The Vanity Issue

The Vanity Issue

Editors’ Letters

Once we decided on the theme of ‘Vanity’ I can assure you that ‘You’re so Vain’ by Carley Simon did not leave my head for at least a week. Vanity as a term has so many different meanings and connotations, both of which attach an opinion that ,usually, is either very positive or extremely negative. The fine line between self-indulgence and self-love often becomes blurred in the age of social media, and the constant feeling of Big Brother watching your every move. Now perhaps referencing George Orwell’s dystopian eye is too extreme, but there is a constant feeling of ‘am i being judged’ or ‘did someone just see me spill my coffee down my new white jumper?’, especially when the Royal Holloway confessions page exists. I hope that this issue gets you thinking more about vanity in terms of yourself rather than a vanity that forces you to focus on the perceptions of others.

When making this issue, it came to light the harsh realities in relating to the discourses that we are exposed to and how such conversations have shaped the connotations that we associate with vanity. The Vanity Issue forces us to face the very real and extremely personal issues that are faced by many on a daily basis.

I hope that you enjoy ‘The Vanity Issue’ and all it has to offer, read with an open mind and sympathy and I hope that you know that this song ,actually, is all about you!

Madeline Sidgwick- Editor-In-Chief

Deputy

Editor-In-Chief

This second issue of the academic year is a really interesting topic. The real question is how vain do you think you are? I pondered over this question so many times, but I hope reading through these pages of the magazine that you reach your own conclusions. I had so much fun reading through all the submissions and had myself questioning a lot of habits that I do without a second thought to then wondering if it was self-centered or vain. This second magazine develed into a type of journalism that I believe to be quite self-reflectory. This type of journalism I feel is lacking in day to day life, but I found it quite comforting to be able to talk about a topic like vanity in a way that was both revolutionary, but also leaving room for critique. As you read this issue please keep an open mind to new possibilities and be prepared to question your own vanity!

Evelyn Fernandez-Jarvis-

1. Editors’ Letters

3. Editorial Board - Contact Us NEWS

4. 10 Questions you Should ask when Consuming the Media!

5. The Focus on being Female

6. What happened on November 5th? OPINION

7. You’re so Vain: Interpersonal Conflict & Social Media Rhetoric

8. Activism: A Sham or An Opportunity for Growth?

9. The Substance: A Reflection on Beauty Standards CULTURE

12. What Have We Here: Imperial Vanity on Trial at the British Museum

13. Saltburn, Underconsumption, and Trad Wives: A Dramatic Reenactment of Working Class Life

15. Our Ever-Lasting Obsession with Beauty

16. Please Percieve Me

17. Vain Film Characters: Why Do We Need Them?

18. An Interview with Nicola Dinan LIFESTYLE

20. The Fine Line Between Romanticising and Over-Consuming

21. “The Right to Vanity”

22. Am I a Narcissist?

23. In Between: Starting University at 20 for the Second Time SPORT

25. Live, Lax, Love: How Close are we to Class Equality in Women’s Lacrosse

27. The Unique Lifestyle of Dennis Rodman

28. Player Profile: Lucy Bronze

29. Sport at Royal Holloway and why YOU should join CREATIVE WRITING

31. A lack od discernement made me vain

32. The Song of the Waterfall

35. The Sinner and his Angel

36. Crystal

37. Leave the Kettle On

38. A False Sense of Vanity

39. Hunger DEAR DAVIDSON...

40. Agony Aunt Responses

42. You are the Main Character. Crossword

Editorial Board

Editor-In-Chief: Madeline Sidgwick

Deputy EIC: Evelyn Fernandez-Jarvis

Senior News Editor: Alex Robson

Associate News Editor: Sakeenah Waqas Butt

Senior Opinion Editor: Tahseenah Khatun

Associate Opinion Editor: Ella Hearn-Zhang

Senior Culture Editor: Ruby Day

Associate Culture Editor: Kiera Garcia

Senior Lifestyle Editor: Sophie Fairey

Associate Lifestyle Editor: Kayla Delaney

Senior Sport Editor: Issy Trapnell Hoyle

Associate Sport Editor: Harkomal Shoker

Senior Creative writing Editor: Aminah Rahman

Associate Creative Writing Editor: Ruby Saggers

Senior Agony Aunt: Ruby Caballero-Roff

Associate Agony Aunt: Keira McTernan

Head Illustrator: Isabelle McFarlane (Cover)

Deputy Illustrator: Lucy Griffiths

Want to get in contact?

You can email us orbital@royalholloway.su or message us on any of our social media accounts.

Alternatively, we have an anonymous contact form in our instagram bio @orbitalmagazine.

The views expressed within this magazine are not representative of Royal Holloway University of London, or Royal Holloway Student’s Union, or any author/editor except the invidividual who wrote the particular article.

10 Questions You Should ask when Conusuming the Media

By Madeline Sidgwick and Evelyn Fernandez-Jarvis Editor-In-Chief and Deputy Editor-in-Chief

It is undeniably important to check who and where your news sources, movie reviews and wider discourses come from, especially now we are deep into the age of technology. As your editors, we have come up with some questions that we encourage you to ask yourself the next time you indulge in a political column or short story!

1) Who has written the article/ posted the instagram post?

2) Who owns the social media platform and what biases may they possess?

3) Do I keep up with a range of biases when reading the newspaper/ scrolling through social media?

4) How vain is the author? What is their intention when making such a claim?

5) Who funds the media company and how does this affect what is published?

6) Is the piece of information you are reading for Clickbait or to inform people about what is happening around them?

7) Is this article harmful to a specific group of people?

8) Would you recommend this article or share this information on, and if not should you be reading it?

9) Is this piece inclusive of all people or groups, are they leaving out people who may be involved in this conversation that is being spoken about in the article?

10) Finally, has the article helped you be better informed of a specific issue after reading it?

The Focus on being Female

By Madeline Sidgwick Editor-In-Chief

British politics has undeniably diversified in the last 50 years, especially from a gender perspective. However, as women enter parliament, more specifically entering a ministerial role, we must consider why it is gender that gets pointed out first.

Headlines of ‘The First Female Chancellor’ were splashed onto the front pages of newspapers as Rachel Reeves delivered the first Labour Budget in 14 years. Now I am not aiming to remove from Reeves’ achievements in becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer, but it must be questioned why it was her gender rather than her policies that were the opening lines in most articles this October. Reeves herself eloquently paid homage to being the first women to have the role stating, “to girls and young women everywhere (…) let there be no ceiling on your ambition, your hopes and your dreams”. However, in 2024 why is gender still significant and having to be stated especially since Britain elected its first female Prime Minister in 1979? Thatcher herself defended her gender throughout her time in office and perfectly summarises her defences when in 1987 stating, “if you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman”. It seems that it is almost a shame not to address such an achievement as

a woman, but that is my point. The phrase ‘as a woman’ immediately places women in boxes and almost puts them in a separate political discourse and label mediums due to their gender.

This example can be extended to the newly elected leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch. Badenoch has placed great emphasis on the fact that she does not want to be defined by her gender and race through her time as Leader of the Opposition. The question thus stands, when do we stop counting the ‘fourth, fifth, sixth’ female leaders of political parties?

The media is the most powerful medium of perpetuating gender stereotypes. The presentation of female politicians as women first and politicians second, reinforces the idea that higher political office is a male space. When dominating the media, such biases ensure that women can never be viewed as a political figure in a standalone sense. The media, as a source of entertainment, leaves female politicians vulnerable to criticism. But it must be noted that such criticisms rarely focus on their policy or political speeches, it is how women in political spaces dress and perform in comparison to their male counterparts that dominates popular rhetoric. It is a fact that women face more scruti-

ny online, whether this by media outlets or adventitious ‘X’ users. Scrutiny very quickly turns into violence and harassment, especially via social media platforms, becomes less and less censored. Thus, proving that women face glass ceilings in a less traditional sense as online abuse and commentary disproportionately targets women, specifically women of colour.

I think it is important to emphasise that just because you are told that the glass ceiling doesn’t exist in 2024 doesn’t mean that it has actually disappeared. Therefore, yes being a woman in male dominated space is impressive and important but not because you are a woman. Rachel Reeves attended a comprehensive school and was appointed Shadow Chancellor 11 years after being elected as a member of parliament. Reeves’ background, both personal and in terms of her career, make her, on paper, the ideal candidate for such an important role in British politics.

Whether you agree that stating gender in relation to political positions is reductive or not, be rest assured that, regardless of her gender, Rachel Reeves is saving you a penny off of every single pint that you enjoy at the pub.

What Happened on the 5th of November

By Evelyn Fernandez-Jarvis Deputy Editor-in-Chief

05.11.24

This is a date that will go down in history. This is the day that the 47th President of the United States was elected. After a long trail campaigning we finally got to see state by state whether they would be blue or red.

I am sure like a lot of people that we were all anticipating the announcement of the new president of the United States. On the 5th of November I was staring at my laptop watching the American map turn blue or red. This feeling of not knowing what would happen was excruciatingly long, and yet at the same time the result felt already known. At some point in the night I closed my laptop knowing that the election had clearly been won. Now confirmed that the 47th President will be Donald Trump.

The campaigning alone for this election was quite the experience to live through. This political campaign alone cost $15.1 billion, which is an extortionate amount to spend. When looking at the election and seeing it through a screen the question of, ‘What has happened to politics?’ kept on coming to mind, has it turned toxic? My immediate answer was YES. In 2024, to say that it felt as though politics has taken a turn into something toxic is a tough pill to swallow, as a young person today, it is quite daunting. Mainly because it is known that all politics is personal, no matter what anyone says, our politics across the world affects us all. The first step that made me start to fully digest

how toxic global politics had become started this summer.

On July 13th Trump faced an attempted assassination whilst at a rally in the swing state of Pennsylvania. Whether you agree with Trump as a person or in terms of policy or not, it was still a shock to see that there had been an attempted assassination whilst he was representing himself and the Republican Party. This extreme action directly showed how deeply the emotions that come from politics are and the feelings that can come from this can be dangerous. So where does that leave us? This drastic event was truly a turning point in the election, it showed the American people and the eyes overseas looking in that people were willing to kill in order to get the political outcome that they desire the most.

For me personally, I found the outcome of the election showed that even with the most public, or popular people endorsing a political figure, if people do not believe that they personally can have a better life, this action of endorsement does not matter or even have an effect. This was shown when looking at Kamala Harris’s campaign, with key figures like Beyonce and Taylor Swift coming out and prompting their respective audiences to vote Democrat. However, when looking at interviews it was clear that people were willing to ignore basic principles like issues of race and misogyny, for the benefit of a lowered cost of living. Is this okay?

I guess this then goes into opinion and something that you would

have to reach a conclusion on your own.

When looking specifically at endorsements on the Republican side of the election we saw less popularity and more powerful people who can use money as a big political motivator. This was officially introduced with Elon Musk and his personal endorsement for Trump. However, it is also abundantly clear that key figures in American society that play big roles have a key influence, this was shown when Elon Musk endorsed Trump. For the Richest person in the world to state a political preference made me personally, very uneasy.

When I tried to dissect this feeling it led to the conclusion of knowing how much money dictates politics already, with committees of Super Pacs showing particular interest with political parties when wanting to achieve an outcome. To go even further, this impact of money deflects from a truly democratic process and takes away from the people who are navigating who the right person to vote for is, if their feed of media is taken over by one person or one party.

This definitive difference of media was so abundantly clear in this election, with Trump being an overarching presence on X (Twitter) and Kamala Harris taking more precedence over TikTok. Whilst I can appreciate how important social media is when looking at connecting with people easily today and sharing what your party has to offer, this blend of politics and social media can be

dangerous. We can see how the lines of fact and fiction are easily blurred and can spread so quickly on a social media site. On top of this the ease of which it is to access and publish hate speech is so easy on social media and can fuel this political hatred that I believe was so clear in this specific election.

After the outcome of the election, I am sure that many of us watched the video of a 26 year old Nick Fuentes speaking directly about women and having autonomy over their bodies. This hate speech created rage and upset

across social media and we can see that this gained so much traction mainly because of social media. But the main issue with this is that it isn’t free speech, it is specifically sharing content with the knowledge that it would upset or target a specific group of people.

After coming to terms with the result and the election campaign, for me anyway, I think it is clear that a change in politics is needed, but the real question is what is the next step to making this happen?

