying that this is the trapped princess, Princess Guinevere, and that she desperately needs to be saved. This opening does a fantastic job at hooking in the audience, the bait and switch of who exactly the narrator was talking about working incredibly well.

The episode follows Andi and Frankie, two young women who work for different sections of the previously shown theme park, Park Planet. Andi works as a junior engineer in the labs, and Frankie, part-time at a factory that makes merchandise. They live on the planet of M7, whose citizens hate the park. Official park signage is graffiti-covered over, and statues of the park’s mascot, Guinevere, are defaced. The planet is heavily contaminated. Smog and trash flood the residential parts of the city, the park throws garbage into the ocean when it flies overhead, and there are signs and news headlines warning of a disease, dubbed “Blue-Lung”, that turns your skin and organs blue.

Many fans speculate that this is not-so-subtle commentary on the environmental and safety hazards caused by the carelessness of big corporations like Disney. The show, making an obvious jab at these companies, holds a lot more weight when you consider the team that created it. Terrace has publicly alluded to her negative experience working under the Disney corporation in the past, insinuating that feeding her best work to an army of profit-driven executives harmed her creative flow and self-esteem. Disney specifically has also received public criticism for their environmental carelessness, whether it be from the carbon emissions and water usage of their parks, or their recent uptick in AI use for promotional material.

As the episode continues, we see more real-world examples of Blue-Lung and what might be causing it. We learn through Andi’s job that most Park Planet animatronics have some sort of blue goo leaking from their seams. Blue smog shoots out of factory buildings, and people around M7 cough up blue goo or have blue patches of skin. It is heavily implied, if not outright stated, that Park Planet is poisoning the planet with this blue substance despite

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“This show certainly has the quality and care that have been missing from big-budget projects, making it a generous breath of fresh air in the current media zeitgeist.”

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realizing it is hurting people. They need this substance to make their machines the way they do, and they don’t care about the consequences it has on the environment. In the real world, of course, big companies are the largest contributors to yearly fossil fuel emissions and other environmental detriments. Cutting corners and prioritizing profit, these corporations are increasing public health concerns in highly industrialized areas and destroying the planet.

At Frankie’s second job, where she works on a barge that fishes trash from the sea and resells it, she discovers a one-of-a-kind piece of ocean waste: an authentic Guinevere android, the kind that interacts with guests at the park. The animatronic is in rough shape, with missing appendages and scraggly, ripped-out hair. Despite establishing how precious this find was, Frankie and her boss maneuver her very carelessly. They repeatedly drop her or handle her roughly, not minding her clearly fragile condition. They eventually throw her into a storeroom on the ship, her few remaining limbs contorting and twitching unnaturally around her as her one eye stares lifelessly ahead. There is something to be said about the in-universe treatment of Guinevere, both as a character representing Park Planet and as an object of desire. Early on, we are shown a flash of notes that an animator would recognize as character sheet feedback. The feedback on a sketch of Guinevere relays that she needs to be more perfect. She cannot have any sharp, “violent” edges in her design. She cannot have any wrinkles, not even the curve you’d find naturally under your eye. Guinevere’s design is perfectly catered to every age group, with a kind demeanor and a pretty dress for kids and an exaggerated hourglass figure for the adults.

In the episode, we briefly see a news article detailing how someone snuck a weapon into Park Planet and purposefully damaged a Guinevere holding a meet and greet with a child, the pictures showing blue blood splatters and severed metal arms. This seems reminiscent of how many adult theme park goers in recent years act inappropriately towards character actors. With the “customer is always right” culture that big corporations have curated over the years, there has been a steady increase in people seeing anyone who works with the public as mere vessels for their satisfaction and entertainment. This universe replaces the idea of a character actor with a sentient android, reflecting the idea that these workers are often treated more like objects than people. While the Park Planet mascot, Guinevere, is defiled, there is an allure to her that caters to every taste. However, when this manicured image is damaged, she becomes just another piece of junk to sell.

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“While the Park Planet mascot, Guinevere, is defiled, there is an allure to her that caters to every taste. However, when this manicured image is damaged, she just becomes another piece of junk to sell.”

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Frankie, dead set on fixing the Guinevere, convinces Andi to help her steal the android. They sneak her into the Park Planet Labs, where the hurt Guinevere screams bloody murder just before a ginormous creature of inhuman proportions attacks them. The girls take cover in a spherical construction, which looks strikingly similar to the Epcot Ball, but the giant homunculus simply picks it up and throws it full force against the wall. In the commotion, Andi’s arm snaps almost clean in half, her jagged forearm swinging limply at her side for the rest of the episode. Andi drags Frankie to a nearby elevator for safety, but Frankie turns back one last time before the doors close. We then see Guinevere, who was only recently a twitching mess dragged out from the ocean, in full control of the pieces of her body she has left. She looks back at our heroes, her one eye opened unnaturally wide and her smile splitting her face uncomfortably. The translucent elevator doors shut, and we see crimson blood splatter and hear the squelch of organic matter being torn apart. The doors open again, and we see the creature defeated in a bloody mess. Guinevere holds herself up for a few more seconds before losing control and slamming into the ground.

Knights of Guinevere is a pilot that blows so many current shows out of the water. In just one episode, it has established clear symbolism for capitalism and the harm it is causing, created a memorable setting and characters, and left millions of people begging for more.

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“She looks back at our heroes, her one eye unnaturallyopenedwide and her smile splitting her uncomfortably.”face

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Stlyle

Photographer Emma Fisher

Models Audrey Collins & Matthew Biser

Stylist Emma Fisher

Illustrator Ella Sutherland

Design Emma Fisher & Ella Sutherland

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Corsets, Cinchers, & BustiersOh My!

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by Ella Sutherland

I remember first hearing the catchphrase “You don’t alter Vera to fit you; you alter yourself to fit Vera” leave Kate Hudson’s mouth when I was a kid watching Bride Wars. Ever since, I’ve heard it passed around like fashion scripture. Beyond my certainly being too young to think about that kind of thing and the twisted aspirations the quote elicits in young people, the quote reveals a truth: fashion has always demanded contortion. Clothing is rarely a neutral canvas. Fashion is treated like bait on a hook, something to earn, to mold yourself around—a trap of ideals that corsetry captures perfectly: at its root, a means of reshaping the torso into an ideal. The quote and corsetry alike become less about devotion to fashion or designers themselves and more about the centuries-old negotiation between body and garment.

Fashion has and always will be tied to the body—whether shaping, disciplining, glorifying, or punishing it. The byproduct of this relationship is most epitomized in corsets, cinchers, and bustiers. They’re total paradoxes of style: tools for patriarchal control and symbols of feminine power, aesthetically pleasing torture methods and vices of expression, cages and armor.

The corset first appeared in European fashion in the 16th century and quickly became an indicator of wealth, status, and femininity. Early designs used whalebones or metal to force torsos into stiff and rigid structures. It became the expectation for women to lace themselves up in these pieces, sacrificing comfort and mobility so their bodies were a wasp-waisted reflection of beauty and virtue.

Corsets were more than items of clothing—they were social regulators. In a very physical way, they enforced the notion that women should be controlled and ornamental. A smaller waist became synonymous with a greater virtue. Corsets

were both a fashion statement and a cage, manifesting patriarchal structure in bodily form.

By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, corsets began to evolve. People started to realize corsets were a health risk for women and criticized the damage they inflicted on their bodies, as if the compressed lungs and displaced organs weren’t enough of a red flag. Designers began experimenting with looser silhouettes, girdles, and bras as alternatives.

Corsets never truly disappeared— they evolved, taking new life in cinchers, bustiers, and shapewear. As the physical garment evolved, so did its meaning: from discipline to glamour, or enforced femininity to sexual liberation. Women took agency over the pieces that used to represent patriarchal control. I remember tugging one off a thrift store rack once—stiff boning, scratchy satin, hooks that took forever to close. It was uncomfortable as hell, but in the mirror I felt better. That tension—discomfort vs power—is exactly what makes corsetry fascinating.

Still, the tension never really disappeared. From Dior’s nipped-in “new look” of the 1950s or the Madonna-inspired corsets of the 1990s, the cinched waist has remained a cultural fixation and a reminder of how we as a society interpret power, sexuality, and desirability.

Today, society is in no drought of the waist-sculpting garment rush. Reality TV stars, celebrity influencers, and fashion icons alike have repopularized waist cinchers by blending a growing obsession with fitness culture and aesthetic ideals.

The Kar-Jenner clan is definitely leading this fad. From Kim Kardashian’s Mugler Met Gala look to her own SKIMS shapewear brand, to Kylie Jenner’s Instagram bustiers and waist trainers, women all over the world see this as an ideal. And no, I’m not saying everyone needs to praise the ATLAS | 39

Kardashians, but it’s hard to deny the impact. We have once again wound up in the same spot with the same old question: why are we all so obsessed with squeezing ourselves into shape?

