ISSUE 109 - CAUSE & EFFECT

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issue

Play Stupid Games Pg. 04

The Perspective of a Bee Pg. 18

Heart Heavy Pg. 24

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Editor In-Chief Hello, It feels like this year is flying past as we arrive here at Issue 109. Being in fourth year, we have been feeling the impact of our university experience so far- in tiredness, yes, but also in how much we’ve changed. I hardly recognise myself (thank goodness- there were some very questionable ‘outfits’ back then)! Every time we pick up a pen, move a limb, or express ourselves, we become cause to a looming effect (or affect). In this issue, we consider the cause & effect cycle of the world and ourselves.

The team worked very hard and produced something magnificent as always. Who knows the effect this issue will have on you or on us down the line? Keep us posted.

Love, Hannah Hamilton & Arianna De Prosperis

Creative Directors Hi everyone!

As we release the last issue that we will be working on, we want to thank each and every one of you for being part of this journey. From designers to illustrators to writers, everyone poured their heart and talent into making this magazine a true reflection of our community. This issue is filled with stories that capture our shared experiences, insights, and passions. It’s been an unforgettable ride, and we’re proud to share this last issue with you.

Thank you for reading and inspiring us every step of the way!

Best, Afia Zaman & Luna Jezzard

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What's 16

Creative

6

16

My Autistic Experience With Alcohol

17

A Quiet Haunting

18

The Perspective of a Bee

Feature

20 It Was Not A Castle

06 Play Stupid Games

22 Featured Artist 24 Heart Heavy

Culture 10

Pornography as a Rhizomatic Network

12

Junji Ito and the Horror of Spectacle

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Shaken, Not *******: The Censorship of James Bond 007

14

Menstrual Rage on HELLCATS

26 Words Make Mulch; Forest Makes Song

38 Opinions 38 Jaws Dropped: How a Shark Movie Sent Real Sharks into Crisis

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Lifestyle 27

CreateSpace: a Space for Creativity

28 Exec Check 29 Save Me, Student!

30 Swing Dance Society 31

History Society

32 Don't be a Mug, Test Your Drugs 34 A Bigger Dee 36 Colleen Hoover and Romanticising of Abuse

Inside?

Words: Hannah Linda Hamilton

Play Stupid Games A woman is hanging between two electrical wires, a man swats another man whilst both ride motorcycles, a jeep being towed attempts to drive away and is yanked backwards by the chain connecting it to the tow truck. All around the world, people play stupid games and win stupid prizes.

If you’re not familiar with the phrase, you can probably guess at both its meaning and the consequences of the aforementioned actions. On Reddit, moments such as these are catalogued on r/winstupidprizes- a place you can go if you ever feel that you have played a stupid game and would like to see someone play a stupider one. It’s a commonly sought comfort. In German, the experience of feeling pleasure at someone else’s misfortune is called ‘schadenfraude’. It has a basis in psychology also, as a perceived ‘lowering’ of someone else’s social status can feel like a lifting of yours. It’s natural, and more often occurs when we feel the lowering is ‘justified’ as the person who is humiliated is dislikable and of higher status than ourself. We want to see people ‘brought down to size’ as it were.

Why, then, is the misfortune of strangers on the internet so satisfying? A person riding a bike down subway stairs inevitably tumbles off the bike and down

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to the bottom, the video of this is posted to r/winstupidprizes and in 4 days has 3.5k upvotes. People are enjoying this rider’s pain!

Perhaps the key here is the anonymity of the ‘player’. As far as the internet audience knows, the defining feature of the cyclist is that they apparently thought it was a good idea to ride a bike down the subway stairs. The caption supports this: ‘Maybe if we ride our bike down into the subway, we’ll get there even faster’. It’s easy to depersonalise this rider from ourselves, after all- we’re not the ones at the bottom of the steps bruised and bashful.

We are all, to some degree, stupid” So, when we see misfortune online and feel pleasure- is that proof of an inherent evil?

Well, no. Not really, it’s completely natural in terms of being a social creature and, what’s more than that, there’s no accounting for humour. Even so, the sharing of our embarrassment or confession of our inadequacy of judgement can be a completely healthy and beneficial act. I’d like to posit to you another infamous corner of Reddit as ana example of the positive

Feature

Design: Afia Zaman

benefits of subjugation by means of ego: r/AITA. ‘Am I The Asshole?’ is the question asked hundreds of times a day on this subreddit, the description of which declares it: “A catharsis for the frustrated moral philosopher in all of us, and a place to finally find out if you were wrong in an argument that’s been bothering you.”

Catharsis is a sought-after sensation, the word itself originates from Greek katharsis, from kathairein ‘cleanse’, from katharos ‘pure’. It makes perfect sense with the context, in fact one has to wonder if the ancient Greeks didn’t participate in something similar. You could say the tradition of Greek tragedy echoes our own fascination with the misery of others. Downfall and catharsis were key components of Tragic theatre which often chronicled the downfall of a hero.

In modern Western culture, we understand tragedy to have a close link to comedy. Most ‘jokes’ are predicated on the misfortune of others- as in Looney Tunes when Wile.E.Coyote is flattened by an anvil after four minutes of chasing the Road Runner. We understand Mr. Coyote to be Feature

“Misfortune of others is satisfying”

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Words: Hannah Linda Hamilton

an antagonist, deserving of his ‘comeuppance’ and so his downfall is catharsis. Maybe this irony is what makes the catharsis comical, or perhaps it is the pain itself. Either way, much like on r/winstupidprizes, the audience can feel good about themselves because they would never be so stupid.

Except, at some point, we all are and this is why r/AITA is significant to this article.

On this subreddit, posters are encouraged to reconsider their actions. Yes, they are berated at times for their moral failings or embarrassing mistakes, but more often than not they confess themselves asking for advice.

Space for a mistake is necessary in life. We all need somewhere we can safely be told we are being an ‘asshole’ and how we can change. To win a stupid prize need not be a tragedy or a comedy, but could be simply a ‘prize’. We learn not to do something we didn’t know not to do before. We grow, and in growing shed our shame. r/AITA is an oddly hopeful corner of the internet where people reassure or redirect one another. You can unburden yourself of your failure and in doing so find catharsis. When we share our faults, we can all feel a little less alone in having them. It has genuine social utility, as well as the usual mindless internet chatter.

“Our every action is a confession”

The whole social machine of the internet, and perhaps all Western individualcentric culture, is particularly effective at 08

keeping morale low. Your existence online is precipitated upon you revealing parts of your self in the process of being in that space.

Every like, every image of you or something else, every comment or cookie trailing along your digital footprint. We are exposed, our every action is a confession of ourselves in the eyes of the internet. So, our embarrassing moments can feel a little less transitory and a little more like permanent burden. The addition of a camera makes fallibility an inevitability, no moment can be forgotten.

This is not true only of our digital age, in fact it has always been potentially so, but certainly now the evidence of our mistakes makes the case for imperfection much more compelling.

The thing about the internet is it puts a lot of different people in one place, we all coexist online to varying degrees depending on access, but within largely the same spaces. There are translation services, servers that connect opposite sides of the world, forums where opposite viewpoints collide, all of us in a melting pot of perspective. It’s the wild west in terms of being an equaliser to those with free access. I mean, in a world where billionaire Elon Musk argues with school children on Threads over name-calling, everyone can feel good about something. Somehow, though, everyone seems generally miserableprobably something to do with the existence of billionaires- and so, catharsis over the misery of strangers makes perfect sense in context of raising the morale of a generally melancholic population makes sense.

