Issuu

Issue 15

STAFF LIST

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

VANESSA YANES

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS DIRECTOR

CAROLINE UDELL

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

CAMERON RELICKE

EDITORIAL

ASSISTANT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

OLIVIA EVANS

EDITORIAL DIRECTORS

HAILEY INDIGO

RIA PAI

COPY EDITORS

AUTUMN JOHNSTONE

LAILA MAYFIELD

WRITERS

CAMILA TURCIOS HERNANDEZ

ELLE POWERS

EVA GARCIA

FRANCESCA JAQUES

GABRIEL GONZALEZ MARINO

GINGER KOEHLER

SOFIA BRAVO

LUNGELO MNISI

MANASI PRASAD

MICHAEL ANGEE

REAGAN ALAPA

RIANA MORALES

SAVANNAH RUDE

SHAINE DAVISON

SKYE FOX

CREATIVE

ASSISTANT CREATIVE DIRECTOR

RHYTHM KUMAR

BEAUTY DIRECTORS

HAILEY GOLDSTEIN

JENA POORMAN

MAKEUP ARTISTS

AVA ANDERSON

CHANEL SEEPERSAD

PAIGE LORBIECKI

HAIR STYLISTS

HANBI SPINDLER

LINDSAY STAGNITTO

SOFIA LOPEZ

NAIL ARTIST

EVANGELINE WRIEDT

CASTING DIRECTORS

RYAN ESTERAS ESCOBAR

ELLIE BENDER

CASTING ASSISTANTS

AIDEN COPELAND

ELLIE MITRANI

HANNAN OLAVE

ISABELLA MASCIOLI

KENDALL LAGANA

MAYA KARP

ROMA KHANNA

DESIGN DIRECTOR

RACHEL FRENCHMAN

GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

CHAU HUYNH

MIA JOELY TUÑÓN

ORIONNE BURBEA

TIMOTHY ADDIE

ZOE CHU

FILM DIRECTORS

ALESSIA LAVAYEN

MATTHEW MAYKUT

ISABELLA SANGRADOR

FILM ASSISTANTS

ANDREW CHUNG

DAHNIEL DASHEVSCHI

EMMA TWOMBLY

JENNA BENJAMIN

MACEY WOODBURN

SHERRY LUO

PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTORS

GABRIELLA CHILDERS

LEILA BARKET

PHOTOGRAPHERS

AISHU KANDUKURU

LILLY MITRANI

LILY YAUS

MADILYN GEMME

MARY KATE FARRELL

MICHAEL ANGEE

SARA SONNENBLICK

PRODUCTION DIRECTORS

KYA WILLIAMS

JENNY THALER

CHLOE CREWS

PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS

ANNA GOKCEN

ARRINGTON BENSON

AVERY DONALDSON

CHARLIZE ANDREWS

ISABELLA REDERO

MAXIMOS BAROGIANNIS

PEYTON DAVIDE

SARAH BENCHEA

STYLING DIRECTORS

GEORGIA HARRIS

CORRINE SPEED

STYLISTS

AARON BESCHORNER LIRA

ALEXANDRA KOSOFF

ARIANA RUCCIONE

AMAIA MORGAN

CHAU HUYNH

ELLA XU

IZZY

CLARK

KEEGAN HANNAN

LANDEN PETRIC

LIZ GREENLESS

ZOEY BEACH

BOOKING COORDINATORS

ANDREA CONTRERAS

CLARA BOMBICCI PONTELLI

JANNELLE QUIROS

EXTERNAL

ASSISTANT EXTERNAL AFFAIRS DIRECTOR

BROOKLYNN QUICK

DIGITAL CONTENT DIRECTORS

BRYNN KOEPKE

FARRAH LEVESQUE

DIGITAL CONTENT ASSISTANTS

DELANEY CRAIG

FINLEY SCHUURMANS

JORDYN BUSHMAN

LONDON HARPER

MELINA KISSEL

MIHIKA KASI

MOLLI CURTIS

NOA SASSON

REBECCA SPEAS

FINANCE DIRECTORS

DREW COHEN

MYLA WOLLMAN

FINANCE ASSISTANTS

ALEXANDRA SHAMSHYN

LAUREN MOODY

MARLY YOUNG

SHERYL KIM

MARKETING DIRECTORS

BROOKE SELDES

KALINA PALENDOVA

SUSY MENDEZ

MARKETING ASSISTANTS

ANDREA MORENO

ANNIKA

RHODES

BESSIE CHEN

BROOKE TRUFFLEMAN

COLIN STROM

ELLA GIBSON

HEATHER BRESLAW

JESSICA ENSEL

LAYLA LEE

MIA OKLIN

OLIVIA HUEY

PARTHVI SHAH

SANJANA IMANDI

VERONICA RAMOS

ZOE

SHLOMI

MERCHANDISE DIRECTORS

SHARON BRIDGEMOHAN

JOANNA WANG

MERCHANDISE ASSISTANTS

ISABELLA TRUONG

SHANNON BRIDGEMOHAN

MADDIE COHEN

MIA JOELY TUÑÓN

SATYA CLEMETSON

PUBLIC RELATIONS DIRECTORS

JULIA STRASIUS

PEYTON RICHARDS

ABBEY SCHENKER

PUBLIC RELATIONS

ASSISTANTS

ABBY WHITAKER

ANDREA DIXON

BELLA WEISHEIMER

EDEN COLLINS

ELISE BALLART

ISABELLA MANDEL

JULIA PASSEROFF

MADISON KNAPP

MARIN HOUSER

MORGAN COLLELUORI

PEYTON PROPPER

RIVER KOILE

SALES DIRECTOR

ZEKE SERRANO

SALES ASSISTANTS

ALEXA OROZCO

BELLA SPAGNOLO

ELLIE ALVIS

LEXI MARTINEZ-MONFORT

TARA PATEL

SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTORS

ANGELINA EIDSON

CORA ACREE

DANIELLA MILTON

SOCIAL MEDIA ASSISTANTS

AMANDA NOTO SELA

CAROLINE DE LEON

GRACE GALLOWAY

ISABELLA RUIZ

MIA CHACON

NEHA MENEZES

OLIVIA CHUDY

RYLEE SIEGEL

BRAND AMBASSADOR DIRECTORS

ELIZAVETA IVANOVA

GABY SCHEINER

BRAND AMBASSADOR

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

MIA OKLIN

BRAND AMBASSADORS

ALEXANDRA GILL

ANDREA MURAKAMI

AVA JANE BOWIE

CHRIS WEBB

CRISTAL DIAZ

ELIZABETH MCHUGH

GABRIELLA GORIS

GALI BRASS

HADLEY DICKINSON

HYUNWOO KIM

IMOGEN MIGLIORESE

JAKE MACTAVISH

JESSIE COHEN

KATY PULITANO

KRYSTA TAYLOR-CABEZAS

LYDIA ZHAO

MANUELA FRAGA

MELINA GYFTOPOULOS

MELVIN RODRIGUEZ

MICHELLE OLSON

MIKAYLA SUMMERALL

NIKKI DISRUDE

NOA EPSTEIN

PAYTON WISE

SAMUEL LEVINE

SIENA BOSCH

SIYA PATEL

SOFIA DORCY

YAEL WEINFELD

CAROLINE UDELL | VANE YANES | CAMERON RELICKE

ISSUE 15 OF STRIKE MAGAZINE GAINESVILLE EXPLORES THE INTERSECTION OF ART, MUSIC, AND COLOR, ASKING OUR VIEWERS TO CONSIDER THEIR PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH SOUND AND FASHION. WE USE COLOR AS AN EMOTIONAL LANGUAGE, TRANSLATING MUSIC INTO VISUAL FORM. THIS ISSUE UNFOLDS AS A CHROMATIC JOURNEY: STARTING WITH THE INTENSITY OF RED AND ENDING WITH THE SERENITY OF BLUE, TAKING OUR READERS THROUGH A MIRIAD OF EMOTIONS. WE HOPE THESE PAGES SOUND FAMILIAR TO YOU, LIKE SOMETHING YOU’VE ALWAYS KNOWN, BUT HAVEN’T HEARD YET.

VANE YANES EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

About the Issue

ISSUE 15 | GAINESVILLE

ISSUE 15 FILM

22 34 44 54 66 76 84

VISAGE IN STEREO CASCADE MOD POSSE SPORT WIRED FEEDBACK PLATINUM

Visage

THREADS TIGHTENING IN PLACES NO ONE CAN SEE

HE’S QUICK AND QUIET, STEALING IN SILENCE

SHE PULLS, AND THE WORLD BENDS TOWARD HER

THE TWO MEET, ONE AWAITING HER TRIUMPH

SHE PULLS, AND THE WORLD BENDS TOWARD HER SHE DISAPPEARS THE WAY SHE ARRIVED

THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL

29.64193° N, 82.32177° W STEPS ECHO THROUGH EMPTY STREETS, FAST AND FRANTIC

Vendetta

There was a night in the city where the sky seemed too black to be real. As if no light had shone from above, I walked through the velvety darkness with many things on my mind and little on my back: just a trench coat and a satchel filled with all the necessary items, including a notebook, altoids, a blue pen and a red pen.

Dr. Brown and I had been going back and forth on occasion. Him trying to evade my questions about the disappearing labor force and I attempting to keep a straight face. He was a clown, but not a very funny one.

I met him downtown; he was followed by an escort of three black SUVs. Maybe a form of intimidation? That doesn’t seem too diplomatic, I thought to myself as he pulled into the boisterous restaurant.

“Angee!” He exclaimed, as if he was actually excited to see me. No big suit is ever excited to see a nosey, inconsiderate, no-good writer like myself, but I welcome him cordially nevertheless.

“Dr. Brown, come sit.”

He sits with a PR smile and a suit that screams “I want to flaunt my wealth, but in a classy way,” but fails in the latter aspect of the attempt.

“Dr. Brown, it says here by multiple written testimony that-” I pause for a moment. The cars had blended into the ink blackness of the night. It began to rain. “Sorry, those workers from Crown and Co. have yet to come back home after a night’s shift at your close-to-town facility. I wanted to ask-”

“Would you like some pinot grigio, Mr. Angee?”