The answer doesn’t have to be patriarchally shaped. It can actually be quite aspirational. Waist-sculptors create a dramatic transformation and a visual spectacle of femininity and power. Corsetry speaks to desire, both of our own and of others. It creates a fashion fantasy. The garment doesn’t hold the allure; the metamorphosis it imposes does. Haven’t we all felt that squeeze—literal or not?

There is a paradox within the modern corset. When someone squeezes themself into a piece of shapewear or laces themself into a corset, are they engaging in an act of expression or submission? I think both.

For some, corsetry has been reclaimed as a form of art. Drag queens,

burlesque dancers, and avant-garde designers use bustiers, corsets, and cinchers to play with gender, sexuality, and fantasy. Corsetry is a way to amplify presence, exaggerate the body, and command attention. Ironically, the thing that is designed to restrict and confine is what sets some people free.

On the opposite end, the same garments reinforce the pressure to mold ourselves into narrow ideals of beauty and femininity. Waist trainers in fitness culture mirror old narratives of bodily inadequacy and discipline. Turning back to the Vera Wang quote—by altering ourselves to “fit” clothing or ideals, we sacrifice so much in the process.

Fashion is and has always been more than fabric. Fashion is an aspiration. From branding to runways to red carpets, fashion is not marketed as accessible; it is luxury. It is an ideal to chase. Corsetry embodies this dynamic because it physically forces the

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Clothing is rarely a neutral canvas.

body to meld into a shape that is impossible without artifice and pain.

Historically, this expectation has been more punishing on women, the queer community, and those with “substandard” body types. To lace up a corset is to erase difference and conform to what is considered ideal or acceptable. Still, the act of putting on a piece of corsetry has been subverted and claimed as a piece of performance, armor, or drag. The garment itself does not determine its own meaning; the wearer does.

At a glance, hearing things like “you alter yourself to fit Vera” makes us giggle in a throw-away romanticization of the devotion fashion lovers have to couture. But when considering the larger history of corsetry, it reads to me more like a confession. Fashion is rarely democratic. It is something that requires sacrifice and contortion. It asks bodies to mold to certain ideals rather than honoring the humanity and diversity of fashion.

Yet, the very act of alteration can be completely reframed. People choose to “fit Vera,” not out of submission but as an act of performance. It is a way to participate

in a fantasy and enter a world of glamor and aesthetics. There is a power in that. The same garments that once symbolized control can now serve as a declaration of sexual independence and a stroke of theatricality. This paradox remains unsolved— and maybe it shouldn’t be solved. Corsetry is polarizing because it embodies such tension between repression and expression, control and freedom, idealism and authenticity. Sometimes a corset is neither art nor oppression—sometimes it’s just a hot top for a Friday night out. Corsets, cinchers, and bustiers prove fashion isn’t neutral. It doesn’t just serve to cover the body—it reshapes, punishes, glorifies, and distorts it. Whether your stage is the runway, the street, or a literal stage, the garments carry a lineage of baggage - yes, of patriarchal control, but also legacies of reinvention and resistance.

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Corsetry is polarizing because it embodies such tension between repression and expression, control and freedom, idealism and authenticity.

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The People in my Closet

Sifting through my closet is like meeting a lineup of completely different people. Everything from costume lingerie, tiny “going-out” tops, huge furry coats, and summery button-ups lovingly coexist, making every morning feel like a thought-out selection of who I plan to be that day. Most mornings, I open my drawers and put on the same t-shirt as always, but when I actually plan out a put-together outfit, it has the ability to change my mindset. With each outfit I wear, I feel like a slightly different person. Or, more specifically, a slightly different writer.

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By: Lucy Latorre

“With each outfit I wear, I feel like a slightly different person.”

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I bought this perfect jean jacket blazer as a back-to-school present for myself. When I found it at the thrift store, I knew it was at least two sizes too small, but I chose to blissfully ignore it. With big brown buttons and a bit of scalloping on the sides, it screamed “writer.” If I wore it with a page boy cap and sat myself down in the corner of a coffee shop, it would look like the perfect writer tableau. I would fold open my journal—which would obviously be bursting at the seams with the next great American novel—and put the bottom of my pen by my mouth, contemplating something that those around me couldn’t even begin to comprehend. I’ve put it on a few times, but the compression on my arms drives me crazy. Maybe, if I stretch it out, I can wear it one day, but that means putting up with the tightness for the time being. Plus, I’d be attempting to write without being able to bend my arm.

In Amsterdam, I found this adorable slip dress that I swore fit me in the moment. An absolutely gorgeous Carrie Bradshaw moment, like a journalistic siren. I dreamt of attending galas in it, rubbing elbows with celebrities and then going home and typing away about how it felt to see my situationship at the bar last week. I’d start wearing my hair curlier in public and walk around in heels, but I’d never trip and fall in them. Those kinds of writers never trip in heels; they wear them like extensions of their feet. They click-clack like a typewriter each time they enter an underground concert they’ll discuss in their next blog post. I tried that satin slip on again and there was no way I could ever make it work. One boob was higher than the other. A very distracting image to see in the reflection of a laptop.

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“...when I shut my closet and silence the fantasies, I feel this weight lifted offmy shoulders...”

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Sometimes when I wear a leather jacket there’s the smallest part of me that thinks I’ve figured it out. I almost feel like one of those writers who reads Jack Kerouac in a graveyard, discussing the human condition over a pack of cigarettes. They annotate poetry and send think pieces to local newspapers. They also have the incredible ability to write absolutely anywhere, no matter how loud or crowded the surrounding world is. These kinds of writers just drown it out, disappearing into their own brilliant minds. My jacket is oversized to the point that I feel like I’m drowning in it. I wrap it around me as the air gets colder, creeping my hand past the sleeves to try and write anything down. But, my hand gets so cold that I put it back in my pocket.

I tend to do my best writing braless, in a pair of sleep shorts, propped up by the stiff arm of my couch. Sometimes I write when I’m wearing melting makeup, drunk and deep in my head. Other times, I’m just wearing what I always wear, feeling a sense of inspiration in an ancient sweater, dirty jeans, and greasy hair. I take great pride in my clothes, but when I shut my closet and silence the fantasies, I feel this weight lifted off my shoulders. I write best when I’m imperfect.

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U niform

From first to eighth grade

I wore a uniform to school. For those eight years, my life was characterized by polos and shades of plaid.

It was the first day of first grade, when uniforms were new and exciting. The color and strictness of uniforms changed as we got older, but this first year girls started out with the jumper: a skirt with two thick strips of fabric going around the shoulders, always layered with a white polo. On the playground, two girls pulled down their navy shorts hiding beneath the skirt to show me.

“What, you don’t have biker shorts?”

I didn’t, and was subsequently scared to go on the tall playground structure where the floor was speckled with holes. My face flushed as they questioned me further. Neither I, nor my parents knew this unspoken rule—we’d just assumed everyone wore the jumper like a usual skirt. The rest of the school day I became keenly aware of my difference.

By: Lily Suckow Ziemer

last two pairs in my size, I let out a breath for the first time since recess.

By third grade biker shorts weren’t cool anymore. All the girls wore loose, short, black Nike shorts. They weren’t school-approved but most got away with it. The biker shorts I cried over were useless now and I perused the Target athletic section for shorts with a similar cut.

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That night I came home crying. It was 6 p.m. by the time my parents got home, and only one of the two stores that sold my school’s approved uniform was still open, and closing soon. “Can’t we just get them tomorrow?” my dad asked. We couldn’t. I saw those girls in my mind’s eye, standing in front of the play structure and asking me if I’d gotten any. My dad drove as fast as he could, with my rigid instructions playing in his head: “They have to be the navy ones, a little bit long. Biker shorts. They are called biker shorts.” When he arrived home with the

It’s silly in retrospect. These shorts were rarely visible. We often took our skirts off for gym class, but it shouldn’t have mattered so much for something that barely peeked out for most of the day. For some reason it did though. The same went for most things. Did your polo shirt have the band on the bottom? Did you wear white socks with plaid ruffles? Were your shoes ballet flats or Mary Janes? There was a sort of unspoken hierarchy. If you didn’t wear the popular subversions of the uniform, you stood out. Our similarities made it so obvious when someone broke the trend. I can still remember the girls who rolled their skirts up to make them shorter, and the girls who bought extra long ones. There are many reasons schools institute uniforms. They are said to establish unity, make students concentrate on studies rather than what they are going to wear tomorrow, and level the playing field, displaying everyone as equal. At my school, and thousands of schools around the world, the adults in charge of us shaped how we dressed. They tried to fit us all into one box.

“We are all shaped by fashion trends, even choosing to abstain from them is a contortion to what’s popular.”

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As someone who wore a uniform, I can tell you it didn’t always work. Even when a group’s style choices are erased, differences appear, especially to those in the group. Maybe I didn’t go back to school shopping every year, but I did pay attention to all the finite details of my uniform, and others’.

