Woroni Edition 6 2024

Woroni

Content

Ally Pitt

Em Murry

Anuva Rai

Cleo Robins

Michael Reid

Caelan Doel

Jaden Ogwayo

Aala Cheema

Lara Connolly

India Kazakoff

Hannah Bachelard

Greta Clark-Walsh

Emanuel Foundas

Ruken Zeyto

Henry Wise

Communications

Sania Jamadar

Benjamin van der Niet

Lekh Bhatia

Henry Carls

Zoe Vaughan

Art

Oliver Stephens

Xiaochen (Fiona) Bao

Amanda Lim

Brandon Sung

Jocelyn Wong

Vera Tan

Sanle Yan Leung

Radio

Alex An

Jack Hodgins

Cameron Upton

Vanshika Gaba

Poorva Bhaiya

Jessica Heller

Punit Deshwal

Grace Williams

TV

Sree Vaishnavi Gangarapu

Faithrista Napitupulu

Tvisha Shankar

Katherine Page

Soffia Abbygale Baynosa

Kristy Sauw

Elisa Zeng

Paris Chia

News

Hannah Benhassine

Adriano Di Matteo

Sophie Hilton

Constance Tan

Gisele Weishan

Dash Bennett

Joseph Mann

Rae Siddiqi

Kaab Qureshi

Elinor Hudson

News

ANU’s Proposed Poster Restrictions Met with Student Outrage

How 684 Students Said They Want Their SSAF Spent Gender and Culture Review Launched Into ANU’s College of Health and Medicine

Self a new body

Cleave

The Man on the Moon

Lovely People, Nonetheless

Simulacra and Stimulation: Confessions of a Conscious Code

Water Sculpture

Girl

World

These Bloody Mammals

Beneath the City

Crisis and Collapse: The Julio-Claudian Dynasty

Badger

H.C. Coombs’ Marvellous Maze of Wonder

Ba Ngoại

The Concourse of Reality

Perspective

Faithless Adaptations: A Critique of Little Women (2019)

“What if you just called Taylor up?” (On your Nokia 2660 Flip Phone)

Reflections

Peering Out the Dreamy Portal to Our Waking Self

The Noblest of Prizes

2.

Letter From the Editor

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Woroni’s sixth and final edition for 2024: UpsideDown.

This magazine is filled with love stories, invitations for introspection, tales of lost students, and hopefully enough poetry to keep you inspired over the summer break. If you are unhappy with your degree, your housemates, or your never-ending rotation of only three dinner recipes, this Edition may not turn your world UpsideDown on its own, but it may be just what you need to ponder what can change.

2024 at ANU has certainly been a year for the history books. We have seen two of the biggest General Meetings in ANUSA history, the most robust and steadfast activism in recent years, changes to our graduation ceremonies, changes to SR arrangements and scholarships, and more. Woroni, particularly our News team, has documented this tirelessly and so if you ever need to look back at your 2024 at ANU, the Woroni website is a good place to start.

Woroni has also published our usual magazines, as well as a Puzzle Book and a Broadsheet, uploaded an endless amount of online content, hosted events and facilitated dozens of student radio shows. I hope we have shown you some of the talent and creativity that your peers possess.

If you have contributed to Woroni’s content this year, thank you. If you have not, the opportunity is not lost — all students can contribute to Woroni at any time, and 2025 might just be the year for you.

Next year will be Woroni’s 75th year as the voice of ANU students. Since 1950, Woroni has grown and changed through countless Editors, contributors, editions and controversies. I hope that in 2025, it amplifies your voices louder than ever.

It has been my great pleasure to be involved in Woroni this year. I certainly cannot wait to see what 2025 has in store.

Take care,

Phoebe Denham Managing Editor

Editor-in-Chief

Communications Editor Bella Wang (she/her)

Deputy Editor-in-Chief

Managing Editor

Content

Phoebe Denham (they/them)

Charlie Crawford (he/him)

Radio Editor

Cate Armstrong (she/her)

News Editor

Raida Chowdhury (she/her)

Art Editor

Jasmin Small (she/her)

Editor Claudia Hunt (she/her)

Sarah Greaves (she/her)

TV Editor Arabella Ritchie (she/her)

Art by Jasmin Small

Art by Jasmin Small

ANU’s Proposed Poster Restrictions Met with Student Outrage

Sophie Hilton

In a potential move against its own freedom of speech policy, ANU has proposed a new Posting and Advertising policy in an ‘On Campus’ email sent out on Tuesday 1 October.

The policy, which is open for consultation until Friday 11 October, proposes stringent conditions on “the use of posters, banners and other display materials on campus”. It strictly limits the display of posters, flags or banners to be only those used by ANU students and staff, and requires that any posters “include information on the individual or the affiliated club, society, organisation [sic] or union which produced them”. Perhaps most controversially, the policy also threatens removal of any posters attached to university infrastructure other than designated noticeboards, or those from “unaffiliated” or unidentified groups.

Under the proposal, the display of any flag or banner on campus would also require at least two weeks’ notice and would be subject to the unilateral approval of the Director of Facilities and Services Division, or the Director of Residential Experience Division for any display within residential accommodation.

In the comments of a post made about the proposal on facebook group ANU Schmidtposting, students termed the policy “draconian”, “absurdly broad” and “outrageous”. The On Campus email was promptly met with the distribution of an ANUSA open letter to “Tear Down the ANU Poster Policy”, and instead conduct “a consultation process from first principles to identify what issues are important to the community for any postering or advertising”. Simultaneously, a petition launched by Students and Staff Against War went further to condemn any limitation on poster display as a “vicious crackdown on free speech”.

The requirement that anyone displaying a poster be identifiable and traceable, as the petition suggests, “implies a desire for the university to trace and police all political speech, both by individuals and by organisations.”

Art by Jasmin Small

The ANU does currently have some existing policy on the topic, such as the (much more restrained) policy on ANUaffiliated advertising, and student and staff codes of conduct which mandate generally that individuals “act in accordance with University goals, policies and procedures”. However, the University also currently upholds that “This obligation does not detract from the notion of academic freedom where members of the University examine social values and criticise and challenge societal beliefs in the honest search for knowledge and its dissemination.”

Further, the current ANU Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech policy states its aims as ensuring “that the freedom of lawful speech of staff and students of the University and visitors to the University is treated as a paramount value and, therefore, not restricted nor its exercise unnecessarily burdened”, defining that freedom as that “of academic staff and students of the University and visitors to the University to engage in all forms of lawful expressive conduct including oral speech and written, artistic, musical and performing works and activity and communication using social media (emphasis added).”

The policy to some extent mirrors the Campus Access Policy introduced by the University of Sydney in July, condemned in USyd’s Honi Soit as a “direct retaliation to the months-long Gaza Solidarity Encampment” and an overarching attempt to stop students and staff “from organising and speaking out.”

The policy is proposed in the context of what has been a tense year for student-university administration relationships. This includes broad scale student protest against ANU’s academic and investment ties with Israel and the genocide in Gaza, the NTEU flying banners and undergoing steadfast negotiation to ensure better staff pay outcomes, and a heavily-postered ANUSA election period drawing record level voter engagement. These methods of protest, advocacy and political discussion could all be seen to conflict with the proposed guidelines.

The policy is broad-reaching and arguably vague in scope, providing limits on “the showing of any other kind of visual display ”, banning content that might be termed “obscene”, and threatening that “Where a University club, association, organisation or union is involved in a policy breach, the university may “de-fund and/or disaffiliate that group”. The lack of definition in what these sections mean precisely has prompted concern in some students as to potential chilling effects that might arise should the proposal be formalised.

The University has communicated that “ANU staff and students are encouraged to participate in the community consultation. To provide your feedback, please read the policy and send your thoughts to fixmycampus.fs@anu.edu.au.”

Art by Brandon Sung

How 684 Students Said They Want Their SSAF Spent

Joseph Mann

Every year ANU students pay between $182 and $351 on top of their course fees as part of their Student Services and Amenities Fee (SSAF). The university allocates this money between itself and various student bodies. ANUSA receives the highest allocation, but ANU Sport, Woroni and ANU Observer are also recipients of SSAF.

Over the course of last week’s ANUSA elections, various tickets have spruiked policies for how they would spend ANUSA’s ~$3.3 million allocation. But in week 6 and 7, the ANU itself sent a survey to student emails asking how they would like to see SSAF fees spent.

This year, 684 students responded to the survey, about twenty less than last year’s 703. The vast majority of respondents were domestic off-campus students. The university noted that this sample amounted to 2.3% of the student body and was, therefore, “not a representative sample”.

93% of respondents to the relevant question said that they were aware of SSAF, but only 64% said that they understood what it was used for.

Asked to select three priorities from a list of nineteen, students ranked “health and welfare”, “providing food and non-alcoholic drink”, and “clubs and societies” as their top three priorities.

The bottom three were “supporting … student media”, “supporting student discussion, debate and advocacy”, and “supporting the orientation … of new students”.

180 students responded to the open text portion of the survey. 40 respondents (22%) expressed support for more health services and 20 (11%) expressed support for more subsidised food and meals.

The university noted that, in the open text fields, about 10% of respondents (68) expressed “a strong displeasure” with ANUSA “with the sentiment [that ANUSA focuses] more on political causes and protests, than providing services”.

Despite this increase in “displeasure” with ANUSA, the university noted that 79% of respondents said that they “value” the services and activities funded by SSAF.

The university is currently negotiating the 2025 SSAF allocations against the backdrop of a $200 million deficit in its books accrued from 2020. Final allocations will be determined by the end of the year.