Image: Element5 Digital via Unsplash

Opinion

You’re so Vain: Interpresonal Conflict & Social Media Rhetoric

By Rhian Kille Staff Writer

Tiktok is rotting our approach to interpersonal relationships and conflicts. Professional therapists and opinionated influencers mingle together through social media platforms, giving advice in instructive short form content littered with pseudo-therapy terms and buzzwords. How many times have you seen a video about how you should break up with your boyfriend because he’s a ‘narcissist’ or that has encouraged you to have a confrontation with a friend? How many times has it made you consider/go through with it? And how many times did it reaffirm to you that you are a victim in a situation, as opposed to considering someone else‘s experience?

It’s not a revolutionary idea that social media is widening gaps between young people in the ‘real’ world, but there is now a prevalence of specific, pervasive rhetoric of individualism spreading

online. bell hooks in her book, All About Love: New Visions (1999), ascribes young people’s cynicism towards love to a cultural absence of education on love and how to do the work that loving consists of – it could not be more relevant today. One should always take care to be communicative, active and discerning in their closest relationships, but I think that sentiments of compassion have fallen to the wayside in favour of always ‘protecting our peace’.

An issue with this rhetoric is that it is unbalanced and impersonal, fed into by the absence of nuance and bias towards extremity in short form content and the internet in general. Every one of us has our own history of experiences that colours how we navigate our interpersonal relationships. Whether or not we already lean towards being self-protective, the hurt that inevitably occurs in these

relationships is only going to be exacerbated by this kind of content. This instinct subconsciously drives us towards being hypercritical and expecting perfection from the people in our lives and tells us we shouldn’t tolerate anything less. This is antithetical to deep connection and long-lasting relationships where people are going to make mistakes. It is an easy thing to use to justify the subconscious desire to not get hurt again; it is a risk-free alternative to remaining open hearted.

This content is particularly relevant for young adults right now – we have grown out of being children who saw the world through a black and white lens. We then grew into teenagers who tried to change who they were to fit in and please others, to young adults who are now quick to criticise without compassion, after most now having experienced the first big

hurts of our lives from people we chose for ourselves. We find ourselves with all this hurt and are met online with life coaches, therapists, influencers, and morea cacophony of voices telling us to quiet our fears, claiming to be able to give us a map to interpersonal empowerment, so we never have to feel that powerlessness again. This is the core sentiment that underpins their instructive language and assertive attitude. The thousands of accounts that take this form become a constant and impactful presence that begins to seep into how we all think about our relationships with each other and eventually how we form them.

It’s easy to see how this content came to popularity, at its core it has notions of individual empowerment and self-improvement, and so many people, women especially, struggle with people pleasing tendencies and being unhealthily self-sacrificing in their relationships. This idea of setting boundaries, communicating your needs clearly, and being rid of things that no longer ‘serve you’ all have great use. They are helpful especially to those who find themselves unable to validate their negative emotions - a result of past experiences of disrespect. But there is a difference between shrinking yourself like this and always putting yourself first. Not in a ‘self-care’ way, but in a way that disregards the importance of community and close relationships, and erases the normalcy of making mistakes. This attitude is what leads to the situations I’ve seen online where people claim they ‘protected their peace a little too hard’ and found themselves alone. Interdependency is healthy and does not come at the cost of independence - it is how human beings have always functioned and felt best. It’s a priv-

ilege to have a community to rely on, and it’s a valuable goal to build one for ourselves if circumstances leave us isolated.

However, in my experience, it is not isolated people who steep themselves in a victim narrative - I’ve definitely done it myself, especially in times when I’ve been hurt. There are often times where relationships get complicated and they might take work to preserve, and other times where you have to love someone and let them go because they aren’t good for you anymore. There are ways to do these things with compassion and empathy, through kind, honest and authentic communication when it is necessary. It’s not something you ‘owe’ anyone, which is a common idea rejected by this type of content, but it is a form of kindness we should want to show others. It shouldn’t have to be said that this doesn’t cover manipulative partners or people who have time and time again treated you badly. I‘m primarily thinking about friends, new or old, that aren’t giving you what they need because of a hard time, whether that’s one you know about or you don’t.

I’ve definitely found myself growing more judgemental and more anxious with the rise of this content. I forget often while venting that everyone is going through things that I know nothing about. Someone treating you badly isn’t necessarily because they’re a ‘narcissist’ or warrants you cutting them off because they ‘crossed a boundary’, although sometimes true. The people on your phone don’t know you or your situation, the advice that they give is entirely impersonal to you - therapy inherently cannot be given out of context. What I’m personally trying

to learn is how to feel upset, angry or annoyed at someone while also having compassion for them, and acting in a way that holds these two things together, neither one cancelling out the other. This leaves room for uncomfortable mutual disagreement, where neither party is simply in the ‘right’. The self-prioritising narrative that this rhetoric derived from online content spreads has also become, in some cases, a disguise for an unwillingness to exercise empathy. The language can be used as a framework through which to villainise others and justify inconsiderate behaviour, generating hateful sub-cultures when it’s reaffirmed within groups of people. This simultaneously acts as a protection tool to stop people experiencing what is sometimes necessary work or hurt in important relationships.

In my case, I have had even best friends seal themselves away from me when faced with conflict in our relationships. I’m so vain I wrote a whole essay about it over a year later and I bet they think this article is about them. Their self-serving attitudes formed a permanent barrier between us and so did mine – we were all unwilling to see ourselves as anything but the victim. All of us acting as vain as each other. These base instincts are being subconsciously inflated by social media, influencing our relationships with each other. I think that it is key that we practice awareness of this influence and reorient ourselves around compassion and empathy for others. Our social media feeds should be curated around our values and not take away from the time we have with each other. Such a powerful tool only has value to us when it is used to strengthen our human connections, not damage them.

Activism: A Sham or an Opportunity for Growth?

By Ruby Peresso Staff Writer

TW: Violence, Death

As outlined in Article 10 of the Human Rights Act from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of expression’. All human beings have the freedom to speak our views in whichever way we deem best, through protests, social media, etc.

In today’s age, we are shown that acts of protest do not have to constitute crowds marching through the streets. It could be a young Greta Thunberg sitting calmly outside the Swedish Parliament with a sign that reads ‘School Strike for Climate’. A simple act that transformed into the global movement, ‘Friday’s for Future’, underscores how a single voice can wield so much power. But how are people choosing to use their voice in 2024?

With the rapid rise of social media platforms, most activism today occurs digitally in spaces like Instagram, X, and Facebook where anybody is able to vocalise about a matter they deem important. However, the bombardment of posts on these platforms pressure social media users to be active which leads to them posting for the sake of posting. This modern approach towards activism is done out of a desire to increase one’s public perception rather than devoting oneself to the actual cause.

Think. It is June 2020, and you have just posted a black square onto your social media platform with the hashtag ‘blacklivesmatter’. You do it as a way of standing in solidarity with those affected

by the death of George Floyd. But what has this accomplished? What impact have you generated? Suddenly what you think constitutes taking a stand is now being termed controversial by news sites like NBC, as they argue that the influx of black squares buries links to petitions, charities, and blackrun organisations hinders the mobility of the movement. It impacts the visibility of actual black voices. The attention has turned to the activist rather than the cause; enacting a facade of change as while the stream of black squares stop painting our ‘for you pages’ black, people continue to experience police brutality.

In 2024, the activist takes centre stage over the cause once again, as users began flooding their feeds with an AI generated image of Rafa. The image is of an aerial view of a camp consisting of well-organised tents, the sky blue and the clouds idyllic. In reality, the sky in Rafa is grey with smoke from Israeli bombs, the tents are burnt, the inhabitants either dead, injured, or traumatised - a far cry from what AI depicts. By sharing this image over 46 million times, people silenced Palestinian’s true testimonies, ones that Palestinian’s have been pleading to be heard for decades. The sharing of that almost idealised image of Rafa presented by AI spreads misinformation, creating an illusion that change is happening without addressing the root of the problem.

The power of the individual is something people still take for granted today. At a time when protecting our democracies is so crucial, we see an influx of write-

in ballots coming out of voting centres in the United States, where people can write a name for a candidate who is not officially listed on the ballot. So, whilst choosing to vote for socialites like Taylor Swift and Kanye West instead of candidates like Kamala Harris, can be a symbolic form of protest, it does not bring about tangible political change. For a vote to be valid, the candidate must be registered and have a national campaign. Therefore, for the action to be meaningful beyond just voting, it would need to be paired with efforts like campaigning for electoral reform, organising, or advocating for systemic change.

What, therefore, is the way forward? The best way to generate real change is to move beyond the performative confines of the internet that does not allow substantial change, and to bring activism out into the real world. Educate yourself, conduct your own research using reliable sources such as the BBC, and form your own understanding of the crisis at hand. Go to websites like change. org and sign petitions that align with your personal values, support small businesses that are minority owned as a way of reversing systemic injustices that lead to poverty, and lastly speak loud and clear for those who can not. In this ever-changing world, be a part of the change that will characterise our future!

The Substance: A Reflection on Beauty Standards

By Nia Videnova Staff Writer

The rise of technology and science has put women under unprecedented pressure for smooth and clear skin, thigh gaps, juicy bums, and slow ageing. All the means, tools, and procedures are there, and all we must do is go and buy them to become the best version of ourselves. Ranging from excruciating waxing and threading, sexy revealing clothing on winter nights, and inaccessibly expensive laser surgery to endlessly sweaty workouts, tormenting food restrictions, and beauty black market, women cannot be excused for being ‘ugly’ anymore. And if we relax for a second and dare to gain some belly fat, go out without make-up, or reach the infertile age, we are out of the game. All we are left with is a sense of embarrassment and bitter acceptance that our partners are totally free to look at the younger fruitful girls. Our time is over… unless we take The Substance.

The satirical body horror movie, The Substance, directed by Coralie Fargeat, was more disgusting, triggering, and gorier than its 18+ age rating had promised. The Substance follows the plot of a successful Hollywood star, Elisabeth Sparkling, who, approaching her fifties, ends up being fired by her boss Harvey because the company needs a younger girl for their shows. Serving as an anti-climax in her life, this moment brings Elisabeth into a deep state of depression, low self-esteem, body dysmorphia, and reluctance to accept her age. After going through a car crash, she ends up in a hospital where a young nurse secretly gives her a note in which he glorifies ‘the Substance’ – a black market

beauty drug. Elisabeth quickly realises that this product has the power to create a younger, perfected/better version of herself and she ultimately gains access to it. Following the procedures of gruesome nasty work, a new, young, beautiful body is born from the spine of the older Elisabeth. She calls herself Sue. Elisabeth, in the body of Sue, ends up enjoying way more male attention and immediately gains the new position in the show of Harvey. Living in Sue feels like a utopia, she quickly becomes popular, and her boss even wants her to lead the New Year concert. Sadly, Elisabeth must live seven days in her own body and seven days in Sue’s body. However, soon she starts to despise her older self and breaks the balance by spending less time in her own body which sucks more of the youth of the true Elisabeth. Eventually, when she must go back to her real body to recharge, she realises that she has grown older due to her substance abuse. As a result of desperation and agony, Elisabeth dramatically enters a state of making poorer decisions that have tragic consequences.

My synopsis of the film appears more romantic than it actually is, but I can guarantee you that the words I used such as ‘desperation’, ‘obnoxious’, ‘tragic’ etc. are represented in the film via genuinely brutal scenes. What is good about that? Even though some do not admit it, most women go through tremendously difficult times in accepting their body, face, and ageing process entirely due to social pressure. The repercussions of these insecurities, self-hatred, and desperation could be fatal.

After hardly managing to watch two hours and a bit of blood, gore, and psychological torment, I had concluded that the film would have been great, had all these scenes been improved. However, after reflecting deeper on its themes, I recognised the importance of all those violent and repulsive scenes in reaching a wider audience and making its point crystal clear.

Horror films like these could be a useful tool to examine the reality of these unrealistic beauty standards. True, horror films could be staunchly criticised for their blunt nature in scaring us through abhorrent scenes and their potential to traumatise or brutalise young people. They could also be taken as a reckless form of entertainment where the audience gets pleasure from watching blood, violence, and insanity. Nevertheless, we tend to forget that the cinema is a type of art. And art does tend to represent something – an idea, a social or political message, an individual experience, a feeling…I believe horror does this beautifully.

Now it’s completely normal to hear a girl saying that she needs to lose weight, that a husband has been unfaithful to his wife with a younger colleague at work. Or that a teenager gets Botox, so on and so forth. Uttering these lies feels wrong, even if one says it ironically. But the truth is that they’ve been so naturally and skillfully internalised in our daily life.

