Liberosis (n.) -- The desire to care less about things; to loosen one’s grip on life
Editor's Note
Vertigo Editors (2025-26)
Liberosis is the desire to care a little less — to step back from the weight of everything we try to hold at once.
The surrounding world’s tugging creates rigidity that chokes, tears, and scrapes at us. Releasing ourselves from that grip, and our own nailbeds digging into palms’ flesh, we allow ourselves the exhale that no longer hides confessions.
In this issue, we explore that paradox: what it means to loosen without disappearing, to release without becoming empty. Here, softness is not a weakness. It is the courage to unclench, to breathe differently, to let the world exist without any demands.
So, dear reader, as the earth unfreezes and everything begins to move again, ask yourself gently: what might you set down, just to see what remains?
Your ever-evolving editors,
Maddy Chang & Emma Ha
Table of Contents
HsuanNing Yang, Zihan Lyu – summertime/Room to Grow
Tianlin Liu, Lorie Wu – Where Sea Ends, Sky Begins
Katie Shang, Maddy Chang, Jiuxi Chu – I Dare You
Vedanshi Prasad, Amira Zait – a tale left (un)told/Liberosis
Kristy Zhu, Angeline Su – The Fisherman
Emily Cheah, Ingrid Mehus – Metanoia
Nicolas Cheng, Eunice Leung, Amber Lai – The Colors of Surrender
Alina Feng, Lucky Wu – Halcyon
Zenita Yang, Chancie Chou, Torsia Xu – tip tap/A Dream Across the Ocean
Hannah Huang, Emma Ha – intermission/et finir
Quincy Wu, Sophie Wang – The Longer Nights
Caroline Feng, Avanthika Krishna, Theresa Xu – The Song of a Nightingale
Sophia Zhang, Mia Liu – Dreams
Brianna Su, Chloe Chung, Lin Tran – Eight Again