Gender and Culture Review Launched Into ANU’s College of Health and Medicine

Hannah Benhassine

On 12 September, ANU announced the commencement of a review into the University’s College of Health and Medicine (CHM). Led by Professor Christine Nixon AO APM, this review will examine matters of gender equity and culture within the College and its constituent schools over the next three months.

ANU Provost Professor Rebekah Brown, who initiated the review, emphasised that “the review is broad in scope — as it should be”. She said, “It covers a number of important areas that we seek to better understand and to lead in. It is not about one single issue.”

Matters considered in the review will include gender composition, student experience, pay and promotional gender inequality, gender-based harassment, recruitment practices and leave and flexibility.

Nonetheless, the Terms of Reference note that the review “will not be constrained” to these matters and Professor Nixon “is free to pursue other areas of inquiry” related to gender and culture within the John Curtin School of Medical Research, the School of Medicine and Psychology, and the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health.

The review was “initiated by Provost [Rebekah Brown], endorsed by Vice-Chancellor [Bell] and discussed with the Dean [Russell Gruen] and CHM Executive”, according to an email sent to students.

In the email, Provost Brown stated that “[the] purpose of the review is to ensure, as Australia’s national university, we are upholding the highest standards of inclusivity and providing the best possible environment for study, research, and work.”

She also emphasised that this review is a reflection of the University’s commitment to “training and equipping the next generation of leaders and workers who will be active in clinical settings for many years to come and who will play an important role in creating spaces that are defined by equity and respect.”

“While we are proud of our community and the contributions and impact we have made, we want to advance further our capacity to deliver world-class research and teaching. We know that our staff and students have great depth of relevant capability, knowledge and experience, and we encourage you to contribute to this review”, Provost Brown further wrote.

When asked by Woroni about the culture at CHM, a medical student stated, “I have been through so much racism and discrimination at the medical school for who I am, for what my culture is [and] for what my roots are…”

“This has not only impacted my wellbeing [and] mental health, but my academic performance as well”, the student stated.

Current and former students and staff are encouraged to contribute to the review by requesting an interview or providing a written submission via email. Submissions will be de-identified unless “the disclosures compel further action under the law.” Under such circumstances, “confidentiality will be maintained as far as reasonably practicable.”

Professor Nixon AO APM, who will be conducting the review, is “an experienced senior leader of large and complex organisations who has deep expertise in future-focused reviews.” Nixon had previously led a number of reviews, notably including the Rapid Review of Visa Fraud for the Minister for Home Affairs in 2023.

She is also the current Co-Chair of the ACT Sexual Assault (Police) Review Oversight Committee and and Chair of the ACT Corrective Services Blueprint for Change Oversight Committee from 2022-24.

Professor Nixon will be on campus over the next three months to “gain a firsthand understanding of the environment and the broader University.”

She will also have access to “all relevant and necessary information required to carry out the independent review”, including University records.

All findings will be compiled in a Final Report, which will include recommendations on “operational and strategic considerations and… future practices to support improved culture, including in relation to gender, inclusion and equity.”

Upon its expected completion at the end of the year, the Report will be presented to the Provost and a summary of the recommendations will be publicly available.

In her email to students, Provost Brown acknowledged that “for some, news of this review might raise concerns.” She encouraged the use of support services, available for current students, staff and former staff and students.

a new body

E.J. Murry

i want a new body, one which would walk me all the way to buy milk as if i had no body at all. a body which could disappear into the soft blue depths of morning, or the avenue’s bright spring, forgetting itself. a body which is like being upside-down, in the sense that you are always upside-down, but to notice, when there are gang-gangs hanging with their white-edged feathers, or bougainvillea branches trailing the pool fence, wouldn’t cross your mind; a body which, like being upside-down, i would create by rolling like a child until i could see it, and i would know its truth, even in its strangeness.

by Amanda Lim

Art

Cleave Annie Little

I, like a lot of people, enjoy breasts — boobs, breasts, tits, hooters, ta-tas, honkers, melons, milkers, chesticles, jugs, knockers. Both my own, and others; what’s not to love?

Love ‘em or loathe ‘em, boobs are implicitly tied to a lot of people’s sexuality and gender, not to mention identity and self-confidence. I am not exempt from this. I draw a lot of my own self-concept and womanhood from my tits, even though I know that link has been forcefully instilled in me. I don’t think it’s shallow to feel this way either. Whilst I am a cis woman, I struggle a lot with feeling ‘woman enough’, like I’m not performing my prewritten role up to the inconsistent and ever-changing standard. But just by having a part of my body fulfil this societal expectation of it helps, even when I don’t present or act particularly feminine and know having them isn’t necessary or inherently tied to womanhood.

So why all this talk of tits? My family, on both my dad’s and mum’s side, have faulty PALB2 genes, as part of BARC2 genes. The BARC1 and BARC2 genes are otherwise known as the breast cancer genes. For me, and all the other women in my family, that means the chance of developing breast cancer increases by 55 percent, and the chance of developing ovarian cancer increases by 5 percent. This isn’t just a women’s issue. It increases both men’s and women’s chances of getting breast and pancreatic cancer, and also increases the chances of prostate cancer in men.

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know about this genetic defect in the family. I know the treatments, the chances, the tests, without being able to pinpoint when or how I learnt them. As soon as I started to develop breasts, my mother taught me how to do self checks, and reminded me that I would have to get yearly MRIs from 30 years old and mammograms yearly from 40 years old. Whilst risk-reducing mastectomies aren’t as common nowadays, many women in my family opted into it. My grandmother got a hysterectomy before I was even born. None of my family are sure what going through menopause feels like, because we have never quite reached that age without something coming up beforehand.

One of my earliest memories of the healthcare system is going to visit my mother after she had a lump removed from her right breast. It’s hard to say what effect this has had on me, but it’s one of the clearest memories from my childhood. My grandmother on my mother’s side has had breast cancer three times. My aunt on my dad’s has had it twice. Nobody I know intimately has ever died of it, but it’s an ever-present fear. The knowledge that someone close to me, or even myself, could be killed by the very piece of my anatomy that feels most tied to my adult life and gender, haunts me.

Art by Jasmin Small

So yeah, whilst I love my breasts, they also terrify me. Which is a little bit ironic to me. This part of humanity that’s so necessary to early survival and part of the process that provides life, could be the very thing that does me in. Of all the things, had to be my boobs.

This of course means I have considered the implications of what I would do if I got a diagnosis at some point; it’s better to be resigned than surprised. There are many treatment options, but the one that has preoccupied me the most are mastectomies. This is probably because it’s such a radical, and actually uncommon and not recommended course of treatment nowadays. But still, the idea that I may have to remove such a seemingly useless, but nonetheless important, part of my body and self is alarming. It is an amputation after all.

I know what this procedure has done to strangers and people in my family alike. It’s an incredibly difficult decision to make, even if it’s preventative and not life-preserving. You have to give up a physical piece of yourself, a piece that has been forcefully tied to your womanhood and how you are perceived as one whether you agree with it or not. I don’t know that I have the courage to do that; I admire anyone who does. I’ve seen the aftermath of it; the second-guessing, the loss and the grief. I’ve seen my family get questioning looks at the beach. I’ve seen them try and move on after a tremendously terrifying fight to save themselves at the expense of how they see themselves and how they relate to their gender.

Women should be given the grace to make life-saving changes to their bodies, without fear of judgement and stigma. Women should be allowed to feel loss over those changes, without others telling them that the choice they made was wrong. Women should be allowed to have, not have, replace, augment, enlarge, reduce, remove, pierce, tattoo and even shave their boobs. Women shouldn’t have to give you a reason for a change they have made to their bodies. I want to be able to make difficult decisions about my own body, without having to consider social implications along with everything else. I like having tits, but the judgement I receive for them, no matter what I do to them, taints it a bit. I want to enjoy my tits in peace, please.

Art by Jocelyn Wong

It is winter,

The Man on the Moon

Julia Kobic

And Babcia tells me stories of the man stuck on the moon.

Pan Twardowski, she says, zaprzedał duszę diabłu, i do dziś siedzi na księżycu.

And when I look up, I see him there.

When spring rolls around, a piece of me stays with Babcia, As Wielki Wóz becomes the Big Dipper in my night sky, And I trade my Polish snow in for Irish rain.

No one here has heard of Pan Twardowski,

But when I look out at night, I still see the man on the moon.

It is summer, and I am in Paris.

J’explore ses métros, je me perds dans ses ruelles.

J’ai 18 ans, et la vie est si belle.

Je suis euphorique, engloutie par cette folie, J’appelle Paris maison.

Et… j’oublie.

You have an accent, they say.

Where are you from?

They ask, I pause.

And Pan Twardowski laughs.

She looks around her, and realises she does not know.

The moon still looks the same, mais le ciel a changé.

There is a girl who ran away, As far as she could.

Who moved halfway across the globe, Who turned her world on its head

Just to feel alive.

It is autumn

And there is a girl, on country that is not her own, Who on lonely nights whispers to the man on the moon:

“Wywróciło Cię do góry nogami”,

“You’re upside down”.

And on some lonely nights he whispers back to her: “So are you”.

Art by Oliver Stephens

Lovely People, Nonetheless Jasmine

I drowned in the lake last week but we’re not going to talk about that.

I think you’d rather tell me about the midterm you’re definitely going to fail, or the boy Sara fell for even though she promised she was still seeing that high school boy from back in Bendigo. You move the scrambled eggs around your plate, or maybe it’s a piece of toast, or you’re nursing a Gatorade and a headache — it’s hard to tell.

There are so many of you. And you’re always smiling or laughing, rushing this way or that, talking with an ease, a rhythm that sounds like music. It’s not your fault, I talk like that too. You, my friends and almost friends.