People fail to realise how dangerous and destructive these

tendencies are. How a ‘losing-belly-fat scheme’ abroad is not only going to cost one a fortune but potentially their life as well. How poor dieting and eating disorders could lead to heart failure. How the marginalising and mistreatment of women over 50 could isolate them from the world and create resentment between themselves and younger women. Stating these brutal truths in a soft diplomatic way via social media and articles turns out highly insufficient for the world and predominantly men to realise the severity of the problem.

The tragic thing is that contemporary industries such as social media have accentuated the male oppression under which women live. We must look good all the time! We must seek approval all the time! We must objectify ourselves all the time! These standards already exist and peaceful campaigning does not seem to have pointed out our desperation enough.

Films like The Substance are vital in bringing the message of the struggle of maintaining beauty standards firmly, showing you a

miserable woman who tries an excruciating beauty drug that tears her apart, metaphorically and literally. The hardships we go through every day to meet beauty standards with little appreciation in return resemble what you see on the screen. But it is easier to perceive films like that as a form of entertainment around Halloween rather than to recognise what their real message is trying to show us. Watch The Substance and you will understand.

Illustration by Lucy Griffiths

Culture What Have We Here? : Imperial Vanity on trial at the British Museum

By Ruby Day Senior Culture Editor

The British Museum might just be my favourite place in the world. It’s a transformative building, with a bewilderingly huge collection that can take the visitor anywhere from Anglo-Saxon England to prehistoric Japan. It’s possible to spend a whole day within its walls, and only see half of what’s on display. Even then, the public only has access to an estimated 1% of the museum’s full collection.

To view and interact with so much world history, so easily, is an immense privilege; a privilege that comes at a very heavy cost. However awe-inspiring or endlessly fascinating, the British Museum’s size and scope is owed to centuries of colonisation, theft, and imperial vanity. Considered to be ‘an active crime scene’, the collection of roughly 8 million pieces contains sacred objects ripped from their temples, items of nationhood kidnapped from their communities, identities obscured and reframed in galleries far from home. There is constant discourse over these facts, and whatever arguments used to justify acquisition or, more importantly, continued possession, are far from satisfactory. Disputes over repatriation, origins, logistics, responsibility, etc, dominate much of these exchanges, a vicious cycle of impossible grand gestures and disregarded nuance.

There is no certainty over what can be done. What is needed, however, is a conversation. And one has begun in a very unlikely place.

Edinburgh-born, Guyana-raised artist Hew Locke opened a new exhibition, ‘What Have We Here?’, in the British Museum in October. Within a small, dark room in the middle of the atrium, you enter what I can only describe as a courthouse. In the heart of the very institution that stands testament to Britain’s criminal history, Locke puts imperial vanity on trial. He makes you sweat. But most importantly, he makes you think. Locke makes full use of the museum’s purpose as a space that remembers the past, with a collection of objects that make no bones about the nature of their acquisition. A door has been opened to a long, messy, and difficult process of recognition through the simplicity of acknowledgment. The exhibit’s curation is refreshingly bold, a reframing of historical objects in the context of Britain’s interactions with them.

Nothing is explicitly accusatory or condescending. The magic of Locke’s exhibition is its pragmatism, through which he presents the facts as they are, with occasional witty interjections that drive home many uncomfortable truths. After the Koh-I-Noor diamond was involuntarily ‘gifted’ to Queen Victoria, it was polished to a weight 42% smaller than its former size to better suit British tastes. Some of the Benin Bronzes are made out of melted-down manillas that originated in Birmingham. The document signed by Charles II that first facilitated English profit from the slave trade

is on display in an MDF display case.

Locke’s ‘looting exposé’ subverts many of the traditional customs of museum curation. No geographical narrative is followed, nor a chronological trip from point A to point B. Locke’s words on the exhibition’s walls state that he’s “purposely not doing that, to echo how you create an artwork—the gathering of objects, collage, layers.” Art is all subjective, interactions with it are largely personalised. In a similar way, Locke’s exhibition proposes questions by making injustices known, pointing out facts obscured by imperial rhetoric and colonialist airbrushing, but provides no answers. As yet, there are none. The conversation, once started, rapidly becomes cluttered; the solution is not as simple as ‘give it back’. In some cases, the original owners aren’t obvious. In others, they are long gone. Locke questions where objects belong, recognising that “things change and shift and opinions differ”, cultivating an evolving dialogue that must be engaged with repeatedly and critically, so these complicated questions can be simplified and one day answered.

Before the exhibition, I had the accidental luck of spending five minutes alone in a gallery with the Parthenon Marbles. To see these extraordinary sculptures up close is a privilege, and despite their status as some of the most disputed objects in the museum’s collection, I didn’t feel guilty

After the exhibition, I felt this privilege even more; for better or worse, the objects in the British Museum’s collection are there, and will be there for the foreseeable future. Out of place, or stolen, or protected, or conserved, we can see them and interact with them

in ways we might not otherwise. Hew Locke brings to our attention the horrors and the history of these objects, a pertinent concept that needs continuing, and will stick in my mind every time I walk through the doors of my favourite place.

Saltburn, Underconsumption, and Trad Wives: A Dramatic Reenactment of Working Class Life

Over the past few years there has been an emergence in media, both traditional and non-traditional, to tell a story of someone’s deception of their economic background.

A piece that comes to mind is Saltburn, Emerald Fennell’s film of the summer from last year. The movie follows Oliver Quick, an Oxford student who claims to be from a humble background, who quickly attaches to the wealthy Felix Catton, eventually securing an invite to his large family estate for the summer. The movie itself deals with many nuances of socio-economic differences in modern England, but specifically shocks audiences with the reveal halfway through the movie that Oliver has been lying to Felix about his background: he is actually from a rather well off middle class family. This deception translates outside of the film, although in not quite as a dramatic sense, with a growing trend of university students from affluent backgrounds attempting to come across as working-class. This is most often seen in the usage of clearly unnatural slang and deliberately distressed

By Kiera Garcia Associate Culture Editor

or damaged clothing, but also in lies about bank account balances or why they’re able to afford Deliveroo every night.

This accidental reveal by way of a surprise visit to his family that Felix planned is the catalyst to the murders of the Catton family that occur throughout the film as a way to protect Oliver’s secret. Oliver’s obsession with Felix leads him to do anything he can to secure a place as his ‘equal’, going as far as approaching and befriending his mother years after the initial events of the film, securing himself as the heir to the estate and fortune. He ultimately forsakes this acquired working-class persona when he has the opportunity to be wealthy. He uses the cluelessness of the Cattons to craft a life that he has not led, simply because he doesn’t care to be a typical middle-class individual. He is striving for wealth by pretending to have none.

This instance of being able to make money off of pretending to be working class is also seen across social media platforms.

The first that comes to mind is the trend that swept through TikTok this summer: ‘underconsumption core’. ‘Underconsumption core’ was a form of aesthetic that focused on taking care of belongings that one already has and lowering consumption, something that has been at the forefront of the public consciousness for a while. The core ideas around this were not necessarily harmful, with critics hoping that the seemingly temporary emphasis on consuming less would stick beyond the trend’s life, but it became quite the opposite as ultra-rich influencers took hold of it.

These influencers were taking awareness of consumption, something that is not optional or a temporary lifestyle for many, and making it the new thing to do before quickly forgetting it and moving on to the next microtrend taking hold of their algorithms. One influencer went as far as filming herself throwing away all of her extra skin care products, often in the multi-hundred pound range, and claiming that she was now the beacon of undercon-

sumption. This ignorance of the inability for the typical person to afford the lifestyles they have, and then pushing to their audiences that they need to cut back on their consumption habits, was incredibly tone deaf and only furthered the critiques, as they discarded this lifestyle the minute they saw something new to consume. Not only are these influencers appropriating a lifestyle that isn’t optional for others, they are making money off of it.

This is also seen in the presence of the ‘Trad Wife’ lifestyle that is permeating through TikTok at rapid speed. With influencers like Nara Smith and Ballerina Farm, women who themselves are incredibly wealthy, continue to promote this traditional lifestyle whilst glamorising the life of a stay-athome mum. This appropriates the lifestyle of people who, in the past, did not have a choice of how they lived. Without even touching upon the anti-feminist implications of this, the socio-economic implications are clear; wealthy women are showcasing staying at home and tending farms or having many children as a way to connect with the traditional, typically working class family, while still earning huge amounts of money simply for doing this.

It is important to acknowledge that in all of these instances of the wealthy appropriating a working class lifestyle, this is only done for as long as it suits them. Whether by tricking a wealthy family like Oliver, making money off of consuming less, or becoming breadwinners while claiming to stay-athome and not work, these people do not confront the lived realities of the people whose lives they are glamourising.

Oliver, in his attempt to garner sympathy, claimed that his father died and that his mother had struggled with substance abuse issues, a very real lived experience for many. The film encourages audiences to consider this deception and the implications it had for the stereotyping of working-class individuals being ‘leeches to the wealthy’, something often argued by politicians or the wealthy themselves in attempts to reduce their taxes and contributions to a welfare state. It goes as far to insinuate it is the middle-class, those who aspire to be wealthy, but do not have the difficult experiences of the working class, who are the true deceivers, as they always strive for existing in one of the aforementioned classes that they do not belong to.

The influencers who tone-deafly turned underconsumption into a way to glamourise spending less did not acknowledge that many people do not have the money to afford essentials, let alone over consume things. While the trend was prevalent, and as expected not a word has been uttered of it in influencer circles since this summer as it quickly died out, many who were critical of it took over the trend by showcasing their spaces and consumption habits as people who actually live the life these influencers were portraying. This allowed for a sort of homage to the true working class, who do not receive very much glamorisation or acclaim in media circles.

The Trad Wives are a wider discussion over both a socio-economic and feminist realm, but their persistence to portray themselves as women who are subservient to their husband, while simultaneously acquiring wealth for themselves, misrepresents the

lived experience of women who lived this life in the past. It minimises the struggles of the women who fought to have a life outside of the home, glamourising the subjugation they experienced and continue to experience throughout our world.

The appropriation of the working-class struggle, whether in a film on class commentary or tone deaf uber-rich individuals forming a working-class struggle for themselves, can be chalked up to vanity and the wish to portray oneself in a particular light. The use of media to do so has allowed for a sort of play to be created out of the crafted extent to which these people wish to experience the working-class struggle, as long as it benefits them and generates revenue. As long as it adds to the public perception these individuals wish to put out, they will leech off of the hardships of others before moving on to the next popular lifestyle to lead.

Image: Peter Spencer via Pexles

Our Ever-Lasting Obsession with Beauty

By Dorothy Banaityte Staff Writer

Superficiality and obsession with beauty is often considered to be a modern invention boosted by the rise of Instagram posts, TikTok trends and celebrity culture. However, when looking back through time, society’s devotion to beauty runs deeper than just that. Going back to Greek statues or to the characters that we tell our stories about, physical beauty has always correlated to moral virtue and good character. How deep does our obsession with beauty truly go?

In literature, traces of this idea can be seen everywhere. In our oldest piece of Western literature, Homer’s Iliad, only two characters out of the staggering couple of hundreds of those named are described as ugly. Incidentally both the characters are also presented to lack common sense and moral values, and therefore are quickly killed as a consequence. In fairytales, which have now become deeply ingrained in our culture, the main hero is always virtuous, beautiful (or they become so by the end), and mostly unaware of it. The villain on the other hand is portrayed as having an unattractive appearance, doing bad deeds, and being conceited.

Moreover, we only value beauty up to the point that the object of the

beauty becomes aware of it as well. The ‘good’ characters in stories do not care for their looks while their evil counterparts care too much: the step-sisters of Cinderella desperately try to appear beautiful yet fail while Cinderella is effortlessly so; as soon as Narcissus becomes aware of his beauty, he is doomed to only have the capacity to stare at his reflection; the ‘popular’ girl is mean and vain, while the protagonist is overlooked and holds ‘deeper’ values. The message is clear: a person is supposed to be attractive, but they should not appear as if they are trying to be so.

Coming back to the link between beauty and virtue, it is an inescapable one. We are less likely to link heinous crimes to good-looking and charismatic people and even when we do, we tend to be more forgiving. Ted Bundy, even after his execution for his serial murders, was able to garner a vast amount of attention on social media for his good looks in the present day. Before he was caught, he was able to avoid detection for many of the same reasons. It is a chilling thought that even after being aware of all of the crimes that Bundy had committed, people were unable to stop valuing his appearance.