Like most kids, I wanted to fit in. I had my mom hem my skirt so that it wasn’t too long or too short. I could distinguish my five identical shirts by the softness of the fabric, and chose the nicest ones based on the day ahead of me. I scoured the isles of DSW to find the best, black dress shoes. These choices were influenced by my peers, what the majority was doing. I imagine my teachers didn’t notice the trends that affected their young students, but they were poignant to me. When I reached high school and we were no longer required to wear uniforms, most adults expected it to be the wild west of fashion. It wasn’t. In fact, I was already acutely aware of how to observe trends and how to wear what everyone else did. The uniform didn’t disappear, it just became shaped by us.

We are all shaped by fashion trends, even choosing to abstain from them is a contortion to what’s popular. Sometimes we want to look the same, become a united front like my school always wanted us to be. Sometimes we want to stand out, follow the opposite of a trend. Regardless, our styles are always shifting in regards to one another. Nobody exists in a vacuum, even if we want to.

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If beauty is the art of transformation, my body is the canvas. When I was younger, I would look in the mirror and see my reflection as an opportunity, a chance for expression. But as I grew older, I started to view myself through a camera lens. I push and pull my skin, trying to mold my body into a different shape every day. I cinch my waist, pad my chest, and flatten my stomach. A closet full of clothes turned into a collection of shapewear, with shape taking precedence over style. As shapewear and fitted undergarments have exploded in popularity, the female body has become the most prominent yet inconsistent trend in modern fashion. And young women like myself have been turned into both the biggest victims and supporters of the movement. My first experience with shapewear was in fifth grade when I started wearing bras. I remember anxiously pacing through the aisles of my local Justice, overwhelmed by the options. There were bras meant to suppress the chest, push up bras to enhance the chest, even bras solely meant to prepare and “train” young girls to wear more bras in the future. When a worker came to help us, she mentioned that the push-up style was their most popular offering. As I tried the bra on, I grew estranged with my reflection. The body I saw in the mirror was not the one I grew up in. It was an entirely different shape, one that didn’t feel like it could ever truly be mine. I was disgusted. I was confused. Yet, most importantly, I was intrigued. Clothes didn’t just sit on my body anymore. They changed it. And the change seemed to make all the difference. The next day as I was changing in the locker room before my physical education class, a friend came up to me. She said I looked different that day. When I asked her what she meant, she simply replied, “You look good,” and walked off. In that moment I internalized my feelings as a fact: to change my body is to look good.

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There is something wrong with what is naturally there.

I started wearing shapewear during my sophomore year of high school, spending almost all of my birthday money on it. I ordered a push-up bra and mid-waist shorts from SKIMS to widen my chest and slim my waist down. Putting these items on was like having three different bodies all at once: the large curvy chest, stick-thin torso and legs, and the ugly skin that laid underneath. It was a sensation like no other. In particular, I was obsessed with the shorts, to the point where I couldn’t bear to look at myself without them. I wore shapewear no matter what, even to bed. Some mornings I would wake up with marks or bruises on my waist. It hurt, both emotionally and physically. But I ignored my pain, prioritizing other people’s perception over my own self-worth. Once I started college, comments on my body came from everywhere. My friends would often tell me how great they thought I looked. In those moments, I felt beautiful. But once I was left alone with my reflection, I realized the body they were complementing was not mine. They were admiring the contortion of it.

SKIMS and their products heavily affected the way I viewed myself. On their website, the brand says their mission is to “set new standards by providing solutions for every body… and consistently innovate on the past and advance our industry for the future.” The key words in this statement are “solutions” and “innovate.” Both of these words imply the existence of a problem. In context, the problem is the body. And the only way to “fix” this problem is by buying from the brand. At the time of writing this, the brand sells fifty-three different forms of shapewear and nine styles of push-up bras. Each style is meant to “fix” a part of your body, from padding the hips to accentuate one’s curves or pushing against the stomach to flatten it. Whatever insecurity

Contorted Closet

by Madison Smithwick

The body itself is the sexiest thing a woman can wear.

you have, SKIMS sells the “solution.” Insecurity has become its own industry, with SKIMS at the forefront of the business. The brand was estimated to have a value of four billion dollars in 2023, which has only grown in recent years. Many other brands have also found success recently, including Spanx, Honeylove, Leonisa, and more. None of these companies sell clothing, they sell the idea of a perfect body. Girls can change their style by changing their bodies. The body itself is the sexiest thing a woman can wear.

The most important and damaging aspect of shapewear is that it is undetectable. With people being able to change the shape of their bodies on a whim, the image of the female body has become an intricate puzzle that loses pieces by the day. Under this lens, I saw my body as an object. Rather than follow modern trends, I choose to follow my own personal style. Now when I look in the mirror, I recognize what I see. I understand that my body is a part of me, not a product of or for anyone else.

City

Photographer

Model Design

Grace Thayer Kiara Teixeira

Ugne Kavaliauskaite 58 |

Doors to

Wait for the Shutter Shut

By Emma Ross

There was an elevator I rode every day during my months in France, tucked away in a student residence off the Rue du Sauveur in Lyon. No bigger than a broom closet, it is the smallest elevator I’ve ever squeezed into—a space large enough to carry one person comfortably and three people awkwardly. If more than one person occupied the cabin, it would take the bravery of a lion tamer and the contortion skills of an acrobat to shove my way in. You can imagine the quiet celebration I held each time the door thundered open to reveal an empty space. A mirror was glued to the back wall, likely to make the space appear twice as large. No such illusion was created. Yet every time I boarded the elevator, I studied the image of myself—stripped bare by the white, fluorescent light, and, for a few moments, I became disembodied. For a few moments, I was not a woman in France, nor a lonely person in a foreign city, but a stranger in an elevator, suspended in space and time.

The fabric of the world rips apart each time the door of an elevator peels open and an individual is invited into limbo.

French anthropologist Marc Augé defines non-lieu or non-place as a space of transience in which one remains anonymous and unattached; such spaces do not harbor community, connection, or identity. Nonplaces are the in-betweens of our lives. Humans transform from individuals to ciphers.

I acknowledge that, for some, this may sound unappealing—depressing even. You may buy into the rom-com ideal of elevator meet-cutes: the romance of two people exchanging shy glances and hesitant smiles, followed by an expression of love for The Smiths. You may be throwing your hands into the air and crying, “Can’t a person dream?” But is there no relief to be found in the anonymity of an elevator cabin? We spend much of our lives searching for, grasping at, identity and individuality. In the

non-place of an elevator, we can shed the heavy coat of observation and simply float in the in-between for a short ride up or down.

The weightlessness of our bodies during an elevator’s journey is not just inertia acting on our mass, but the feeling of unburdening ourselves of identity.

My heart used to jump at each clank and shutter of the freight elevator at my last retail job. I was anxious that the machine would break down at any moment. It was a slow elevator, beginning each trip with a startling lurch. Sometimes the doors would open prematurely, while the cogs were still whirring and the floors had yet to align.

Other times, the doors would pause, only peeling back once I began to sweat a little and wonder whom I’d have to call for help. For the first year of that job, I avoided the elevator.

“

Can’t a person dream?

I grew used to the wacky machine by the second. By the third, I was excited at the possibility of being trapped inside the stuffy space, even if only for a few moments. I was eager to elongate the experience of anonymity—to lengthen the time spent outside of my existence. I could slouch, drop my face, heave a heavy sigh, or do nothing at all; I would be the only witness. There was no need to think of the world outside of that elevator. I was completely removed from it. Like an actor walking offstage, away from the prying eyes of the audience, the mask could be dropped.

In a grand city like Boston, elevators are rarely unoccupied. Each time I enter a bustling building on Emerson’s campus, there

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is a crowd gathered in anxious wait for their ride up. Students will check their watches, glue their eyes to the flashing floor numbers, or tap their feet against the ground with no particular rhythm. When the chime rings out and the doors finally open, we all file in, convinced we can fit just one more person. Once inside, we all face forward, tucked into ourselves, and stand in silence until we’re delivered to our destinations. Like sardines in a can. Or many Schrödinger’s cats in a box. I don’t remember the faces of the students I ride with in the elevators, and I imagine they don’t remember mine either. I feel the warmth of them as we brush shoulders, and the tickle of their shirt fabrics against my skin. But they are simply entities around me. They are nobody. I am nobody. What a relief.

While we pack ourselves into these claustrophobic motorized cabins, the boundaries of the world fall away. The simple conformity of standing in place, looking forward, keeping one’s business to oneself, frees us from the rough, solid gaze of looming institutions. Each elevator is a hole punched through the paper of society—a blank space in the middle of the material, through which we can poke our finger, wiggle it around, and feel nothing but air. A reprieve from the texture of life. You can, for a moment, and at no extra cost, escape the weight of existence without taking any drastic action. Just press the button and wait for the doors to shutter shut. You will become nothing; isn’t that wonderful?