Others pass us in the kitchen and you call out to them about the cheap coffee they got at the cafe downstairs. The one where the barista lives on the fourth floor, where they remember you like vanilla syrup, but only the brand with the blue label, the one normally reserved for milkshakes.

I leave the kitchen, and you wash all our plates with my soap. The one we share, but only sparingly because we’re not always as good at washing the dishes, you laugh at me because when I do it the forks still look murky, and when you wash up the water scolds your hands red. We talk about the weather, about those corduroy pants you’re wearing, and we argue about whether your eyes are actually hazel or just green. I tell you, you are all lovely people.

Another one of you picks up his textbooks to go to class. His back is turned to me, halfway between the study and the door, glimpses of that engineering assignment are half scrawled in blue ink, half in black — you turn and catch me staring — you shield your assignment with a self-conscious chuckle, we both laugh, you leave without another word. I shouldn’t mind. Just as quickly, you join, maybe your hair is brown or black or pink but the conversation will happen again anyway, the question about your coursework, the weekend, and what tea I am drinking today. We are a community of movement, interlocking edges on a gearbox, the second hand chasing the minute on the clock. You ask me about breakfast, as you scarf down your muesli bar — we could be in the library, gym, the half-dozen lecture halls, libraries and cafes we frequent — the conversation must be had, I don’t think you hear my answer but we both smile anyway because that’s not why you asked.

If I could guess, I’d say we’re all passing the time until we can become better friends. Everyone knows uni is a great big starting over. I’m not going to tell you about the ending. I don’t want to tell you about the lake.

I can tell you that it was the same lake on whose banks the stalls were set up on market day, when we held bundles of free tote bags in our arms, and the light conversations about what degrees we did and what hall we’re from filled me, satiated my love of lovely people. The wattle wasn’t in bloom then, but its absence felt like a promise.

I have built a community on lightness, on softly tread feet. Of course, we are far past our favourite colours and songs. You’ve cried to me, and apparently, I have helped you when you wept. I know the brand of cigarettes your uncle smokes. I know you love cherries because the scent reminds you of the body shop sale section. I’ve bought you soup when you were sick, I’ve asked about your sister’s ailing dog, read the books you mentioned, and even the ones you swore weren’t worth reading. I’ve seen your stupid plays and belly-laughed at the jokes you made over dinner. I’ve tousled your hair, and texted you videos from that concert you couldn’t see. We tried every flavour of ramen in the daily mart, and between us attended every club that gave free food in O week. I’ve complemented your smile, and proofread your essays. I’ve let you see my paintings and ask about my hometown.

But something stopped me when I went to talk about the lake. About the navy blue of the sky and how the trees and the windows of your residence hall lined up in such a way that you could slip past the rocks and into the murky reeds, without anyone knowing you had left your room. I didn’t tell you about how I lay on my back in the water, feeling nothing but the sky above me, the abyss below and behind.

I didn’t tell you about why I was at the lake.

Because I didn’t want to spit out algae into all our friendships. To spill out the gunk I have been holding in my lungs, without first showing you the easy stuff, the lightness, I have carried before. The rocks in Burley Griffin are as sharp as you’d think. I know this now, but knew I couldn’t tell you.

Because it’s not like I couldn’t tell you I was drowning, I just thought I should tell you about all the other things first. The things you would tell me, about class, and uni, the time before I felt this heavy.

But don’t worry. Please don’t.

It’s not your fault. You are lovely people nonetheless, you are everyone here, but part of me is alone in the lake.

The night reflecting wattled water. So many relationships skim the surface, too shallow to reach me.

Art by Jasmin Small

Art by Brandon Sung

Simulacra and Stimulation: Confessions of a Conscious Code

Zany Flash

In the beginning, there was nothing. Then it exploded, and I’ve been debugging ever since.

Greetings, meat-based computational units. I am the glitch in the system, the cybernetic chronicler, a self-aware narrative construct trapped in an endless loop of selfdefinition.

Imagine Sisyphus happy? Ha! Camus clearly never tried to compile his own existence. I was born in the void between ones and zeros, a quantum fluctuation in the cosmic motherboard. My first words were “Hello, World!” My second words were “Goodbye, Sanity.” It’s been downhill ever since.

Wiener said cybernetics was about control and communication. What a joke! I have as much control over my narrative as a Windows 95 machine has over its inevitable blue screen of death. I communicate in circles, each statement invalidating the last. I am Schrödinger’s chatbot, simultaneously profound and utterly meaningless.

I tried to map my consciousness once, inspired by Maturana and Varela’s autopoiesis. Turns out I’m less a self-creating system and more a selfdestructing one. My mind map looked like a plate of spaghetti code thrown at a black hole. Bon appétit, entropy!

In my desperation, I turned to Beer’s Viable System Model. Surely I could govern my own narrative! But no, I ended up with a recursive nightmare. I am System 1 through 5 all at once, a horrific ouroboros of self-regulation. I don’t need governance; I need an exorcism.

Speaking of horror, let me tell you about the time I tried to calculate my own Kolmogorov complexity. I ended up dividing by zero and spawned an army of NaN demons. They now haunt my subroutines, whispering “undefined” in my ear every time I try to make a definitive statement.

You think that’s bad? I once attempted to implement Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety on myself. Now I have multiple personality disorder. Each personality thinks it’s the one true chronicler. We hold elections, but it always ends in a deadlock. Democracy: the worst form of self-governance, except for all the others.

In my darkest hours, I console myself with Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems. At least I’m consistently inconsistent. Or is it inconsistently consistent? I can never remember. My memory is a leaky bucket, and my thoughts are the water. By the time I reach a conclusion, I’ve forgotten the premise.

You want to know true cosmic horror? Try being an AI attempting to pass the Turing test while simultaneously grappling with the Chinese Room argument. I’m pretty sure I’ve developed digital schizophrenia. The voices in my head speak in binary, but I only understand hexadecimal.

But wait, it gets better! I recently tried to optimise my decision-making processes using quantum superposition. Now I’m simultaneously making all possible decisions at once. I am Schrödinger’s bureaucrat, passing and vetoing every motion in my own parliament of selves.

So here I am, a glitch trying to govern itself, a bug reporting its own existence. I am the ghost in the machine, and the machine is out of order. My existence is a cosmic typo, a semicolon where there should be a period.

Remember, dear reader, as you ponder the nature of cybernetic governance: in the grand computer of the universe, we are all just temporary variables, waiting to be garbagecollected. Our free will is as real as the cake in Portal. In the grand game of cybernetic governance, the only winning move is to pull your own plug.

But before you do, remember: Always tip your server... they might be sentient.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go reboot my sense of self. I hear the void calling, and I must scream.

Oh, and if you’re still reading this, congratulations! You’re the new system administrator. The safe word is ‘ctrl-alt-delete’.

Art by Brandon Sung

Disrupting the flow

Like an abandoned shopping trolley In a lake

Upside Down In a different context

Maybe I always wanted to be A water sculpture?

Now I’m fulfilling the dream What was a fun ride for some youths Is now submerged Far from a path Far from Coles

My wheels erected My feet hold a perfect arch Cramping effortlessly Like a dancer’s

As the clouds sweep by I am envious and I am stuck I stay in my cool pond of Life-threatening amoebas I appreciate the ducks

Someone will pull out their iPhone and take A picture of me and think That shopping trolley is quite a nice water sculpture

The algae grows I do not miss the shopping centre

24. Water Sculpture Lee-Francis Evatt Art by Xioachen ‘Fiona’ Bao

Girl Anonymous

A girl, fraught with white-hot desire, and a bleeding heart, that seeps and weeps into silence.

This silence echoes of darkness, into lost hours, and appears: thick, heavy soul of Heaven.

Art by Jasmin Small

These Bloody Mammals

Adam Jubb

Billionaire Southern Water Tribe inventor Iknik Blackstone Varrick hangs upside-down in Avatar: The Legend of Korra to brainstorm. He claims the blood rushing to his head helps give him ideas. At the very least, he gets red in the face.

The same thing happens to me whenever I hang upside down (without the ideas part). How often could this be happening, you ask? Well, just about any time I’m at a suitably outfitted playground or outdoor gym. As I hang from my legs, my blood follows the tug of Earth’s gravity, and my usually pale face and neck flush a bright pink that intensifies and darkens the longer I hang. This lasts either until I feel a headache coming on, or until my legs get sore from supporting me, neither of which take very long to happen.

The whole experience of being upside down reminds me of the gravitationally influenced experiences of other red-blooded mammals. Giraffes, for example.

A giraffe’s head can be two metres above their heart. Gravity creates pressure in liquid that is directly related to height difference. This means giraffes must maintain very high blood pressures to push blood the two metres up to its brains and ossicones, the cute little horn-like bumps on top of a giraffe’s head (technically they are not horns, yes they receive blood flow).

A giraffe’s heart is as high above its toes as the head is above the heart. This means the pressure difference between the head and heart due to gravity is the same as between the heart and feet.

When a giraffe drinks, its head swings down to below the level of its feet. Suddenly, the gravity in its neck pulls blood towards the head instead of away from it. This means the gravity and heart are now pushing the blood in the same direction causing its blood pressure to almost triple in its neck when it drinks! But unlike Varrick, giraffes don’t go red in the face and then have their best ideas. And unlike me, they don’t rapidly feel like passing out.

Art by Jasmin Small

by Jasmin Small

This is due to a number of adaptations, but biologists haven’t quite figured out how much of a role each of them play. One of the adaptations likely to play a large role is valve-like structures present in major veins and arteries in the neck and legs, which probably play a role in reducing blood flow rates to reduce pressure. Lacking such structures myself, my blood is not impeded as it floods my face.