In literature, the rise of the so-

called “morally-grey” love interest usually means a person that is a ‘bad’ character, but is conventionally attractive, so the protagonist and audience alike are more lenient in their choice of whether to root for them. Consequently, a character’s moral degeneration is often shown by their loss of good looks. Think of Dorian Gray’s portrait becoming more and more hideous to mimic his crimes, or of the beast in Beauty and the Beast being transformed to a monster as a punishment for his cruelty. Not only do we value beauty, but we consistently expect a person’s outer appearance to reflect the level of their morality.

People excusing attractive characters in fiction does not necessarily translate to real life, but our constant link between beauty and moral goodness is telling of the emphasis we place on it as a society. Afterall, our works of fiction portray our outlook of the world, and the stories we tell showcase our principles to younger generations. The obsession with beauty is not only timeless, but it will also always be a too enticing idea to resist, as centuries of evidence suggest. Perhaps, when it comes down to it, all of us are far simpler creatures than we would like to admit, continuously losing ourselves in the face of beauty.

People have been insecure since the dawn of time, that’s undeniable. Women have donned makeup, shaved their legs, and styled their hair in elaborate updos as far back as the Greeks and Romans (if not longer), and men have sought after the perfectly sculpted physique for just as long. Yet, the emergence of social media has undeniably exasperated this need to be beautiful to a dangerous extent. With eating disorders, steroid abuse, and plastic surgery on the rise people have never walked the line of self-hatred and vanity so precariously before.

In the age of social media, it is impossible to go unnoticed. Even if you were to spend all week in bed, stuck in an endless cycle of scrolling and liking, you are being perceived by others. Even without the need for commenting or posting, you likely have a profile picture that is popping up in the ‘likes’ of some post for the entire world to see. Even if you approach the world in incognito mode, with no profile photo and only your closest friends as followers, your activity is still readily available for others to see. And when people see, they perceive. Whether you’ve liked some stupid Instagram reel of a cat getting scared by a vacuum cleaner or an AI TikTok slideshow of what beverage you are based on

Please Percieve Me

By Isobel Carnochan Staff Writer

your birth month, a perception of you is formed in the mind of whoever has stumbled across the fact that you’ve liked said thing. We all know this, and we are all constantly asking ourselves ‘how will this be perceived?’ when we act online.

This is even more true for those of us who post on social media. Whether it’s Instagram, TikTok, or any other platform, there is always the risk (and, for some, the glimmer of hope) that these posts will go viral. The potentiality that the faux candid photo of us snapped in a cutesy café or an underground alleyway will be seen by thousands haunts us. Will we become the next ‘it girl’ or the next victim of cringe culture?

Before social media, this level of publicity only existed for celebrities. Now, everyone can be a celebrity (if even just for a day) – you don’t even need talent or nepotism anymore! Regular people like you and I previously only faced the risk of judgement from those who actively knew us, and perhaps the odd passerby on the street, who would be unlikely to say anything to your face. But, with the distance and dissonance between screens, it’s become increasingly common for complete strangers to pass judgement on you. ‘Smile, you’re in the original’ has become so fre-

quently typed and posted that any seasoned social media user can probably name at least one post they’ve seen it commented under. And when this judgement comes in hoards, it’s hard not to fear it.

We’ve developed the need to scrutinise everything that could possibly be wrong with ourselves –the way we look, the way we talk, the way we’re standing on camera. Does my eyeliner look more feline like or outdated-puppy-liner like? If people see this, what will they think of me? What will they assume of me? How will they perceive me? How do I ensure I’m beautiful enough for the entire world to not hate me? Not only is this destroying our own self confidence, but the environment too. Hand-in-hand with these microanalyses, skipping along with a maniacal laugh, is the existence of micro-trends. They ease the anxiety of not knowing how we’ll be perceived, but they entrap us in a cycle of consumption. Social media has evidently created a world in which we are being frequently perceived and suspect to criticism from more people than ever before. It’s not only killing us but the world, and it’s no wonder why the line between vanity and self hatred has become so thin.

Illustration: Lucy Griffiths

Vain Film Characters: Why Do We Need Them?

By Jessica L.Smith Staff Writer

We have all encountered someone vain. Perhaps someone we know personally, a celebrity we’ve come across, or a fictional character. More often than not, they get under our skin.

Film characters are no exception to this idea of vanity. These are the characters that make you want to throw your popcorn in the air or your remote at the TV. We might love or hate them, or just simply hate them, but they add a certain undeniable quality to a film; the quality of being human. Whilst we might never admit, or openly embrace it, we are all a little vain. That’s what makes us human.

Yet, do we really need these vain film characters? What do they add to a film? Let’s take a look.

Starting off strong with a classic vain character: Gaston, the arrogant antagonist of the 1991 animated Disney film Beauty and the Beast. Gaston chases after beloved protagonist Belle because she is the most beautiful girl in the village, and his unrequited desire for her further fuels his ruthless arrogance. Gaston has a loyal sidekick, LeFou, who he belittles and mistreats; LeFou’s role is to elevate Gaston by feeding into his vanity and arrogance. Gaston even has a whole musical number dedicated to his arrogant personality, which is enough for us to know what kind of character he is, an egocentric narcissist. We particularly enjoy Gaston’s downfall because his empathy is replaced by vanity, and he plots to kill the Beast who we’ve grown to love. Arguably, Beauty and the Beast is a classic because of Gaston’s character. The film not only needs him to

drive the plot towards its dramatic ending, but also to enable a typical Disney teaching of moral lessons and values. We should be more like kind-hearted Belle, and less like arrogant Gaston.

A slightly more humorous exploration of vanity is presented in the 2023 comedy film Bottoms, through the character of Jeff, played by Nicholas Galitzine. Jeff is the stereotypical American high school football player, worshipped by the teachers and always the centre of attention on campus. The film exaggerates these stereotypes for comedic purposes, but the message of vanity is still clear; Jeff is a self-centred jerk. When gently hit by a car at the start of the film, he overreacts as if his life is at risk and comes to school the next day with crutches to gain the sympathy and attention of his peers. Like Gaston, Jeff acts as the antagonist of the film through his attempts to stop the fight club of the protagonists, PJ and Josie. When we bear witness to actions that wound his vanity and pride, such as the humiliation of having his car destroyed or his house egged, it feels quite deserving.

Based on real events, the selfish Mark Zuckerburg presented in the 2010 film The Social Network is perfect for emphasising how the vanity of film characters is very human. Jesse Eisenberg portrays Zuckerburg so well that the boundaries are blurred between the real life Zuckerburg and the film’s dramatised version. Directed by David Fincher, the film charts the beginnings of Zuckerburg’s journey to becoming a billionaire through the invention of Facebook. The film ensures that we understand Zuckerburg’s vain selfish-

ness in his path to achieving this; he was willing to cut anyone out for success, even his best friend. Zuckerburg acts nonchalant during lawsuits, indulges in quick and self-assured comebacks, talks negatively about women online, and believes himself to be intellectually superior. If the film was from the perspective of almost any other character, Zuckerburg would certainly be the antagonist. It’s hard to pinpoint the true antagonist of the film since Zuckerburg’s actions set him up as an antihero; we understand why he is driven to achieving his goals, yet still dislike him as a character. Naming Zuckerburg the protagonist makes for a driven, riveting film. In this sense, the film showcases the importance of vain, selfish characters.

Another example of a vain protagonist is Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, the 2000 satirical horror film based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Bateman is an investment banker living in 1980s New York. He is narcissistic, vain, and manipulative. Bateman’s strict, self-absorbed, and meticulous self-care routines align with his vain personality, as we observe his rigorous exercise, skincare, balanced diet, and general judgement of others due to his apparent superiority complex. In this film, we see vanity take form in an extreme way. Bateman takes out his sadistic, violent desires on other people, becoming a serial killer. One famous example is when Bateman kills his colleague Paul Allen out of his jealousy over an account that he wants. Unlike Zuckerburg, whose role in The Social Network is somewhat an antihero, Patrick Bateman is purely a villain whose

vanity leads him to the extremes of murder.

One thing about vain characters is that they are often masking some form of insecurity and self-doubt. These hidden insecurities add to the human quality of a film, as it is something we all experience. An example of this would be Regina George in the 2004 film Mean Girls. Regina is the self-absorbed queen ‘plastic’, dominating her high school through manipulation to stay at the top of the social ladder. Regina writes names in her Burn Book, sabotages her peers, controls her own mother, and lives an infuriatingly expensive lifestyle. Regina stops at nothing to get what she wants, but we can’t help but feel a sense of sympathy as she is clearly a character masking insecurity. Regina allows the perception of others to influence her confidence, appearance, self-esteem; all of her defining factors. When new-girl Cady attempts to destroy the reputation

of Regina and becomes entangled in her world, taking Regina’s role from her, we feel sympathy for both Regina and Cady’s desperate need to fit in. We’ve all been there, experiencing the harsh cliques of school. It’s particularly satisfying when there is a clear change in their characters at the end of the film, as they reform their mean, vain ways.

It seems that without vain characters, these films would be uninteresting and even lifeless. Vain characters are needed as antagonists to make a film authentic, engaging, and most importantly human. Without antagonists, films would lack the conflict and tension needed to make a story work. They add layers of quality to a film, with filmmakers using them to push their message across, like in Beauty and the Beast. Perhaps we enjoy discovering these vain characters because vanity is a quality we are taught to suppress, so creating characters that are vain

and self-absorbed is an interesting concept to explore. More often than not, we enjoy witnessing the downfall of vain characters because of their role as the antagonist. In exceptions, like The Social Network and American Psycho, where vain characters take the leading role, these characters are often so unlikeable that they turn into anti heroes or villains. Ultimately, films wouldn’t be the same without vain antagonists; look out for one next time you watch a film.

An Interview with Nicola Dinan

By Lena Zeller Staff Writer

I had the pleasure of interviewing Nicola Dinan, a Creative Writing tutor at Royal Holloway, whose deeply moving novel Bellies is available everywhere books are sold.

Q: Would you introduce yourself to our readers?

A: I’m a full-time novelist - my debut, Bellies, came out in 2023, and my sophomore novel, Disappoint Me, is out in January 2025. I’m currently a visiting tutor for the MA Creative Writing. Although I spend much of my working day thinking about books this is my first foray into an academic environment for writing, which might surprise people! I studied Natural

Sciences at university and then trained as a lawyer before writing Bellies.

Q: What has it been like to translate your experience as a writer into teaching? Did you learn anything about yourself as a writer in the process?

A: It’s been really rewarding. Each week, my seminars cover one aspect of a novel. The purpose of the module is to offer students a framework through which to critically assess their own and others’ writing, and so I definitely benefit from this, too! As part of the seminars, I naturally talk about my own experiences as a writer, drawing on my body of work,

which encourages me to reflect on my own experiences in a more interesting light.

Q: What is your writing process like? Do you have any advice for young writers?

A: I live a really unstructured existence, which is partly why I love being a writer. I write when I feel like it, which luckily is most days. I’m always really cautious when people ask me about my process, because I worry they’re hoping to find instructions about how they should write. All I can say is that you need to find what works best for you. I think consistency trumps quality: it’s far more beneficial to sit down and write on a

Image: Jake Hills via Unsplash

regular basis than it is to sit down and write only when you are sure you’ll write something amazing. As they say, all writing is rewriting, anyway.

Q: Would you tell our readers about Bellies?

A: Bellies seemingly starts as a boy-meets-boy on campus. Tom, a recently-out, white middle-class leftist, is drawn to Ming, an ebullient playwright from Malaysia. However, when the two move to London after graduation, Ming reveals that she intends to transition, leaving Tom and Ming to reckon with what this means for their relationship. While it’s a very queer novel, it’s also about the somewhat universal chaos of being in your early twenties, transitioning to adulthood and finding your feet in the world. It means a lot that some of my students have read and enjoyed it!

Q: Craft is depicted in Bellies through Ming’s playwriting. What was it like to write about writing?

A: Writers writing about writers is a bit of a cliche, isn’t it? I can’t help myself, though. It’s interesting to me! In Bellies, Ming writes a play about her and Tom’s relationship, which raises ethical questions around the craft: what do we owe to others when writing, particularly when drawing from personal experience? I like that my novels can function as a sandbox for difficult questions around the wider implications of what we as writers do, and other moral conundrums. At the start of my second novel, Disappoint Me, the protagonist, Max, has published a poorly-reviewed book of poetry - it deals more directly with why we might write and the impact of profes-

sional disappointment on our creativity. My novels have helped me tremendously with navigating tricky experiences in my own life, and how I approach my writing.

Q: I really loved the way you depicted love, intimacy and vulnerability. How did you decide on the metaphor of showing your belly as a through line for this story?