“

Are

WeGoing theWrong Way?

By Brenna Sheets

There’s a saying in Boston: “If you miss the exit, just go home.”

Let’s use Rock & Rye, my favorite dive bar in Boston, as an example. If you’re driving to Rock & Rye from the south of the city, such as Dorchester, you’ll take I-93. If you miss the exit toward Lincoln Street, you’ll miss your last chance to get off in downtown and will, in fact, have to do a whole life-questioning circle around the city. Well, at least there’ll be a nice drive-by tour of the scenery, an optimist would think. Boston laughs back at you. You’re underground the

ATLAS | 65

majority of the time, lightly shielding your eyes from the tunnel’s harsh lighting, wondering how the Big Dig was even possible, and hoping there’s ventilation for all the backed-up car exhaust.

I know this because, now that I’ve lived in Boston for three years, it’s happened to me on numerous occasions—in Uber,

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en route to Emerson, Moxy’s, Urgent Care, Rock & Rye, The Paramount, The Wang, The Q, The Common, and the shops on Newbury. Who knew they built the subway for a reason? The Red Line is my best friend when it’s reliable, but it tends to fall off the wagon a few times a year: We have a toxic, co-dependent relationship.

A 2024 study by WalletHub on the best and worst cities to drive in ranked Boston 94th for traffic and infrastructure, with an overall score of 86 (100 being the worst). Even if you’re traveling on foot, you can take The Dark Side of Boston tours, which lead visitors through the North End’s winding streets and alleyways for true tales of misery, misfortune, and murder.

One can learn all about the Great Influenza of 1918, the Molasses Flood, and the infamous Brink’s Robbery, all of which were so heavily immortalized by Boston’s infrastructure.

It’s not just my perception as a transplant. Boston really is built differently. Unlike most major US cities, Boston’s street system didn’t emerge from a central plan but from centuries of layering.

In the 17th century, what is now downtown Boston was once the Shawmut Peninsula, known as Mushauwomuk, which translates to “the boat landing place” in the Algonquian language; it was part of the Massachusett nation, according to the West End Museum. William Blackstone, a lone English settler on the peninsula, invited John Winthrop to move Puritan settlers to the area in 1630, and they renamed the settlement “Boston.” The Massachusett were forced out of the area within a decade. The narrow cow paths and foot trails eventually hardened into roads. When the city expanded by filling in marshes and annexing nearby towns, the street system grew like a patchwork rather than a blueprint. By the time cars arrived, the damage, if you can call it that, was already done.

to make more than one wrong turn unless you’re trying to, and there’s usually an easy solution, with traffic being the only headache.

The result is a city where one-way streets double back on themselves, where there are five-way intersections, where the tunnel rats never see the light of day, and where a single street will change names multiple times in the space of a mile. It’s a place that has reinvented and expanded itself for centuries, and it expects you to do the same as soon as you sign your lease.

For reference, I grew up in Miami, Florida, which has a grid system and no trains.

In Miami, everything’s laid out pretty straightforwardly. Streets and avenues are numbered and perpendicular, like graph paper stretching toward the horizon. It’s hard

I enjoyed growing up in Miami, but I always saw it as just that—a place I would grow up. I always dreamed of moving away and living a different life than the one I’d seen: I wanted more than just flip-flop tans and EDM music and drugs, and living at home. I didn’t want to kick it with high school friends and pretend to care about Art Basel and avoid discussing politics as the city turned red. Yet, it seemed like every time I tried to veer off the plan and leave Florida, the universe stood firm on its decision.

That summer, after high school graduation, I found out that no matter how smart you are, how many clubs you join, or how hard you work, there are just some things you can’t do without money. One of those things was going to college in New York City. I bet big and applied to the top

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Boston is a maze, which is fitting because it’s also a rat’s race. “ “

schools only, desperate to leave my life in Miami and expand my horizons in pursuit of something greater. But when I found out my scholarship would still leave me $150,000 in debt, and my mom’s credit was too poor to co-sign any kind of loan, I gave up. I remember a financial aid personnel telling me over the phone, Well, you know, maybe if you can’t afford it and the loans are an issue, you should sit down and think, ‘Is this really even the environment for me?

The possibility that I was somehow destined to live a Floridian life was terrifying. When I finally managed to scheme a plan to leave the state after college, I figured that being in Boston would be the easy part, the reward after the grind.

I was just a little off track.

Boston is a maze, which is fitting because it’s also a rat’s race. It’s full of twists and turns, side alleys with one-million-dollar brownstones, underground cafes, and train escalators that lead to more trains instead of above ground. It has over 50 colleges, over 100 company headquarters, around 700,000 residents, and above 40,000,000 airport passengers every year. The population and tourist destinations are not something I’m

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unfamiliar with, but I never thought I’d find myself embarrassed and confused at intersections so often.

My time in Boston has mirrored its streets. Life delivered more unexpected turns than I could have imagined, with moments that felt like the universe was expelling me back to the Florida marsh where I belonged. It wasn’t like Miami at all, which always seemed to be begging me to settle, to follow familiarity and discontentment. Boston was quite literally turning me up on my head at every turn. Any time I’ve found myself settling in, it’s thrown me right back out onto the streets. I’ve taken probably all the wrong turns you can think of in the past three years: I stayed in the wrong career, picked the wrong apartments, settled for the wrong friends, talked to the wrong guys, chose the worst possible temporary this and momentary that, and somehow ended up in the suburbs, of all places. I’ve had to double back, reroute, and start all over, repeatedly.

I still need Google Maps to get around. I still have to check where the Green Line splits and whether the Red Line is delayed. But the panic and frustration of not knowing where I belong have softened. Maybe I’ve just gotten used to adapting to the unnatural. Somewhere along the way, the disorientation stopped feeling like a mistake and started feeling like a continuous journey. Or maybe I’ve simply grown crazy with the city.

Missing an exit doesn’t always mean you have to go home. Sometimes it just means you take the long way, and not even for the pretty sights, but just because it’s a part of the deal.

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Tales of the Newbury Street Elite

By Matthew Provler

Everyone and anyone, no matter what, needs to work a customer service job—not just for the money (although it often is just for the money), but to scrape against the scum of the earth in the form of our fellow human beings. Out of all the possibilities, food service being a notable horror, I ended up in retail: Men’s suits, to be painfully precise. The only place that would hire me, at 16 with no experience, was a suit store in need of warm bodies to watch the front door and absorb the blasts of human incompetence. On. Long. Island.

Fast forward to the present day: The vanity, ignorance, and disregard for others are unmatched by the clientele of Boston’s famous Newbury Street, a feat Long Islanders couldn’t dream of. After nearly two years of working on this tourist-infested, consumerist wonderland of a mile-long stretch, I have grown fed up with the disingenuousness of the sickly sweet smiles and the coddling of grown adults as they behave like tantrumthrowing toddlers. I am sick of the flippant destruction of tourists and trust fund children as they march through the store, ATLAS | 71

tearing sweaters from shelves with animalistic fervor, only to toss them back down at the turn of their noses. Although innumerable, I wish to catalog a few experiences through distinct vignettes, sharing snippets from across the years of idiocy spent with Newbury Street “elites”:

Through my years of working in men’s suits, I’ve encountered the elusive “know-it-all.” The irony is that oftentimes, if not always, they don’t know what they’re talking about. They know the difference in lapels (they mix up the only two relevant ones, somehow), they insist on the correct fit (meaning too tight at the stomach and waist, with the lapels puckering outwards and rippling fabric stretched too tightly around the shoulders), and they always back up their “knowledge” with the fact that they wear suits everyday, and for their job none the less.

Speaking of which, a common customer is a young client whose father is buying them a suit for their first big-city job. And I have to tolerate the constant arrogant interjections from said father, who insists he knows all there is to know about suits.

A quiet day arrived, with the typical customers and appointments. Suits were fitted, fabric and accouterments chosen, and payments taken. Enter a father and daughter. The daughter was looking for a suit for a job that I couldn’t care enough to remember, but I nodded my head in tepid encouragement as the father loomed nearby. He told me he wore suits every day (as many of his type had before). I carefully measured and evaluated how to move on to the next phase of the fitting, tuning out the father as best as I could.

And yet, my curiosity struck. Why does he need to wear a suit for work every day?

“I’m a lawyer,” he said in a dry tone as I pinned the try-on jacket on his daughter.

“Oh, cool.” I was pleasantly surprised. “What kind of law?”

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“Environmental law,” he replied, rather quickly.

I remark again, with a slightly genuine, “Oh, that’s pretty cool!”

“For oil.”

Ohhhhhh . . .

“Ohhhh . . .” I couldn’t even hide my disappointment, the perfect subversion of a morally bankrupt joke.