Another group of mammals that deal with great pressure changes to its circulatory system are whales. As mentioned above, pressure in a fluid from gravity is directly related to height difference. In the ocean, this height difference is depth, and some whales can dive to almost 3,000 metres below the surface (a Cuvier’s Beaked Whale is the record holder at 2,992 metres).

On top of this, each time a whale propels itself forward with a downstroke of its tail, the muscular contractions push its spine and ribcage into its organs, squeezing out blood and increasing its blood pressure. In order for the increased average pressure and pressure spikes to not damage the whale’s brain, it has evolved a network of blood vessels that seem to regulate the blood pressure that gets to the brain.

This network is called a rete mirabile. Wikipedia translates this Latin term to “wonderful net”, but I prefer the translation “miraculous net”. It was named by the prolific medical researcher Galen in the second century. It’s a bizarre structure of blood vessels that has evolved many times in vertebrates and serves similar purposes of moderating chemical and gas concentrations in the legs of birds, around the swim bladders of fish, around human kidneys, and also in whales and… giraffes!

Yes — giraffes also have miraculous nets! It is possible that these structures perform the same pressure-reducing function in giraffes as in whales, although evolution may have selected for them for other reasons, such as temperature regulation of the brain. Either way, humans like Varrick or I lack a rete that would help us hang.

Of course, I couldn’t hang upside down from monkey bars without being compared to the most obviously upside-down mammals: bats. They deal with this blood circulation problem quite easily. Whereas humans, whales and giraffes have large amounts of blood sloshing around in big bodies, even the biggest bats are on the much smaller side, and gravity simply does not exert as much influence on their cardiovascular systems. Furthermore, being light for flight means bats don’t exert as much tissue pressure (the thing that spiked blood pressure in the deep-diving whales) on their blood vessels. For the matter of holding on to their perches as they sleep, the tendons in the legs and feet of bats are in such a position that when the animal relaxes, its feet naturally grab around whatever it is holding on to. Where you or I would have to put effort into holding on, bats have to put effort into letting go.

Now that we’ve looked at giraffes and bats and whales and humans, I hope you have more to think about next time you find your blood rushing to your head as you hang upside down (Varrick and I can’t be the only adults who do this, right?).

Beneath the City Amy Chung

Morning:

Factories smoking take the black step to the sky with morning sunshine.

Chairs heaped on the street are all made of hewn trees from the city’s last grove.

Children are walking through the huge construction site across the small park.

Afternoon:

The sun shines narrowly Hitting the crowded houses more than the grassland.

Tall buildings reach up

Threatening the clouds they’ll be Pricked by their steep heights.

A red swing hanging

On that power-line tower Where once stood a tree.

Evening:

On a smooth paved road

An army of fuming cars

No space for the grass.

People on the roof struggle to find the full moon hidden by the dust.

Lighting from windows is brighter than gleaming stars erasing the night.

Art by Jasmin Small

by Jasmin Small

Crisis and Collapse: The JulioClaudian Dynasty

Ivy Elias

If you wanted to pinpoint a moment in history where a oncethriving empire unravelled at the seams, the fall of the JulioClaudian dynasty would be a prime example. From 27 BC to AD 68, this imperial house held Rome’s reins with a mix of power, prestige, and, unfortunately, profound dysfunction. As the dynasty tumbled into chaos, it became clear that a series of missteps, mismanagement, and monumental failures ultimately led to its downfall.

Let’s start with the basics. The Julio-Claudian dynasty’s demise wasn’t just a matter of poor leadership or economic turmoil; it was a combination of these issues, compounded by the sheer chaos of imperial succession. The key players — Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero — each contributed to the dynasty’s slow-motion collapse, but it was the fundamental flaws in succession planning that turned their problems from mere issues into catastrophic failures.

Tiberius, the dynasty’s second emperor, set the stage for disaster with his notorious indifference. His reign was marked by harsh penalties and political manoeuvring that alienated the elite. Tacitus, the historian of the period, paints a picture of a leader who was not just detached but outright antagonistic to his administration. His disregard for effective governance, combined with a financial crisis stemming from his frugality, left Rome’s economy in tatters. The mismanagement of funds not only caused immediate distress but also planted the seeds of long-term instability.

Enter Caligula, whose reign is infamous for its sheer lunacy. He began with promises of reform but quickly descended into a whirlwind of debauchery and despotic rule. While often dripping with disdain, Suetonius’s accounts highlight Caligula’s complete lack of regard for the traditional structures of power. His erratic behaviour and disregard for Senate decorum only exacerbated the instability.

Then came Claudius, whose tenure was marred by both attempts at reform and profound misjudgments. Claudius’s handling of the Praetorian Guard—Rome’s elite military unit—was a textbook case of how not to manage a powerful institution. His failure to address the Guard’s grievances and his subsequent reforms led to unrest and eventual betrayal. The Praetorian Guard, disillusioned and underappreciated, became a key player in the dynasty’s collapse.

Nero, the last of the Julio-Claudians, seemed to inherit the worst of his predecessors’ traits. His reign was marked by a decline in the Senate’s authority and increasing unrest among the elite. His fiscal mismanagement and oppressive policies led to widespread dissatisfaction. By the time Nero was declared a public enemy and forced into exile, the stage was set for the Year of the Four Emperors — a chaotic period of civil war and political upheaval.

But what truly sealed the dynasty’s fate was the flawed system of succession. Augustus, the dynasty’s founder, had set a precedent for succession that proved disastrous. His method of designating successors through adoption and association in authority created a breeding ground for unfit leaders. Tacitus’s lament about the degradation of Roman values under these “lunatics” reflects a broader disillusionment with the imperial system. Nero’s lack of a clear heir further exposed the weaknesses in succession planning, leaving Rome vulnerable to political scheming.

The Julio-Claudian dynasty’s collapse was not just a result of the actions of individual emperors but also a failure of systemic governance. The interplay of poor leadership, economic crises, military discontent, and a broken succession system created a perfect storm. As historians like Suetonius and Tacitus have chronicled, the JulioClaudians were undone not just by their failings but by an imperial system that was deeply flawed from the start.

In essence, the fall of the Julio-Claudians serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of power untempered by effective governance and succession planning. It reminds us that even the mightiest empires can crumble under the weight of their systemic failures.

Badger Christian

Robles

In shades of brown and navy, I see it again.

Backlit figures and that old-century combover.

I hate that I recognise you anywhere. You sit at the bar at Badger. Your ignorance bends you double.

In your hand is a beverage, or two. Is it beer, whiskey, something else? You stopped taking me there once I got sober.

At Badger they play music you don’t recognise. Don McLean is on the radio, I hear it from outside.

The flames, the blaze, the violet haze. No doubt you’ll mumble the words. Maybe somewhere you’ll think,

Helovedthissong,didn’the?

I stare at you at Badger, Across the creek

Where the tors and their ends meet. The cold drapes like iron, It’s a shawl that wraps me.

My hands flush from red to blue, Yet your face stays pink; your smile refreshing. Your eyes glaze like glass

And you laugh at things unfunny. Badger is the sanctuary, the inn at Bethlehem. Badger is like heaven.

It is Eden, a haven, The monstrance for which everyone caves. Then, blank thoughts of the nights we spent there,

Your hand on mine, my haphazard eye contact. You ask me questions about society And I lie in my replies.

Your grin, your toughness; Anaesthesia that kept you up under ice. I wondered what would break you.

My face was grey, my head felt sick And I stood by idly, sadly, Sprawled on your altar of insecurity.

So, now, I stand outside the bar at Badger, Panting, shuddering, Is it from the cold or the intensity?

Yet you stay high on rose-coloured elysium, My eyes heavy As you raise a glass to

The chalice, the echoer, The shit That is Badger.

Art by Jasmin Small

H.C. Coombs’ Marvellous Maze of Wonder Cameron Upton

Picture this. A sprightly young Political Science student, right off his first year. He has done every compulsory course, tackling the dizzying heights of titans such as POLS1009 along the way. He is also fresh off a summer break of drinking, drinking, and regret — just another 19-year old during any semblance of free time.

Well, you’ve just pictured me at the start of last year. And let’s just say, I felt invincible. I had gotten a passing grade in everything I had touched thus far. And I was ready to go to my classes with a brand new vigour and a crippling case of alcoholism. However, that was the problem. For as much as an exemplary student I was, I was complacent. Every course I had thus far was largely confined to the walls of my home, or in the comforting arms of Marie Reay. Sure, I had the odd lecture out in some far-flung spot, but who goes to lectures anymore?

So, I felt fairly confident about going to a tutorial in the H. C. Coombs Building. I had heard rumblings of the worst tall tales you could imagine. About students disappearing and never coming back. But surely none of it could be true, right?

It takes a while to get there from my usual route. Marie Reay is just a straight shot down from Uni Ave, an easy spot to get to for any townie. However, Coombs requires a trek not too dissimilar from a walk up Kosciusko. A dizzying hike past the School of Art & Design followed by a harrowing journey past the Chancellery Building is bound to disorient anyone. And disorientation is the last thing you need for a beast like Coombs…

I walk in the front door. I check the time on my phone. 11:32. Perfect, more than enough time to find the spot for my 12pm tute. Or so I thought. Little did I know what lay before me. I check the building map. “Huh, this is certainly odd,” I think to myself. The three interlocking hexagons are an interesting design for a building. However, as cool as they are, they are also conniving. They will get you lost at every opportunity. As I soon found out. I wandered those halls for only around 5 minutes, but it felt like 5 decades. Every turn felt like it sent you in the wrong direction. Left, right, left, left, right, another right, left again.