A: Thank you. The “showing your belly” metaphor, which the novel is ultimately named after, deals with two of the novel’s major themes. Firstly, our complex relationship to our own bodies and how that can define how we relate to others, seen clearly through Ming’s transition and the interpersonal ripples of this. Secondly, that vulnerability demands showing another of our softest parts at the risk of, to borrow Tom’s phrasing, being disemboweled. What I hope the novel conveys is that understanding our bodies and how to be vulnerable isn’t a lesson learned once. We see Ming’s feelings towards her body change, not necessarily lessening in complexity, and adapting to new realities up to the very end of the novel. We also see Tom having to learn how to be vulnerable once again after suffering what he understands to be a deep betrayal.

Q: Would you talk a bit about depicting OCD and how it influenced Ming becoming aware of her transness in the novel?

A: I wrote about OCD as I hadn’t read many depictions of it in literature which I’ve found accurate or meaningful to me. I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me since Bellies was published to tell me that they felt really understood

by its portrayal, or that they’ve shared it with family members to help them understand the kinds of things which go through an OCD sufferer’s mind. I’m glad that it has resonated with some of my audience.

As for how it influences Ming, that’s a bit more complicated. I wasn’t trying to draw distinctive links between OCD and being trans more generally, but Ming spends much of the novel questioning her own reality, constantly worried she’s about to have a heart attack, believing she has diseases which she doesn’t. This kind of far-reaching doubt means she loses trust in her feelings about her own body, and as a result doubts her transness - at least initially.

Q: The internal monologue in Bellies is raw, relatable and witty. How did you make your characters’ minds feel so distinct?

A: In one of my seminars, I described writing characters as a bit like dating them. You only have an initial sense of who someone is when you first meet them, and I experience something similar with my characters. In the process of working through iterations of a novel I understand my characters more deeply. It takes the pressure off knowing exactly how a character is supposed to be at the start of a novel. When we compare our first drafts to other people’s finished works it’s easy to feel a little inadequate, as if our characters are lacking fullness, but it doesn’t stress me out anymore - depth comes with time.

Q: What made you decide to portray grief in the novel?

A: Grief is a part of life, or at least my understanding of it, so it felt natural for Bellies to explore grief and its different manifestations. At the start of the novel, we learn that Ming’s mother died six years before. Tom and Ming also experience grief in the wake of Ming’s transition - for the life they thought they would have, for bodies they’d once loved. The novel examines grief as both a destructive and unifying force - not with a particular agenda, aside from the desire to paint a picture of how life often is.

Q: What can readers look forward to in your upcoming novel Disappoint Me?

A: I’m really proud of Bellies, but Disappoint Me is a better, tighter novel, closer to the voice I’ve always wanted as an author. It deals with problems that both I, and women around me, think about on a regular basis. Our relationships to heteronormativity, the conflict between what we want for ourselves and the expectations put on us by others, the loss of identity that may come with choosing a secure future, and how? When we may decide to accept change in others. I love it and the characters so much.

Lifestyle

The Fine Line Between Romanticising and Over-Consuming

By Sophie Fairey Senior Lifestyle Editor

Through aesthetics and appearances we are able to romanticise life, looking at everything through a lens of idealism, measuring success through beauty. Indulging in vanity in this way can be fun to a certain extent. Like making Pinterest boards of all the things you like, the aesthetics of the life you aspire to have, collections of pretty things with different meanings that capture the feeling of a place, person, or experience that words cannot.

While focussing on the aesthetic (and therefore materialistic) aspects of life can bring you joy, allowing you to appreciate what you have and look for the beauty in the everyday, it also forces you to see what you don’t have, making you feel like you need it to be happy. This kind of vanity fuels insecurities and encourages

over-consumerism. Beauty standards become unobtainable and lead many young people to obsess over their appearance and want to change it, and invest in every product that will make them look like the instagram models and tiktok influencers they see everyday. But success, worth, or happiness should not be measured through beauty.

While there is an ever-growing focus on self-love in the modern day, society tends to deal with this obsession with aesthetics and impossible beauty standards not by encouraging and embracing individuality, but by pushing consumerism as a solution to our problems. This message drives us to over-consume, collecting things we see online that we don’t need, but are led to believe will make us better. Social media is full of

beautiful depictions of life that can make you feel jealous if you don’t have the same aesthetic coherence in the mundane. Romanticising every aspect of life can escalate into the belief that filling your life with every trending product is the only thing that will buy your happiness, and creates a false sense of a perfect life, when no matter how put-together someone seems, no one is perfect.

Especially during the run up to Christmas, the idea of possessing material things and formulating the most aesthetically pleasing day out can become an obsessive mission, constantly striving to make sure you have the latest viral winter jumper in your wardrobe, and capture the perfect picture to post online. I love watching Christmas List videos on TikTok out of my own interest and enjoyment,

Image: Cover of Bellies by Nicola Dinan

whilst also giving me gift ideas for others, and to put on my own list. But it is important to remember that everyone’s budget is different, and enjoying the festive season isn’t focussed around the vanity of owning and doing expensive things (as lovely as they might be) because that’s what the internet told you to do. Staying in the moment and appreciating what’s already there is where the real joy lies.

I’m not saying don’t invest in material things that make you happy, or splurge on a gift or two. This is just a reminder to focus on the experiences rather than the aesthetics of life. Objects cannot replace memories. What matters the most is the unmaterialistic elements of life: memories, connections with other people and experiences that bring you joy because they aren’t just a temporary fix, but the very

“The Right to Vanity”

By Kayla Delaney Associate Lifestlye Editor

thing that sustains our happiness.

We are a generation without much support. We are set against each other, not allowed to be happy with our work or achievements because someone is better, and we cannot be confident yet. We are taught to be humble, to degrade our work in comparing it to others, and to never be satisfied.

Personally, I think this is a ridiculous, outdated, depressing standard. We work hard and try our best, and yet we’re told we can’t celebrate it. Not yet, at least. Not until…when? When do we get to celebrate ourselves?

Now. We do it now, or never. We are allowed to celebrate our efforts, be proud of our work and even be a bit vain.

First of all, it is an achievement to get through the day. The mental health of our generation is among the worst compared to those before us, and each day is more plagued with health-related, economic, social, political and climate issues than the last. So, you got out of bed today? Amazing! You cooked yourself a meal? Well done. You had some water before some coffee, made your bed, and made it to at least one lecture this

week? That’s something to celebrate. It’s difficult to get all of the things done, especially as young adults figuring out how to look after ourselves, study, have a life and be mentally and physically well. You can, and should, be proud of yourself for getting things done.

You should also be proud of yourself for your achievements. People often feel as if they cannot be happy for themselves when they win something, or are given an award for what they have done. Maybe you don’t feel like you’ve earned it. But, guess what? You have! You were given that award, or scholarship, or high grade, or role - for no reason except for that you earned it. Rather than questioning it, be vain about it! Rejoice! It’s yours.

Finally, you’re allowed to be vain about your progress. You may not feel like you’ve come very far, or like you have so much further to go; you might wonder, why bother being happy about such a small journey? Thing is, you could have walked ahead for five minutes or five days, and you still would be moving forward. You are still ahead of your old self, your old place. Your journey is the only one you need to focus on. Don’t

compare your progress to others; comparison is often the thief of joy. Enjoy your journey, and be proud of the steps you have walked so far.

Being proud often comes across as being vain, or arrogant, and may seem unearned or belittling to others. Frankly, other people’s opinions of your confidence, or ‘arrogance’, should not stop you. Pride and confidence go hand in hand; they fuel each other. Being more proud of yourself will improve your confidence, and vice versa.

Don’t be afraid to be smug, and pat yourself on the back. You deserve to possess some vanity.

Image: Aleksandra Tanasienko Via Unsplash

The ideas surrounding narcissism need to be reframed. I reviewed psychologists’ research, and drew inspiration from being a member of the so-called ‘narcissistic generation’, to discover what it means, whether I could be a narcissist, and even ask the question - could it be a good thing?

Some may be aware of the Ancient Greek myth which lent its name to the term. The story follows a vain and ill-fated Narcissus, who falls in love with his reflection. This drives him mad as, for obvious reasons, it was a rather one-sided relationship. From this point onwards the term became synonymous with condemnable hubris, so I was surprised to discover the idea of healthy narcissism.

‘Healthy Narcissism,’ is a concept developed by psychoanalyst Federn. It gained traction throughout the latter half of the 20th century, with the developments of Heinz Kohut. It refers to a level of self-love, confidence, and even

Am I a Narcissist?

By Verity Stow Staff Writer

empathy, which is beneficial for yourself and others. Dr. Craig Malkin, a Lecturer for Harvard Medical School, explores these ideas in his book Rethinking Narcissism, which presents narcissism as a spectrum. From the low confidence and poor self-esteem ‘echoists’ on the one side, to those with Narcissistic Personality Disorder on the other. Although this spectrum is too complex to explore fully, I believe healthy narcissism would sit in the middle.

Our generation greatly values a culture of self-love, and yet we are being called a bunch of narcissists. We are obsessed with our Tik Toks, selfies, and making sure everybody knows everything, from what we eat, to our opinion on World Politics. With a rising focus on Higher Education, and the need for diverse input to solve complex problems, we have been led to believe our opinions are important.

As a deeply opinionated Liberal,

with no filter, self-regulation, or volume control, I say whatever I think. This can be misinterpreted as obnoxiousness, and I can certainly appear as a narcissist. In fact, I think I am one. I am far from being one of Malkin’s “echoists”, and I have no problem making myself heard. As a woman with disabilities, in a space where I can have a voice, I use it.

Malkin acknowledges that if you believe yourself to be special and unique, this can equip you with a much needed confidence. We live in a world that is increasingly overwhelmed with voices wanting to be heard and understood, especially young ones. I’m not saying we should all go out and get a God complex, but it is worth having a measured understanding of what we have to say. Perhaps, unlike me, you should think before you speak. But, I find myself constantly insisting, especially to those from marginalised backgrounds, that people should recognise their own value. You should acknowl-

In Between: Starting University at 20 for the Second Time

By Kiera Sule-Shingadia Staff Writer

Starting university once felt like a fresh start. Now, at 20 and back for the second time, it feels more like an unfinished challenge. When I was looking at restarting university, Royal Holloway felt like a good place to try. It was similar enough to my old university in terms of the social aspect, and the architecture and structure assured me I would feel right at home starting over here. As the September start date drew nearer, the more the anxiety of starting again set in.

Back in August one of my friends

did the Serpentine Swim, a 2-mile course around the Serpentine in Hyde Park to raise money for refugee action. My friends and I bundled into the car with her entire family and went to go and support her. I remember thinking that it felt like such an ‘adult thing’ to be doing, to go and cheer your friend along while she competes alongside ‘actual adults’ in a race. That day I spent 4 hours sat with her parents and sisters while she competed, chatting to her sisters about how school was going and helping them with homework.

Halfway through a conversation with one of her younger sisters about personal statements, I realised that she’d been talking in past tense.

“Yeah, when I wrote mine, I really struggled to keep it in the word limit”

“Oh? You’ve already done your personal statement? Are you planning on starting uni early then?

“ No no, I did my A levels this year, I’m starting at the same time as the rest of my year!”

When she said that to me, I just remember feeling like someone had poured a bucket of ice water down my back. I’m insanely proud of her for ending up at Oxford. I’ve grown up around this family and my friends’ sisters feel like my own, but I’d just never realised that, by restarting university, I’d be starting in the same year group as someone I considered so much younger than me.

I know the age gap between 18 and 20 may not seem like a lot, and some people may be able to restart without experiencing anything like how I’ve ended up feeling, but to carry so much baggage from when I was that age, to have lived it and then have to try to live it again, but older and with more social awareness, is a bit of a challenge. It just feels like there’s a constant tug-of-war between feeling too old to blend in with the new freshers, yet too young to be classed as a mature student. It’s like standing in a hallway with doors on either side, neither of which will open.

Walking through this campus feels surreal. I recognise the energy, the same nervous excitement I once felt at my first university, but there’s so many other emotions floating around. Freshers are crowded together in the carpark outside the hub, laughing about their new classes, talking about the people they’ve met, the people in their flats and the parties they’ve been to. I’m here, sharing the same space, attending the same lectures as them, but that energy feels out of reach. I watch them and am forced to feel an odd mix of nostalgia and disconnect –as if I’m behind a glass wall, close enough to see but not to touch or feel what they’ve got. Everything seems the same, yet I’m not part of

it in the same way anymore.