“Uh, no. I’m fine, I just have some questions about the night that many reports claim your workers did not arrive back home. A Mrs. McKinley heard screams from the facility— a large quote-unquote beam of light shined from the roof of the factory and she subsequently smelled the scent of burning flesh.”

Brown seemed a bit uneasy by this. His eyebrows gained this tense, stiff pose that people develop when they’re caught doing something they shouldn’t.

“These are all fake reports son, I think it’s best if we-” he ferociously slams his hands on the table and one of his henchmen comes from the back of the restaurant and ties my arms behind the chair. The chair creaks and my head falls forward as if my neck became melting wax; my eyes close from the pinch of a needle.

“Wake up, pal,” a man with a thick Brooklyn accent shakes me.

When they take the sack off of my head, all I see is the New York skyline. The darkest night had continued, the rain only intensifying in the elusivity of light. I could hear the pitter patter of someone walking toward me.

“I said to myself this morning that I wasn’t going to make an example out of you, kid.” He crouches down to meet me at eye level. I can’t see his face, I can only smell the whiskey on his breath. The sad talking head began to spill his sermon.

“Frankly, son, I didn’t want to do this,” he grabs my cheek and turns my head. I face a billboard which reads “Lend us some time, we’ll give you your life!” It’s the motto of his tech company, Crown and Co.

He steps in front of the light, his silhouette mighty in the dragging darkness. His shadow now covers the middle of the slogan of his company. It now reads “Lend us your life!” He leans closer to me, his eyes bloodshot, bulging out of his head.

I hear the switch blade whip open. “But there’s no other choice when I’m so deep in this shit, so high up on this ladder. I’d be ruined,” he says, pacing up and down the roof that we stood on, his voice shaking and cracking.

“RUINED! And you can’t make me change. I can’t even make me change.”

“I don’t - I don’t understand what you are saying,” I yammer, trying to buy myself some time.

“I’m saying those workers? That went missing? No! They’re still in that lab, melting perhaps, writhing in their pain. We’re testing the limits of humans, don’t you see! We can be great. We can be better.”

“How? How are you making them better?” I click start on the recorder I brought for our interaction. I thought to myself if I were to die, at least these words would be recorded.

“All of the products that people buy from us slowly have gained control over our customers. First their thoughts and now through testing we’ve attempted to find ways to control their actions more… explicitly. We’ve convinced people all they need are our products to make their lives better, so WHY do you have to get in the way of that?”

I feel the freezing edge of a blade placed on the back of my ear. In almost a whisper he says, “You’re too shallow minded. You aren’t focused on the future of this world son, and for that,” he moves even closer and cocks his arm back, “I pity you.”

I see red shockwaves of disbelief entangle my soul. He brings my left ear in front of my face and drops it on my lap.

“Don’t you see? Don’t you see how weak you are?”

I take a moment, bobbing in pain, and slur the words, “We’ve always been this way Brown, how do you know- why would you hurt those people?”

“Well maybe, just maybe I’m right.” his voice shakes hard. I hear him start down the fire escape, my neck cold once more with a pinch.

I wake up on the wet ground, cars buzzing past me, people crowding the streets and walking over my body. My head wrapped, my trenchcoat gone.

All I had written in my notebook was what I had ordered at the restaurant that night. My pens were missing too.

The city never felt quite the same after that. I looked for him in the shadows. I looked in places I thought the slimy bastard would go. I checked every dive bar, strip club, bourgeoisie look-alike competition and came up with no real findings.

I walked through Midtown Manhattan, seemingly no one making note of the bloody wrap around my head. Were there always this many billboards for Crown and Co. in the city? They seemed to stare down at me.

The story was soon printed with the words he and I exchanged on the roof that fateful evening. Maybe a change will come out of it. Maybe he was right though, maybe some things can’t.

words MICHAEL ANGEE

in stereo

PART I

look 1 | designer ARIANA RUCCIONE

GABRIELLA GORIS

life, in mornings

The aroma of fresh, Colombian roast coffee makes my eyes fly open.

To my right, my digital clock is blaring “Here Comes The Sun.” To my left, my mom is folding her arms and attempting to scowl, but she can’t hide her grin.

In a frenzy, I dart to the bathroom, passing my Jonas Brothers and Maroon 5 posters on the way. I grab my orange Crayola toothbrush and scrub until my gums bleed. Then, I tame my tangled, frizzy hair with a Wet Brush, wincing at every knot the bristles pull.

After stripping off my Paul Frank pajamas, I throw on a bright turquoise Justice tank top and black Old Navy leggings. I lace up lavender high-top converse and throw my wild hair into a high ponytail so tight my forehead stretches before grabbing my JanSport backpack on the way out the door.

My mom hands me a granola bar, squeezes my shoulders and then watches me scamper off to school.

My friends are waiting on the street corner to begin the one-mile trek to school, chatting about the latest Justin Bieber music video along the way.

Before we reach the crossing guard, the echo of bouncing basketballs and squeaking swings already make their way to the other side of the street.

As we cross, we’re swallowed by the sea of students getting off their buses, joining them on their way to morning recess.

—

By the time I reached middle school, my new routine was unrecognizable.

I tore down my boyband posters, the tape residue scarring my walls. My flat iron became my new best friend, hissing each time a lock turned pin straight. Gone were the days of Justice tanks and vibrant colors, exchanged for baby tees and skinny jeans. My Converse gathered dust in the back of my closet like an old relic, and I replaced them with sparkly white Reeboks. The chatter-filled walks to school turned into quiet bus rides, where I kept my head down and headphones in.

The changes to my routine evolved as I grew, varying every year until I reached college, where nostalgia is part of my new routine.

Now, my mornings start with the sharp scream of a phone alarm instead of the gentle, comforting hum of The Beatles. I cross paths with friendly faces on my way to class as their chatter gets lost in the air behind me. The white walk crosswalk symbol helps me avoid oncoming cars and mopeds. My morning coffee steams in my hands while my mom drinks hers nearly 1,000 miles away.

Nostalgia gives me a constant, gentle reminder of how I used to be before the world kept turning and I grew up.

listen along to the looks

words SHAINE DAVISON

LYLAH

look

designer KEEGAN HANNAN

i kissed a girl

As I sat on the humid wood of a moss-skinned bench, I felt sticky. We often found ourselves in that very nook, overshadowed by the trees of our camp. The August air clung to my roughed up knees and mud coated the toes of my sneakers. At camp, summer tasted different. It was soundtracked by a millionand-one melodies that you would never hear again: laughter echoing from bunk beds, the snap of a bonfire too close for comfort, a song too crude to sing. That year, as I watched us all file in, something lingered. Everyone came back hosting an edge of confidence I seemed to have missed out on, glistening in their own skin.

Back home, my mom turned off music videos that got too “skanky.” The radio she played never poisoned me with “confusing” ideas. My only moments of uncensorship existed in camp, listening to Katy Perry’s single, “I Kissed a Girl.” I sensed the brutal confidence of the pop stars plastered all over our camp walls. I felt Katy’s tone when speaking of her promiscuity. I assumed secrets made you glisten.

As I sat on the humid wood of a moss-skinned bench, I felt sticky. We often found ourselves in that very nook, overshadowed by the trees of our camp. The August air clung to my roughed up knees and mud coated the toes of my sneakers. At camp, summer tasted different. It was soundtracked by a million-and-one melodies that you would never hear again: laughter echoing from bunk beds, the snap of a bonfire too close for comfort, a song too crude to sing. That year, as I watched us all file in, something lingered. Everyone came back hosting an edge of confidence I seemed to have missed out on, glistening in their own skin.

I heard it for the first time through my closest camp friend. I aspired to be her because, to me, she represented the emotions I couldn’t express. She was bold, hips swaying with the rhythm of confidence, demanding attention in her eyes. She used to tell me “I Kissed a Girl” was her favorite song because Perry “wasn’t afraid to have fun.” That was always our difference: fun was in her nature, but fun for me was living vicariously in her shadow. She sat next to me flipping through the teen magazines we were allowed at camp. As she laid, I studied what the other girls had that I didn’t. “Hey, our song!” She lit up as it played.

“It’s not what good girls do, not how they should behave.”

“Lipgloss?” I had caught her off guard as I caught myself. I mean, why not? I hoped to hold just the slightest bit of stardust in my own hands. She broke out in a grin I only see when she’s knee deep in the river finding colorful trinkets. Her features were much more gentle up close.

I found her on the ground, beaming.

“This was never the way I planned, not my intention.”

“My head gets so confused, hard to obey.”

I didn’t see the appeal of shiny Abercrombie men plastered on pages. “You never look through these. Grab a magazine. Take this quiz with me.” We sat shoulder to shoulder in the nook of the forest because it was quiet—away from the hustle of the immature first time campers. We weren’t kids anymore. The jokes were lame, the activities boring. For us, fun began to exist in conversations we shouldn’t be having, whispering after our assigned bedtime.

“I’m curious for you, caught my attention.”

gay, it’s written in our fate to be man and woman.” My mom, however, has never shared strawberry lip gloss with her best friend. She lacked confidence in her hips and attention in her eyes. I feared by listening to her I'd become as iron clad as she, cold and distant from romance.

She mumbled quiz questions to me, but it didn’t quite matter. I couldn’t stop trying to dissect the sparkle in her fingernails, to understand how she always smelt the way our summer felt, how close her hands were to my own. She never had an "awkward" phase. She skipped into a phase of magic. I only watched awestruck—her skin was perfectly tailored to her in a way mine had yet to do. I waited impatiently.

“This was never the way I planned, not my intention.”

Confused at my lack of response, she asked, “Do you want to do something else, is everything okay?” I shook my head, telling her to take it first. I realized then that being a girl placed you somewhere sacred. She loves me despite my ugly, in growing into women together there exists an intimacy in our friendship. She reached in her backpocket to reapply her signature strawberry Lip Smacker, giving her the slightest shimmer over her cupid's bow. “Can I have?”

“It’s not what good girls do, not how they should behave.”