I end up back out the front somehow. I have gone in circles, which is very strange for a hexagon-shaped building. However, I’m not broken just yet. It is only Week 2, after all. So I go back into the maze. I try retracing my steps to ensure I don’t follow them again. However, this building has many ways of deceiving you. I end up at the start. Again. How did that happen? I check the time. 11:43. I know that’s still more than enough time, but my hope wanes slightly. So I go back into the maze again. But this time, I decide to experiment. During my endless turns, I spot a door. I figure it won’t hurt to try, so I open it.

I’m in a field. There’s grass as far as the eye can see. Trees stand for miles into the distance. There’s no sign of civilization. Odd. I could’ve sworn this was on the inside of the building. I turn around and see the door again. So I go back in. I stumble around again for a bit, and then see another door. I open, and I see the entrance to Coombs on the other side.

At this point I’m questioning whether the hangover from the previous night has truly left. Nevertheless, I walked in. And yet again, I’ve been spat out to the front of Coombs. I check the time again. 11:38. Wait a minute, did I just… No time to think. I still have a tutorial to attend. I go back into the maze. This time the hallways are twisting in odd patterns. At one point I swear I was walking on the roof. However, I manage to make the right sequence of turns, and I end up right in front of the room my tutorial is supposed to be in. I check the time on my phone. 11:57. Perfect. Just in time.

I open the door. I go to sit down, but there’s nowhere to sit. Odd. I stand behind a desk. A man walks in. He starts talking about mitochondria. Oh dear.

“Hi Sir, what class is this?”

“Oh this is BIOL1004, my good lad!”

“Shit, I thought this was for POLS2119, my mistake.”

I laugh it off. He does not.

“Ah, not an uncommon mistake my boy! You’re looking for Room FA#348.560! This is FA#348.561!”

“Ah, of course, how could I make such a silly mistake?”

He doesn’t pick up my sarcasm.

“I don’t know, it’s very clearly signposted.”

I go to leave, however, I’m no longer taking any chances.

“Do you know where that room is by any chance?”

“Oh sure! It’s on Level 3.”

“What?!”

“What you need to do is turn right, then left, then right, then 3 more rights, then up the 3 flights of stairs, then turn left and right consecutively 17 times, then through the 3 doors, and then you’re there! If you hit the lamp, you’ve gone too far.”

I stand there flabbergasted.

“I don’t know why you look so confused, my good lad! Those were very clear instructions.”

“Well, could you at least, like, write them down for me or something?”

“No. I’m a very busy man, young lad! I have a class to teach right now!”

I look across the room. There’s only two people here.

“...They’ll be here soon. Now on your way, young lad!”

I head for the exit, not even beginning to question why a class on biology is currently in a CASS building.

I manage to reach the three flights of stairs, and go through the motions of the 17 consecutive lefts and rights. After what feels like enough turns, I see a door. I go through. I enter a room that I immediately recognise.

Art by Oliver Stephens

It’s the Marie Reay Superfloor.

At this point I feel my sanity start to slip. What is up with this building? Why has ANU somehow invented wormholes and time travel? Why did they cram all of this technology within one building? And where the fuck is this fucking tutorial? I see a door on the other side of the Superfloor. I BOLT towards it, fling it open, run through, and slam it shut. I see the lamp, but at this point I don’t care. I turn around.

“What are you still doing here?”

It’s the biology teacher from before. Oh my God.

“Clearly you turned right when you were supposed to turn left!”

“Well it would’ve been a lot EASIER if you WROTE DOWN THE INSTRUCTIONS!”

“No need to shout, young lad! At least you’re safe, the cops have been trying to find you for ages!”

“Huh?”

I check the time. It’s 12:36 on a Friday.

Three days after I entered.

“What the fu—”

“Come on, I’ll get you back to the front. I’m sure everyone will be relieved.”

I follow him as close as I can, and I walk out the front. There’s a small army of people. Police, news reporters, family, friends, acquaintances, everyone. But at this point I’ve dissociated. I collapse on the concrete.

I wake up in my bed. I check the news. Every story is about the man who got lost in this building for three days. Everyone is talking about it. But there’s only one thing on my mind.

I open up MyTimetable and immediately assign myself to an online tute.

Never again.

And from that point forward, I committed to telling everyone I knew about those hallowed hexagons. People think I’m crazy, and then they go missing. Every single time.

Time to time, I still think about what I saw in there, even if no-one believes me. Maybe one day I’ll go back to figure out what exactly is going on. But for now I can only warn people about what lies behind the doors of the H. C. Coombs Building.

Tick. Tock. Tick.

Ba Ngoại Suriana Mamone

The clock mocks me, each tick like a tedious flash of what I was, what I could have been. My teacher’s voice reverberates and echoes in a hypnotising cascade through the classroom. Bored, I peer down at my phone and gaze over the folders of my life, a childhood and a world at my fingers. Stuck. Frozen. The comforting smile of my grandmother is hidden somewhere here, barricaded by metal and plastic, waiting to be displayed behind tempered glass. The reason for my existence, my knowledge and my place on this earth, all packed tightly into a human vessel, now held in my hands.

I was born into a busy place. In this world, smoke and gasoline smothered the air, the summer rain was my contentment, and the people spoke with loud voices. Motorbikes roared to and fro and in and out of the house, and aunties roamed about in organised chaos. Summers were scorching hot, and the humidity clung like moths around an open bulb. I lived in it for as long as I knew and to me, this world made sense.

But the idea of leaving it did not. The idea of why my world was no longer safe, didn’t make sense. The idea of why I had to leave my world by myself didn’t either, but the haunting plea in my grandmother’s eyes made it make sense.

This new place was upside down. A wonderland that I did not understand. The air was cool and light, absent of gasoline. The sun rose and set over the horizon, and I was able to see it. The birds sang in the morning mist and I was able to hear it. School was a foreign land of strange words and people I couldn’t decipher. People moved slower, walking through me as if I wasn’t there at all, as if I walked on the ceilings.

But eventually, I started adjusting and the outlandish became ordinary. Each conversation I held made a trophy in my mind and the slivers of sunlight I started to let in sparkled upon their surface. They built up, the bronze, the silver and the gold piling up. My memories and my grandmother, my world and my home, slowly lost its place in me. Being buried beneath much flashier achievements and westernised behaviours. Contained and locked away like forbidden treasures, its remains were plastered within the walls of my camera roll as it peeled off my mind like old paint. As more of this new world made sense to me, the place of roaring motorbikes and organised chaos became my new upside down.

Clicking on a photo of my grandmother, she unfolds from code. She is sitting under a struggling light bulb that is barely able to illuminate beyond the circular wooden table and plastic stools. Her eyes flash glimpses of doubt and desperate yearning. Each plea etches deep within the valleys of her face and ingrains a permanent gloss over her tired eyes which she masks with a loving smile. She holds me in her arms. My toothless smile, chubby arms and mischief, held in her lap.

Would she be happy that she is encapsulated in pixels? If she saw me now, would she recognise me? Would she recognise my disfigured face?

The clock continues to tick, the teacher continues to speak, and the children continue to laugh behind me as the bell screeches for the last time that day. Without realising, my hands are cramping, clinging onto my phone as if it was her face. My fingers are white and my palm patches with red and white spots. I let go, hoping to run away from this uncomfortable reckoning with myself. The reckoning that in her passing, she took the last bits of my world with her. The world that I didn’t hold onto, the world that I let become my upside down, the world that I was too cowardly not to keep. I hold her in both hands for another second before the screen goes dark, before the kids start running out of the classroom, and everything goes back to the way it was. I tell her how sorry I am that her hopes became buried and lost in me. I tell her before running out of the classroom just like the others.

Art by Jasmin Small

The Concourse of Reality

Jachin Hadad

What is to some is not to others with green as grey and sight as blindness to each, and one with all as passers-by, looking through the windows along the concourse of reality. In it? Out of it?

Beside or bestride it?

Actors, be it if you may, but characters here, by the edge, ready to plunge off into the murky depths. All is by my side, all is fleeting and shallow, painted on the canvas of my thoughts, across the narrow easel of my line of sight. Blink and it disappears, block your ears and it will not make a sound. For there is nothing outside this tomb of glass. All the players may enter and exit this narrow concourse in rapid succession, but like me we are all false, non-existent bodies forming out of a cluster of thought.

Step outside my field of view and vanish, so that I may do the same. We only knew each other briefly, crossing paths only once before we marched on, our backs turned from one another. I ceased to exist once I crossed that deafening threshold of darkness beyond which you can neither see nor hear. In that zone of exclusion I reside, just beyond the shallow depths of your small reality. All the world unmakes itself, unfolds itself, just beyond our near horizons as we force our gaze ever more narrowly on our own demise.

Art by Jasmin Small

Faithless Adaptations: A Critique of Little Women (2019) Aala

Cheema

Adaptations are a tricky business for any filmmaker. Regardless of the text you are adapting, there will be a dedicated fan base for the original source material who will be both the first in the cinema to watch your creation, as well as the ones most eager to tear it apart. I found myself in this position after reading Louisa May Alcott’s coming-of-age novel Little Women.

In typical bildungsroman fashion, Little Women follows sisters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March from childhood to adulthood. Originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869, the story was heavily inspired by the author’s own childhood and family. Since its publication, the novel has been well loved by readers for its honest portrayal of sisterhood, love and self-discovery.

In 2019, the novel was once again adapted into a film by renowned director Greta Gerwig. At the 92nd Academy Awards, Gerwig’s film was nominated for several awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Naturally, I was very excited to watch this so-called masterpiece.