I’m caught in a strange middle ground; too old to fully connect with the 18-year-olds exploring their first taste of independence, yet too young to fit in with the mature students who have established their own lives and careers. I float between both groups, sometimes blending in, other times feeling out of place. The ‘in between feeling’ is isolating, as if I’m wandering through my own university journey in a strange space where I don’t fully fit. The isolation of it is not hostile enough for me to actually want to leave like previously, but I find myself searching for connection and understanding, longing for a place where I can feel like I belong.

Settling into university this time around, I’ve learnt that fitting in may not come from perfectly matching any single group. My path is less about joining others on their journeys and more about carving out space within the gaps where I exist. In small moments, I find connection – not in the ways I expected, but in ways that feel surprisingly genuine. There’s a kind of freedom in not being locked into a specific “role” or peer group, even if that freedom can feel lonely at times.

In moments of group discussions and seminars, I’ve noticed that my experiences give me a different perspective – one that doesn’t necessarily align with either the freshers’ or the mature students’ views. This gap, while it can sometimes feel isolating, also allows me to bring something unique to conversations. When topics touch on resilience, setbacks, or growth, I find I have insights to share that come from my own path, which hasn’t followed a straight line.

Engaging with others through this lens has allowed me to offer perspectives that, while different, add a layer of depth to our discussions.

I’ve also started to notice that finding connection isn’t about joining a specific group but about building relationships with individuals from all backgrounds. In study groups or casual meetups, shared goals have proven more uniting than ages or life stages. I’m beginning to see how a diverse mix of perspectives enriches our collective learning experience. Rather than looking for people who are exactly like me, I find value in understanding others’ viewpoints, which allows us all to learn from each other in unexpected ways.

This experience has shifted my view of “fitting in” from finding an exact match to cultivating a meaningful sense of belonging. I’m realising that, while I don’t fit neatly into any single group, there’s strength in creating my own path – one that values my past and welcomes the present. Embracing this sense of independence has shown me that the “in-between” space, though sometimes uncomfortable, holds immense potential for growth. It has allowed me to blend elements from different stages of my life, learning from both the excitement of new beginnings and the groundedness that comes with experience.

In retrospect, I see that going back to school is about more than just fitting in; it’s about discovering meaning in my own narrative, even if it doesn’t resemble everyone else’s. I returned with the intention of fitting in perfectly and regaining what I had previously believed to be gone. But this time, I’ve learnt that my path doesn’t have to adhere to a predetermined

plot. It’s okay to be “in between,” to float between moments of connection and solitude, and to find value in both.

I’m learning from this journey that similarity isn’t always a sign of belonging. It stems from resilience and the ability to stand by oneself while still feeling connected to others in subtle ways. It’s in the

little, sincere relationships I’ve formed and in realising that, because it is unique, my voice matters. My connections with others are based on honesty rather than pretence, and so the friendships I have made, despite their unorthodox nature, feel genuine.

The spaces I now inhabit were never truly empty; rather, they

were just awaiting my own experiences and viewpoint to fill them. And as I move forward, I am confident that, even though my place here may appear different, it is one that I can genuinely call my own.

Illustration: Isabelle McFarlane

Sport

Live, Lax, Love: How Close are we to Class Equality in Women’s Lacrosse?

For most, when the sport of Lacrosse is mentioned in an English context, the first things to spring to mind are often scenes from the 2008 film Wild Child and grass-pitch matches played in the sprawling grounds of all-girls public schools. Yet, in the year 2024, it is possible to say the face of Women’s Lacrosse is changing.

While female participation in lacrosse in the UK is often seen to be firmly rooted in the public-school playing pathway, University and Club lacrosse is increasingly becoming a route into the sport for women. Within a university context, Lacrosse is primarily managed and run through the competitive body known as British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS). According to England Lacrosse statistics, since 2009, BUCS registered teams have increased by 130%. This statistic does, of course, not shed light on the participation of state educated women within the sport specifically. We can however draw conclusions that perhaps the wider participation in the sport more generally since 2009 within universities included many state-educated women.

There is a general lack of data specifically about the participation of presently and formerly state-educated women in Lacrosse. England Lacrosse claims that in addition to the sport being ‘very popular in independent girls’ schools in the UK’ it ‘is also played in state schools as part of the

By Issy Trapnell Hoyle Senior Sports Editor

school sport offer. It is adaptable, easy to deliver and a very popular addition to the school curriculum for teachers and coaches looking to add something different to their programme.’ Yet, for many state-educated women like me, the appearance of Lacrosse in the PE Curriculum never seemed to materialise.

The possible reasons for this are varied, perhaps it was a lack of desire to introduce what is still seen by many as a Public-School minority sport into the wider sport offer or maybe just a lack of funding more widely within schools for PE resources and equipment. This does not mean, however, there are not state educated Lacrosse players.

At a university level, the sport is often marketed towards beginners making it more accessible to state educated women who may have previously, due to a lack of opportunities at a school level, not had access to the sport. One such student is Daisy Clarkson who, after beginning to play Lacrosse at University, is now president of Royal Holloway Lacrosse Club.

Daisy was drawn to play the sport by its beginner friendly nature and found the presence of the club’s dedicated development squad appealing. She said the fact it was an entirely new sport to her was also an appealing factor. I asked how she found running a Lacrosse Club as a state-educated pupil when those with background in

the sport commonly come from the privately educated sector. She said that she sometimes feels unqualified in her role as she feels she lacks the background in the sport that others who have had the opportunity to play throughout their lives may have. She did also note, however, that she feels that the fact she started playing at university helps her when recruiting those who may have reservations about having no background in the sport.

She noted as well that playing sport at university has been an integral part of her university experience and wished state schools, including her own, had better resources to implement extra-curricular sport in a similar way to how it is structured for university students at Royal Holloway. She explained how the only sports offered in an extra-curricular capacity for girls at her school were netball and dance which meant those who wished to pursue anything outside of those options were often excluded. She joked as well that, coming from a state school background, her friends at home are often confused by the sport she plays and wonder how she came into a leadership role in the Club.

Daisy said that despite the imposter-syndrome she sometimes feels she is encouraged by the number of state-educated pupils she is surrounded by in the club and by the welcoming attitudes of those who had played before starting their

degrees. She discussed that, while she feels sometimes unqualified as a first team player, she feels more confident in her off-pitch committee role as it allows her to utilise skills she has learned in other fields.

While the upwards trajectory of Lacrosse in Universities is undoubtedly positive it does, however, still leave many gaps between how state-educated pupils and their private school counterparts experience it. For example, state-educated pupils who do not attend university will most likely not gain the opportunity to play the sport at all. Furthermore, in the many universities where the sport is not offered, university students may still not have the

opportunity to play.

The isolated example of lacrosse perhaps reflects a wider issue surrounding young women and participation in sport. As reported by Women in Sport, 43% of girls who once considered themselves ‘sporty’, disengage from sport following primary school. They reported numerous reasons for this, including the fear of feeling judged by others (68%), lack of confidence (61%), pressures of schoolwork (47%) and not feeling safe outside (43%) to name the few.

With these statistics considered, it is clear that widening the participation of women and specifically state-educated women within

sport would be a much needed positive. Furthermore, marketing Lacrosse as an accessible and beginner friendly sport continues to help bridge the gap between men’s and women’s participation in sport.

With this considered, it is clear the progress the sport of Lacrosse has made in the university sector, particularly for those who would not have previously had access to the sport is extremely positive. It does not, however, mean there is not still progress to be made. Yet, with student leaders and governing bodies continuing to widen the sport’s participation, the future of lacrosse for those who are state educated looks bright.

The Unique Lifestyle of Dennis Rodman

By Harkomal Shoker Associate Sports Editor

TW: Mention of Suicide Dennis Rodman is renowned for his style, parties and games, and it is clear that he has evolved into one of the most important figures in our culture. He became one of the best defensive players in the NBA in the 90s and was part of one of the greatest teams of all time. In his time he won 5 championships, 2 NBA defensive players of the year awards, 7 NBA all defensive first teams, 2 NBA all star appearances, gained the rebounding champion 7 times and has over 11,000 career rebounds. He was part of the Detroit Pistons in the 80s as a youngster and won two championships with them. The Detroit Pistons got the name “the bad boy pistons” according to the Netflix ‘The Last Dance’ documentary. This name didn’t make them a fan favourite as people said they ruined the sport and made it a quote on quote “dirty game”.

According to the Netflix documentary ‘The Last Dance’, Dennis Rodman played a huge part of this team and added to his perception of him in the league. He became a dirty player to people, a player that “ was ruining the beautiful part of the game” but this made him a champion. He then moved to the spurs and right after he became a chicago bull. The Chicago Bulls were a huge rival for the Detroit pistons. So he had to win over not only the fans, but also the team mates. The Chicago Bulls had Scottie Pippen, the great Phil Jackson and the Greatest of all time Michael Jordan but Dennis Rodman was a huge part of that team and they won three championships including breaking the regular season record for

most wins at the time 72- 10. After the three championships Dennis bounced around the league and explored basketball in other countries. He eventually retired and got his number retired on the Detroit pistons. He then got to join the hall of fame and is remembered for being one of the best defensive players.

Although in the 2010s and 2020s Dennis Rodman has been celebrated for being an icon for his fashion, in the 80s and 90s he wasn’t so celebrated. We saw a lot of this from Dennis Rodman that ultimately created a certain perception of himself in the league. He skipped practice during the NBA finals to attend a professional wrestling event. He once headbutted the Spurs’ mascot, the Coyote, during a preseason game. He was once late to a stadium opening because he was dying his hair. He once took off his shoes and read a magazine on the bench. These antics created an image of Dennis Rodman that made him come across as unprofessional, lazy and vain. Dennis Rodman also wasn’t a shy person with his outfits. He dressed in outfits that were vibrant and did not conform to the typical outfits of the old basketball players. He changed the metrics for what an outfit could potentially look like as a basketball player. Dennis Rodman would wear feminine attire that would shake headlines and perceptions of him. He once wore a dress, even though it shouldn’t have been a big deal, this was a massive shift in the 90s and definitely changed how the media perceived him. Dennis Rodman became an icon for outfits back then in the 90s

and the younger generation is now looking at him as a game changer in fashion.

Dennis Rodman had a lot of hate towards him during the time he became a public figure that wasn’t common at the time. Dennis started becoming this figure early in his life. He started wearing feminine attire when he was young, butespite having a very eccentric sense of style that screams confidence, Dennis didn’t have the best upbringing. Rodman became homeless at the age 18 and became homeless for 2 years According to the Netflix documentary ‘The Last Dance’. His mother got sick and tired of him being lazy during this young life and kicked him out of the house. He then lived in a rough area and thought he wasn’t going to amount to much. Once he was scouted and started to play in college he got drafted to the Detroit Pistons in 1986. Then after a few seasons in the NBA in 1993 Dennis Rodman was found in his car with a gun in his hand- it was repoted that he had attempted suicide. After this event Dennis reinvented himself with getting tattoos, changing his fashion and getting piercings everywhere. The suicide attempt changed the way Dennis saw life.

After this life changing he started to date Madonna and according to ‘The Last Dance’; documentary Madonna said to Rodman “You have to establish who you want to be in this life, don’t be who they tell you should be”. This quote further progressed Dennis’s character development and he became a man that didn’t care about how anyone perceived him.

The clothes became a way for him to express his emotions. In ‘The Last Dance’, when asked Why do you dress like this? Dennis responded with “I like doing what I’m doing, it makes me happy. It makes me feel like I’m a ten year old kid”. This quote explains why he dressed the way he did and

maybe why he did all those antics. He wanted the freedom you have when you’re a kid.

Dennis Rodman now has been celebrated for being a fashion icon that broke boundaries in how sportsmen dress but also how men dress, the freedom and confidence

men now have to dress anyway they want is largely because of Dennis Rodman. Rodman lives a peaceful life and is still the fashion icon that people will remember for years on end.

Player Profile: Lucy Bronze

Lucy Bronze is arguably one of the most well-known female footballers of the modern age, famous for both her talent and achievements. Winning a range of individual awards such as, The Best FIFA Women’s Player 2020 and UEFA Women’s Player of the Year Award 2019, to name a couple, she is not lacking in accomplishments.

Her most impressive accomplishments, however, must be what she has achieved with the teams she has played for, winning five Champions League titles, three Women’s Super League Titles, and winning the Euros for England in 2022. It is no wonder she is an idol for most footballers. However, I would argue it is not her achievements which have turned her into an inspiration for female footballers everywhere but her work ethic. Her commitment to the game, and determination to achieve everything she sets out to do, rivals most. Her “competitiveness is a drive within” her, making her determined to be the best at everything she does, in and outside of football.