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Design: Afia Zaman

Despite the murkiness that deepfake technology has imbued upon reality, the existence of our face or form in an embarrassing video haunts us perhaps for the precise reason that it is ours. Where there may be uncertainty cast by the general public, we will always know ourselves to

Your failures might be silly, but human” be ourselves and this knowledge can be of great burden. Someday, any day, someone could identify us as ‘that person that did that thing once’. When every day feels like an exposure, or a lowering, the misfortune of others sneaks up like a false dawn. ‘There is a person provoking a bear and running away, at least that’s not me’. Yes, your problems and failures might be stupid, but they are not provoking a bear- that’s stupid .

If this sounds like a lack of compassion, that’s because – to a certain degree- it is. Taken to extreme heights it can mean that the suffering of others is wished for by the internally miserable person. Celebrities like musician Chappell Roan feel the sting of a public that wishes their good fortune turned sour. Chappell has recently come under severe and nauseating criticism over her request for personal privacy after extreme scrutiny, and physical endangerment, at the hands of the public. A public that claims their Feature

suffering is ‘deserved’, ‘asked for’, ‘part of the job’. Obviously, the suffering of someone with the means to support their life away from antagonism is not the supreme tragedy of the world, however it exemplifies the insidious nature of our obsession with verifying our own status. We are more because they are less; they are more so should be treated as less.

We are obsessed with a perceived social hierarchy that distracts from the sheer fact that we are all, to some degree, stupid. Beating yourself up over a small lapse in judgement distracts energy away from directing judgement towards people whose ‘lapses’ in judgement bring devastating consequences. The next time you find yourself somewhere at the point of realisation that you are, in fact, playing a very stupid game and about to win a stupid prize; consider taking a moment to commit it to memory. Ask yourself whether this moment denotes you as the ‘stupidest person to have lived’ or whether you are just human. Tell the story, don’t be ashamed, let people laughit might have been funny, it might have been silly, but whatever you did was likely not as embarrassing as it could have been.

Provided you didn’t invent another atom bomb, or hoard millions whilst people starve, or something else heinous, you’re probably fine. To mess up is entirely human, to feel pleasure in other’s misfortune is human too, but try to keep clear in your mind that all humans are just quite stupid, but not all of them cause actual harm or feel actual pleasure at the pain of others. So, within reason- and hopefully with supervision or support- why not play a stupid game?

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Words: Amy Williamson

Pornography as a Rhizomatic Network !

CONTENT WARNING: PORNOGRAPHY

‘Whenever desire climbs a tree, internal repercussions trip it up and it falls to its death; the rhizome, on the other hand, acts on desire by external, productive outgrowths.’

Deleuze & Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1980)

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ornography of the contemporary is a stranger to any idea of genetic axis or deep structure.

It is vast, interconnected, non-linear, and without hierarchal structure. This has only been furthered by the conception of the internet in creating a burgeoning industry of availability living within networks of images.

Building from the works of Deleuze and Guattari, porn can be understood as a space where desire operates rhizomatically.

A rhizome, as both the plant stem and the poststructuralist conception within philosophy, is a stem 10

that sends out roots through which it retains the ability to grow new shoots upwards.

Deleuze and Guattari use this botanical imagery to depict a network of multiplicity that operates in perpetual transformation, in the social, the political, and the pornographic. Traditionally, Western philosophy suggests a linear progression of knowledge, wanting to get to the bottom of things through a model of arborescent thinking and branching from there. Arborescence is that which has an ordering, defined structure, its primary image being a tree as the branches start from the

trunk and move outwards.

In contrast, the rhizome is posited as a bendy root system which has no starting point, in complete flux.

Rhizomes, unlike trees, do not have higher keys; they do not refer back to any centre. Every single branch in a tree must refer back to a single point. In a rhizome, there is no such point of origin, from any spot, in any direction. Potatoes grow in a rhizomatic fashion just as much as porn. In the digital world, it is a sprawling network of roots, denying singularity. Rhizomes are not bound in the lambasted and scandalised which treats Culture

Design: Luna Jezzard

shown to use the shock of sex to critique religious and political authority, especially within the 1500–1800s. desire as an appendix that is poised to rupture.

The current debate surrounding pornography in philosophical enquiry is regarding its moral status. A value-neutral description of a pornographic representation combines two key points: it has a certain intention or function to arouse its audience sexually, and it has a specific content of explicit representations of sexual material. An application of Deleuzian concepts into the social issue of pornography, namely whether it is moral and/or ethical, looks to bludgeon the discussion entirely in search of breaking away from fixed binaries of right/wrong and good/ bad, because of this constant process of disintegration and development. Porn has continually been shown to regrow in new forms, segmentary lines, and territorialisations. Though it is tempting to regard porn as only having one, rudimentary purpose, that being to arouse, pornography has categorically been Culture

Whilst feminist philosophers rightly highlight the moral dangers of modern pornography in systematically eroticising aspects of gender inequality and the damaging effects this has on the consumer, its violation of social and moral laws provides a basis for another disposition: aversion, awe, et cetera.

A network of desires in which porn, as a rhizomatic network, is a realm where sexuality is continually in the process of emerging, fluctuating, always creating new forms, expressions, and relationships. Dissemination of sexual imagery which wishes to explore fetish, transgression, and sex outwith the normative seeks to reveal this creative becoming that would stray from the anxiety of the arborescent.

Porn experiences aborification despite its existence within a rhizome, as not everything functions as a rhizome—Pornhub being just one example.

Pornhub follows controlled

mechanisms and a hierarchal structure. Desire is made anew in the rhizome only to be clawed at through mechanisms such as capitalism (conducive to the growth and proliferation of Pornhub) which seek to distort and reterritorialise desire by siphoning it back into commodification and constraint. It is the broader ecosystem of porn that functions as a decentralised network of distribution.

Even if a rhizome is fractured or shattered at a single point, it will regenerate at another point, old or new.

Even if Pornhub were to be deleted from the internet, this disruption would not eliminate the risk of encountering systems that reestablish a similar authority around a central symbol or those that reconstitute a subject through imposed meanings.

Pornography, viewed through the rhizome metaphor, reveals its ubiquity as both a cultural and digital phenomenon, where no single source can disrupt its network. It transcends traditional morality and ideology, instead functioning as a desiring-machine that perpetuates a fetishistic exchange within a realm of constant interconnection and flux. Inside this digital landscape, pornography expands its territory through deterritorialisation, extending its lines of flight to the point of invisibility.

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Words: Words: Ross Writers Allan, Name Design: Jasmine Etridge

Junji Ito

and the Horrror of Spectacle In a conventional narrative, the role of the character is paramount.

They are causally integrated with the plot; their actions and choices, witting or otherwise, create future situations they must contend with, thus constituting the driving force of narrative. This role is understood by the reader. We form attachments to those who helm the story, we mourn their losses and celebrate their triumph. I ask, however, what if this role was subverted? What if it was sidelined, in a narrative driven not by the forward motion of a character, but by a fate they will ultimately endure?

Enter Japanese graphic novelist Junji Ito, whose delightful brand of surreal horror has haunted my nightmares for the last decade. Ito’s stories follow an atypical framework, as characters are barely introduced, then relegated to a passive role in which their decisions are given little weight. They exist to fulfil a sole narrative purpose: whatever deranged spectacle Ito subjects them to. This outcome is not the result of their agency, and Ito rarely offers explanation for why it is happening in the first place. It simply does, and the poor souls he writes are created solely to bear witness.