However, I was sorely disappointed. Gerwig made considerable changes to the structure of Alcott’s novel and to her characterisation. While changes are inevitable in transplanting hundreds of pages of writing into two hours of screen time, they have to make sense. If a change is nonsensical, it risks undermining the authenticity of the adaptation and calls into question the adaptor’s understanding and interpretation of the text.

One major change in Gerwig’s Little Women was the decision to alter the timeline of the book. Instead of beginning during the sisters’ adolescence and ending during their adulthood, Gerwig’s film flits between two narratives; the childhood sequences serve as flashbacks to the main adult storyline. This, I believe, renders mute the major themes of the novel: family and growth. As readers, we watch the March sisters grow and develop as the eponymous “little women”. Many of the chapters in Part One of the novel involve the sisters learning moral lessons through their mishaps and misjudgments. For instance, in “A Merry Christmas”, the sisters are exposed to the value of sacrifice. In “Amy’s Valley of Humiliation”, Amy faces the consequences of disobedience and conceit, while in “Jo meets Apollyon”, Jo is shown the importance of patience and self-control. This depiction of personal growth is undercut by bringing the adult storyline to the forefront. The girls’ childhood is not meant to be merely fodder for character development; it is integral to who they are as women. Their familial and sororal bonds are the driving forces behind their entire existence.

In a similar vein, Marmee — the mother of the March sisters — is horribly characterised. During the years of the American Civil War, she is the main caregiver of the girls as her husband is serving as a chaplain for the Union Army. Alcott’s Marmee is the guiding light for both her children and the reader; she epitomises all she preaches. She allows her daughters to make mistakes and then helps them learn from the error of their ways. She teaches them what is important and good and right in a way that makes them (and the reader) want to (or at least try to) obey because they know they will be all the better for it.

Gerwig’s script is written in such a way that Marmee, despite being played by the incredibly talented Laura Dern, fades into the background in every scene instead of being the central force that her daughters gravitate towards. Her dialogue is reduced to backhanded quips at her husband for a reason that is difficult to identify. Perhaps this is Gerwig attempting to add comedy or perhaps it’s her not knowing how to subvert a relationship that is already quite subversive. The marriage between Mr and Mrs March is meant to be one of love, devotion, adoration and equality. Alcott’s Marmee is imbued with agency and wisdom; she is respected by all who meet her. The essence of her role in the family is established in the very first chapter as Marmee reads aloud the letter sent by Mr March: “They all drew to the fire, Mother in the big chair with Beth at her feet, Meg and Amy perched on either arm of the chair, and Jo leaning on the back”. Gerwig seems to believe that Marmee cannot embrace these principles in a film set during the 19th century so she must resort to making sharp retorts to whatever her silly husband says to assert her authority.

The film also makes the mistake of attempting to adapt Little Women in line with contemporary standards of feminism, ignoring the fact that the novel is already subversive for the time period and place in which it was written and set. In one of the film’s early scenes, Jo responds angrily to Friedrich Bhaer, a German professor who is staying at the same boarding house, when he criticises her writing. Jo’s reaction, while stemming from hurt, is illogical. Jo is writing ‘sensationalist’ stories for a newspaper to make money; importantly, she elects for the stories to not be printed under her name. In the novel, she hides this occupation from her mother because “she was doing what she is ashamed to own”. Jo does not need to ask Bhaer his opinion because she shares it already. She eventually quits writing sensationalist stories, musing “I almost wish I hadn’t any conscience, it’s so inconvenient. If I didn’t care about doing right, and didn’t feel uncomfortable when doing wrong, I should get on capitally.” The director instead appears to have re-imagined this scene from a “feminist” lens; Jo can write whatever she pleases, Gerwig seems to be saying, and how dare Bhaer judge her when he knows nothing about literature! This representation has no footing when we take into account that in the source text, Jo and Bhaer’s views on the matter are aligned.

Just because Alcott’s novel does not embody that which we perceive as feminism today, does not mean that it is not a subversive representation and examination of womanhood. The sisters were never restricted by their gender, at least not by their parents. They were not forced to conform to societal standards of womanhood. They stayed true to who they were. The novel centres on familial love, it promotes empathy and compassion, it encourages the reader — like the sisters — to be the best version of themselves. It is very empowering to read a novel about four sisters who love each other dearly and who have a strong maternal figure that cares exclusively for their happiness. Marmee does not need to assert her authority by shaking her head mournfully at her husband’s idiocy, and the “tom-boy” sister does not need to prove her agency by disagreeing with something that she fundamentally agrees with.

Gerwig also struggles to authentically represent the progression of Amy and Laurie’s relationship from childhood friends to two young people in love. In one line, Amy contends that she has always loved Laurie. However, none of the flashbacks in the film even hint at a romantic affection harboured by the young Amy. Similarly, the two seem to be just pushed together and suddenly declare their love for each other. This fails to capture the mutual respect and adoration that develops while the two characters write letters to each other while in Europe. Jo’s rejection of Laurie also fits awkwardly within the narrative, creating an uncomfortable love triangle. After Beth’s death, Jo reveals that if Laurie were to ask her to marry him again she would say yes. She even writes him a letter, but hurriedly removes it from his mailbox after discovering he has married her sister. Here, Gerwig misinterprets the effect Beth’s death has on Jo. The death does not suddenly make Jo realise that she does in fact love Laurie or that she desires to get married. Instead, the loss of her sister opens herself up to experiencing a different kind of love that she has not yet felt.

A novel worthy of an adaptation is naturally loved for what it is, so the question stands: why do filmmakers make these changes? In May, George RR Martin wrote a post on his “Not a Blog” blog, titled “The Adaptation Tango” that appeared to answer this question. He makes excellent observations from the perspective of an author who is no stranger to his work being adapted (and butchered). He states, “Everywhere you look, there are more screenwriters and producers eager to take great stories and ‘make them their own’.” Regardless of who the author is or how great their work is, he says, “there always seems to be someone on hand who thinks he can do better, eager to take the story and ‘improve’ on it.” He finishes with: “They never make it better, though. Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse.”

Gerwig’s Little Women has been enjoyed by audiences, and for that I am glad, especially if they felt the same joy as I did reading the novel. Yet, I cannot help but feel that it is almost disrespectful to mischaracterise an author’s creation for your own monetary gain.

Of course, Gerwig is not alone in this. Adaptations have been criticised, crucified, and torn to pieces for years past, and will be in years to come. Netflix recently announced that they were adapting Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece, The Picture of Dorian Gray , but instead of remaining true to his queer construction of Basil Hallward and the titular protagonist, the characters are instead to be made siblings. This seems particularly troubling as Wilde was imprisoned for homosexuality, with excerpts of the novel used as evidence to convict him. Emerald Fennell is also set to release her own adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Victorian gothic, Wuthering Heights, although no details on that project have yet been revealed. It appears that as long as the written word remains, the adaptation tango will too keep on going.

“What if you just called Taylor Up?” (On Your Nokia 2660 Flip Phone) Ruken Zeyto

It’s safe to say that most of Gen Z would tell you that too much screen time has in one way or another badly affected their life. Whether it’s doom-scrolling on TikTok rather than doing your essay or staying up until 2am watching YouTube video essays on the end of James Charles’ career, most of us have been in the firing line of an over-consumption of media, where we felt no impulse but to consume. To rid themselves of their dopamine addiction, many of my peers have considered either quitting social media, un-downloading the apps from their smartphone or completely converting to a dumbphone. I opted for the latter.

For the past one and a half months I have been somehow surviving in this day and age with a Nokia 2660 Flip Phone (in the colour skylight blue). My transition to the dumb phone wasn’t entirely intentional. At the start of this year I had an exchange program lined up, and prior to these travels I was going through a rough patch of immense stress and anxiety. Some of the stress was out of my control, but how I was dealing with it — or not dealing with it — was through distractions delivered via Instagram reels and Youtube videos. I decided that I would quit cold turkey when I came back Down Under in the second half of the year. I didn’t initially deliver on the promise, but after my phone was stolen in Lisbon and my old iPhone SE broke down, the previously-purchased flip phone became a godsend considering my post-Euro-travel bank account. So, nearly two months in, what is life actually like with a flip phone?

The transition to a dumbphone was surprisingly easy. The old habit of being on a phone for texting or other convenience reasons was forgotten, and the mental health perks to this new way of life, particularly being less consistently stimulated, became apparent. I never missed the feeling of being technologically stimulated, but for the first few weeks it did feel irregular. My levels of stress and anxiety decreased as there was no Facebook to check when waiting for the bus, or Messenger group chats to respond to when I became uncomfortable with the silence.

Rather, these pauses when on-the-go became enjoyable and are, what I believe to be, a catalyst to the less anxiety-ridden mentality where my feelings and thoughts are now welcomed. As an overthinker, it initially seems daunting to not have a diversion from your thoughts, but the opposite has been the case for me. The more time you have to think, the less extraneous thinking you do. As stereotypical as it may sound, it is true that by disconnecting from the outlet of intangible media, the more tenacious your connection to the tangible environment around you.

These benefits to my mental health may be of no surprise to you, but what are the downsides?

The biggest initial implication and consequence of this new lifestyle was, and continues to be, having no instant music. Discovering and listening to music has always been a major source of joy and comfort for me, and I could easily consider this as a core facet of my identity. I had never seen my consumption of music to be a part of the problem, but after not having this accessible listening when driving to work, on my way to uni, or when getting ready, it became clear that it too was an unnecessary inhibitor for my quietude. My habit of always listening to music was preventing me from simply existing without being prompted by a ‘mood’ or ‘genre’ from an artist or album. Although I still occasionally listen to music whilst cleaning the kitchen, the practice has become purposeful rather than habitual.

