There's a specific kind of person who thinks about Seattle constantly. Maybe they grew up there and left for school or a job, or a relationship that didn't work out. Maybe they did a long weekend in Capitol Hill and walked back to their hotel at 2am past the neon of The Comet, and something clicked that hasn't un-clicked since. Maybe they just ate salmon at Pike Place Market one time and the whole city made sense after that.

Seattle has that effect. It's not just the Space Needle or Kerry Park or the view of Mount Rainier on one of those rare clear days when half the city stops moving and just stares east. It's the whole thing. The ferries crossing Puget Sound at dusk. The way Gas Works Park sits on Lake Union like it was built by someone who wanted to prove that industrial ruins and golden hour can coexist. The espresso that hits different everywhere else. The reason Starbucks started here and not anywhere else.

Strange Allies made this for the people who carry Seattle with them wherever they go. The transplant in New York who has a Seahawks flag in their apartment window and Mariners gear in the closet. The traveler who went to Ballard for the day and stayed for a week. The person still thinking about the ferry ride to Bainbridge Island three years later, trying to figure out how to get back.

Emerald City devotees, Pacific Northwest homesick types, Capitol Hill regulars, South Lake Union transplants, and anyone who's woken up in a different city and felt the specific absence of this one. This is a souvenir that doesn't need a shelf. It just needs a body.

Seattle is the Sounders and Dick's Drive-In at midnight and the Fremont Troll and the Pike/Pine corridor on a rainy Thursday night. It's the Seahawks noise rattling Lumen Field and the smell of Pike Place at 7am and the ferry horn carrying across Elliott Bay.

Every city has its believers. Seattle keeps its people.