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In Uzumaki (1998-99), the tale of a town haunted by malignant spirals, the female lead Kirie has her hair turn sapient in the chapter entitled ‘Medusa’. This change is sudden, unexplained, and most crucially, beyond her control. She is forced into passivity as her own body, symbolic of her agency, rebels against her. In House of the Marionettes (1997), perhaps the story most indicative of character impotence, a family willingly submit to a life as puppets, their bodies strung up and controlled by unseen puppeteers living in their ceiling. Tomie, the most prominent of Ito’s scarce recurring figures, is defined by her deference. The immortal girl possesses the unique ability to drive her suitors mad, a power that frequently culminates in her own murder. Even still, Tomie’s role is passive. She makes no real effort to entrap her victims, and the horrors play out by no choice of her own, only as a byproduct of her presence.

In these stories, Ito effectively decentralises his own characters, deconstructing the narrative principles of cause and effect. The narrative is indifferent to their will and they exist only as its victims, haplessly strung along by the cruel puppeteers above. Within this, we glean an insight into life as Ito presents it: a wholly unrelated series of misfortunes we can do nothing but observe.

Culture Section Title Here

Words: Tom Christison, Design: Rachel Maclean

SHAKEN, NOT *******: The Censorship of James Bond 007 Ian Fleming published the novel Casino Royale, introducing the world to legendary secret agent 007, James Bond, 70 years ago. To celebrate this anniversary, all of Fleming’s Bond novels were reissued. This quickly sparked controversy when it was announced that certain edits would be made to the original texts in order to align with modern concerns and sensibilities. Similar controversies have surrounded the works of authors like Roald Dahl—who actually penned a Bond screenplay— and Agatha Christie, whose publications were also updated to reflect changing times. The news of these alterations left die-hard Bond fans and literary critics both shaken and stirred.

Fleming’s work reflects the attitudes and language of his time, especially towards women and ethnicities. The edits were not intended to undermine Fleming’s legacy but to make the novels more appealing and accessible to modern readers. Each new edition will include a disclaimer in the peritext, noting that the book was written at a time when certain terms and attitudes were commonplace but are now considered offensive. This transparency aims to respect the historical context while acknowledging the need for sensitivity.

The concern posed by critics is that the texts should be read in their original form to avoid distorting historical realities and ‘sanitising’ the past. They believe that reading these novels as they were originally written offers valuable insight into the social attitudes of the time. On the other hand, defenders of the edits contend that the changes make the texts Culture

more accessible and allow the iconic stories to endure without perpetuating harmful stereotypes. They emphasise that these novels have been in circulation for 70 years and will soon enter the public domain, where the original versions will remain available.

The most censored of the series is perhaps Live and Let Die, the second Bond novel. In the original edition, set predominately in Harlem, Fleming used racist pejoratives to describe the Black neighbourhood.

These remarks have been removed in the reissue. Interestingly, the U.S. edition of this novel, authorised by Fleming himself, always included select edits regarding ethnicity—showing that censorship of these works is not a new phenomenon and that the author himself was open to changes.

The broader debate on literary censorship revolves around balancing the preservation of historical context and artistic intent with the need to address modern sensitivities in older works of literature. While the fear of modern sensibilities erasing the past is a valid concern, the availability of both the original and edited editions should demonstrate respect for the original texts while recognising the importance of preventing the perpetuation of outdated prejudices.

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Words: Mia Duffy

If you’ve been keeping up with the Magdalen online, then you know in September we wrote several articles for Dundee Fringe shows. If you fancy more info from behind the minds of theatre group Menstrual Rage, then keep reading to see some of the interviews that didn’t make the review.

What inspired HELLCATS? What about 17th-century witch trials?

Hannah: So, I was inspired because there is a book called Where There’s Muck, There’s Bras, which is about Northern [English] women throughout history. The first chapter was about the Pendle witches—and I’ve never heard of the Pendle witches at this point.

I was like, ‘Oh, that’s cool.’ The original idea was going to be based on the transcript of the Pendle Witch Trials, which still exist.

We’re all from the northeast of England, and I thought, well, we all live there. I found out about the Newcastle Witch Trials—really close to home, which, again, I hadn’t heard about, and I don’t think many people had.

So, a lot of the stuff in HELLCATS is directly inspired by the Newcastle Witch Trials.

Like, someone being too pretty to be a witch actually did happen. Blood coming out of someone’s mouth when they were hanged did happen. And then they were like, whoops, looks like we got it wrong.

I looked on your website and saw that a lot of your shows are related to moments in history. How do you choose specific moments in history to create a show from?

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Gemma: I feel like it’s not a specific moment in history. It’s more of, ‘What message do we want to put across?’

Hannah: Menstrual Rage sort of started in mine and Danny’s third year of uni. So that was in 2021. In my final major project, you had to pitch something, and I was a big Jane Austen fan, so I pitched an adaptation of Emma by Jane Austen, and that did really well. We found a way we liked working with Emma. And then the next two projects we did, we went the complete opposite way, and did And Me, which was about sexual harassment and Get Loud, which was based on the 90s Riot Girls.

Phoebe: I think, as well, though, with a lot of the plays that, [Hannah and Danny] write and adapt, you end up almost changing the narrative, to make it like a, ‘Come on, lass, yeah!’

How do you all decide what characters to play?

Hannah: Me and Danny, we started the company and are legally the directors.

Basically, for Hellcats, we came up with characters and came up with a plot bit by bit. We knew we wanted to have five cast members, so we then worked out which characters could be played by the same person, because they weren’t in the same scene. And then sort of worked from there.

We wouldn’t cast someone if we didn’t think they could play multiple things.

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Design: Klaudia Kowalczyk

And it’s really important for us as well that people who we cast have similar ideologies and views as we do. There’s some actors who we’ve come across over the years that I think are absolutely fab, but their views don’t necessarily align with what Menstrual Rage is.

Danny: It might be something as simple as a few years ago, we saw something you posted online that we don’t agree with, so we don’t want to work with you.

Your digital footprint is a real thing.

What do you want audiences to take away from your performances?

Danny: It’s always nice thinking you’re teaching people things, whether it’s like actual historical facts or making people have those questions around their head.

Like, ‘Has anything actually really changed?’

We’ve still got Taylor Swift being accused of being a witch and all of that sort of thing.

We’re not hanging witches anymore, but there’s still that sort of prejudice towards working-class women and women that don’t fit into the norm and that fearmongering.

House of Commons, and the Tories accused her of doing the same thing and trying to distract the men when she literally just crossed her legs. And she’s a northern working-class woman who’s in a position of power, and obviously, these men did not like that. And she was sort of victimised.

It was like, it’s the same thing that was happening all those years ago, just in a more modern setting.

Danny: We’re called Menstrual Rage for a reason. We want to make people angry and want to make them sort of want change, and I think sometimes comedy is the best way.

We always say that if you can get people laughing, they’ll listen to you.

More info on Menstrual Rage can be found on their website www.menstrualragetheatre.co.uk

Hannah: Drawing parallels to today is important. We mention in the second rap Angela Rayner, and last year [or] the year before [she] was accused of doing, what’s that film—Fatal Attraction? When she crosses her legs. Well, the character uncrosses her legs, and basically she’s wearing no underwear, Angela Rayner crossed her legs in the Culture

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Words: Sage Cormack, Design: Heidi Le

My Autistic Experience with Alcohol

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CONTENT WARNING: ALCOHOL ABUSE, SELF-HARM, MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES

Does anyone remember the no-smoking talk in primary school? I still remember that jar of black tar and mucus they showed us, a crude example of the state our lungs would be in if we partook in such an activity.