And so, in an effort to either cope with my reaction to his career decisions or his own career decisions (perhaps both), the father began to explain, grasping to convince me that his cause for advocating big oil’s needs was morally righteous. And the ducklings slathered in oil, fluttering around helplessly as their homes are destroyed and their lives taken? No, no, no, oil needed the help. Oh, bro-ther.

“The soles of your shoes were made with oil,” he rambled on. “Rubber is made with oil.”

I paused for a moment and pointed to my shoes: leather loafers with a leather sole.

“No, mine are actually made of leather,” I politely retorted.

“Well,” he coped on, “leather soles are actually less durable than rubber soles.”

So that’s bullshit. “You’re wrong,” I interrupted, “but that’s ok.”

I gave a cold, smug smile to the thensilent father. Little talk filled the time, and I finished my job by taking his credit card for payment alongside a curt, “Have a nice day!”

Fast forward, a new job, which felt eerily familiar to a bygone one, was then my sole activity amidst a summer in Boston spent surviving off each paycheck for food and rent. The clientele? Many had gone to the store since they were younger, reminiscing on how their father (almost always the father when it comes to suits) bought them their first suit there. Mind you, our suits start at $1400. I hope that puts into

Raised by money, not manners. “

“

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Havea goodone , and so on. “ “

perspective the upper class to which the customers belonged.

A strange yet telling detail I noticed early on was the particular trend of credit cards that customers pulled out at the register: Platinum and Gold Amex that accompany extravagantly high annual fees and luxurious benefits. The annual fee alone would’ve been enough to feed me for a month, and then some. To this certain echelon of customers, I’m often seen as a helper, not as a human.

A coworker always retorted, “Raised by money, not manners.” And they were not wrong.

After a day of mulling over decisions and strained by a lack of food, I swayed at the granite-topped register, staring intently at my watch as minutes pushed past my eyes, insurmountable as mountains, when a customer approached. He had been shopping around. I noticed him seemingly fade in and out of reality as he appeared behind and around me mysteriously, reuniting with me at the register with a measly button-down shirt.

His lip pouted, arms crossed, and eyes glaring above my downturned head as I sluggishly scanned and bagged his prized purchase in delicate tissue paper. Have a good one, and so on.

“Are you new?” He asked a loaded question I’d heard many times before. It’s never a good sign if someone asks if you’re new. It always means you, personally, fucked up and are about to receive an unknown reckoning.

“Sure,” I muttered, knowing the inevitable to follow.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, sure.”

His expression scrunched, and his tone shifted. “You provided terrible, awful service. Be better.”

“Ok,” I said, already checked out.

“Have a good one.”

“Terrible, awful service!” he cried out the door.

“Mmhmm, yep,” I said dryly, giving him a hearty thumbs up.

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Wellness

Photographer Mari Silva

Models

Design Audrey Stiefvater & Lilian Holland

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Olivia Shulman & Isabella Cuenca

Yoga Nightmare

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by Rowan Wasserman

Exercise has been and continues to be a contentious subject for a vast quantity of people. Lots of plussized people have a negative association with it, stemming from a childhood of being told to do it more, and encouragement is powerful when it comes to kids. I was told to exercise a lot, so I rarely did willingly. Then, once we’ve achieved sentience and grown up past our stubbornness, we realize that it’s not just about aesthetics; exercise is about survival, not just looking pretty.

Nowadays, I exercise for my wellbeing. I go to the gym when I have time, I walk instead of taking the train, and I do my best. Many of us are just doing our best, and oftentimes

It’s a strange fact of life that many people feel comfortable telling plus-sized people how to exercise, as though we are newborns with no concept of weight or diet.

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we hear a lot of ways to stay active, gifted to us as unsolicited advice. It’s a strange fact of life that many people feel comfortable telling plus-sized people how to exercise, as though we are newborns with no concept of weight or diet.

One such suggestion that is frequently brought up to me and others with my body type is yoga, or rather, the Westernized concept of the practice—yoga in its inception is more about spiritual growth and mindfulness than the Western concept of the same name, which focuses on strength and tone. Yoga is viewed by the masses as a low-intensity exercise more focused on stretching and meditating than endurance or strengthening. That’s not to say yoga is easy, but many people do view it that way. It’s my understanding that the reason so many people recommend yoga to fat people is because they view being overweight as a product of laziness, and thus view yoga as the lazy man’s activity. Whether that’s a subconscious thought or not, many people are programmed that way. It’s typical to always assume the worst of people as a way to explain their bodies not fitting societal ideals. Obviously, for those of us who have brains, we know that’s not generally the case, but I digress.

I began taking yoga classes as a high schooler. Yoga, it would seem, fits all the categories that my past sport experiences did not fill: it’s cheap, it seems pretty easy to learn on your own, and it’s a solo activity. Despite those traits being accurate, I hated yoga.

When I was taught yoga, we started with the warrior poses, which were easy and felt good—a good start. Then we moved on to downward dog, where you put your butt in the air and stretch your legs behind you with your arms out front. That one again was easy for me to do, though I was definitely aware of the guy on the mat behind me

looking dead ahead at my ass.

Next was child’s pose, and here’s where it really got difficult for me. We all got down on the mat, curled our knees to our chest, and brought our arms out in front, with our foreheads touching the mat. Except, I couldn’t do that. My forehead couldn’t hit the ground, my ass wouldn’t stay down on my heels, I could hardly even touch the ground, and it was visible to anyone who looked at me.

My yoga teacher, obviously watching me fail abysmally at this very simple pose, announced that for those of us who couldn’t do the pose, we could modify it, with our knees out to the sides, and our rears in the air. I, the only plus-sized person in the room, was the only one to modify anything. I might as well have had a sign taped to my back that said “Fat! Laugh!” for how embarrassed I was at that moment. I had tear stains on my shirt when we went into the locker room, and I hid in a bathroom stall to change without anyone looking at my body. I stayed in the stall until everyone had left, and I sat so still that the automatic lights turned off.

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There have been plenty of experiences in my life where I was informed by society around me that my body is incorrect.

From that first day on, I hated going to yoga. I would beg my instructor to let me be in the back row so fewer people would see me. I would cut movements off halfway through when my shirt started to ride up. I would half-ass my poses so that less of my body was visible to those around me. I did everything in my power to be invisible, and I never got the positive yoga experience that so many people talk about.

There have been plenty of experiences in my life where I was informed by society around me that my body is incorrect. Most sports do this. Going to the gym does this. Going online does this. Being overweight is a primary reason to become antisocial, in my experience—going anywhere, interacting with anyone new, being seen at all, fills me with anxiety based on past experiences where new people and new experiences turned into bullying and harassment. If you’re behind a screen, however, no one can see you. But you can’t live a life behind a screen. Unfortunately, being viewed is tough for me, and it always has been. As I’ve been made well aware, this society has fatphobia built into it, and the Westernized form of yoga we’re working with here is no different.

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By Keanna Grigg

I typically turn over a thought in my head several times before I open my mouth to vocalize it. Whether it is a positive, negative, or even neutral statement, I always try to find the best way to phrase it before speaking. I used to think this was simply due to my tendency to overthink, but as I grow older, I recognize it as a cultural norm of American society. In the U.S., an adult is expected to speak as innocuously as possible. Passion is confused with anger, honesty with rudeness, kindness with complacency, and the list goes on. We spend so much time trying to speak without offending anyone that we often forget to express our true feelings at all.

Around my twentieth birthday, I became aware of my constant lack of open communication.

I realized that I had gone along with many things I didn’t agree with. In my junior year of high school, for instance, a boy I considered my friend told me he would type the N-word when searching for songs with the slur in the title. I wondered what prompted him, an Asian man, to tell me, a Black woman, that information unprompted.

I thought knew me better than anyone. It was jarring that her perception of me was so different from how I saw myself. She couldn’t give me any specific examples, and instead chose to write her initial comment off as a joke. It left me questioning all of our past interactions and overanalyzing my present interactions with everyone else. I spiraled, wondering if others thought the same of me, and I was the only one unaware.

Passion is confused with anger , honesty with rudeness, kindness with complacency, and the list goes on.

I laughed it off at the time, telling myself it wasn’t a big deal, but it continued to weigh on my mind.

I listened to countless people tell me what kind of person they thought I was, up until the point that I hardly recognized the person I believed myself to be anymore.

Last year, a friend of almost ten years told me that I sometimes come off as self-centered. This shocked me because they were a friend

The moment I truly looked within myself and realized that I had lost my sense of self was like being struck by lightning. I remembered every insult or microaggression I ignored, every injustice I was a bystander to, and every undeserved apology I offered. Too often did I convince myself that I was the problem, even when I wasn’t. It all culminated in my inability to recognize myself as a genuinely good person. Every time I encountered conflict, I was quick to blame myself rather than others. I accepted what others assumed about me rather than explaining how my actions or words were misinterpreted. Friends often told me that they thought I was mean before they knew me. Instead of sharing how much effort I put into trying to get people to like me, I let them believe I was an aloof person. Conversely, there were times when people made comments that I found offensive, but I remained silent because I didn’t feel worthy of standing up for myself. Those experiences left my self-image distorted, and my confidence at an all-time low.