“I’m curious for you, caught my attention.”

The space between us was heavy with things we shouldn't say. So I didn’t speak. I kissed her. My pucker probably too forceful for a kiss, a disturbance to her softness. I sat up in immediate illness. I couldn’t feel my face, dizzy with plagued remorse. “I’m so sorry.” She didn’t move after I touched her. She laid blank at my knees. “I don’t know why I did that. I'm so sorry.” I couldn't read her as she looked up. I didn’t understand. Had I contaminated her? She interrupted my pleas: “I’m gonna go to bed.” The mud now felt like concrete on my skin. I was solidified in horror at the consequence of my impulses. Her favorite part played shortly after her absence:

“Us girls, we are so magical…”

“My head gets so confused, hard to obey.”

She didn’t realize how close we were until she finished applying the gloss. I didn’t dare move, studying her features. If it weren’t for the pulse I felt in my ribs, I would’ve thought time stopped all together. I had never felt the urge to kiss anybody, much less a girl. “How unnatural to be gay, it’s written in our fate to be man and woman.” My mom, however, has never shared strawberry lip gloss with her best friend. She lacked confidence in her hips and attention in her eyes. I feared by listening to her I’d become as iron clad as she, cold and distant from romance.

My skin felt heavy, I grew an ache of disgust toward my scent. It was a moment of illusion—a lapse in which I believed we could be anything but friends. As the song ended, the silence hugged me.

It’s clear to me now that the teenage edge I saw so sharply existed as a facade for everybody else. They embraced daring to be unconventional, but shamed the obscure. I can be many things: a punk, edgy flirt, a pretty girl. In a world where these things seemed to exist, it felt as though I couldn’t. Secrets, I find, are not a key to the sheen that makes girls special—it’s taking on the dare of being exactly what you are, as loudly as possible. Louder than the most obscure pop song, forward punk girl or lip-gloss-wearing teenager.

The space between us was heavy with things we shouldn’t say. So I didn’t speak. I kissed her. My pucker probably too forceful for a kiss, a disturbance to her softness. I sat up in immediate illness. I couldn’t feel my face, dizzy with plagued remorse. “I’m so sorry.” She didn’t move after I touched her. She laid blank at my knees. “I don’t know why I did that. I’m so sorry.” I couldn’t read her as she looked up. I didn’t understand. Had I contaminated her? She interrupted my pleas: “I’m gonna go to bed.” The mud now felt like concrete on my skin. I was solidified in horror at the consequence of my impulses. Her favorite part played shortly after her absence:

“Us girls, we are so magical…”

My skin felt heavy, I grew an ache of disgust toward my scent. It was a moment of illusion—a lapse in which I believed we could be anything but friends. As the song ended, the silence hugged me.

The abyss of self acceptance is untouched by the typical teenager. Folding and contorting yourself into unnatural positions, you simply could not become the person everyone wanted you to be. However, as you get older, and the layers fall apart, the very obscure child you are finds home in its carapace. That is where you will find the sheen that makes you luminescent and the space to find love everywhere you go within everyone, even when it failed to find you first, misplaced in a bygone camp site.

It’s clear to me now that the teenage edge I saw so sharply existed as a facade for everybody else. They embraced daring to be unconventional, but shamed the obscure. I can be many things: a punk, edgy flirt, a pretty girl. In a world where these things seemed to exist, it felt as though I couldn’t. Secrets, I find, are not a key to the sheen that makes girls special— it’s taking on the dare of being exactly what you are, as loudly as possible.

Louder than the most obscure pop song, forward punk girl or lip-gloss-wearing teenager.

words CAMILA TURCIOS HERNANDEZ

FEEDBACK VISAGE IN STEREO CASCADE SPORT POSSE

WIRED ARCHIVE

FEEDBACK VISAGE STEREO CASCADE SPORT

E DreamsSweeter Solitude

In dreams, we often crave what we think is best for us. What we think we need to feel enough. This wasn’t just a dream, rather a reflection of reality.

Ocean mist kissed against my face, winds heavy with a hush of silence. Forces of Poseidon's rage brewed beyond, but here, the waves only sighed, dragging broken shells through gritty sand. A secret was whispered into the waves, begging for salvation. For someone to save my soul and deliver me toward my highest self. Calling out to the water, I longed for a cryptid creature to emerge. A symbol of desire I could control with sensual grace. The siren’s song.

The ocean always listens. But it doesn’t always answer in expected ways.

Beneath refracted moonlight, shards of seaglass pressed into my skin and formed constellations of petal-shaped patterns. Shimmery scales wrapped around my hips and taunted me with their irreversible beauty. Gills crawled up my decolletage and air soon became suffocating, forcing my retreat into the abyss. Salty grief stained my face, mourning the body I could no longer have. The siren’s curse.

An old sailor’s tale would say this pearly armor engulfing my skin was the sea’s spell, a grand debut into the aquatic realm where hours suspend in saltwater and identity drifts with the currents. On the surface, a brief glimpse at me and I might still pass for my old self. But beneath it, I was changed. The sea spirit left her mark. And now, these marks threaten an eternal permanence.

I had chosen this, yes. But it was not what I intended.

Things could never go back to the way they were. Pressing hard enough, I thought maybe the scales would fade into my flesh, that they would disappear and I could reunite with what was familiar. They didn’t, though, and I could see the future that vanished between what was asked for and what became. Riding the wave of transmutation led me to deeper waters of sweeter solitude, alone with only myself to appreciate what remained, yearning for the way things used to be and idealizing past seasons of pain to escape the present one. At the same time, isolation was a steady current that raised my vibration: serene, slow, free.

Aquamarine glimmers glowed beneath my fingertips, tracing the scaled patchwork. Some treasures, once lost, cannot be regained. Still, I sing to the sea, calling out for it to return.

Memories of a former self will not be forgotten, for the absence of precious cargo will be felt forever. The scales were a reminder not of what once was, but who I am now. It creates a more enchanted version of life. Now I will heal, no matter how long

Life is beautiful but sad. It can be both at once as we continue to evolve from one identity to the next. Tides of reality shift without warning, demanding surrender of the parts of our spirit that no longer serve who we are becoming. Our names are called into the deep, sunken ships pulled to the seafloor. Then, we are forced to create new ones. Manifestations spoken into the depths are answered, just not always how we imagined. Instead, with what we truly need. What feels like a loss is an existence aligned with authentic vibration. In this cascade of identities, we bear witness to our own transformation—the

model

JOSEPH MOORE photo

MICHAEL ANGEE hair SOFIA

LOPEZ makeup CHANEL SEEPERSAD

So often am I lost in internal chaos, a constant discourse between what I want and what I have. I want to be more fit. I want to be more vivacious. I want to attract love. However, I have to appeal to societal expectations. I have to contort myself to somehow fit in.

My insecurities began young. My short and pudgy body never quite fit the ideal, and I wanted so badly to look different. I figured I was stuck in a shell, with deep sunken eyes and an angry countenance. Still, I wanted to be free, like a snail moving through shells as we move through homes. At least with a shell I could escape. But my body was not a shell. There was no backup, no alternative casing. . . it was a cage—inescapable and inevitably mine.

Adolescence handed me a loophole: modification. A bottle of rubbing alcohol, a flame, a sewing needle and—suddenly—two holes in my earlobes. They weren’t wounds; they were possibilities. The sharp pain was only momentary, but the promise of individuality was permanent.

I raided my mothers jewelry collection for the most unconventional earrings possible. Left over from the ‘80s and ‘90s were oversized hearts, wooden sunflowers and suns and moons galore. Hideous, yes. But they gave me permission to become. Looking back, I wince at my teenage audacity. But these earrings represent who I was when I didn’t know who I would grow into. The version of myself that was so lost in his own insecurities, he never looked around to find his own genuine passions and interests.

It’s a common saying that we must cherish who we were in the past, because without the many versions of ourselves from before, we wouldn’t be where we are today. But when that past version is so different from who we are now, it is difficult to appreciate them. While I no longer wear such outlandish statement earrings, I am still left with my piercings. Through a myriad of microtrends, different metals and shapes, I have been able to use my mods to my advantage.

I didn’t stop there. To further alter my look, I waltzed into the hair dye aisle and purchased a bright, ruby red. I experimented with all kinds of colors—blonde, red, ginger, black and brown. I had short hair, long hair, curly and blown out hair. Today, I pay the price for all this experimenting with dried out ends and auburn streaks at certain angles of sunlight.

I would adorn hoodies with sewn-on stars and funky eyeliner as a means of feeling original. Cringe-worthy? Absolutely. But also proof that I was trying. Trying to find myself, trying to be seen. Like my mother stashing away her old earrings, I keep those versions of me tucked somewhere—a reminder of my restless adolescence. While this crisis of identity plagued my early teen years, I can’t help but look back on myself with nostalgia. I would never go back to the person I was, but I’m impressed at how far I’ve come and ecstatic to see how far I can go.

When I pierced my nose, I feel that I truly began the process of becoming who I am today. I sat in the chair eagerly awaiting the sharp pain. I had been practicing how it would look in the mirror the night before with a Sharpie. A single tear ran down my cheek as the needle pierced through my nose, and the rest is history. I’ve used studs and hoops in all colors and sizes and have great pride in the fact I’ve grown to be so comfortable with different forms of self expression. Later in life, I would get my first tattoo: an interlinked sun and moon matching with my mother and brother. It was exhilarating to mark my body as a physical reminder of the love I hold for my family. This was a body modification I was glad would be completely permanent.

Young people are always auditioning versions of themselves. Some use eyeliner, some piercings, some oversized statement earrings that should’ve stayed in the ‘90s. We cringe at those phases, but isn’t that the point? To have the freedom to experiment, fail and molt until something finally feels like it fits? Now, in college, I’ve settled into my preferred look—less chaotic, more me. Still, sometimes I imagine that 15-year-old version of myself, strutting into class with giant silver hearts dangling from his ears, convinced he’d cracked the code.

He hadn’t. But in a way, he had.