Back then, I vowed against smoking, alcohol, and drugs from that point on, as any child would. Why would anyone do something they knew was bad for them?

I had my first drink at 15. Nothing crazy, just a cider to celebrate my National 5 results. Before then I had only ever indulged in a pinkie dip of my dad’s red wine at Christmas or a sip of whisky that would make my sister and I cough. I had never really experimented with alcohol, but that night as I fell into fits of laughter and hysteria, I learned very quickly that in the drinking world, I was a lightweight.

I had recently been diagnosed as autistic and discovered that autistic people tend to have a lower alcohol tolerance, hence the giddiness I felt after one drink in comparison to friends, who needed many more to feel similar.

I was teased by my friends for not being able to manage my drink, but I wasn’t the only one and that felt good. I needed to keep up with everyone, needed to keep drinking.

I became convinced that being seen as drunk was better than being seen as autistic.

I found freedom in each sip, felt my senses muffle and my shame lessen.

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There was never any benefit to what I did.

I would drink until I threw up so violently that the blood vessels in my face burst, only to continue. I simply could not accept being autistic. I craved the experiences of my friends, seemingly so far from reach.

Even after five years, I still catch myself wanting a drink at any inconvenience.

Oddly enough, my saviour was in fact the harbinger of the worst experience of my life.

Let’s just say a bottle of rose nine shots of rum and an edible is not the recipe for success.

I avoided drinking for months, and, for a while, put the worst behind me.

Recently, I have struggled to stop smoking.

I never feel good after a cigarette, but I need something to do with my hands, to take the edge off whatever alcohol is lacking. The road to recovery is not linear and I have gotten as far as accepting that there is a problem.

So, to whoever else may be struggling with drinking and smoking culture I see you and it will get better for us.

Creative

Words: Holly Flynn

The sun shines down on the woodlands as the majestic trees stand in their glory facing the bright blue sky.

Hums and chirps of bird’s echo across the land, as they have conversations I recognise due to the familiar melodies. Morning dew covers all of our stripey coats, making us glisten in the sun’s rays. Today, we are particularly busy with a long list of orders from our Queen.

The orders do not bother me. I quite like them as they make my life worth living. In fact, she makes all of our lives worth living. It is the strong bond of working together for her that keeps us busy, and more importantly alive.

Mornings like this are often quite tranquil, as only us who belong here swarm around each other as we start our tasks. The land is at peace and so are we.

It is the regular flowers that grab my attention, their petals stained with deep

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reds, luminous yellows, and calm purples. As I sip their foods I can’t help but think about how I am one step closer to the continuation of harvests, along with fulfilling Her Majesty’s wishes. It is a good relationship we have with the land; the flowers help us and in return we help them, and the nature that surrounds us. There are often a few problems we face when we try to do our jobs, either fast-paced hairy creatures try to eat us, or the giants try to squish us. I have heard the giants speak about the wonders of Mother Nature so admirably, yet it is their kind that seems to destroy it. They are often what we speak about when we fly, our conversations vibrating in harmony throughout the green meadows. Something we can never understand about them is their cruelty.

If you find something fascinating, why would you ruin it?

The freedom to fly around the land is the best part of my day, and the sweet smell of food happens to be my favourite. I dance in the breeze, sharing my findings with my friends. Teamwork is important to us, so I never second guess if I should share my food or not. We know that the giants also benefit from our work, as they eat and drink the crops we pollinate. They never seem to share, always greedily guarding their crops and eating as quickly as possible as they discreetly look at each other with beady eyes.

Whenever we retreat back home, we have come to learn to flee and seek refuge in the

Creative

Design: Mia Duffy

blades of grass whenever we hear their deafening footsteps.

The city of hexagonal chambers awaits us along with our Queen, and we won’t be stopped by anyone.

We all serve her with an unwavering loyalty that is completely foreign to the giants, her wisdom being a trait that influences us.

She tends to speak about the history of the giants, how at one point they were closely connected to nature but now they live in places far away. It is a story that has been passed down to Her by our ancestors. She believes our land provides them with an escape, but what from is something she does not know. We remember the faces of those who often stride through here, and we never forget the faces of the ruthless giants.

They come and chop down the trees, ruining the birds’ homes and killing

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our friends who live within the tree’s roots. Destroying is their only purpose, they never come here to cherish nature, only to damage and exploit it. Our ancestors state nature and giants were once at one together, both equally relying on each other for their existence, but now it seems the giants believe they are more superior as they take and don’t give back. Why do all the other giants allow this to happen?

Is it something they agree with, or do they sit in silent horror when they are told?

We know the giants better than they think. Some of them have a stench that is produced whenever we go near them, which means they are fearful of us. It is rather humorous and absurd to know that such huge creatures can be scared of us. They

ought to direct their fears towards how they treat this world. Not us who mind our business as we work. The rage I feel gets me buzzing, but I never attack, even when their response towards us is violent. Unlike the giants, we care about the survival of our colony and nature.

We know we must work hard to keep the cycle of life turning in this world. We are one of the many reasons they have what they have.

So, before the time comes when you try to swat one of us as we fly beside you, or you try to tear apart bits of nature, I want to ask you one thing. Without nature and without us, where would you be?

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Words: B. S. Pace

It Was Not A Castle Often in the woods, One comes across a half-formed thought: A bassinet of branches.

In frail heap that passing feet Have trodden into disrepair.

I pass and think of one who tried To make a shelter there.

Where light is broken by bodies,

I was once a builder of woods,

Enormous to shelters compare,

Would often think it escape,

And undergrowth takes offering

Burrowed inside clotted hide;

Of the structure raised from its skin;

Another paling, sodden leaf

Like boil or bone or goosebump

In a carpet of crowns:

That raises us from within.

Golden, amber, ruby, brown, And the rain leaking in

Did you ever build a forest hideout?

As home called out

Leave the shell for others to find,

Batting warm eyes

Did it become a home, a ship, a castle

Boasting dry arms

Under spell of your mind?

The forest kept me, and still

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Creative

Design: Douglas Pascal

When gale does force itself forward Bandied howls and whispers shake The firs, and feet alike Snatches the winged voice and takes From journey, journey’s joy So all is awash in winded tide And, when hail does pound Dirt door, where way makes a place Between heaven, unknown, and unknown ground Pelted with such passionate aim As to bruise the shoulders, make cautious the hand Seeking steadying that came Like a pen to blankness.

I have thought often of shelter, And found it oftener than that.

Not only in woods, But in half-formed thoughts Shared in a space Creative

left

blank 21

Featured Artist

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Creative

Maggie Thatcher

Creative

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Words: Anonymous

I shall have you put your ear to my chest, Thomas; I would have you hear what ails me.

Pounding my chest like a fist furious at the door.

Do you remember the first time you ate sand?

I am chewing sand in my sleep these days.

It fills my mouth as I relive that day on the beach when you and Father were fishing, and from the tranquil sea there came suddenly a wave rushing over me. That is when I wake up, the moment the swell turns me upside down.

I heard my own blood in that wave, so violently did it shake me. Filling my nostrils, my eardrums, spinning me away like I was nothing more than the sand I sat on.