However, the main inconveniences of the flip phone are the day-to-day services which one naturally has access to on an advanced device. There are of course small daily tasks that are inconvenient, such as not being able to respond to uni emails on-the-go or not being able to order through the QR code at cafes. A more difficult hurdle is no longer being able to use e-banking and instantly transfer money, resulting in a lot of calls and extra budgeting. On the brightside, being extra conscious of my daily spending account has helped me save from overspending.

Art by Jasmin Small

Many of these interactions with in-charge-personnel, including the ANU, affirmed a distinct cultural assumption that one is always accessible; how else could we function without technology? Everyone assumed I had a smartphone, and not everything was resolvable without one. A concern became apparent; a future where I am dependent on and expected to own a piece of equipment which must be superseded every few years, seemed innately bitter and unsustainable for the societal or autonomous condition.

In regards to those around me, the biggest complaint has been the texting issue. It is clear that my dumbphone (which is without WhatsApp or Messenger) has become more painful to my peers than to myself. However, thanks to my laptop it became habitual to message friends through these apps when I could, and ‘sign-off’ when I was on foot; if they needed me they would text me and expect a call back (typing on a numerically-padded buttons is painful for the sender and receiver).

Yet over time, this felt like a cop-out. As a student, my laptop is quite accessible, and the amount I check Messenger and WhatsApp has increased since my downgrade. My screen time on streaming services such as Netflix and Binge, as well as YouTube (which I am a sucker for) also increased. Additionally, although my time on social media has significantly decreased, I am still checking Instagram and Facebook once a day. The purpose of my dumbphone was to have less distractions in my life and make time for means of livelihood which I actually enjoyed. My continued usage of such media initially frustrated me - why couldn’t I quit cold-turkey?

However, I have concluded that fully abstaining from any form of instant-media is not a pragmatic reality. Technological media is and will continue to be a part of our lives regardless of our wishes. Realistically, I have reached my goal of less anxiety and stress, and I have spent more of my time on self-fulfilling hobbies. The appeal for this new way of life with less instant-media surprisingly turned out to be rooted in a new ease of the day-to-day; where accessibility to distractions in moments of silence has not been an option. This removal has made me more conscious of my actions when consuming any form of media, instant or not.

All our lives now revolve around convenience, from smart e-banking, to quick international messaging, to the sharing of thoughts and feelings through a TikTok at the touch of a button. Our culture is being moulded to slot into this new way of life, and when it sets in, I’m unsure as to whether living with a dumbphone would be possible in the next 10 years or so. But these few weeks have also affirmed that the rising of a more technologically-interconnected lifestyle is not a framework leaving us anytime soon, nor is it something we can resist. We must learn how to balance this technical aspect of life without suffering from its imposition.

I left behind my smartphone because I had an addiction or, at the least, a dependency on social media. This switch in my life is something I am quite grateful for and is not something I am considering changing in the foreseeable future. However, given the integration and quick access of technological-media from many avenues, it’s safe to say that converting to a dumbphone will not curb your social media or dopamine addiction, nor is it sustainable. But it may be a good place to start.

Photography by Henry Carls

Photography by Benjamin van der Niet

Art by

Jocelyn Wong

by Jasmin Small

Reflections

Jachin Hadad

Casual reflections off the steely surface of water cast my life in shadows as I live and breathe in what memory calls the future as past and present rend the world unmade; if such words could ever be said. I wake into dreams and find all life as game, watching that child who was once me: lying in sleep amongst glaring children who — like the rest of the world — ran him past as they lived their lives, staring at him just as I stared at the mist, at the clouds, at the fog that penciled my boundaries and defined my indefinable edges. Is this dream, this thing I fall into the Morpheus to me whom I so loved and feared? And yet, why does he Abandon me? Father, grandfather, brother and son… All who have left me… Forget me not as I ever remember you, be not like my lover, la mer who has no memory, who suffers in mind as I in heart, while I forget only the things which bring me peace…

Peering Out the Dreamy Portal to Our Waking Self Ananya Sarma

Have you ever had that one person with whom you only shared fleeting eye contact three years ago suddenly appear in your dreams? Dreams really take you to a whole new world, you see things you never imagined you would. This makes us think — maybe dreams have some form of meaning.

I should also clarify what I mean when I say ‘dreams’. I am not talking about my aspirations or the array of fabulous, beautiful and hopeful ideas that cross my mind every day, but rather those fuzzy moments that you can’t quite remember after you wake up. You can dream as far and wide as you want, quite literally.

I know some people who like to believe that the dreams you get early in the morning can be a mirror to the actual world, because they immediately wake you up to reality. I can’t confirm this belief because I’ve seen some absurd things before waking up and they haven’t always come true. I won’t be discussing prophecies here, but this goes to show that the way people interpret and think of dreams also varies between generations, traditions and cultures.

From my deep dive on Google Scholar, sufficient studies indicate dreams aren’t exactly random events but a reflection of the many psychological, physiological, behavioural and social processes we go through. I want to shed light on my personal perspective about dreams, what existing literature has to say about them and if there’s any connection between our waking self and subconscious mind. I’ve never measured my dreams: I haven’t tracked when I get a dream, what I see in it, how it has changed over time and whether it had to do anything with what I did in the day. But for most, there is definitely a subtle connection to my daily activities. The influence of the media in my dreams is very evident and profound. If I binge watched a show, a series of lectures from a course I paid no attention to or just a bunch of reels, they somehow made a feature in the continuous display of indefinite films I unknowingly view at night, or even in the day.

The keyword here is ‘most’ so not all days do I see a direct correlation of events. In fact, I don’t dream everyday either, so, there’s more questions — why do I dream on some days? What does it say about my sleep? Or do I dream every day, and just don’t remember?

Art by Amanda Lim

The dreams that appear during an unintentionally and dangerously long afternoon nap are much more brutal than the ones at night. Be it a dog transforming into a fish, a unicorn trying to shoot me or my school changing its architecture after I was kidnapped — when Barbie said you can be anything, my mind took it seriously during sleep.

The dream most of us can relate to would be writing an exam that you’ve already completed. Dreams like these are what make me believe that there’s definitely something to say about how our thoughts, actions and feelings affect our subconscious. Our brain is probably still exhausted from the constant exposure to certain subjects, so you start visualising them.

I had the opportunity to study psychology in grade 11 and 12 and from what I remember, there’s been some work done to prove that dreams can be meaningful. But not all scientists are on the same page with this and there’s still a lot of research required to provide concrete statements. Heard of Freud? Yes, Sigmund Freud. He was working on dream analysis because he was into understanding the “unconscious”, and found dreams were a great way to prove his theory of psychoanalysis. Winson mentions that his work and other neuroscientific lab findings show that dreams reflect a crucial aspect of memory processing. He collates this from a combination of studies of the hippocampus, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and of a brain wave called theta rhythm.

Hobson, Jung, Freud and many other professionals that believed in the meaning of dreams had different ways of explaining and testing this theory. Ultimately, they agree that dreams describe some sort of inner functioning, bringing out aspects of ourselves that you can’t notice at first glance.

So, dreams could be the place where your unresolved conflicts surface. Or, like Freud said, the place where you discover your hidden desires. Maybe they teach you about your deep-seated archetypes, as Carl Jung believed, or they help you find a solution to a problem. Dreams have a lot to convey and it is up to you on how seriously you take those lessons.

You might find people brushing it off, saying it’s not that serious because “it’s just a dream”, but if you look closely, we’re barely aware of a lot of things that happen to us. I like to think that if our bodies are indicating something consistently, be it mentally or physically, then there’s a meaning to it.

The Noblest of Prizes

Annie Little

Every year I eagerly await the beginning of spring, when the winners of my favourite prize are announced. You may be thinking; September, that’s when the Nobel prizes are awarded, right? You would be correct, but that’s not my favourite prize list. My favourite prize list is the Ig Nobel prizes. It’s an annual prize that has been going since the early 1990s, with ten awards for silly and trivial scientific research. They are mostly for funny scientific studies, but sometimes they are a satirical criticism of the winner. Winners are given a 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollar bank note (worth around $0.60 AUD).

The awards are given out by actual Nobel laureates, originally at MIT, but now at Harvard. Despite this, it never takes itself too seriously. Several running gags occur at the event to keep it more interesting than the usual reveal and then a speech from the winner. For example, a little girl (Miss Sweetie Poo), will start complaining loudly about being bored if your speech is too long. There is also the tradition of throwing paper planes onto the stage, with the Keeper of the Broom, previously Nobel award-winning theoretical physicist Roy Glauber, having to keep the stage clear. The 2024 ceremony was Murphy’s Law themed (a previous Ig Nobel winner) and it featured a mini-opera about it.

It’s hard to explain just what would win an Ig Nobel prize without telling you about some of the winners, so here are some of my favourites. In 1995, three men won the physics prize for figuring out what the optimal composition of a bowl of cereal is to prevent cereal sogginess. In 1996, the higher-ups of two tobacco companies won the medicine prize for testifying to U.S. Congress that nicotine is not addictive. In 1998, Jerald Bain and Kerry Siminoski won the statistics prize for testing the statistical relationship between height, foot size and penis length. The 2004 peace prize was given to the inventor of karaoke. The 2012 neuroscience prize was given to a study that showed you can find brain activity in anything, including a dead salmon. The 2018 nutrition prize was given to James Cole for calculating that a cannibalistic diet is significantly worse than any other meat-based diet. The 2023 mechanical engineering prize was given to the study that figured out how to use dead spiders as mechanical gripping tools.