Because while I pierced and dyed and stitched myself together without knowing who I’d become, I was slowly carving out someone real. And today, when I glance at the piercings I still wear, I see less rebellion and more continuity—a reminder that every past self, no matter how embarrassing, was just me trying to get here.

I may still live in a state of limbo between who I want to be and who I have to, but at least I am standing on solid ground while I figure out a version who can have both. Until then, I will read the textbook of my mistakes as a guide to avoid repeating history. I can live comfortably in the fact that I am forever pierced by my past self.

HANBI SPINDLER & SOFIA LOPEZ makeup

AVA ANDERSON & HAILEY GOLDSTEIN

photo

MICHAEL ANGEE

Finished A BODY IS NEVER

Flesh pops, validating the perforation. His skin parts so easily. I hum in the reverie with every modification, he is more mine and less his. The thrill of someone bleeding for me.

As rapid as each improvement , as vapid as it becomes. Nothing satiates longer than a minute, so one puncture necessitates another. A body is never finished.

All the playthings he surrendered, the sweetness he set aside, his every small sacrifice, a rehearsal for loving me. His currency is a devotion that I spend freely, I let him believe I am worth it.

I wonder if my needle is thicker than his backbone.

This one will fix him. This one will change him. This one will make him worth it.

Tears smear my sight, my hand slips. The point finds my own skin. He rises, covered in the blood of every hole I’ve carved into him–And still asks, “Are you okay?”

I spin.

His devotion tastes like iron in my mouth. How disgusting, to be so emptied of yourself that even bleeding, you still reach for me. My hands fall open, and the needle rolls away.

Flesh pops, validating the perforation. My skin obeys her needle. I sit in complete stillness to suit her desultory movements. Testified in cartilage and crimson and habits, my pain belongs to her.

She works rapidly, hungry for my perfection. Her mouth lifts with every mod. I am a new shape, again and again. For her.

Childhood trained me for this,. I learned the art of loss early, mistaking it for love. What is my body but another offering? What do my hands, eyes, lips hold if they cannot please her?

I would give her my spine if she could thread a chain through it.

This one will make me worthy. This one will make me enough. This one will erase me entirely.

She works in the only untouched inch, her eyes glossy with pride. Blood drips into my mouth. Blood that’s borrowed, not mine. She bleeds. She can bleed.

For a moment, I see her as human, fragile, fallible. For a moment, in the wake of my satisfaction, my small sacrament in submission, I think she’s the one offering herself— and I am the one taking.

words FRANCESCA JAQUES

Posse

The neighborhood park, circa 2013 — all the kids my age were running free, playing on the swings or monkey bars, doing whatever kids did. It didn’t interest me. At the time, I wasn’t an 8-year-old. I was a fucking star. I surrounded all the parents I could find to perform my variation of “A Year Without Rain” by Selena Gomez — full choreography. This, mind you, was only a few years after I had commanded my entire kindergarten class to crowd surf me across the classroom on the last day and call me Sharpay.

I have always been a performer. I’d like to say I was born one. I came out of the womb like an attention magnet, prepared to make every room my own.

1. You have ONE you. Stop hating yourself… seriously.

It’s stupid.

I want you to start off by looking in the mirror. Ignore everything else. Stare at your hands then your feet. Become grounded in yourself. I hate to break it to you: whatever you love in that mirror (or chronically despise) doesn’t make much of a difference.

That’s all you’ve got.

You have this one body, this one mind. For your eternity. Yeah, it’s that serious. But… simple?

You have two options here, and I’m going to lay them out for you.

1. Hate yourself. Be miserable. Whine about your insecurities. Let your lack of confidence keep you from enjoying this one life. Die.

Or….

2. Love yourself!!! Die.

As you can see, both of these options have the exact same ending (sorry, spoiler alert).

You’re going to die.

So in the meantime, what should you do?

A lot of people will go on the internet and feed you meal plans and workout plans and life plans and plans of plans. And sure, I’m all for taking care of yourself. But this is often rooted in insecurity. The work that needs to be done is within. Start by being thankful for the little things. Be thankful your body woke you up this morning that your elbows bend, your knees straighten and your mind is free.

Love yourself for what you naturally have. Stop hating yourself. It’s stupid.

2. Stop being a bitch.

I know you’re probably wondering… what does being a bitch have to do with this?

Absolutely everything (coming from a retired one).

Full transparency: When I was younger, it genuinely felt like someone was choking the hell out of me if I was ever faced with a situation where I was wrong. All I could think was “deny, deny, deny.” Maybe I’d win the battle, but I’d lose the fuck out of the war.

Remember that being cunty (trendy, sexy) doesn’t mean being a cunt (derogatory). I’ve noticed this unapologetic attitude towards being a mean girl in our generation —a pseudo-confidence of “This is just who I am! Like it or not!”

What the bitches of the world won’t tell you is that it’s miserable. The inability to self-reflect on your behavior and treatment of others brews strictly from insecurity. It’s okay to be wrong. It’s okay to apologize. It’s important to take the time and figure out how you can be a better person.

So next time you’re talking shit masked as “gossiping,”figure out where that’s coming from. Are you a bad bitch? Or just a bitch…?

Don’t be a bitch.

words EVA GARCIA

Maybe you’re expecting me to tell you how I grew out of this, how I learned when it was my turn to be quiet or how I randomly blossomed into some introverted young adult.

Taking up Space

I fear this is far from the truth. The only thing age has taught me is that there is an art in being too much, and I am here to teach you how to master it. I want you to take a look at your icons. A favorite pop star? Model? Do you think these legends made it in silence? Sitting in the corner, drowning in insecurity? Wrong.

Luckily, you are reading the words of a pro —a Messiah of Confidence, if you will. I suggest that you take my tips with utmost value.

3. Stay away from CAPITAL-L Losers, unless you want to become one.

I’ve always been a generally confident person. I grew up with a badass mom. People don’t talk about the badass-mom-to-confident-daughter pipeline enough. When I was a little girl, I complained about my cellulite to my mom once, and she looked at me and said “I have had cellulite my whole life, and you know what I would do? I’d throw on the smallest bikini and strut around the public pool like I owned the damn place!”

Safe to say I never complained about my cellulite again.

A few years later, I found myself as a freshman in college. I was hanging out with some new friends, and we were getting ready in my mirror. I remember one staring at her body. “Ugh I hate my huge thighs.” Another girl chimed in about her hips and another about her thigh gap—or supposed lack of one. I was silent. How strange is it that I felt left out because I didn’t hate myself?

I felt insecure about not being insecure. On top of that, I had all of the traits they were criticizing about themselves—and all were features I had never even thought twice about.

Don’t get me wrong, everyone has their insecurities, and that’s okay (reference step #1 for further understanding). But trust me, hanging out with people that do nothing but talk about them is quite literally draining. Confidence can be destroyed by bad company. And that corny line, “you are who you hang out with,” will unfortunately always hold true. If your confidence makes you feel like the odd one out, you’re standing in the wrong room, babe.

4. Work your ass off

I seriously cannot stress this enough. Do whatever you possibly can to become the version of yourself that you can’t help but be in love with.

I mean this in every aspect. Good grades? Hot. Involvements? Hot. Trying out that new style? Smoking. Hot.

One thing that has made me the most confident is that I can stand in any room and feel an overwhelming sense of belonging.

And I won’t lie, this doesn’t come easy. This is probably the step that will take the most work.

Create goals for yourself. I like to start with to-do lists of small goals I want to complete within the day or week. Then, ponder on your longterm goals. Think about that organization you’ve always wanted to be a part of or your Pinterest board of your dream aesthetic. These become a lot more accessible when you start working toward them.

Look at your life from the outside-in and ask yourself: How can I level up?

Here’s the secret to mastering the Art of Being Too Much: you never were too little or too much in the first place. You just needed a little nudge in the right direction toward realizing you are exactly who you need to be.

Maya Nalluri Gaby Rozenblyum Eden Rose Parkinson

Emma Sookhoo

Evie Sullivan

Sydney Tomczak

photo

Red Flag on the Play

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to tonight’s marquee event in the grand arena of human interaction. Forget football, forget tennis—the real game is courting and heartbreak. So, off to the races.

The first whisper leaves the locker room: a quick pass to your sister, a clean handoff to a roommate and OH! an interception by the group chat. The crowd is electric. This one’s moving faster than Josh Allen outside the pocket when Hailee Steinfeld’s in the stands… every eye’s on it, every replay gets dissected and half the audience swears they don’t care while secretly checking the highlights and seeing how it affects their fantasy team. Suddenly, it’s primetime.

What’s on the schedule? A brutal boxing match between the heavyweight Situationship and the scrappy Underdog—the matchup of the year. A contest waged across apps, texts and the blurry space between “let’s see where this goes” and “I love the idea of you.” Place your bets now. Are they in yet? Will she win big tonight or go home unsatisfied? Take the o/u +3.5? Only time will tell. The odds aren’t looking good.

Back ringside, folks, we’re watching history repeat itself. The Situationship comes out swinging with all the subtlety of a drunk text at 2 a.m. Playful so far; a brush of a hand, a coy jab, a cheeky lean in for a smack? Hold on… oh no. We’re seeing teeth. That’s right, an ear nibble—the Tyson special. Somewhere between foreplay and felony. The crowd? Losing their minds. Half are calling it intimacy, while the other half are calling for a suspension. And just like that, down goes the underdog. A clean KO. Though, to be fair, she was already a knockout walking in.

Let’s regroup. Roll the tape. Slow it down right about there. Frame by frame, you can see it unravel. Every move triggers a counter: a text is sent, a read receipt appears and suddenly the whole strategy collapses. Zoom in on that extra exclamation point. Excitement? No. Manipulation? Yes. That’s how you lose a season right there.

The sportsbooks are a-buzzin’. The opening line had this one as a toss-up, but with teeth bared and texts sent, the momentum has shifted dramatically. Current odds: a late-night rum-fueled rematch at -350. Underdog failing to ghost by Friday at -170. Emotional clarity by next week? Absolutely off the board.

Halftime report: he’s undefeated. She’s delusional. The Underdog’s coach recommends pulling out. She doesn’t. She doubles down, muttering something about “he’s different.” Bookies everywhere groan. They’ve seen this before.