For a moment, only, I was completely weightless and drifting into the big blue nothing. I still hear it now.

I the

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often long for our dinners on coast. They were divine, though father was firm when he made us gut the fish. To this day, I know myself to gut and debone carcass cleaner

!

CONTENT WARNING: DEATH, GORE

than any other I have seen- except, of course, his. He would smack me when I was clumsy, or too slow, or didn’t finish my food. ‘Can’t be leaving anything to waste, little hare’ he’d say‘little hare’ is what he called me for my hands bounced so when I was excited. His own hands were steady and made delicate work of everything, even a skelp.

You told me we looked alike, but I never saw myself in that scowl.

He hated to see a thing done wrong, to see something wasted on an incompetent job. He never raised a hand for nothing.

When I went under the wave, it was those hands that pulled me out. Every morning, I wake up to that sudden jerk, yet he will never wake again. I weep nightly, Thomas, I think this is why my dreams are of salt.

One thing is changed, inconsistent with the memory, now instead of a sandwich I gnaw on the raw, gaping body of a trout.

Some nights I wish the wave would come quicker than it does.

Creative

Design: Agne Irbe

I do not know the weight of my own heart.

My father, as you know, had a hypertrophic heart. It was nearly 2 pounds when the doctor placed it, weeping red, on the scale.

I never told you this, but I snuck into the morgue that night. I sobbed with such violence that the mortician fetched some tissue, and, in his absence, I ran for that door like a steel eyelid.

I wish you would have seen him there, though I know you would never have wanted to. His face was still, slack, serene.

To think of it now, those muscles in his cheeks and brow must have known their first rest in that room. When I saw the corpse, splayed in the aquatic blue light of the morgue, I could not identify it as my father but rather as some strange fish.

I would not tell this to anyone but yourself

but in that room, amongst the hard lines of clinical apparatus, his heart was glorious. It belonged like it never had in his chest, being so large for it. It was huger than my fist but, I discovered, softer than it seemed.

I confess I held it. How my own heart lurched, Thomas, to touch his. In my chest, suddenly, was a rabbit as frantic as the ones he caught in snares whose felt ears I stood on tip-toes to rub as they hung from the porch. Those rabbits were heavy, too, do you remember?

When I gave one to you to carry last spring you gave a gasp and remarked that you had never expected a creature so light on its feet to weigh so heavy in your hand.

My hand feels light now, Thomas, writing to you. I know you would take this knowledge nowhere but to the dirt.

Thomas, I beg you not to worry. His heart in my hands was silken, cold, perfectly formed.

Creative

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Words: Hannah Linda Hamilton, Design: Anna Melnichenko

Words Make Mulch; Forest Makes Song Bellow sweet beads of air Ornament to the trees Oh, Songbird, what delicate notes are these Upon the margins Of linear wood and wild growth?

You gave song, give brevity To leagues of cowering landscape.

It lingers; a question upon the breeze.

To life That, lo, sways to lyric; deaf to meaning.

Songbird, Will answer end isolation?

Or do you call only to confirm That you can?

At what cost do we let ourselves Be lost to cacophony?

The forest swallows all sound in Hungry clatter, wanton percussion.

You are one small motion in maelstrom Scream, Songbird!

As if air was infatuation; Your song is intoxication To my ear.

Through the din.

You, my alien kin.

Your melody Maestro to my hand, My pen is a nimble dancer Tethered to land, I shall write your answer!

Though I have not the gift To make it sing.

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Creative

Words: By Arianna De Prosperis, Design: Kim Yau

CreateSpace: a Space for Creativity

This article is a summary of the interview we had with Ranya. To read the extended version visit www.themagdalen.co.uk.

During your time at university, you may have stumbled upon a space on the ground level of the Main Library that looked something between an art studio and a study area. Full of interesting equipment and art materials, you might have sat there to enjoy a bit of quiet, but you might have also asked yourself can I use anything in here?

The incredible answer is yes.

This magical space is called the CreateSpace and is open to anyone, student or staff member. We sat down with Ranya Al Ghazi, Library staff member and the CreateSpace Evening Duty Officer, to ask her all the questions that students might have.

The CreateSpace is designed for creativity and mental well-being.

It allows all students to access equipment that usually is available only in DJCAD, with hopes to spark creativity and foster collaboration between students and disciplines.

The project has an emphasis on sustainability and aims to reduce overconsumption by making specialised tools available for casual use instead of having to buy them.

The CreateSpace also collects scraps, from paper to fabric, and collaborates with CAN (Circular Art Network) and Scrapantics to provide several interesting materials available for free.

Lifestyle

The unique space also hosts events during the year. The Stress-Buster Week offers various workshops during exam season which are a great option to take a break from studying , or you can join the sawing club at any point, regardless of what level of experience you have. Societies are welcome to book the space for activities and individual students too.

So, what can you find in the CreateSpace?

The possibilities are endless. Two 3D printers, an embroidery machine, a sewing machine and an overlocker, a badge maker, a sublimator printer, a binding kit, a spiral binder, a vacuum former, a laminator, knitting tools, crocheting hooks, scraps of paper, scraps of fabric, a GoPro, a Canon Mark III, a Wacom graphic tablet, a VR headset and so much more, some of which you can also borrow with your student card just like a library book.

Some of the equipment will require a little bit of induction before you can use it on your own, but staff are in the room to help from Monday to Friday.

The CreateSpace is open on the same schedule as the Main Library making it the perfect place to work on projects at any time.

Find the CreateSpace on Instagram @createspace_uod where you can keep up with the events happening and get in contact with the staff for any questions.

Happy crafting!

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Words: Nihin Akanni, Design: Luna Jezzard

Exec Check

Vice President of Student Wellbeing I’m Nihin, your Vice President of Student Wellbeing (VPSW) at DUSA. In my role, I focus on promoting student wellbeing through various initiatives around mental health, sexual health, and general wellbeing. Whether you’re struggling with something or just need guidance, I’m here to support you. You can reach out to me for anything from mental health challenges to help navigating university resources. My role is all about making sure students feel heard, safe, and supported.

I’m super excited to share that this year, our events for the S.A.F.E (Standing Against Fear and Exploitation) Campaign, which addresses Gender-Based Violence (GBV), have been included in the city-wide campaign design. It’s an incredible opportunity for us to stand together as a community against fear and exploitation.

We have some big events lined up:

Main Event on 26th November: This is going to be a major event, and we need everyone to show up in full force! The more people who attend, the louder our voice becomes.

City-Wide March on 29th November: We’ll be joining the city-wide march at 5pm to show our solidarity with survivors and raise awareness about GBV. Bystander Training on 28th November: We’re partnering with Dundee Women’s Aid and WRASAC to host a bystander intervention training session in the LIAR. This will be a chance to learn how to safely intervene and support those affected by GBV. Closing Event on 9th December: We’re collaborating with Abertay University for a closing event at the Liar. It’ll be a powerful end to the campaign, with students from both universities coming together.

Also, on World Mental Health Day, we’ll be sharing physical wellbeing letters on campus to encourage students to take care of their mental and physical health. It’s important to remind ourselves that looking after both aspects of our health is crucial, especially during busy times like the academic year.

As your VPSW, I am here to support your wellbeing, whether that’s through mental health, sexual health, or general wellbeing concerns. My door is always open for students who need advice, a listening ear, or help connecting with the right resources.