I believe everyone should have freedom of expression, and that personal

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expression is the foundation of any person. I also believe that it is okay to withhold opinions sometimes and to give yourself time to reflect before you speak or act. When engaging in discussion in class, I make it a point to be as true to myself as possible when I’m sharing my thoughts. I am now confident in my opinions and the experiences that helped shape them. Naturally, there are going to be people I don’t agree with, but I’ve learned that taking time to fully hear another person out can give me insight I didn’t have previously.

Watching me try to ice skate is like watching a baby take its first steps. On top of that, I can only stay on the ice for roughly thirty minutes before my ankles start hurting. However, my close friend, who loves ice skating, has his own skates, and we’ve gone ice skating at least once a year ever since I’ve known him. He knows that I’m not a fan of ice skating, but he doesn’t know how sore I am the next day. I could have suggested another activity that we would both equally enjoy, but then I would have never found out how fun ice skating with friends can be. The soreness is worth the memories we create together.

I’ve celebrated two of my friends’ birthdays at karaoke, despite disliking the attention of holding the mic. I could have

Too often did I convince myself that I was the problem, even when I wasn’t.

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Personal expression is the foundation of any person.

been honest and told them it was an activity I didn’t think I’d enjoy. I could’ve given them their presents and opted out of the festivities, but I went to karaoke anyway, because I trusted my friends. If they thought I would have fun at karaoke, then I would believe them, even if it didn’t seem possible at the time. In the end, I’m glad that I went because once I realized it was only my friends in the room with me, karaoke no longer seemed anxiety-inducing. I found myself singing along to all of the songs, and even held the mic at some points throughout the night.

From all of these past encounters, I’ve learned healthier habits and techniques when it comes to communication. I now strive to express myself as openly and honestly as possible. I give my honest opinions and correct people when they misunderstand me. At the same time, I’ve also learned that my opinion does not always have to be expressed immediately. Allowing others to clearly express themselves, and myself time to fully interpret what they are sharing, balances both of these lessons and makes communication more productive. I recommend finding your own personal equilibrium of communication, because once you do, you’ll find that it makes your life a whole lot easier.

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Subway Reflections

By Jadyn Cicerchia

I was standing on the subway in Boston when I saw it. The screeching sound of the tram beginning to move along one of the oldest lines in America signals my daily journey home. My backpack was digging into my shoulders, and my eyes, slightly swollen and dry from a long day without enough sleep, began to flutter in my effort to stay awake. I desperately wanted to distract myself from the ache in my feet and the pounding in my head, but the passengers were so squished in that I couldn’t lift my arms to get to my phone. Rush hour, leaning on strangers and praying you don’t fall, there isn’t space for one more person, but they will try to squeeze in anyways.

I let my gaze wander in an attempt to entertain myself. Three women are facing me, seated. On the far end sits an older woman; she has been on the train for a while. Her bag is comically large and bursting with colorful folders, loose papers, and books covered in sticky notes. In her lap is a printed essay; her thin hands, tinged with age spots and blue veins, grasp an equally blue pen. It hovers carefully over the words, ready to strike. Her nails are plain but well-manicured.

Deep lines settle around her mouth and above her brow as though she were permanently stuck in deep thought.

Probably a professor… law, maybe?

I am suddenly pushed along with the person next to me; someone is at their stop, and trying to squeeze themself out. We are practically lying on top of these women. A loud crinkle comes from the large shopping bags that one of them is clutching in their lap when I have to use it to catch myself. I think of apologizing, but she doesn’t even seem to notice, both earbuds in and talking to someone who keeps making her smile. Then comes the dreaded announcement, barely legible through the speaker. “The train in front of us is dealing with some issues, so we will be stopped until they can move.” I turn my head to the man next to me as he does the same, wanting to confirm that everyone is annoyed by this. His face is young, but tired and drained of color in a way that can only be achieved by sitting in a college lecture for hours. The man probably sees the same when he looks at me. His frown lines begin to tug into a smile, and suddenly, we are both laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. My face looks more relaxed when I turn back to the window, my reflection visible now that the sun has set. My skin almost feels loose as I finally unclench my jaw and unpinch my eyebrows. I am enjoying this physical release that comes with a change in emotion when I see it:

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10% off Cosmetic Injections

It is the type of ad I see every day, a simple banner tied to the temporary ATLAS | 89

gates they put around construction sites. But this one in particular made my brain go haywire. My mouth drops in shock. I look around frantically to see if anyone else had seen the ad promoting anti-aging to a demogaraphic mainly of 18–22 year olds. I want this concept to be perceived as utterly ridiculous, but maybe it isn’t anymore. I heard mentions of things like “baby botox,” people recommending that you begin to freeze your face as young as possible, so you never really age. I despised the idea, but my eyes still flicker back to myself, my dark circles, my undefined jaw, and for a moment, I wonder what their prices were.

When I was a child, I desperately wanted to be an old woman. I watched my grandmother in awe as her laugh filled the room without a care for how it accentuated her double chin or the lines around her eyes. Her earrings shone in the light as they hung from sagging earlobes.

Her fur coat would be long discarded, as she clutched her second martini with extra olives.

The rim was stained with the sparkly red lipstick that often adorned her wrinkled lips. We doubled over in laughter when she accidentally threw half of the drink over her shoulder whilst gesticulating. I caught a glance at the scar on her chest where she had a tumor removed. She was probably talking far too loudly, but the restaurant patrons surrounding us just seemed to lean in and listen. I loved going places

with her. It was like she knew everyone and everything. I couldn’t wait until my body showed signs of a life as well-lived as hers.

It is these memories that snap me out of my self-consciousness.

Why would I want to walk into an office and pay someone to wipe the life away from my face?

I want everyone to know that I have laughed and cried. I want my friends and family to know that I love them when I look at them. I want to be able to point to the scar on my knee and make someone laugh when I tell them I got it falling off a golf cart. I want to spend time in the sun, eat junk food, stay up too late, and tug at my skin when I do my makeup. I watch people online tape their mouths shut to go to bed, stop using straws, and even train themselves to make their faces less expressive, all out of fear of aging. I wonder if we are more concerned with how we will look when we are six feet under than how we lived life to the fullest.

Now, when I spend too much time dissecting myself in the mirror, comparing myself, or thinking of all the things I would fix, I think back to that day on the subway. I think about what a privilege it is to look around and see different people, to understand someone for a moment when you look at their face. Wrinkles are not flaws; they are 90 | contortion

proof that you are human. Your body is a piece of art that tells the story of your life. Not everyone gets the opportunity to live long enough to see their body change. Perhaps the real ugliness is taking that for granted.

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Mental Contortion: The Freshman Stress

By Audrey Stiefvater

The first few weeks of my freshman year of college felt like folding myself into shapes I didn’t know I could make. New city, new people, new home. Attempting to look confident while trying to remember I have to take my keys everywhere, and how to pick up a letter from my mom. The beginning of the semester comes with a strange combination of excitement and pressure. Your mind is forced to contort and stretch in all directions at once.

Stress is like an uncomfortable stretch. Once you release it, your body can relax and is better prepared for the next time you stretch. Stress is similar; it is a learning experience for our mind and body to grow the next time we encounter stress. Sometimes we forget that uncomfortable moments are signs we are growing and learning to adapt to the challenges we are faced with daily.

When we’re stressed, our brains release hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which can be a good and bad thing. In small doses, it helps us focus and finish writing an article for a magazine right before the deadline. But when stress becomes constant, it takes a toll on the brain. Studies show that chronic stress

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can shrink the prefrontal cortex, the area responsible for decision-making, and overworks the amygdala, which controls fear and anxiety.

There’s something powerful about learning to reshape stress into something manageable instead of fighting it. Psychologists call this “reframing”— shifting how we view tension. Instead of thinking, I can’t handle this, we can say, My body is preparing me for something important.

That small shift changes everything. We can start to look at stress as something to channel into productivity, as opposed to fighting stress and letting it cloud our minds with negativity.

Here are a few ways I have tried to navigate stress and shift into the reframing mindset: Move.

Taking a short walk, stretching, or going to the gym can physically release tension. Exercise increases endorphins and calms the brain’s stress response. My personal favorite is walking in the public garden, coffee in hand and headphones on. Freshman Addy Jean feels similarly: “I like to journal, going on walks, and working out,” she told me. Jack Maio adds that he likes to “listen to music, go on walks, and [he] like[s] to meditate.” For many students, movement isn't just about moving the body, but keeping the mind active.

Create.

Rest.

There’s this unspoken rule in college that productivity equals worth. But rest isn’t a reward for finishing work; it’s part of the work. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is stop.