By Ellie Doherty Staff Writer

But how did Lucy Bronze get to where she is now? It started with a passion for football. With a football obsessed older brother she found herself mixed up in his football games. She claims she wanted to do whatever he could do. Perhaps her competitiveness showing again even as a small child. Playing with him and his friends, she surrounded herself with football, both watching and playing it. She began by playing in a local boys’ team, but due to FA rules she was unable to play with the boys once she turned twelve in case she got injured. Despite the fact that her mother claims she was bigger than most of the boys at this age. Outraged her mother and Aunt contacted the FA where they refused to change the rule, and instead told them to take her to Sunderland. She began playing for Sunderland in their U-12 level team and was promoted to the first team at the age of 16. As well as representing England from their under-17 level. This young success within her footballing career is what led her to North Carolina.

America at the time was one of the best places for women’s football, with it still being underdeveloped and pushed aside within the UK. (We hadn’t yet had the rise of interest in the women’s game that the Women’s Euro win in 2022 started, with 87,192). North Carolina Tar Heels were one of the pioneer schools at this time, according to Anson Dorrance, Head Women’s soccer coach. Lucy Bronze attended their soccer camp for a few years, before they offered her a scholarship, leading to her playing in America at 17 years old. When she turned 18 she returned to England, heading back to Sunderland, and attending an England camp. Before, suffering a knee injury.

Anyone who has heard of Lucy Bronze has heard of her famous knee issues, with multiple surgeries Bronze has suffered with a knee injury since 18, that went undiagnosed for a while. Eventually, it was discovered that she had a torn meniscus and has now had over 70% of it removed. However, she has always been determined not to let her knee injuries stop her,

going to university to study more about knee injuries and working hard in physio. She has played through pain and is determined to play football until her knees won’t let her anymore.

Lucy Bronze is an inspirational person, overcoming the lack of girl’s teams, knee injuries, and the burden of having to have a job alongside football at the start of her career to fund her dreams. Her hard work and determination have paid off, allowing her to play for huge clubs like Lyon, Barcelona, Chelsea, and Man City to name a few. Receiving an MBE, her accomplishments have not gone unrecognised, and I would argue

women’s football is a better place with her in it.

Sport at Royal Holloway and Why YOU Should Join

By Priya Prasad Staff Writer

Attending university for the first time or simply looking to try something new? The Royal Holloway sports community has a place for you! With over 35 different clubs ranging from football to fencing, students have numerous opportunities to explore their interests and discover new passions. The diverse range of sports available means that regardless of skill level, background or experience there is always something for everyone.

For many students in university, navigating unfamiliar environments can feel intimidating. Selfdoubt, lack of experience, and fear of failure often hold people back from pursuing things they have never tried. However, confronting these challenges head-on fosters resilience and encourages others to take risks and face their fears. Each time a student decides to participate in a new activity, they

are not just learning a sport; they are also developing coping mechanisms that can serve them well throughout their lives. By stepping away from the familiar, you open doors to experiences that can uncover hidden talents, skills, and interests, putting you on a path to personal growth filled with moments of self-discovery.

Perhaps you’ve never tried squash but have always been curious about it, or maybe you’ve enjoyed riding and want to explore its competitive side. Each club offers a unique atmosphere and community, making it easy to find what best aligns with your interests. The supportive environments within these communities can encourage members to challenge themselves, try new techniques, and strive for improvement. Each session brings opportunities for personal development and collective achievement.

Through every achievement whatever it may be; mastering a new technique, contributing to a team victory, or uncovering previously unknown capabilities. The experiences you have provide a profound sense of achievement and growth. These pivotal moments of success foster empowerment amongst students and enable them to acquire newfound confidence that inherently seeps into other areas of their life, including interpersonal relationships, academics, and their future careers.

The skills learned on the field, such as resilience in the face of adversity, goal setting, and communication, translate well beyond sports, further contributing to the way students carry themselves outside of the community.

The most significant impact of engaging with sports communi-

ties is the opportunity to create meaningful friendships. Sports teams foster a network of support where members cheer each other on and celebrate each other’s achievements. These connections also extend beyond the sports field. Many friendships formed in clubs lead to study groups, social events, and lifelong relationships that contribute to the overall university experience. Being part of a team creates a sense of belonging that can alleviate the stress of having to navigate through new and unfamiliar environments.

The skills learned on the field, such as resilience in the face of adversity, goal setting, and communication translate well beyond sports, further contributing to the way students carry themselves

outside of the community. The most significant impact of engaging with sports communities is the opportunity to create meaningful friendships. Sports teams foster a network of support where members cheer each other on and celebrate each other’s achievements. These connections also extend beyond the sports field. Many friendships formed in clubs lead to study groups, social events, and lifelong relationships that contribute to the overall university experience. Being part of a team creates a sense of belonging that can alleviate the stress of having to navigate through new and unfamiliar environments.

Whether you’re playing for fun or have goals to become the next

Jude Bellingham the benefits are undeniable. From improved endurance and strength to better mental clarity, joining a sports club encourages a balanced lifestyle that teaches you how to efficiently manage your time. Additionally, the things you’ll learn while pursuing each endeavour, such as self-discipline, teamwork, and time management will be valuable contributions to your skillset that heighten your capabilities as an individual. As most of us have experienced, stepping out of your comfort zone can be a daunting task but it is through that very discomfort where you will find who you are truly meant to be.

Priya photographed with her football team, RHWFC 3s (below)

Creative Writing

A lack of discernment made me vain

By Ruby Saggers Associate Creative Writing Editor

I believe I deserve to be vain.

After years of misfortune and tribulation.

To be seen by your seniors as a worthless

Horrid

Mess of a Girl from a Low-income houseHold. They held onto that. I held onto it.

The contention that I could not achieve because I did not have a warm space to ruminate on my future, my education, my vision as an academic. Though I knew what I wanted. Being forced into bottom sets as a result of the preconceived notion that I cold not – would not – meet the same end goal as my peers made me… it made me.

It made me want more.

And so, I did more.

Now I sit in nineteenth century elation

Staring at the dust on books I used to dream about having access to. Those words are now mine to read.

To be vain has never been an act of self-absorbedness, of ego weighing down the successful essays I write.

It has been an act of steadfastness to the impression that I – someone so dreadfully unlucky, a little girl brought up by a dedicated mother and a cancer-fighting father – could not achieve.

TW: Suicide

The Song of the Waterfall

By Anastasia Gorelova Staff Writer

I spent a lot of time in the forest those days.

I wasn’t entirely sure why I gravitated towards it. Maybe out of the hope that a place filled with so much life would finally inspire me somehow. Or maybe to simply get lost and be with my thoughts, hoping that the loneliness would force some inspiration to come naturally.

Nobody tells you what to do after your stories are out in the world. There was all this advice on how to reach all the right people, to find others who will read all your words and your poems and see themselves in them and support you. But I found no advice on what to do when you feel like you put your heart and soul into something, and everyone praised it, and now there’s no more of your heart left to tell any other stories. I searched and searched and searched for potential ideas, looking in any corners, talking to everyone I knew, turning to written advice.

“Reconnect with nature.”, other writers suggested in countless advice books. “Take a walk.”, my sister advised over a cup of herbal tea, tracing the handle with her fingers. “Maybe just spend some more time out in the world”, my friends said sitting in my room, wearing gentle but worried smiles on their faces.

So that’s what I did. I sat in my garden and watched the bugs and the flowers and noticed how they flittered and fluttered around. Took a trip to the beach and watched the sea, listened to the waves crashing and saw the water sparkling. Spent hours and hours wandering around parks and forests, waiting for that magical strike that would wash away the ivy that had trapped my words in my mind and send them flowing like a river down into my hands and my pen.

Until that day.

The day I was forever changed.

It started off as any other, with a simple fruit tea and a pastry and a long walk through the gardens that led to the edge of the woods. I turned the handle and slipped into the gate, As I had done in previous months past. I took the same path through the woods that I would always take, curving between the strong brown trunks and the prickly bushes, enjoying the shade that the canopy of leaves above provided. I was admiring a particularly pretty daisy on the side of the path when I heard the most melodic, perfect voice coming from afar. It was sweeping, high and gentle, with a sweetness and a mystery to it that seemed almost inhuman. I stood there, entranced by the song, and it took me a few minutes to notice the voice wasn’t just singing a stunning melody. It was telling a story, something akin to a fairytale, a ballad of a kind princess who sets out on a quest to stop her kingdom from being cursed. It was just faint enough for me to pick out some words, but I needed to know more.

I needed to be closer.

I needed to know what happened next.

I began to jog through the forest, chasing after the voice. It seemed to surround me, enveloping me in a soft cloud of music, calling me to follow it and not look back. Straying off the path for the first time in all my visits, I could hear it getting closer and clearer.

I weaved between trees and bushes, ducking and twisting, and once I’d made my way through a makeshift curtain of leaves, I came across a beautiful sight. It was a meadow filled with lush green grass and small pink, white and purple flowers dotted around like sprinkles. There was a small lake in the middle, and right above it stood a majestic waterfall, water in all hues of blue, white, and silver rushing down into the lake. But what was more magical than the sight was the voice. It came from the very depths of the waterfall itself, the rush of the water letting out the beautiful song I had heard in the forest. Completely entranced, I walked into the meadow, breathing in the sweet and heady scent of the wildflowers. I made my way to the lake, feeling the gentle cool coming from the water, and the small droplets from the waterfall that would land on my face and my arms. A desire to stay there as long as I could came over me, so I laid down in the soft grass right as the waterfall began another song.

I barely noticed when the sun glowed orange and began to set behind the horizon. Ever since that day I was obsessed. Infatuated. I would return to the meadow and to the waterfall day after day, and hours would pass as I simply sat there in the grass, listening to the beautiful, thrilling, lovely stories it would tell. I would lay down, breathe in the dizzying scent of the flowers, and let the words and the melody carry me away.

It was my refuge from a world that was often dark and bitter. This magical, sacred place filled with nothing but beauty and art.

There was a day when the waterfall told the story of the princess again. It was there and then I committed my biggest sin.

I wrote the story down. I hesitated at first, unsure if I had the words to truly do the magical ballad justice. But instinctually my hands reached into the pockets of my dress for my notepad, and I knew that even if I failed, it was my mission to try. The world deserved to hear its beauty, and who better to bring this beauty to the world if not a poet? As soon as my pen touched my notepad I couldn’t stop. The words rushed out of me just like the waterfall had, and before I knew it the poem was complete. It was the most beautiful poem I had written; the words were perfectly chosen, the rhythm and the cadence were stunning, and the princess was a perfect subject. I felt fulfilled like I hadn’t in a long time. I finally felt like a proper writer again. A real artist. I had noticed that since that day the waterfall had never told the story of the princess again, but I simply thought its trove of stories was endless. It was ancient, ethereal, something from a different world. There was no chance I could have done anything by simply writing the story down for my own sake. Ah, how naive I was.

After that day, my infatuation only grew. I spent every waking hour by that waterfall, from the peach, rosy hues of the dawn to the soft orange of the dusk. I listened hungrily to all the stories, my pen flying as I wrote about faraway kingdoms, magical pacts, love stories and families reuniting. I was caught up in quests, in tragic lovers torn apart, in scandals and weddings and love, in grand battles and small, quiet moments of intimacy.

I was so selfish then, so swept up in my words and my stories I didn’t notice how the singing voices of the water got quieter and quieter each day I was there. Not the fading lushness of the grass. Not the dimming voices of the birds, nor the flowers slowly wilting. The only thing I cared about were my words. Before I knew it the book was nearly complete; I just needed one last, final story. The perfect happy ending. I could be loved by everyone again. Praised by everyone. It was so close I could feel it, the saccharine sweet taste of approval coating my whole life.

But I should have known that happy endings only belong in fairy tales. That day when I made my way down to the waterfall there was no voice. No songs. No stories. The water still rushed, glimmering and shining like a stream of crystal jewels, but the waterfall itself was dead silent. At first, I was confused. What could have happened? Was this the wrong place? Did I get lost in the forest?

But the realisation dawned slowly. It came over me like a fog, creeping under my skin until I was choking on my own guilt.

It was me.

I always thought that writing down all the stories wouldn’t matter, that the stories and the magic were endless, and the reason the waterfall stopped telling them was simply a choice. That just one writer couldn’t use up all the magic.