If you’re facing challenges, feel free to 28

reach out to me, whether it’s about mental health, sexual health, wellbeing, or any other concerns you have. I’m also involved in running campaigns, hosting events, and collaborating with city-wide partners to ensure students have access to the best support possible.

Lifestyle

Words: Agony Aunt Maggie, Design: Luna Jezzard

Romantic Troubles

Save me, Student!

"I'm in love with my sister's ex bf. My sister and her ex are still best friends, and I think that he likes me back too. What the hell do I do?"

Wow. Well, my first instinct is to tell you to drop it and take up competitive martial arts as a distraction- you're likely to end up less hurt that way.

That being said, love is love and if what you feel for this person is not going away then you had better at least handle the situation with care. If you and your sister get along, that would make the whole thing easier because it’s likely that she would want what is best for you and her best friend/ex so your mutual affection is only positive. I am assuming you also like your sister, and so would want to minimise any emotional turmoil this might cause her, so I would recommend having a very open, if a little awkward, conversation about it.

Any relationship has its share of tough situations, but you don’t want any potential new match to start on a bad foot by upsetting everyone involved. You want to make sure, for your own sake as well as theirs, that everyone is completely over the past relationship and Lifestyle

in a healthy place regarding their feelings towards each other. Your partner may not always be in your life, but your sister will be so it’s important to think about how that might affect the dynamic between the three of you. Even if you and your sister are not close, she and your crush are, so her feelings will inevitably come into play.

What if you have a fight and they go to your sister- their best friend- for comfort?

You must be secure in your own feelings and open in discussing theirs, so everyone feels safe. Get your talking hat on your head and try to keep it there!

I know how it is when a person starts making your head spin, if you are anything like me you will see that through to its end- even if it only goes as far as asking them out and getting patched- but please try to do it in a way that will protect you and your feelings as much as possible. Make sure you really want it, and if you decide you do- talk about it first!

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Words: Swing Dance Society, Design: Rowena Winkler

Swing Dance Society The Dundee University Swing Dance society (DUSD) is a place where you can step back in time with a classic vintage twist. Come along and learn what to do when the boogie takes over you. If you fancy something “Great Gatsby” style, we provide the tools. Swing dance dominated the 1920s-50s where partnered dance was the craze. Swing dancing encompasses a variety of dances with African American roots originating from Harlem, New York.

They include partnered swing dances such as the Lindy Hop, Charleston, Balboa or Collegiate Shag, but also vernacular Solo Jazz, all of them typically danced to the swing style of jazz music. At Dundee University Swing Dance, we offer classes in the Lindy Hop and Solo Jazz, and sometimes other styles too. Our weekly classes every Thursday will teach you new moves starting at the beginning, so you don’t need to know anything about dance to join in. Come along by yourself, with your friends or flatmates and make yourself some new friends.

Our workshop “Swingin’ Hearts” is a Valentines-themed weekend filled with dance, music and fun. Come and join us for our Lindy Hop dance classes, live music, cocktails, a dance competition, and a fun filled swinging Valentine’s event. Swing dancers, music lovers, and romantics of all kinds are welcome. We have Lindy Hop classes for beginners and more experienced dancers, and even a special evening Lindy Hop crash course for those that have never danced before. The crash course will be followed by our live band who will be bringing back the sounds of the golden age of big band jazz to keep your feet moving till the end of the night.

Swing dance is a wonderfully inclusive society so no matter where you come from or what your story, you will be welcome here. So please come along and give us a try. You’ll soon get into the swing of it!

Besides our classes, we host a number of other socials that range from our bi-weekly pizza pub nights at our sponsor the Giddy Goose, to opportunities to dance like our Halloween and Christmas dances. The society also encourages and promotes participation in weekend workshops with excellent teachers where your dance will begin to flourish. This includes workshops hosted in both Aberdeen and Edinburgh, as well as our own workshop in February “Swingin’ Hearts.”

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Lifestyle

Words: History Society, Design: Rose Allan

History Society - So, what do we do? We aim to offer a little Society Spotlight something for everyone: “You and me got a whole lot of history…” as a famous song goes, and we couldn’t agree more!

Hi there, we are the University of Dundee History Society! Whether you’re a history buff or just looking for a good time, we might just be the society for you!

First, let’s share some fun historical facts about Dundee: • •

• • •

Did you know Winston Churchill once served as the MP for Dundee?

Dundee was besieged in 1651 during the Anglo-Scottish War, where Cromwell’s forces triumphed over the Scottish Covenanters.

It was the first city in Scotland to officially gain city status.

A man claiming to be the infamous Jack the Ripper once walked Dundee’s streets!

Frankenstein author Mary Shelley once lived in Dundee (no, she didn’t write it here, don’t believe those lies at the train station!)

Dundee is steeped in history, and as you walk through its streets, you’ll find plaques, stories, and a rich past in every corner. History touches every degree and discipline, even if subtly. After all, we all have a history to tell!

Now, let’s talk about us—the largest Humanities society on campus, and proud winners of the DUSA Society Award for Social Media Engagement (so be sure to follow us on Instagram @uodhistorysociety).

We’re not just for History students! Our committee features English and Politics students, and our weekly socials attract people from all corners of the universityeveryone is welcome!

Lifestyle

• • • • • • •

Pub quizzes with a historical twist.

Tours of historic sites.

Pub crawl, two per year, with the first one at Halloween – for which the dress code is historical attire!

Games and film nights for a more relaxed vibe.

Drunk History, where students (a bit tipsy!) deliver hilarious historical presentations.

Our much-anticipated Annual Ball at the end of Semester 2, a real highlight of the year which is always a fantastic evening!

For those seeking academic support, we hold essay-writing workshops and referencing sessions, with lecturers often getting involved in our events—just wait until our pub quiz where students challenge the staff!

We also have a weekly social every Thursday at 8 pm at The Nether Inn, where (with membership) you can enjoy great discounts and, best of all, free entry to Firewater every night!

Whether you’re here for the history, the fun, or the friends, the History Society is your place to make some memories. So, what are you waiting for? We’ll see you Thursday at The Nether Inn!* Feel free to scan the QR code for membership!

*Unless otherwise advertised on our social media or WhatsApp chat

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Words: Tom Gachagan

Don’t be a Mug !

CONTENT WARNING: SUBSTANCE ABUSE

For many university students, going out and partying with your friends every week is all part of the experience. With a partying lifestyle, drugs are common. According to the Students Alcohol and Drug Survey 2022-23, 57% of respondents believed that students would use drugs occasionally while only 7% stated that students never used drugs. Furthermore, 14% answered that students used drugs most of the time and 2% answered that drugs were used by students all the time. The survey was based on students own personal experiences at university surrounding drug use and suggests that drug use at university is quite common.

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Something that many find concerning about this is not the number of students taking drugs, but what is in the drugs themselves. For example, in Manchester, it was reported by MANDRAKE in August 2024 that 3 samples of ketamine contained xylazine, a synthetic nonopioid that can be very dangerous when combined with ketamine. This finding is a very important reminder that testing drugs can reduce the risks of an accidental overdose that could prove fatal. Other drugs such as ecstasy have been found to contain very high doses. The Loop found that many ecstasy pills they tested at Parklife music festival in Manchester contained an average 180mg of MDMA, up 40mg from the year previous.