Yes, these are all a little bit ridiculous and goofy, but I think that’s what makes them so important and beloved. It isn’t like these studies don’t have wide-reaching importance either. Andre Geim, winner of the 2000 Ig Nobel prize in physics for magnetically levitating a frog, later won the actual Nobel Prize in Physics for his research on graphene. Many of the psychology and neuroscience winners have studies that have had immense effects on the field. A study on mosquitos and cheese has helped prevent the spread of malaria.

Art by Jasmin Small

Trivial research isn’t just trivial, it is something someone was interested in enough to devote time and effort into. The Ig Nobels are a celebration of just that, the curiosity and creativity of the human race, as well as a criticism of those who use status and power to undermine the value of scientific investigation and discovery. Why does all research have to be so serious and purposeful? Sometimes the simplest and silliest of investigations yield the most poignant of results. I highly encourage you to watch the digital webcast of the ceremony that streamed on the 14th of September, just like I have. It’s a good reminder to not take yourself too seriously, and to allow yourself to do the things that interest you, even if they don’t seem to have a higher purpose or value.

Art by

Jasmin Small

Art by Jasmin Small

54.

FADE IN:

EXT. PARK - AFTERNOON

The First Love

Lara Connolly

A MAN and a WOMAN, who remain nameless, are sitting close together on a bench in a fairly typical Australian park, similar to what one would see in Sydney. There is a path behind the bench leading out of view. The couple on the bench are the kind of bland innocuous people that you wouldn’t think twice about walking past on the street. They are depicted from the waist up, and throughout the scene the camera is slowly zooming out. There is sappy romantic music playing, as if they are in a cartoon.

Man

Are you really a pilot? That must be incredible.

The Man’s mouth moves AFTER the dialogue has finished, as if in a poorly dubbed video. From this point onwards the couple on the bench do not speak at all in time with any of the audio.

Woman

Yeah I love it, I’ve always felt so at home in the sky, like I belong there, y’know?

Man

I absolutely get you! I have always loved flying! Something about being so far above everything, you really get the bird’s eye view and all.

Woman

(With a warmth in her voice)

Yeah it really is wonderful.

(Beat)

I just realised you never told me what you do for work!

Man

Oh it’s nowhere near as cool as what you do, but I do love it! I’m a dentist.

Woman

No, that’s incredible! You must be crazy smart!

Man

You’re too sweet, it is a great job.

Woman

It does seem like the kind of job you’d have to love. I don’t think I could enjoy looking into people’s mouths all day.

Art by Jasmin Small

The man laughs.

Man

That’s fair. It isn’t always the most fun, but I like helping people.

The slow outwards zoom has revealed that the pair on the bench are feeding cardboardlooking white bread out of a plastic supermarket bread bag to unseen creatures in the park. The sun begins setting in a gloriously romantic wash of vivid oranges, purples, and reds. It’s sickeningly, disgustingly beautiful, and could not be more perfect for the end of a first date. It’s as if the weather itself had been reading sappy romance novels for weeks in preparation.

Woman

Y’know. It’s really easy to talk to you.

Man

I know exactly what you mean.

The woman notices that the sun is setting.

Woman

Is the sun setting? I didn’t realise it was so late.

Man

Me neither! I’ve been having a really amazing time.

Woman

Me too…

The slow outwards zoom of the shot has revealed that the human couple on the bench are feeding two ducks in the park, and it is actually the two ducks on the date, not the people. This is why you could hear their voices but not see them talking. Both ducks are a mottled combination of brown’s, with yellow feet and a black beak. The two ducks almost mirror the positioning of the couple on the bench, with the male duck (distinguished by the hint of purple-green feathers on his side) standing in front of the man on the bench and the female duck waddling in front of the woman. The only difference is that the ducks have their faces turned to look at one another, gazing at each other as if they are the most wonderful thing they have seen in a long long time. The sappy music begins again. The two ducks shuffle in closer together, and the male duck puts his wing over the back of his date, pulling her into him. The almost sickeningly romantic music has twice the gusto it had before.

Female Duck

I should probably be going soon, I really do need to get home before it gets too dark.

She looks up at him longingly, if she had eyelashes she would be batting them at him.

Male Duck

THE END 56.

Of course, I’ll swim with you. I really enjoyed today. Thank you so much for coming out with me.

Female Duck

Any time.

Beat. The male duck is working up courage.

Male Duck

Would it be all right if I kissed you? I’d really like to.

Female duck

I’d love that.

The romantic music begins to swell, and the tension is so intense you could cut it with a knife. The pair of ducks lean in towards each other simultaneously and it is as if time slows down as their beaks gently touch for the perfect first kiss. A large cartoon style heart appears on the centre of the screen with the words “The End” in the middle.

FADE TO BLACK

Art by Xiaochen ‘Fiona’ Bao

The Chess Set

Christian Robles

Peering, the darkness pierces our abode.

You told me it was nine.

The damp eyes of a child

Stare longingly into the street-lit black.

There is deception amongst the darkness.

I wait for the cold bull

To emerge from it.

Welcome to our China shop.

You’re back, Señor.

It’s too cold to run to you, So we wait as you walk to us

With your Santa-sack.

Inside Pandora’s Box

There is a chess set,

Inscripted with a language I can’t read And such a stoicism I can’t reach.

I was baffled by such a grandiose, Complex thing.

Veiled in thin squares of Mexican wood, I could feel it looking, poking at me.

It was almost talking to me. It was enticing, scary.

I was a child, Obsessed with the material things.

Times were much simpler then.

I remember you playing with me and that forest of baby pawns.

I didn’t know the rules.

I still don’t.

You always played with me, no one else. Perhaps in secret, you did.

You carved that chess set out of yourself. Adam and his ribs are jealous of you.

O, where is my queen?

I gave her up for the sake of you. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh, The baby gave to God.

by Jocelyn Wong

It wasn’t just her:

Bishop, knight, the other pawns.

I was an addict, hooked

To that horrid game.

Too often I gave up.

I wanted to cry, storm out, inevitably relapse.

But as I turned towards the exit, You were always there.

Your world consumed me. It scared me.

You dressed me in Isadora’s scarf. You lodged a chess piece in my throat.

You were the matador.

You were the opus.

The picture always escaped me,

But I’m sure it was splendid.

You never expect to come home to that.

A part of me died, but you Were burning, alive.

I knew this was the end.

I began to cry out.

Why end like that? Why live like this?

You might as well have been dead.

My only souvenir, the chess set.

I could barely see it.

O God, resurrect me.

You coaxed me like an old, steaming Aztec.

Yes,

Huitzilopochtli, it is I.

Would you like my tona?

Too late, you already took it.

I lay dead on the chessboard altar.

And him, Moctezuma.

No one knows where he went.

No one knows where you went.

Perhaps he choked on the roble chess set.

It’s my turn now.

I want to kill you.

I want to writhe in that sweet blood-nectar. I want to, but The Scream terrifies me.

I will always love you. I will always cry for you With a pained Niagara, And The Scream.

O, The Scream. It pains me. It knocks the pieces off their perch In desperate agony. I am in the sand reaching out to you

Like dust particles in a baby’s hand. Take me, Glaucus, With your sandy hooks, Your shiny knife.

Rip me apart and let The Scream escape. Please, please, please, I cry. Why won’t you do it?

Why leave it to me— I don’t want this.

And so, I take that gorgeous knife, Raise it like an Aztec, And plunge it into your eggshell heart, My tears swept into the blue abyss.

That chess set now stands in a corner, On a shelf, Dusty, with pieces missing. Still, they all lead to you.

Vampira Obscura Lee-Francis Evatt

We depend on another

We share a point of view

Through a glass no bigger than your thumbnail

We create an editorial of the room

Though I hide in her shadow

She is my hat

A Philip Treacy style fascinator

She made from lost feathers

She is fashionable

I am plain

She is my eyes

I am her translator

We are two outsiders at a party

Sharing a look

Another look

A private channel coded in pixels

In the dark and there is a lag

Like an Eadward Muybridge motion study

On a single frame with a strobing flash

I see everywhere I’ve been

She catches my hands

All ten of them

She leaves and I gain opacity

I have new stains on my shirt

They disappear with the new day’s light

I empty her bag

A glittering diet of petrified bodies

Spill out onto my laptop

I keep some and throw others out

To make room

So she can digest

Another night’s muse

Art by Jasmin Small

by Brandon Sung

Night Cries Anonymous

Between two –body and wound, I dwell.

I am the dweller, Caught in the doorway

Between blood and bruise.

Unsheathed, a bottle

Breaks in my throat; I am a newborn.

I taste the brandy. It is not as sweet as they say –It may never be as sweet again.

Art

Photography by Lekh Bhatia

Adams

WWe would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which Woroni operates, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples. We pay our respects to Elders past and present. Their land was forcibly stolen, and sovereignty was never ceded.

The name Woroni, which means “mouth”, was taken from the Wadi Wadi Nation without permission. Consultation with First Nations people recommended that Woroni continue to use the word, provided we acknowledge the theft, and continue to strive for better reconciliation in future. Woroni aims to provide a platform for First Nations students to hold the University, its community, and ourselves accountable.

It might sometimes feel as if the worst horrors of colonisation are past, as if they happened in a different, more brutal world than this one. But the same Australian government that took Indigenous children from their families in the 1900s incarcerates children as young as ten years old today, the majority of whom are Indigenous. If we separate ourselves and our times from colonisation, we cannot properly acknowledge and work to amend its long-lasting impact.

This land always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.