Sometimes the best way to untangle your mind is to write, draw, or make something just for yourself. I like to make friendship bracelets for my friends and family back home. I'm not good at it, but it's the thought that counts, and it keeps my mind occupied. Creativity doesn't get rid of stress—it gives it somewhere to go. Each word you write, or each stroke your pen makes, is a small act of release. Tapping into your creative passions remind us that doing something simple that brings us joy can help us feel grounded amidst the storm of stress.

Talk Talk.

College stress can feel isolating, but chances are your fellow students are going through something similar. Find a friend, family member, or stranger to share your stories of stress with. (Shout out to my mom, who has listened to me complain about increased course loads and stress about making friends.)

Conversation and connection remind us that we are not meant to carry everything alone.

Talking with my friends is a good reminder of how many ways there are to release stress. Whether it's through movement, mindfulness, or brain-rotting on social media, we all have our ways to cope with stress.

For my friend and floormate, Finn Lofgren, rest is “lying in [her] bed with [her] noise-canceling headphones, and scrolling on Instagram reels.” Garan Grey, another freshman and floormate, finds a balance between focus and relaxation: “I go to the library to feel less stressed about my work,” he says, “… and also I like to watch TikTok.”

If stress bends the brain, maybe resilience is the art of unbending and slowly unfolding yourself back into shape. Emerson students are experts at this kind of flexibility. We juggle projects, auditions, deadlines, and dreams, often all at once. But maybe contortion isn’t just about pressure or pain, but transformation. Being a freshman feels like constantly rearranging who you are to fit into new spaces, physically, mentally, and creatively. While that can feel uncomfortable and stressful, it’s also where personal growth happens, which helps us adapt to new environments.

So, as we, the freshmen of Emerson College, walk through Boylston in the morning rush with a brain full of to-do lists, let us remind ourselves that stress isn’t the enemy. It’s the stretch before the breakthrough. The bend before balance.

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PHOTO Virgil Fionn Durkin

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Lauren Mallett

Studying Abroad Won’t Save You

By Sydney Flaherty

“When she gets back, you won’t even recognize your own daughter.”

That’s what they told my parents before I left to study abroad in high school. I spent the majority of my f reshman year at orientations meant to prepare me for my exchange year.

In these sessions, past parents and organization leaders went over everything from visa troubles to what to do if we find ourselves in abusive host family situations. But no matter the severity of the topics covered, their closing statements always remained the same:

“When my son came back, he was completely different.”

“Our daughter left home at sixteen and came back twenty-five.”

I left for Italy, excited to become the person I was meant to be. My true self was waiting, and I was going to find her.

In the final season of The Summer I Turned Pretty, the main character, Belly, pretty much solves all of her problems by moving to Paris, cutting her hair into a bob, and finding her true self. The popular (and heavily criticized) memoir Eat, Pray, Love follows the same pattern: a woman traveling abroad and realizing she ‘had it all wrong’ before. I arrived in Italy with this same expectation.

I dove in to classes and friendships, I joined a volleyball team and a roller-skaing class and did Duolingo every night before I fell asleep. I thought back to the study abroad content I’d seen and the advice thrown my way at those orientations: your true self is in the struggle, the isolation, the seizing of new and scary opportunities.

Often, portrayals of studying abroad— both fictional and non-fictional—feature key problems faced and sacrifices made. Belly works two jobs in Paris and lives with strangers in a cramped apartment. Instagram reels show solo backpackers sleeping in spider-infested hostels. The “finding yourself” supposedly happens here: in the mud. The traveler realizes they can face any problem. They’re stronger than they ever knew.

In Italy, I sought out these struggles. My friends and I planned to meet up in a town an hour’s train ride from my host town. I was worried about navigating the route, but agreed anyway—eager for the opportunity to challenge myself. When I inevitably got lost, two hours from where I was supposed to be, I told

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myself this was it. My true self is in this random Italian town.

The orientations had promised intense isolation due to language barriers, leaving you to solve your problems entirely on your own. But when I went up to the train information desk, the attendant spoke perfect English, and I discovered that the next train was just ten minutes away.

While studying abroad, you’ll inevitably encounter locals and language barriers at grocery stores and pharmacies. But generally, you are studying at U.S.-accredited institutions, in classes taught in English, alongside peers who speak English. Even in Italy, where I studied in Italian classes, my classmates mainly spoke to me in English. Outside of the classroom, due to globalization, it is hard to find people who don’t know at least a bit of English. Especially in large cities where students most commonly study abroad, you will always be one Google Translate scan away from comprehension.

My true self was not in Italy. In college, students are bombarded with study abroad pamphlets telling them how much they’ll grow while abroad, how much they’ll learn. And many come back spewing the same lines: “I found myself.”

In my sophomore year of college, I studied abroad again—this time for a semester in Prague. This time, I was sure, I

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“ I left for Italy, excited to become the person I was meant to be. My true self was waiting, and I was going to find her.”

“ I didn’t feel evolved; I felt alone and scared.”

lo-travel to Paris for a week, once again attempting to challenge myself into reinvention. During this trip, I got very sick. I spent my days with cold chills, staring off into the winding cobblestone streets. The glittering Eiffel Tower was hazy in my vision, and my head was constantly spinning. This, I thought, must be it—my moment of self-realization. The epiphany.

But it just kept on raining. I was cold and I had nowhere to go. I didn’t feel evolved;

So I called my boyfriend from my hostel.

In The Summer I Turned Pretty, Belly narrates that she’s never been without support like that of her mother and brother, but in Paris, she is entirely by herself. A common sentiment is that in isolation, with no one to rely on but yourself, you grow. However, in this day and age, that is simply not true. There is nowhere you can go without being a phone call away from

Of course, calls can only go so far. I eventually had to hang up and return to my sickly state. And it’s true, I do look back on that time and applaud myself for my strength. But the accessibility of calls and connections means studying abroad never actually affords one enough space to tack-

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their own.

My true self wasn’t in Prague or Paris, either.

When I returned from Prague, I was frustrated that I hadn’t had some big transformation. My friends talked often about their life-changing experiences while abroad, and I wanted to join in. I wanted people to see my “worldliness” on my face.

It reminded me of how I felt when I returned from Italy. At the time, I had been upset by my lack of change. I was expecting to be a brand-new person. Instead, I got a job washing dishes at a wedding cake bakery. I hated how hot the water was and the way it always burned my hands. I dreaded making small talk with my boss as she iced a cake. But eventually, I got used to it. I learned how to make small talk and the fastest way to wash mixing bowls.

Of course, you do face real challenges when studying abroad. I’ve gotten lost in foreign cities and needed to have awkward Google Translate conversations. I lived with a host family through COVID, effectively blocked from traveling back to the States. But the roots of these problems, miscommunication and uncertainty, aren’t unique to studying abroad.

People face challenges all the time in

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Boston. You have awkward conversations; you’re put in uncomfortable situ ations. The difference is, these problems aren’t glamorized here the way they are when studying abroad. They aren’t viewed with the same “worth the while” mindset – the idea that all of these hardships will culminate in a “new you.”

If my true self exists, I have yet to find her.

But I have learned how to conjugate Italian verbs, that I like Czech food, and what the Eiffel Tower looks like when you’re standing right underneath it. I know how to wash cake tins without burning my fingertips. One experience doesn’t mean I’m closer to finding “my true self”—but every experience is valuable. My true self is in the dirty water streaked with cake batter just as much as it was in the Seine or on the train in Italy.

“ There is nowhere you can go without being a phone call away from your mom or your boyfriend.”

“ If my true self exists, I have yet to find her.” ATLAS

All of This

Dreams I have held close to my heart since I was in the fifth grade, dreams that kept me motivated through some of the darkest and most troubling times of my life, had come to fruition. And I couldn’t care less about them.

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Content Warning: Mentions of an eating disorder and calorie counting

By Liz Gómez

Everything that I had dreamed of finally came true. My novella, which I had spent the previous summer poring over, waking up at three in the morning to add a scene that I’d just dreamt about, was about to be published; I’d been a marketing intern at Simon & Schuster, where my boss—and her boss and her boss’s boss—loved me and I got to watch TikToks for most of my work; Penguin Random House had just accepted me into their Copyediting and Proofreading Mentorship program. Dreams I have held close to my heart since I was in the fifth grade, dreams that kept me motivated through some of the darkest and most troubling times of my life, had come to fruition. And I couldn’t care less about them.

I didn’t even view them as accomplishments. To me, they felt more like burdens. Yes, these were some of my biggest dreams, but they also became sacrifices, and, in the end, they were part of the reason why I relapsed in my eating disorder and developed gastritis.