Lifestyle

Design: Megan Kidd

In some cases, the pills sold contained up to 300mg of MDMA. This is over 2x the average adult dose. With it being difficult to tell how strong a pill is, many people accidentally double drop and end up needing medical support. Journalist Simon Doherty recommends that when taking ecstasy, dose low and slow (taking ½ or ¼ of a pill at a time and waiting 1 hour before redosing) to reduce any risks. Medical attention should be sought if there is a high temperature, excessive sweating, nonresponsiveness, seizures or muscle rigidity. People taking medications like antidepressants should also approach with caution due to increased risks, which could be fatal.

Drug test kits should be readily available to confirm the substance is what it is sold as.

(Ecstasy and other pills should be crushed and mixed before testing a sample).

With drug use being as common as it is, I encourage anyone who takes drugs to test their drugs and dose low and slow to reduce any possible risks.

“testing drugs can reduce the risks of an accidental overdose that could prove fatal”

People are going to take drugs regardless of the risks they possess so rather than punishment, there should be an educational and harm reduction approach.

Test your Drugs Lifestyle

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Words: Tom Christison

A Bigger Dee? Dundee Football Club – the Dee, DFC, the Dark Blues – is one of the city’s two football powerhouses, alongside their tangerine neighbours, Dundee United. For a relatively small city like Dundee to host two league football clubs is already impressive. With only 200 yards separating the two grounds, Dundee has long enjoyed its unique football rivalry up close and personal. But now, Dundee FC is set to leave its historic home and head towards the Kingsway, with plans for a state-of-the-art new stadium at Camperdown. Could this mean a bigger Dee? The proposed stadium, Camperdown Stadium, would replace the ageing Den’s Park. The new stadium promises to breathe fresh life into Dundee’s football scene. The rumours of Dundee FC moving to a new venue have been swirling since the early 2000s, and now finally in 2024, a CGI-fly through of the proposed stadium has been released giving fans a glimpse of the Dee’s new home.

Dee’s Best Shot

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The current capacity of Den’s Park, 11,775, will be increased to 12,500 at the new venue and it will include a safe tanding zone, LED screens, a 250-capacity brew hall, conference rooms, a Dundee Direct store, and premium hospitality options. This isn’t just a stadium – it’s a fan’s dream come true, and it’s set to become a major draw for the city. But this is just the beginning. The stadium is the “crown jewel” of a larger entertainment campus planned around it. Alongside the stadium, the project includes a 1,000+ capacity events venue for concerts and festivals, a 120-room hotel with health and wellness facilities, and a new residential housing scheme. Throw in commercial and multi-use facilities, and you have a vision that’s more than just football—it’s about transforming Dundee’s entertainment landscape.

Den’s Park has been the home of Dundee Football Club since 1899. Its iconic Main Stand, featuring a chevron design created by legendary architect Archibald Leitch, has become a symbol of the club’s rich history. Fans, however, need not fear the loss of this unique feature—the new stadium will incorporate the chevron design, albeit with a modern twist.

Lifestyle

Design: Cameron Tucker

Football and Beyond For more than a century, the area around Den’s Park and its neighbour Tannadice Stadium (home of Dundee United) has been a hotspot for football in the city. It’s no secret that Den’s Park has seen better days. In the 2023/24 season, the stadium became a source of frustration when multiple matches had to be postponed due to pitch flooding. The problem? Victorian-era plumbing. Replacing the plumbing would mean destroying the pitch—an unthinkable option—so a move to a new ground has been in the works for years.

The Camperdown development is the long-awaited solution to this problem.

The new location, while promising, does raise some concerns. Situated much further from the city centre than Den’s and Tannadice, it could pose transport issues for fans who once enjoyed easy access to matches. The stadium, to be built near Dundee Ice Arena, is not easily accessible, and current transport links to the area would need significant expansion. Fans have voiced concerns that the Camperdown site is too remote, with some arguing that the Eden Project (another major development coming to Dundee) would have been a better spot for the new grounds. At one point, as part of Scotland’s bid to host UEFA Euro 2008, there were plans to create a shared stadium for both Dundee clubs, but this idea was quickly vetoed by the teams. Despite this, some still argue that, given Dundee’s small size and the fact that the two clubs never play home games at the same time, sharing a stadium could be a practical and cost-effective solution.

Lifestyle

For the city’s student population, the new stadium could be a game-changer. A venue that can bring big-name artists and events right to their doorstep could revitalise the city’s cultural scene. The new facilities will also create jobs and open-up work opportunities for students, from hospitality roles to event management positions. As students already contribute to Dundee’s vibrant nightlife, having a state-of-the-art venue for gigs and festivals could give the city even more appeal to young people.

The idea isn’t without precedent. In 2023, Camperdown hosted the BBC’s Big Weekend, proving Dundee can attract major events and handle the logistics of hosting large crowds.

The new stadium and surrounding campus could cement Dundee’s place as a regional hub for entertainment, expanding the city’s cultural and economic opportunities.

Regardless, the Camperdown project now looks like the Dee’s best shot at a brighter future. If planning permission and funding align, the new stadium will not only serve football fans but also offer a broader entertainment experience for the entire city. For Dundee’s students, this could mean more dynamic city life, with increased access to concerts, festivals, and job opportunities right on their doorstep.

While it may be years before the new stadium becomes reality, the need for an upgrade is undeniable. Time is running out for Den’s Park, and as the club looks towards its next chapter, the impact on Dundee itself— football and beyond— `remains to be seen.

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Words: Molly Wilson

Colleen Hoover & Romanticising Abuse !

CONTENT WARNING: DOMESTIC ABUSE, SEXUAL ASSAULT

If you are a casual viewer of the tumultuous BookTok, then you will have heard of Colleen Hoover. Hoover is an American author who was self-publishing until October 2022 when she signed with publishing giant, Simon & Schuster. In that same year, her books sold more copies than the Bible in the United States (over 14.3 million). It is without a doubt that BookTok has helped her reach the much sought after fame and wealth that many authors strive for.

So, what is all the fuss about? Most of her books are advertised as ‘steamy romances’ and contain significant levels of smut (a piece of writing, most often used in fanfiction, that has explicit sexual content). This seems to draw in, mostly female and mostly heterosexual, readers who are enticed by the risqué scenes between the love interests.

The majority of Hoover’s books contain some sort of abusive and manipulative behaviour directed towards the female protagonist from the male lead. Some of these titles include It Ends With Us, November 9 and Too Late. Unfortunately, one in four women in the UK will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime and thus, it is vastly important that domestic abuse is written about competently. One of the 36

criticisms of Hoover’s writing is that many of the female characters are not fleshed out and poorly written, with foolish names (Lily Blossom Bloom, owner of a flower shop) and outlandish actions.

The common occurrence of abuse survivors’ reluctance to leave their abusers is included in her book It Ends With Us. This portrayal is criticised among some readers, however the same character relaying her traumatic childhood experiences to Ellen DeGeneres is accepted without second thought.

The writing jumps from graphic descriptions of attempted rape to the protagonist talking to the aforementioned talk show host about her father abusing her mother. It all feels really unserious, especially when discussing such a sensitive topic.

It Ends With Us had the chance to be a poignant novel about the horrors of surviving an abusive relationship but instead all the characters lie flat Lifestyle

Design: Mariia Kravchenko on the page with incomprehensible sexual scenes that add little to the plot.

Colleen Hoover is not the only perpetrator of making abusive relationships into something they are not. Anna Todd, author of the ‘After’ book series has been called out for the series’ role in perpetuating rape culture through harmful misogynistic stereotypes which often romanticise toxic relationships. Penelope Douglas also plays into these tropes with her book series ‘Devil’s Night’ which Douglas’ webpage states the books contain ‘rape, paedophilia, dubious consent and incest’ to name a few.