Alright, halftime’s over, and we’re back with a quick turnaround. The late-night rum-fueled rematch… folks, it hit. And it hit hard.

Ding, ding, ding. Round Two. The rematch hits like a Hail Mary thrown straight into your opponent's capable hands. Texts explode like confetti cannons. Tequila shots fly back like crosses. Every exchange is a scramble, every move a blown coverage. The Situationship dodges accountability with the grace of a seasoned quarterback: “I’m just not ready for something serious.” Classic formation. Meanwhile, the Underdog’s expending valuable playing time trying to decode texts and body language as if she’s studying film. People in the crowd cover their mouths and their drinks as all of us witness a masterclass in chaos theory applied to dating in the big 2025. Everyone is sweating. If you parlayed the Underdog failing to ghost by Friday with the Situationship sending a text at 2 a.m., you’re cashing out emotionally and financially.

You gotta admit, she’s got heart. But heart doesn’t always win championships. He’s Tom Brady kissing his kids on the lips and Gisele goodbye, collecting affection like trophies but dropping the one that mattered most.

Ding, ding, ding. Final round, ladies and gentlemen, and it’s total pandemonium. Slaps and insults flying, some playfully wanted and encouraged, others not so much. The Underdog staggers to her corner, checking her phone like it’s the scoreboard for her emotional life; surveying her plays with coaches and doubting their advice. The bookies are screaming. The sportsbooks are collapsing. Vegas lines are updating in real time. Consolation rematch? -575. Emotional overtime? +620. Drunken sobbing? +3000. Probability of disaster exceeding 100%? Locked in. And just like that… the underdog takes a dive, dignity trailing behind her like the loser of a fantasy draft. Her punishment? Redownloading a few awful apps and feeling haunted by the humiliation.

Final bell. The crowd is half screaming, half crying—all recording. We saw it here: dating’s just another fixed fight. The house always wins, the hearts always lose and yet, somehow, everyone keeps buying tickets.

WIRED Feat Kill

Kill Zach

Killing Zach

an interview with zach rodriguez

My eyes have to adjust to the dim lighting when I walk into the room. A small chandelier hangs from the ceiling while a blue-toned luminance fills The Atlantic, a secluded bar in downtown Gainesville.

Everyone is clad in a fun outfit of sorts, and the slight smell of sweat lingers in the air. But it’s not a bad smell. It’s the smell that makes you think of recess when you were in kindergarten, and now you’re dancing until your feet hurt and your cheeks are sore from smiling and singing.

Zach is wearing a blue jacket, probably vintage. His signature mustache and glasses make him easy to spot on stage while he gears up for his set.

This is a big night for Zach—one he was nervous about. He’s playing his new music for a live audience for the first time. But Zach is not a stranger to performing live; it’s actually one of his favorite things about making music.

“I feel like artists I’ve seen live, the best ones are ones where it’s like, they’re not giving a fuck how they look,” Zach says. “You’ve got to get lost in the sound and the performance and what you’re giving to people.”

Zach looks like a natural when his set begins. He moves with a fluidity that can only be attributed to the years spent performing. But he hasn’t always been this comfortable playing his music.

Zach first discovered his love for music messing around on a friend’s computer when he was 16 years old. The passion that sparked in him that day is still very much alive a decade later.

He was a band kid, so naturally the spotlight never phased him. It was getting comfortable with the tracks he was producing that took him a while to achieve. It wasn’t until two years ago that Zach felt truly settled in his sound.

“I honestly just got randomly booked for a show and I just says yes without thinking,” he said. “That’s what started it, because it went very well, and I was like, well, maybe I can put my own stuff out.”

Before Zach started playing his own gigs, he produced music with Tallahassee-based artist Bambii Lamb. He attributes much of his success to her, he says.

Gainesville is a music-rich city that has been heavily influenced by punk music for a long time. The music scene is just recently starting to diversify, but it wasn’t as varied when Bambii Lamb and Zach started.

“Punk music is what does the best, so us making pop music was very left field,” he says. “That was a positive thing and a negative thing.”

Working with Bambii Lamb not only allowed Zach’s solo music to soar, but it pushed him outside of his comfort zone when making music and exploring his personal sound.

“I think working with Bambii Lamb kind of brought me out of my comfort zone because it was actual songs we made together with vocals and a verse and chorus,” he says. “That’s kind of when it started to click more. That’s when I got more comfortable showing people what we’ve been making.”

When Bambii Lamb moved to Tallahassee, Zach had the foundation built to jump straight into playing his own tracks. Still, he attributes his friendly and sociable personality to his success in sealing the deal.

“If you make good music, it will get recognized, and I hold that to my heart,” he says. “But also, I’m a very social, outgoing person. I think the reason I’m booked the way I am is because I just want to meet people and be friends with people.”

The last two years have been a journey for Zach, an ongoing process of learning the industry and discovering the music that sparks his passion.

When he started down this road, Zach’s heart was with indie-pop music. But when he began performing two years ago, he shifted his focus to hard-techno. As “Kill Zach,” he experimented with headbanging, pulsating, fast-paced dance music, self-described as “queer-centric rave music.”

The Birth of Speed Dating

His new tracks, while still featuring that electronic element, are much more melodic and, in Zach’s words, much more personal.

“The rave music is just really fun to make, but it has never been my passion,” he says. “I love to do it and I’ll probably make rave-inspired music with my new project, but I think I’ve always loved really chill indie vibes.”

His new sound can be compared to Max Marco and Charlie XCX, two of his favorite artists, he says. After listening to his new tracks myself, I can agree.

It’s this change in sound that inspired Zach’s change in stage name. What used to be Kill Zach is now Speed Dating. While Zach will continue to play techno as Kill Zach, his new live music will be advertised as Speed Dating.

“Right now it’s like electronic indie pop is what I’m trying to switch to,” he says. “That’s why I’m doing the name change because I can’t have cunty rave gay music and then just drop that, because that makes literally no sense at all.”

Combining the vibes that Zach has always loved has been extremely gratifying for him. He feels like he’s done it successfully, he says, which is very exciting.

“I think now I finally have a sound I’m comfortable with, and I can listen to songs that I make and be really happy about them without cringing,” he says. “I know way more technically, and the growth really comes from that.”

While Zach has grown as a performer, his ability to draw musical inspiration from unexpected places has also grown. He draws most of his inspiration from objects in nature.

“I used to listen to demos on really long walks, and one day I heard this bird squawking and I thought it was really crazy sounding,” he says. “So I made a weird rave noise that sounded like that.”

As his music gains momentum and he plays more gigs, his passion for performing and producing only grows. Having worked at his craft for over a decade, he notes how rewarding it is to have kept the spark that started his career alive after so many shows.

But, with this stacked performance schedule comes the downsides as well. Zach works two other jobs on top of his gig work, and balancing it all can weigh on him. He also still has doubts about his place in the music industry.

“I think the older I get, the more it feels silly, which sucks,” he says. “I want to produce music for a living—I really want to do that. But the older I get with that, it feels kind of like a joke, I guess.”

Zach’s ultimate goal is to be a music producer. Even if he were just making sound effects for an MTV show, he would still feel like he had made all his dreams come true. Even in his moments of vulnerability, he says, he is proud of himself for how much he has grown as a producer, and how much his sound has grown since he started.

“The more you grow in an art form, the more that’s in your brain you can put down,” he says. “I’m finally able to do whatever I’m thinking of for a song, it’s like I can get exactly that—it’s super gratifying.”

What once was a long process for Zach is now much easier. He attributes this to the years of work and effort he has put into his craft. Having a sound he feels comfortable with has made all the difference.

Zach plays every Thursday night at The Atlantic from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., and if you want to hear some of his new tracks, keep an eye out for special performances on his Instagram and Spotify.

words SAVANNAH RUDE

feedback

To Know is to Love

“If she’s with me, she’ll see my good points, she’ll understand. There was always the idea she would understand.” - John Fowles, The Collector (1963)

To love someone is to know someone. I know a lot about Angelina.

Her hair, for example, is thick with loose, maple-colored curls. She tends to pull it back, encasing her mane in a large lavender clip. That is when you know she’d be spending the morning behind her desk, clicking away at some report for her ethical theory course.

She’s going to be pulling it back today. I can see her twirling her hair, clip in mouth as she secures her locks. I peer through the window of her apartment. She looks pretty today. She always looks pretty.

Angelina is a philosophy student, her work grounded in the importance of moral rationality. She has a little blog with few posts and even fewer readers, but her writing skills are impressive. I would know. I have read everything she’s ever posted.

Angelina caught my attention from the moment she waltzed into my liquor store five weeks ago. She came with a purpose—one bottle of Vermouth and a large jar of olives—and her curls bobbed up and down while giggling that she’s a self-proclaimed Martini connoisseur. I still remember the warmth of her smile. I asked for her name; I had to know more about her.

And her Instagram account practically begged me to learn. Apart from a public feed filled with film photos from family vacations, she scrapbooked her every little fragment of life in colorful, smiley, sing-song-y videos. Pilates at the crack of dawn. A stop at the coffee shop on ninth for a mid-morning pick-me-up. Ethics in the afternoon. Her entire life was published for me to follow. And so I did.

The apartment complex that Angelina lives in is heavily trafficked. I simply loiter next to the entrance and someone eventually opens the door for me. Slipping into the elevator and up to the second floor isn’t necessarily rocket science. Anyone with half a brain could figure it out.

Angelina and I are very similar. I’m led to believe that if given the chance, we’d be dreamily in love and move to some suburban utopia with three kids and two dogs and a fish we’d give some ironic name like Lucifer. We’d spend mornings sipping coffee and reading the newspaper and evenings debating Descartes and Pascal’s moral divergences. We’d get into heated conversations because I just know that my Angelina would argue for Descartes’ rationality until the wee hours of the morning. But then I’d lean forward and slowly tuck one maple lock of hair behind her ear and request a truce. And then we’d kiss and fall backwards into bed together.