I am getting ahead of myself, though; first, I’d like to paint a picture of my typical week during this time. On top of taking four classes, I worked at the Writing and Academic Resource Center (WARC), interned at Simon & Schuster for sixteen hours a week— although, I never really “stopped” because I’d answer emails, tweak influencer pitches, and jotted down post ideas whenever I could— was a part of three on-campus organizations, two of which I was on the Eboard for, and oversaw the publishing process of my novella. For three months, I would leave my dorm room at eight in the morning and return at

nine at night. And the cycle would repeat. Over and over. Day after day. Even on the weekends, I’d spend twelve hours at the library completing the homework I didn’t have the time for during the week. I barely saw my friends or spoke with my family. One day, when brushing my teeth before going to bed, I realized that I had patches of gray hair poking out of my scalp. During class, I’d pluck them out, one by one, but they kept coming back.

Trying to remember this time is difficult for me because I really wasn’t living. I was stretched thin and continuously placed unreachable expectations on my own shoulders.

Sure, I’m interning at a “Big 5” publisher. But if I make one mistake, say one embarrassing sentence, or finish a task one minute too late, then everything will come crumbling down.

Great! My novella is being published… but what will others think of it? Will they find my writing juvenile and sloppy? Is the story confusing and boring?

When will Penguin Random House realize how stupid I truly am? That they made a mistake in choosing me over more qualified, capable candidates?

I’m only being published, only an intern and future mentee, because of the pity others feel for me. I have nothing to be proud of.

I am nothing.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty, and I

For three months, I would leave my dorm room at eight in the morning and return at nine at night. And the cycle would repeat.

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my ears would ring, and my stomach would churn, moments away from expelling clear liquid out of its inflamed intestines. At this point, I started to have chronic stomach pain. A never-ending burning sensation below my chest, nausea after I ate anything, and black stool. And exhaustion. Exhaustion that made me forget the names of my brothers, the day of the week, and where I was. Who I was.

After I achieved so much, my physical and emotional health were plunging, so close to becoming irretrievable. I should’ve been so happy, but all I could do was suffer.

I am profoundly grateful, however, for the people in my life and the support groups I have. Once my stomach pain became too unbearable, my exhaustion too disorienting, and I believed that my life could be in jeopardy, I reached out for help. My stomach received the necessary treatment. I, although slowly, returned to normal eating behavior. Honestly, I’m still surprised I reached out for help, but I like to think it’s because a small, but powerful, part of me believed I deserved more. I deserved all that I accomplished. I deserved love, not pain.

something going on inside them.” Everyone, regardless of who they are or what they do, has a pain that gnaws at them. Therefore, we must always be kind to ourselves and others. We must never assume how happy someone is because of X, Y, and Z. They could have everything and yet nothing. They could be quietly screaming for help, but we are too caught up in our own lives to hear their pleas.

I am not alone. My experience, although unique to me, can happen to anyone at any time. In the United States, according to the National Eating Disorders Association, more than eight percent of the population has an eating disorder; over 3.3 million lives are lost each year due to the consequences of the disorder; and eating disorders are the second-highest mortality rate of a psychiatric illness, with opiate addiction being number one (Statistics).

Everything felt so chaotic, so unfixable.

It’s been a year since, well, all of this, and I am still recovering from the health effects. I am still learning to put myself first, not work or school. I accomplished my biggest goals, and now I must learn how I want to continue living life.

So, perhaps you are jealous of a friend who got the internship you really wanted. Or maybe they are about to have a book published. A short film released. A seemingly perfect relationship. A seemingly perfect life. You will never know, though, what’s racing through their mind, what doubts are eating away at their self-worth. As my aunt repeatedly tells me, “Everyone has

If you or a loved one is suffering from an eating disorder, remember that you are worthy of safety, happiness, and peace. Some resources that have helped me realize those three things: The National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA), the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD)—which has a twenty-four-hour crisis hotline: +1 (888)-3757767—and the ED Matters podcast, which can be found on Spotify. For local support, the Renfrew Center, located in Boston and many other states, offers residential, group, and individual treatment.

Regardless of what you’ve accomplished, what internships you’ve had, what books you’ve published, you do not deserve to live a life dictated by your eating disorder; as Charles Mackey wrote in The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, the bravest thing you can ever do is ask for help.

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Magic in the Mundane

I was so out of my comfort zone that I found myself oddly at ease.

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This essay is about a feeling. The one I felt radiating from the limestone of west Ireland’s mountains—the one I sensed in the quiet care people carried in every one of their actions. It’s the rhythm of the area, the heartbeat, and the poetry that flows through it. It’s as natural to the Burren as the purple and yellow flowers that grow wild in the grass.

The month I spent in the west of Ireland this past July was the most unique of my life. In a house of strangers, going to a school I’d never been to before, doing things I’d never done, I strangely found myself less anxious than I normally am. This was for a number of reasons, one of which was my Gilman Scholarship to study abroad. Though my parents have told me time and time again that they want me to try new things while I’m in college, I still worry about how the cost of my education affects my family. Because of my scholarship, I didn’t worry about how much spending money I had left or how much of a burden the program costs were on my parents back home.

Winning the Gilman scholarship made me realize not only how rare an opportunity to study abroad was, but how lucky I was to be able to experience it. I had doubts about whether or not going to Ireland was the right choice, but once I won the scholarship, I knew I had to take full advantage of it, regardless of my fears of being in rural Ireland for a month with a group of strangers. My excitement and gratefulness overruled the part of my brain that made me anxious. I was so out of my comfort zone that I found myself oddly at ease.

The things that made the Burren so unique were things I could find anywhere.

One of the many new things I tried on the trip was hiking. I, born and raised in New York, had only seen the tops of mountains from my car. I lagged behind during trips up mountainsides, stopping to catch my breath as my peers seemed to traverse the terrain effortlessly. Thankfully, I was with some of the kindest and most encouraging people I’ve ever met, so I never felt inadequate. Instead, I found myself picking up on things I might have missed had I been up ahead. To survive the struggle up the mountain, I focused on the little details around me: how the hazelwood trees twisted between each other, how the cool sun poked through branches, and how grass sprouted between stones, growing over the rocks, hiding them like landmines on the trail.

The more I walked, hiked, and stumbled through the west of Ireland, the more I understood why the people were borderline tyrannical about recycling and why they spoke of their grass, which was not so different from my grass in the Boston Common or Central Park, as if it were sacred, holy. There is a beauty there that is inexpressible. You truly have to see it to believe it. Simultaneously, it is like any other beauty, with trees, stones, flowers, water, and cows. The things that made the Burren so unique were things I could find anywhere. And yet, I was struck by them, unlike anything I’d experienced.

The first large hike we did in the program was Diamond Hill in Connemara National Park. I remember before we began, I looked up at the peak of the mountain and thought to myself, there’s no way. The mountain stretched up into the perfect blue sky, almost as high as the clouds. I looked at the group of friends I was hiking with, all of them excited to get a move on and make it to the top, and I didn’t know how to tell them that I truly believed I wouldn’t make it.

The way up felt like climbing

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I’d

never seen so much life, so much green grass and blue sky, so much water, all in one place.

a staircase that would never end. But surprisingly, with each step I felt myself getting stronger and stronger, not physically, but mentally. A friend of mine’s dad sent us

there, it’s almost like you’re in an altered dimension. On days when the sky is clear and the sun shines across the long stretches of fields with cows and sheep, and the gray

blue sky, so much water, all in one place. It was overwhelming and awe-inspiring. It made every ache in my back and cramp in my calf worth it.

It’s difficult to talk about the Burren without mysticizing it, because when you’re

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really so different from the terrain you walk at home?

In the Burren, you have no choice but to be in tune with the environment. The weather is so unpredictable that the app can never give an accurate forecast. You must be

It’s difficult to talk about the Burren without mysticizing it, because when you’re there, it’s almost like you’re in an altered dimension.

able to sense the rain. If you don’t, the clothes you hung out to dry will only get wetter. You need to be able to read the wind to determine whether today’s a good day to go out on the water. You have to know that the sun, despite its perceived shyness, is fierce and unrelenting once you get higher up the mountain. You have to take a step back and feel, or else you’ll be off balance. My struggle to keep up during hikes, which felt so much like a curse, ended up being the gift that allowed me to witness the magic of the Burren.

It’s this connectedness, and the subtle ways you have to be in tune with life—the quiet way people live in harmony with the land, their knowledge of its history, and their understanding of its quirks—that I felt so

I’ve brought this feeling back home with me. This unremarkable beauty, this mystic psyche, this instinctive love for the land. Its fading wake leaves behind two things: gratitude and wonder. I can’t express how grateful I am for the time I spent in the Burren, the people I met, and the things they taught me. And I wonder: Can I translate the feeling I felt there, and can I bring it with me to plant its seed between the cracked concrete in front of my house? What does it mean to be in tune with the asphalt beneath my shoes as I rush to class? Will I start being able to sense when the rain is going to come, and decide to wear my raincoat that day? Can I let it make me softer, kinder, more apt to change?

I’m not sure. But it’s funny to think

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thank you for your time & your art see you in the spring ATLAS | 113