The issue with these books is not only the unscrupulous content, but the way they are advertised on platforms like TikTok and Goodreads. If you search up #romancebooks a plethora of books from authors like Penelope Douglas, Colleen Hoover and Anna Todd arrive up at the top of the list for viewers to peruse. Expecting a simple, cute rom-com book, they end up reading abominably written heavy topics with disarming book covers.

This is also a very common criticism of how Vladimir Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’ was published, with the cover being an image of a young girl looking seductively up to the reader; Nabokov would be rolling in his grave if he saw how the book was published and advertised.

The excess of ‘dark romance’ novels leads many young women to believe that manipulative and forceful love is normal - even romantic. These books Lifestyle

include abusive and rape-like ‘fantasies’ so much that these fantasies can transfer onto the readers. As a passive spectator of BookTok, I have seen many young women discuss how they would love to have a male partner like Hardin Scott (‘After’ series by Anna Todd) and who justify the toxic and alarming behaviour of these fictional characters to critics.

It starkly reminds me of abuse survivors excusing and justifying their partner’s cruel behaviour, a common coping mechanism used to endure the violence they suffer at the hands of someone who is supposed to love them. No level of violence and manipulative behaviour among relationships - familial, romantic or otherwise - is acceptable, regardless if it is fictional or not.

The authors aforementioned likely agree with this but they do not see the stories they write as abusive (excluding It Ends With Us, especially as it is inspired

by Hoover’s mother leaving her own abusive relationship). They see these relationships pushing the boundaries of ‘normative’ or ‘vanilla’ erotica. In reality these damaging, fictional narratives are telling young women their boyfriends are just ‘protective’ when in fact their behaviour is entering a dangerous territory that puts women at risk.

Fiction that writes about abuse should be written. These books help survivors realise that they are not alone, and it raises awareness that domestic abuse takes many different forms. But in order to do this they need to be well written. Domestic abuse is a topic that should not be taken lightly; therefore, it should not be written lightly either. Including foolish plotlines does not ease some of the tension, it just makes it harder for real-life domestic abuse victims to be taken seriously.

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Words: Mollie Hall

JAWS

DROPPED: How

a a Sh

rk Movie S ent Real Sharks Into Crisis

Humans have always been cruel to sharks.

We have been slaughtering them for years for no reason other than greed and fear.

We excuse killing them because they are often viewed as aggressive and awful creatures, but they are not. Media such as the book-turned film ‘Jaws’ has painted this aggressive picture of sharks which has planted the seed of fear within the millions that have watched the hit thriller. Sharks are not a threat to humans, but humans are a major threat to sharks. According 38

to the Institute for Animal Welfare, sharks kill less than 10 people a year yet humans kill around 100 million sharks a year.

‘Jaws,’ released in 1975 (a year after the book came out), is undoubtedly one of the biggest films ever released.

Before the release of ‘Jaws,’ sharks were not a common fear and now ‘galeophobia’ (an overwhelming fear of sharks) is widespread. You are more likely to be struck by lightning than you Opinions

Design: Ayla Ahmed are to be killed by a shark. So, why do so many fear them? It can be linked to a lack of education and consuming a lot of misinformation about sharks. ‘Jaws’ created this image of sharks, painting them as vicious creatures that only live to kill humans and because of this, many people excuse the death of sharks because they fear them. Audiences finally had a negative image to attach to these gentle giants.

They feared them and wanted them dead, calling for sharks to be hunted and killed.

But why should we care? Not caring is ignorant, killing sharks is inexcusable. Killing them does not even benefit us, we kill them because of miseducated fear. We hunt them for “shark fin soup,” the flavour does not even come from the fin of the shark, the fin is stewed in a broth which adds flavour, but the overall flavour comes from the broth in the soup. Shark finning results in the shark being flung back into the water and slowly dying from suffocation or being eaten. These fishermen do not even put the shark out of its misery, they leave them alive to die a painful and horrible death.

Shark finning has occurred for hundreds of years but ‘Jaws’ gave many a reason to excuse it, they allowed it to happen because they feared sharks.

In addition to finning, we also overfish them and even partake in shark killing competitions. These hunting tournaments were a direct result of ‘Jaws,’ thousands would hunt sharks for sport, and we allowed this which resulted in a majority of the great white sharks across the west coast of north America being wiped out by these hunters. We allowed the unnecessary killing of sharks to take place.

Even Steven Spielberg (the director of ‘Jaws’) stated that he regretted the vast number of sharks that got killed due to the influence of his film and the book that Opinions

it was based upon. ‘Jaws’ was published with the intention of scaring people for a few hours, no one thought more of it, but it then led to the death of millions of sharks.

We must think more upon the media we create and consume, and the message we spread. I don’t think ‘Jaws’ should not have been released but I do think that more caution should have accompanied it, with more research and thought. There are thousands of thrillers that have a creature of some kind as their main antagonist such as the Xenomorph from ‘Alien,’ but this creature is in no way realistic, it is not one that co-exists with us whereas sharks do.

Sharks are real, breathing creatures, not a prop for a movie.

Sharks contribute so much to our ecosystem and to our world. Sharks balance the population by ensuring species diversity and they also eat sick or injured fish which helps to maintain a healthy gene pool. They are overlooked creatures, and we share our planet with them, so it is only fair that we protect them. Sharks have existed for around 450 million years, and they have not faced as big of a threat as the humans which now hunt them. They are facing the threat of extinction because we overfish them.

According to the Guardian, the number of these gentle, misunderstood creatures within our oceans has plummeted by around 70% in the last 50 years which is coincidentally around the time that ’Jaws’ released. Media can have such a heavy impact on our views, ‘Jaws’ created this aggressive picture of sharks which will have long term effects on the shark population which causes the environment to suffer.

We are slaughtering sharks, threatening them with extinction because we are afraid of something we do not understand.

39

Meet the team!

Senior Team Editor-in-Chief Hannah Hamilton

Dep. Editor-in-Chief Arianna De Prosperis

Creative Directors Luna Jezzard Afia Zaman

Publishing The Magdalen is published

by Dundee University Student Association (DUSA).

Creative Team

Section Editors & Publishing

Featured Artist

Culture

Maggie Thatcher

Tom Christison Kaitlyn Mann

Illustrators Mia Duffy Ariane Legradi Ron Jargielo Dionysus Georgantas Emma Vind Fleur Pirie

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Hien Anh Katherine Donaghy Alexander Stewart Mary Musa Yousif Saleem

Cover Artist The gorgeous Cover Art for Issue 109 was done by one of our incredible Illustrators; Ron Jargielo!

Mona Lin Eckle Emma Thomson

Lifestyle

Opinions Angus Coleman Ayanna Cullen

Social Media Elinor Whyte

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What's on?

28th Dundee Mountain

November

Film Festival

The Dundee Mountain Film Festival is Scotland’s pioneering mountain film festival.

22nd An Evening with Dundee

November United Legends

The show stars Maurice Malpas, Paul Hegarty, Davie Dodds and Iain Ferguson as they discuss playing for a successful football club.

23rd- Oor Wullie The Musical

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30th

December

Join Wullie’s Sunday Post gang in a musical adventure celebratin' ower 85 years o' Scotland's comic strip.

Wilson: 1st- Donna The Creature Collective

November

5th - all made by hand. Come along to meet

January

The creatures are 'perfectly imperfect' over 100 creatures!