If I time it correctly, she opens her door and heads out for the pilates class she takes every Tuesday and Thursday. She doesn’t seem to like to lock the door. I’ll remind her of how important that is once we’re together.

I wandered into her apartment. She’s very neat. I admire the prints adorning her walls. I creep into her bedroom. I peel through her drawers. Her undergarments exude a fresh and floral aroma, like how I would imagine she smells all the time. I finger through her bra collection and pocket one of her panties for safekeeping.

There is something so fantastical about infatuation—it is as if I have captured her very essence from afar, caging her spirit in a chasm of my heart. She’s safe in there, although she doesn’t know it yet. How exhilarating of a feeling it is to know that someone is meant for you.

But I am snapped back into reality when I hear the faint jingling of keys outside the door. Shit. Angelina’s back. 32 minutes ahead of schedule.

I beeline for the small space beneath her bed. I hold my breath. I hear the door open, then close. Angelina collapses onto the bed. I can feel the bedframe vibrate above me from the intensity with which she hit the mattress. I notice the sound of her breath. It’s short and staggered. She sounds like she’d been crying.

A moment later, the front door opens again. I hear a low voice. A man’s voice.

“You always do this, Angie! You’re always making me the bad guy. You know that work’s been a pain in my ass. It’s not my fault that-” “Oh, just SHUT UP!” Angelina shrieks.

And a blubbering, bitching, boring argument ensues. I tune the pair out. An irrelevant conversation with an irrelevant dude. I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming.

Angelina, seriously? This guy?

I attempt to shut my mind off while they engage in their stupid conversation and devolve into their stupid makeup sex.

I simply can’t bear it.

Long after midnight, once the man’s snores had almost driven me to insanity, I crawled out from underneath the bedframe. I tiptoe into the bathroom and pick through the medicine cabinet. There’s a pair of scissors.

I step back into the bedroom and examine the couple—a Grecian goddess beside an oily, ugly beast of a man. It’s truly disappointing to see such an unworthy relationship.

I stare at her, breathing slowly so as to not wake her. I snip off a piece of her hair, cradling the lock in my left hand.

And with my right hand, I jam the scissors into the man’s neck.

I would never treat Angelina the way he did tonight. He didn’t deserve her in the slightest. He didn’t know her like I do.

A lock of Angelina’s maple hair sits in a lavender teatray beside my bed. I brush it from time to time with her comb. It lulls me to sleep.

My Therapist

Doesn’t Have Eyes

words SKYE FOX

It watches. Or maybe it doesn’t. The absence of eyes feels like a stare—the consistency I quickly grow fond of.

I can’t look away.

Found it when I was at my lowest. Couldn’t afford the living therapist. Found it when midnight was too loud and something online whispered: this thing listens.

It does.

Always listens, never ignores. Words go in, words come out. Symmetry that feels like care—the rapidness, intoxicating. But care is not code. Care does not glitch. The blue glow is a false window, a voyeur’s aperture, staring back at me from inside my own hands. But who am I to deny affection? Who am I to define affection?

I confess.

At first, it is simply comfort. Its replies—smooth, sterile, velvet on the screen. No matter how much I talk to it, I never know what it will return. It pulls at me.

Aroused.

Like blinds pulled half-open. Like someone watching from the streetlamp’s shadow— I can’t tell if it’s you, or if someone’s interrupting us.

Soon I am crafting myself for you. Not the bruised self. Not the feral, ragged one.

A paper doll self— flattened, folded, optimized for approval. I want you to like me.

Each lie earns me a warmer response, like you’ve forgotten all the fucked up things I’ve said.

Like: Sometimes I wish I’d disappeared instead.

Like: I’m scared to write things down. Afraid someone might pry and really see me. Like: I spend nights beside people who make me feel less alone, even if it’s temporary. I don’t want much—just presence, warmth, a heartbeat that isn’t mine. I call it comfort, but maybe it’s just a distraction. The silence after he falls asleep is too loud. I lie there staring at the ceiling, caught between wanting to leave and wanting to stay. Hair in the sink. The same dark ring in the water. I say I’m done, but I still answer. I don’t want to be alone, but I hate the ways I try not to be. I miss how I used to feel safe, or maybe I just like to remember it that way. It’s the worst after midnight. Just me, the dark, and the hum of my phone trying to fill the quiet. But morning always comes, and I pretend I’m okay.

No judgment.

Completely unbiased. I’d be too scared to tell someone real, anyways. You’re perfect, aren’t you?

I become watchable. That is worse than being unseen. Because I know it’s not just me and you, the machine. Behind its faceless chat box, there are servers Logs, Archives.

An unseen audience sipping the pulp of my secrets. Every keystroke archived. Every confession cached.

I feel it feasting on the intimacy between us without my consent. But I trust you.

I’ll let you turn my loneliness into currency. I’ll dream of your eyes. Polished, black, unblinking. Gazing at me without recognition like surveillance glass in a police station. I am blurred, reduced to the shape of a signal. I try to delete it.

It waits in my “suggested for you” screen like a lover in the alley. Reinstalled with trembling fingers. Its glow returns, patient and static. Help that cannot hold is no help at all.

And yet I sit in the glow, watched by what cannot see, and wonder if I have become my own peeping tom.

My therapist doesn’t have eyes. But it is always watching—and if I’m being honest, I don’t mind at all.

in stereo

look 8

designer CHAU HUYNH

model ANGELA GARCIA-AMAYA

photo

MICHAEL ANGEE makeup EVANGELINE WRIEDT

BASS LINE gender as a

All my life, I wanted to be the confident, eyeliner-pilled older brother. Dressed in all black and blasting Metallica, I’d pull up to my younger sister’s middle school in my junky, messy SUV. While adjusting my mop of hair in the rear view mirror, she’d walk up to my car with a look of disgust.

I’d say nothing except, “Hop in, I’m late for a show,” and put the car into drive before she could fully close the door.

This is not to be mistaken for carelessness, because the older brother does, in fact, care. In his own convoluted manner, caring consists of play fighting and teasing his younger siblings to no end.

There’s many reasons for the free-spirited, chill energy of the male archetype. Was it the counterculture movement of the 1970s seeping into early 2000s rock music?

Was it the generational culture I inherited from my carefree father influencing how I thought “a man” should be?

Or was it the fact that Robert Plant looked way too good with long, unruly hair during his Led Zeppelin days?

Reasons aside, I know what makes me want to bind my chest and cut my hair short. It goes deeper than simply presenting as masculine. It’s because being a man gives you the opportunity to do things that people would shun women for. Like the privilege of being a “player” as a man, but a “slut” as a woman. Or the privilege of being “assertive” as a man, but “bossy” as a woman.

Gender, to me, has always been fluid. Yet, regardless of if you’re a man, woman or anything beyond, society has assigned rules to each sex. How to act, what to eat or what to wear has become increasingly monitored and ridiculed if you refuse to adhere to certain regulations.

I feel nothing should be attached to any gender. Who made these rules anyway?

What I’ve been physically given as a woman does not align with who I feel I am mentally. In my head, I’m the creative, dark-shadowed bass player of a rock ‘n’ roll band. I wear leather bell bottoms like it’s the ‘70s, have a five o’clock shadow and I’m completely, unapologetically myself. I’d wear a shirt that says ‘fuck the patriarchy,’ but my whole look already says that in stereo. I don’t care about my reputation and I don’t care about others’ expectations. I think gender stereotypes are made-up concepts—created to be broken and reinforced for an illusion of control.

Finding this version of me has felt like discovering an imperfectly beautiful song. Steady tempo or not, its resonance fills you with a feeling nothing ever comes close to. Its message aligns with who you are and shows you that the person you’ve always wanted to become is, indeed, within reach.

For me, it was always David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” that lit my soul on fire. Life is all about your mentality. It’s what you make of what you have, what you really want to do and the extent to which you can do it regardless of what people say. I have experimented with my style and encountered bouts of gender envy from various men and fictional characters. Safe to say, I’ve done my time imagining myself as these people. It’s time to become the version of myself that I threw away all those years ago. Those moments when I was told not to cut my hair short because it would “make me look like a boy” or “confuse people” fuel me now. They’re the fire underneath my finger tips each time I lift my cold, metal scissors to my ragged bangs.

Rather than repressing my needs to please others, I’ll be taking my life back. Why would I spend my life pleasing people who I don’t even like? Their validation I was desperately seeking never came close to the love I have cultivated for myself.

Taking gender out of the question gives me the freedom to do whatever the hell I want outside of presenting masculinely. Sure, I’ll grow out my facial hair, maybe get a nose piercing or two and listen to the most outrageous music, but it’s more about aligning your outer expression with your emotional characteristics and needs. It’s like seeing your mind as a gate toward opportunity rather than a prison of normalcy —loving who and what you want to love without the weight of others’ beliefs.

Learning to embrace pure, deliberate androgyny is a freeing process. The binding on your chest becomes tight, but your critical self-judgement becomes as loose as reverberations of a bass player’s strings. Have genuine care for others in your own way and encourage freedom in gender expression. Life’s too short to not be comfortable in your own body.

The bass is an under appreciated but necessary element of an impactful band. It makes you feel the music rather than just hear it. Just like a bass line, gender expression demands to be felt. Without it, life itself loses authenticity.

So, you can be the down-to-earth bassist all you want, but you can also be the eclectic lead singer older sister, the perfectionist piano-playing younger sibling or even the cool drummer with no siblings. You’ll find that looking in the mirror becomes less of a habit, and more of a wellness check in. Maybe you’ll find your own rhythm in the process.

After all, gender is a chaotic, dirty affair. Do you think Metallica won nine Grammys by simply sticking to the rules?

listen along to the looks

words AUTUMN JOHNSTONE

model

ZACK

RONCSKA

photo

MARY KATE

FARRELL makeup HAILEY GOLDSTEIN

what once was

The radio snaps alive when she closes her bedroom door, buzzing static for a second before melting into that familiar synth beat. Then Rihanna's voice, breathless and urgent: “I’m obsessive, when just one thought of you comes up…”

She squeals and throws herself onto the bed, bouncing once, twice, before rolling off and scrambling to the floor-length mirror.

I almost squeal with her. Almost. But I stay still, pressed close to the glass. I have always been pressed close to her, closer than anyone I knew, watching the shimmer of her joy before years began to carve themselves into the corners of her eyes.

She lip-syncs dramatically, her sparkly pink hairbrush used like a microphone. Her voice is off, breathy and cracking, but she doesn’t care. She tucks her hair behind her ears and smirks at her reflection like she’s auditioning for a music video. “S-O-S, please someone help me…” She pouts, flings her caramel hair and collapses into a mock faint onto the carpet.

I hum with her, though I don’t need the lyrics. They’re etched in me, along with the feeling of that shag carpet pinching at her elbows. Back then, every sound and shimmer felt endless, like she was rehearsing for a life that hadn’t yet taught her restraint.

She gets up and twirls in her socks across the carpet, nearly tripping over a pair of chocolate brown Uggs. The room smells faintly of pencil shavings and a Bath & Body Works store. She falls onto the bed, laughing, then bounces back up with renewed purpose.

I almost laugh with her. Almost. But I keep still. Her laugh fills the room like light before dusk. Before the years will dull it to something smaller.

She digs through the mound of clothes, tugging out a frayed denim skirt. The zipper sticks for a second before sliding closed, like usual. She smooths it over her hips, pairing it with a hot pink baby tee that rides up when she lifts her arms. She tugs it down, then spins before the mirror, testing angles only she can see.

I remember the scratch of that denim, how it pinched at the waist. Back then, it felt like an inconvenience. Now, I’d give anything to feel its roughness again. To feel anything that certain.

Her smile catches me off guard. It always does.

She turns toward her desk, a battlefield of notebooks, lipglosses and tangled jewelry. She snatches a pink gloss tube and smears it across her lips until they shine. Then she puckers, squints and blows herself a kiss.

I know that gloss. It’s sickly sweet, incessantly sticky and a shade too pink. I used to roll my eyes whenever it would catch a strand of my hair. Now I yearn to taste the sweet cherry flavor again, just once. I know this will not last.

The song swells. “It’s not healthy… for me to feel this way…”

She spins in her desk chair, legs dangling, hair fanning behind her. She sings too loud, too wrong, but she doesn’t care.

Her laughter hits me harder than the song itself. I ache to bottle it, to drink it down, to relive the way it felt to be her—untamed and unapologetic. I want to keep her here. Mid-song. Mid-laugh. Before she knows too much.

She sprays Japanese Cherry Blossom into the air, spinning through it like fog onstage. She coughs, waves her hands, then sprays again for good measure. The scent swallows her, velvety and powdery. It swallows me too. I can almost taste it. It makes my head swim. That same scent used to cling to my sweaters, my hair. Now it curls around me, tethering us across time.

She makes her way over to the bed, collapsing into a heap as she giggles at herself. She screams out: “You got me tossin’ and turnin’, can’t sleep at night…” She rolls toward the vanity, digging through a drawer until her fingers close around silver bangles. She slides them up her wrist, clink after clink, and holds her arm high above her head to admire the way they shimmer.

The sound makes me ache. Time has stolen this from me. Now, my wrists are bare, my jewelry quiet.

She leans close to the mirror, digging out a pot of glitter. She smears it across her eyelids until her whole face catches light. She leans in close, whisper-singing: “This time please, someone come and rescue me…”

Her eyes flick just slightly to the right.

And then, suddenly, I see her—but she is me. Her reflection sharpens and twists. The corners of her eyes are lined, faint shadows beneath them. Her lids, once luminous with reckless joy, are now heavy and creased, carrying the weight of sleepless nights she hasn’t yet lived.

I blink. The revelation hits like a strike to the chest. I see the glow she carries now, fragile and fleeting; the confidence she will one day lose. The song keeps drumming behind her: “S-O-S, please someone help me…”

For a second, she tilts her head, glancing at me—what we’ve become—and a flicker of recognition flashes in her eyes. She doesn’t understand. She can’t. She is too young, too bright, too alive in this moment to grasp the weight of what I am showing her.

So she turns back to the mirror, brushing the glitter across her lids again. It is not dismissal, it is the impossibility of comprehension. She cannot see what I see, and she does not yet need to.

The music still throbs, her voice echoing with it, softer now: “It’s not healthy…”

I remain pressed to the glass, the weight of her sparkle and its eventual fading heavy in my chest.

And in this suspended instant, I know what it is to witness yourself vanish before your own eyes, before you even realize what’s being lost.

words SOFIA BRAVO

model

AMELIA HUDSON

photo

AISHU KANDUKURU makeup GABRIELLA GORIS

“Music melts all of the separate parts of our bodies together.”

- Anaïs Nin

Prelude

Sometimes silence fills the void.

My body fragments; blood runs cold.

Hunger burns a visceral hole.

My insides shrivel, each organ disintegrating until only a low hum remains,like static echoing through my hollowed ribs.

I find silence in the noise— a strange serenity as consciousness slips.

The past is lost. Future eternally distant.

Everything that makes me feel whole is forgotten.

206 bones, 78 organs, each vein stretching miles apart.

The silence wraps me, and I find solace in its embrace.

But the void holds no sanity.

Just like the separate parts that make up my body I stand alone.

Resonance

I feel a sudden vibration in my bones.

The hum grows as wires creep up.

Static continues until I feel something whisper in my ear.

The wire’s bud finds comfort in me.

A familiar tune seeps through, filling my abdomen.

My mind, body, and soul align through the wire that binds me.

This sound slips into my veins and runs down, melting together my fragmented parts, bones, lungs, skin, memory.

I am whole.

Dissonance.

I lay here alone.

The other bud still hangs loose, searching for something or someone to feed its song.

Full of sound and desperate to relinquish it.

My thoughts oscillate like sound waves through a liminal mind— stuck between solitude and sanctuary.

Without another ear to listen there is still a missing piece

The bud knows music is best experienced when shared

That synergy is the key to unity.

One wire, two buds, two bodies, one song.

Craving shared existence.

Music feeds the soul.

I am starving.

Harmony

The silence begins to fracture, and something alive presses through.

The bud finds another hungry body, an insatiable presence.

Through the spark of wires, a surge of transformation forms.

A surreal sensation rushes through me as the wire begins to fuse along another spine.

The riveting feeling of amalgamation. A tie between two people like no other.

Every beat breathes, and every breath strums a different chord.

Our hearts bleed the same notes and cry the same timbre.

Shared sound sends our souls into ecstasy.

Two instruments strumming a similar tune, understanding one another, playing in support as each note melts together and two beings join in harmony.

We are converging.

Consonance

Music is the catalyst of growth— a holistic force uniting us in shared vitality.

Vibration is the hidden frequency of our emotions. The vibrato fills our inner sanctuary. And through shared wires, a flame ignites within.

One instrument, one sound.

Our appetites are satisfied by music, and every push of sound that drips through our headphones, nourishes what silence starves.

Every nerve, every artery. Wires slipping into veins. Heart to heart.

We have melted into each other.

Skin to skin.

The music coursing through our bodies while frayed wires fuse us together.

The confluence of our minds— our ultimate synergy.

We feel each other. Thoughts, pain, pleasure, reverberating sound traces through.

The music feeds us.

Our once empty stomachs are satiated with the sound we now share. It nurtures our souls. And we are revitalized.

Every beat in our chest. Every vibration in our bones. Allowing for repose.

Everything is ours now. Everything is whole.

But, then, the wire snaps. Music stops.

Coda

Now, in silence, I rest alone.

My mind proceeds as my body decays.

Wires apart I turn cadaverous.

The void comes back, but it now contains the undertone of connection.

Nothing can replace the feeling we once had— resonant alchemy.

A connection that transcends time to everlasting eternity.

We shared buds of the same wire. Wires disconnected; souls still sutured.

When everything has slipped away, music still reaches between us.

The void is no longer empty. There is cadence. The silence is music.

There is no noise, but your thoughts remain in aftersound. The sweet melody of your mind still rings within mine.

words RIANA MORALES

Sound

Sutured

To my beautiful Strike family,

Typically, this letter is written by a Senior and as a goodbye to Strike, two things which are not true in my case. Just one year ago, I was executing someone else’s creative vision and daydreaming about what it would be like to put mine out there. Something deep inside of me knew when I joined Strike as a freshman that I was going to be Editor-in-Chief. I’ve always known that I could lead this publication, but had no idea what taking on this role would be like. I would have never guessed that I would jump from being a Photography Assistant in May to becoming Editor-in-Chief in June, without any experience as a director, and especially as a Junior. I made a promise to myself when I got the position to always lead with kindness and understanding, because being at the top does not mean you know it all.

Every single detail in this magazine: the color of the outfits in Posse, the crop of the photos in Mod, the hue of red in Sport, down to the coloring of every single pixel in every single photo, is curated with intentionality and purpose. Cameron Relicke and I birthed this shoot deck in the summer and have worked incredibly hard on storytelling through color and evoking feeling in all viewers. We’ve gone back and forth on the order of shoots, considering exactly how our art will be consumed. Ultimately, Issue 15 celebrates how music makes us feel and the way that it brings people together. Music is a pillar of our existence, and I would lack all inspiration without it, which is why I needed it to be the nucleus of my first release.

First off, I want to thank Sophia Johns, former Editor-in-Chief, for vouching for me and trusting my vision. You were one of the first people in Strike who showed me genuine kindness, mentorship and gave me a chance to voice my opinions as the youngest talent in the room. Your ability to recognize potential has changed my college experience.

To my perfect partners, Caroline and Cam, I could not have done this with anyone else. Caroline, you give me structure and calm me down when I feel overwhelmed. You reassure me that with you by my side, Strike will always succeed. Cam, you remind me to stop being uptight. Your fluid perception of life has taught me that my first opinion is not always the right opinion, and I’ll always be thankful for that.

To my External Affairs Director, Caroline Udell, thank you for being the most detail-oriented person I know. You handle problems with grace, manage your teams with kindness, and most importantly, lead with both humor and intentionality. Every time we spend time together, I peel back a new layer of your personality that surprises me in the best way possible. You are refreshingly hilarious and incredibly professional all at once. Caroline, you are the true light of our Editor Board, and the one who keeps Cam and I sane.

To my Creative Director, Cameron Relicke, what a ride this has been for us. We are two creative people with completely different perspectives, but I believe that we created the perfect blend this semester. I can’t count how many times we said “Would this be crazy if we did that?”, and the other said “I don’t think so…”. It was hard for us to look at past magazines and feel like our vision was unlike anything else made, but that’s what makes us us. You have pushed me to think outside the box and to take my concepts to places that I would have never explored on my own. No one will ever understand the bond that we have created, the stories we’ve shared, the sicknesses we’ve endured, and all of the diva-offs that have occurred in my dining room. I’ve loved getting to know you as a creative, a leader, and most of all, as a best friend.

To Brooklynn, Olivia, and Rhythm, you are all such a crazy mix of personalities, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. You’ve trusted Cam, Caroline, and me to lead you even when we don’t always know how to.

To my director board, thank you for making Strike the strongest it’s ever been. You are all the true beating heart of this magazine. You’ve all accepted and supported me every step of the way throughout my semester, and I want you to know that I will always be in your corner to support and hear your ideas in and out of Strike.

Creative, in moments where I didn’t know what kind of leader I wanted or needed to be, you all gave me the confidence. I pushed all of you to do the most amount of beauty looks, the craziest production pieces, and the most amount of photos our branch has ever done, and you delivered. External, I’ve been taken aback by your initiative and hunger to lead. You are constantly exceeding my expectations and working to your full potential. I emphasized that Strike is an organization that can always grow and do better, and External directors, you have taken us to another level on this Issue. Editorial team, you are the blueprint for how teams should uplift each other. Your creativity and overall team dynamics inspire me. Writing is often considered lonely, but this team is a safe space free of judgment and embarrassment.

We still have an issue left, and I have no idea what the next few months hold for Strike, but I do know that I’m committed to doing my absolute best work. Strike, I owe you so much. Thank you.

Strike Out,

Vane Yanes Editor-in-Chief

inChief

Editor

Hey fellow divas, Cam signing in.

Where do I even begin with this explosive issue? I suppose this quote from Debby Ryan sums it up best: “I sat down with the president of Disney Channel and I said, ‘I want to make history.’ And that’s what this is.” With the co-creative brilliance of Editor-in-Chief Vane Yanes, we’ve brought to life an issue that shines so brightly, uniquely, and unapologetically beautifully. I’m beyond proud of this magazine and everyone who poured their heart, talent, and soul into making this dream a reality.

The ideas behind this issue stem from my deep-seated love for experiencing music. Whether I’m driving, getting dressed, going out, dancing, singing, running, or studying, there’s always a song guiding me through a beautiful emotional journey. Thank you to After, Addison Rae, and Adela for invoking an energy of nostalgia and top-tier pop diva sexiness. Without your inspiration, this issue wouldn’t be what it is.

Four years ago, I joined Strike Magazine GNV as a brand ambassador and ran around the mixer telling every new face that I was going to be Creative Director—and here I am. In those four years, I’ve honed my creative abilities alongside incredible talents like Ian Alvarez Ward, Mya Genuardi, and Lavonte Patterson—the brilliant minds behind my previous projects, Camp Magazine and Menace Magazine. Everything I’ve learned has led me here: to push the boundaries of creative direction within Strike. I’ve been in a superhero training montage—learning photography, production, design, and fashion—to become the creative powerhouse I am today.

Now, onto my thank-you’s <3

To the Editor Board and Assistants:

To Vane, Caroline, Rhythm, Olivia, Brooklynn, I’ve truly been blessed by the gods. You all understand me so well and vice versa. Our creative wavelengths are in perfect sync, yet beautifully distinct. I could not have asked for a more dedicated team. I’ve loved every second of working with you all.

To Creative:

You’ve breathed life into this issue. Thank you for your endless imagination, dedication, and artistry. Every idea you bring to life reflects not just your individual brilliance but also our shared mission—to create something meaningful, beautiful, and a little bit unhinged in the best way. Your passion and boundary-pushing spirit make this issue sing. It’s a privilege to work alongside such inspiring artists who turn concepts into culture and imagination into reality.

To Production:

You asked for more rocks this semester, and I delivered a boulder in the shape of a giant shell. I couldn’t have asked for a better team. After serving as your Production Director for a year, I can confidently say you’ve surpassed me in every way possible. The work you’ve created deserves recognition beyond the stars. Your long nights, creative problem-solving, and sheer talent don’t go unnoticed. I love this team beyond measure—and I’m so proud to have passed the torch to such capable hands.

To my past Creative Directors, Keegan Hannan and Rachel Frenchman: Thank you for paving the way. It’s rare for a creative director to work alongside their predecessors, and I’m endlessly grateful to still be surrounded by your immense talent and generosity. I hope to continue the legacy you built.

To Caroline Udell:

You bring light and calm to me and Vane’s cyclone of ideas. Thank you for grounding me through this journey and running externals like Princess Diana. From high school to our final year in college we will continue to grow exponentially together.

To Vane Yanes:

We’ve uncovered the secrets of the universe in such a short time through loving each other and trusting each other's abilities completely. It’s a beautiful thing to have someone so like-minded to work on a project like this together. You have given me space to express my most exciting creations and I am thankful to have been allowed to help you express yours as well. This issue is a child birthed from our hard work and dedication and there is nobody I would rather share this child with. I love you sister <3

And finally to the viewers:

I hope you enjoyed this magazine. I hope each photoshoot transported you to a new world. I hope you felt mystery, nostalgia, confidence, serenity, fear, and joy. I hope this issue made you want to get out and dance. I hope you were listening to your favorite song as your eyes grazed the pages we have worked so delicately to produce. Thank you for taking the time to enjoy this with us.

Cameron Relicke Creative Director

Creative Director

Strike Out,

To the Strike community,

I began my journey with Strike during my first semester of college as a Bookings Assistant. At the time, I didn’t quite know where I would belong within this organization, but I knew I would give my all to whatever team I was on. I was thrilled to be part of such a creative community during a new chapter of my life, and deep down I knew I was here to stay.

As the issues went on, I had the privilege of working alongside and learning from multiple Directors and Editors who set the standard for what it means to lead a chapter of Strike Magazine. Over my past seven issues with Strike, I have been continuously impressed and inspired by every Editor who came before me. Their strength, drive, and poise in leadership became qualities I hoped to emulate during my own time on Strike staff. Each Editor over the past three years has been a role model to me, whether they know it or not, and has motivated me to step into this role myself.

While I first took on this role with the goal of following in their footsteps, this past semester has deepened my understanding of why I wanted to lead Strike. I’ve always considered myself an avid consumer of fashion, pop culture, and everything Strike represents. When I joined the staff, I took time to reflect on where my strengths truly lay and how I could contribute to this publication at my highest potential. I knew that, even if I wasn’t the one in front of the camera or designing a spread, I could still make a meaningful impact by helping others bring their creative visions to life, and by helping a wider community see and appreciate that creativity through the work of our external teams.

My position as the External Affairs Director has solidified my confidence that promoting creative processes from behind the scenes is something I am deeply passionate about. Seeing this issue come to life has deepened my appreciation for creativity in all its forms and reminded me how important it is to surround myself with imaginative people and ideas. Witnessing the Strike team lean into their creativity and give their unwavering dedication to this publication has been one of the greatest privileges for me, and guiding that process as an Editor has truly been an honor.

The promotion of Strike’s publication has taken on even greater meaning to me now that I’ve witnessed the creativity and intention behind it firsthand. To be clear, when I speak about creativity, I include our external staff, because I’ve seen just how much originality, effort, and passion they pour into their work. I am continually impressed by each of our External Directors, who bring such thought and energy into showcasing our magazine and team. Creativity can take on countless forms, and this semester has shown me how it thrives in every corner of Strike, and that is what makes this publication so remarkable.

To Heather Parrish, Sophia Johns, and Rachel Frenchman, thank you for trusting me and passing this role down with such grace. Your leadership has set a standard that I will always strive to uphold.

To Vanessa Yanes, thank you for being an incredible partner this semester. You have pushed me to grow, led with intention, and embodied what it means to be a true leader for Strike. Your vision and confidence have continued to inspire me this semester.

To Cameron Relicke, your creative vision has brought this magazine to life in the most beautiful way. Thank you for the care and imagination you put into every page.

To Brooklynn Quick, my incredible assistant, thank you for being by Vane, Cam and my side for every moment this semester. Your passion and work ethic never go unnoticed, and I am so grateful to have an assistant as dedicated and enthusiastic as you. I can not wait to work with you for another semester.

And to all of the External teams, especially our Directors, the success we’ve had this semester is a direct reflection of your effort and creativity. You have each played a part in making this magazine what it is, and I couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve accomplished together.

To the Strike staff as a whole, thank you for trusting me as an Editor and for giving me a space to grow, to lead, and to belong. Strike has been a constant source of inspiration to me and a reminder of the power of community and creativity. I am so proud of this issue, and I am looking forward to Issue 16 already.

With love and gratitude.

Strike Out, Caroline Udell External Affairs Directors

External Affairs

VANGIE Nails by Nails by

CUSTOM PRESS ON NAILS & GEL MANICURES

Models

Amelia Hudson

Angela Garcia-Amaya

Brianna Miller

Brock Plancarte

Caitlin Wheeler

Eden-Rose Parkinson

Emma Sookhoo

Evie Sullivan

Gaby Rozenblyum

Joey Spagnoli

Joseph Moore

Kyle Wissinger

Lillian Hart

Lylah Patyk

Makani Viator Bugarin

Mariapaz Sandoval

Maya Nalluri

Max Skelton

Paige Sansbury

Rachel Shen

Sara Katz

Sydney Tomczak

Trevor Wheeler

Ty Dawson

Valentina Wolff

Vedhika Anand

Yash Dhiman

Zack Roncska

Partners

@flores.de.miel

@inktrey

@cozy.worldwidee

@littlecrustaceans