But I was wrong. One by one they all disappeared right under my own gaze, until I had sucked the entirety of the magic out and shut it away in my ink and my papers.

My heart shattered, a need to fix this at any cost aching deep in my chest. I needed to do something, anything at all. I could tear the stories up?

I reached into my bag and one by one I ripped the papers to pieces, tearing up the days and nights of work. I tore apart the lovers, the battles, the families, sobbing and pleading. Soon the scraps surrounded my feet, as if I were trapped by an array of tiny snowflakes. And yet the singing didn’t return. The damage was done.

All because of me and my selfish cravings. And for what? For poems? Stories? Inspiration? How could I have been so greedy?

Hot tears streamed down my face, sliding down and staining the white cotton of my dress. I couldn’t do this. I wouldn’t do this. I couldn’t live in a world without this magic, knowing that I had tainted these stories. It would be worse than not living in this world at all.

I ran up to the edge of the waterfall, feeling the scent of the flowers for the last time, and I threw myself into the glittering, rushing water.

As I sank, I heard a faint melody. The waterfall was singing again, telling the story of a talented poet, a writer so obsessed with her art that she gave her life to write down the most beautiful stories. I smiled, and I closed my eyes.

Maybe this was my perfect happy ending. One final story.

The Sinner and his Angel

By Pheonix Malone Staff Writer

Trigger warning: graphic descriptions

A sinner had breached the iridescent gates of heaven. The fluffy white had become a sickly, heavy red, and he absolutely adored it. If you were to ask him if he was a sinner he would vehemently oppose said question.

No, for he was a god amongst men. He had done the impossible and for his actions he should be praised. His ‘masterpiece’ was finally complete.

He couldnt help but laugh, his knees buckling underneath him and sending him careening to the cobblestones of the street. He held his hands above his face, taking in the glory of the crimson staining his skin.

“My masterpiece…”

The moonlight glistened beautifully in his eyes. What a sight to behold. His vision became to fade into obscurity, it was time for him to ascend to his place in heaven. There was a price to pay for his actions, and it only made sense to pay for a life with a life.

…

The house creaked with the wind, the gentleman slowly surveilling each rickety room. Every room was in disarray, potentially thousands of items littering every single surface available, dust smothering it all from sight.

The kerosene lantern swung gently in the officers hands as he climbed the stairs, glinting off the rails that adorned each ceiling. He coughed into his empty hand from the sheer volume of dust he was breathing in, eyes stinging from the stint he was performing.

The downstairs had yielded no results, so he bet that the horrors this house had to hold were on the upper floors. All he knew was that a man had collapsed in the street, drenched in blood, muttering about a certain ‘masterpiece’. If this sick freak was to be believed, the officer had to prepare himself for what lay upstairs.

The top stair warped under his weight, and when he leaned down he noticed tiny blood droplets decorating the wood, leading him up a tiny staircase to the attic. He heaved on the door and flung it open, groaning with the effort. The house was past its best days. A previous crime seemed to weigh on his mind - he could’ve been certain it had occurred within this very house - but that was not the top priority now.

The air was tinged with a distinct metallic smell, making his tongue rest heavy in his mouth. He felt sick, and his eyes had yet to find the most vile thing that rested in the attic.

The lantern hit the ground as the officer wretched, his stomach emptying itself onto the attic floor. Oh no… This was so much worse than he was expecting. There, in the middle of the floor, lay a corpse. He had seen many corpses in his time, but this one… Oh god… He simply prayed that she had been dead when it happened.

Blood was everywhere. Did the human body even contain this much? Her body was mangled to the point of hardly being a human anymore, her arms restrained behind her back, elbows touching to the point he was sure her bones had been broken. In a sick mockery, her hands were pressed palm to palm pointing upwards, a contorted symbol of prayer.

The skin was so bruised it could’ve been black instead of blue. But her legs… her legs were sickly white, roughly hacked off of the body completely. They were strewn across the room, simply disregarded like they were an item of clothing rather than her goddamn legs. And on her back, weighing her body down and tying it to the mortal realm, were two outstretched wings.

He edged closer to the body, biting his tongue hard. It was beautiful, truly a piece of art if only it wasnt directly sewn onto the torso of a tortured woman. The stitchwork was sloppy, thick black thread connecting the pieces harshly. In the lantern-light the wings reflected every type of colour imaginable, a refracted rainbow dazzling onto the blood-soaked walls. An angel. He had made her into a goddamn angel.

…

He never knew heaven was meant to be so dark, so harsh, so bleak. Where were his wings? Where was his halo? How was he meant to be create more beautiful masterpieces if his arms were pinned in place against his chest. How was he meant to transcend to heaven if his body was chained to the Earth.

This wasn’t fair… Why was he being punished for simply completing his greatest masterpiece yet? Heaven was just out of his reach, as if he himself had become Tantalus, sinking down into the water as the fruit grew further and further away. What a sick and twisted punishment for an artist.

Heaven has closed its gates. The sickly red had seeped it’s way inside, staining everything it touched with sin. A lone angel remained, her wings too heavy for her to move, her halo crooked. And a lone man prayed to her. Forevermore, the Artist and his Masterpiece. The Sinner and his Angel.

Crystal

By Ula Medani Staff Writer

Shrouded in a temporary haven.

As clear as crystal, delicate, dainty.

Sharp shards stab the skin.

Stones in a glass house will soon shatter the oasis.

The glass child will soon crack and disintegrate.

Her cries fall on deaf ears, as they sweep up her remains.

Tossing her away, melting her. Rebuilding her.

She can’t escape. Molten sand will only burn for so long before plunged Into the ice, the subzero.

Glowing red, amber, yellow. Signs that they should stop.

Lest they disregard her fragility, stabbing her wings like butterflies, Sunshine is all she craved

She should not have to earn her solace as if it were a bounty on her survival.

Crystallised essence flows through her veins.

How could they?

Why would they care?

She’s a big girl now.

Leave the Kettle On

By Alex Robson Senior News Editor

Seated alone with fingertips numb from the cold. With an empty stomach, And an emptier heart, He puts solitary pen to page, Having forgotten everything he wishes to say, He remains still.

He quietly yearns for an unknown that will not fulfil The shallow anatomy of his being. He wanders, the lonesome traveller. Feeling loss in places he had once felt love. The boiling kettle, The unanswered doorbell, The unpicked daisies, The empty house.

As mould is to a wall, he becomes a burden, sitting on a couch Limp, as the strangers around him pass on by, unheard. He decays into the very thing he condemns. His mawkish mind remembers the rosy-cheeked boy He once was, surrounded by loved ones, Now lost.

The strangers, now circling, stand on trial. All guilty of abandoning him, Leaving him to wilt like the daisies He had once picked and formed, To make a bouquet for his mother.

But leave the kettle on, I beg you, For this lonesome traveller has a story to tell, In ink and paper, Clutching an empty mug. A mind so full, but a body so solemnly vacant. He remains seated, eager to move, Eager to be heard, Eager to love, to care, to remember but a single word. And so, the kettle shall remain boiling, For this, the life of the traveller must endure, Until the strangers he knows well, Depart from his senseless gaze, Left to die in a desolate haze.

A False Sense of Vanity

By Mya Rogers Staff Writer

You’re sat there looking at me, whilst I look at myself

In the mirror rested on my vanity; You’re merely the audience, Watching the staring competition between myself, and my reflection. There’s a certain look in my eye- one that you assume is self-admiration, But that must mean you have never been in this situation before, Otherwise you would see the difference between Glinting, excessive pride, and glossy, tearful eyes. Before you say that I am vain, self-obsessed. And can’t stop looking at myself, for long enough to see you looking at me, There are a few things you should know: When I paint my lips pink, It is to trap the poisonous words of hatred that ‘playfully’ tease me After they see the unrecognisable reflection of me without makeup. Every time I send you a picture of my new hair colour, Know that it is a cry for help, a sign. That I cannot cope if I don’t have constant change in my life; if I’m not the one in control.

Or perhaps the jewellery, The rings; The necklaces; The earrings, All of which you think I wear in excess, to be different, To stand out, sparkling, from the rest of the crowdAlthough if you really knew me, you’d know that the gold and silver is a coverup, To make the ugly skin be mistaken for skin that is beautiful, For people to admire, hiding the person they have never once admired.

So next time you see me looking, Know that it is a false sense of vanity, Reflected in the mirror rested on my vanity.

Hunger

By Lena Zeller Staff Writer

TW: Graphic description of eating disorders

Fingers are the most useless part of the body. Splintering against the second row of teeth, if not the first. Getting stuck in places you don’t want them. If you’ve ever seen a seagull choke on a piece of plastic, you’d get what I mean. Barely anything to chew on, fingers.

I don’t know where they go when my mouth recedes to one neatly hinged jaw and thirty-two teeth. The splinters.

The first time it happened I choked on my own tongue. Watching blood and bones and chunks of meat splatter the pavement. Feeling my throat split and shred. Hunched over, rocking in a corner, wiping bile from my mouth. Comforting, the smell of bile in that moment. I wasn’t quite aware of the killing yet then. Too busy processing the eating. Human parts making their way up my esophagus with every heaved sob. What a waste, those first few meals.

I get so hungry now. Fish used to work for a little while. Live, rancid tasting otherwise. My body rejects even the sweetness of water. They sate you more when they’re still flopping around your belly. Many creatures know this.

It is still hard to drag myself, convulsing, from the sea. Belly protruding on the rocks, drying for hours in the mist. You have to get them somewhere. Easiest place, the beach. Once I tried to taste one with my small, human mouth. Tasted like biting your cheek too hard.

I always smell of salt and liver now. Baths have become tedious. Working from home to avoid the rain. Kind of the best part of my days lately. Killing them. I had rules once. No children, that sort of thing.

I never sleep well now. My bed is too immobile, hard as concrete compared to smooth rocks. But I still like four walls. To stop me from wondering what might be out there. What might be like me. I cannot sleep underwater. Insomnia haunts me across the depths. Down there, the darkness is a presence filled with many mouths.

I used to be meek and ugly. All soft flesh and pinky toes. When I return to that body now it feels like reverting to being a fetus outside the womb. I used to dislike staring at the computer all day, but now everything else feels just as dull. At least work lets me keep my walls. I used to think of people’s bodies enveloping me. Now I know they belong inside.

I miss the smoothness of my tail at night. No bleeding, nowhere to be entered. I’ve started to disgust myself in my vulnerability. I don’t remember why I ever liked company. To be touched is to be lonely. The only real thing in the world is hunger. It’s the only thing that grows in me. If only there weren’t so many finger bones.

Dear Davidson...

“Is it an ick to dress up for a pub trip?”

Ok. So, everything and anything can be an ick, but why do you care?

We are becoming more familiar with terms such as ‘ick’, this can mean behaviour which is off-putting or unpleasant which can be funny at times when chatting to friends about a potential admirer to share some laughter, but it can also embed itself into how we judge other people. There are some cringe worthy actions, of course, but in reality, this is what makes life funny and gives you a story to tell friends and family over dinner. People dressing up for a casual social event or acting goofy is what makes the little simple events memorable. If you or any of your friends want to wear a wacky outfit, then go for it! University is meant for memories and doing some of these cringy things, so enjoy this moment while you can because I doubt if you wanted to dress up a bit ‘out of the ordinary’ for an office job you would get the same reaction as you would now.

Honestly, university is filled with weird nights out that involve people dressing up in the most bizarre outfits and they end up having the best night! So, if you feel that putting on a gorgeous little outfit is too much for a casual pub trip, it’s not. Besides, you never know where the night might take you or who you will end up meeting so why not look your best, even if you’re only having a pint at the local. Don’t allow yourself to ruin your nights out during these fast moving few university years of yours, also don’t let anyone else ruin your night out but honestly people will always have something to say but that does not mean you have to adopt the same sense of thinking.

The surge of people using terms such as ‘ick’ can also limit these silly moments, it can make life seem a little more serious than it really is. Although university is not just one big pub social we must not forget that the majority of us are still young and you never know, you could meet some pretty interesting people through dressing up for a simple pub social. Whether your night out calls for a sparkly outfit in the pub or a full blown fancy dress outfit, just do it, don’t take it too seriously and have the best time, adulthood is only around the corner, and it doesn’t call for many lighthearted nights out like these so let loose and just have fun!

University is short, even when it feels like it may never end, I promise you it goes by so fast and once you and your friends have graduated there’s a chance that you may not have frequent pub trips together anymore so… dress up, have fun, take millions of photos, and have fun because this time truly doesn’t last forever and when you’re wearing your cap and gown you will be wishing you had time for one more dressed-up pub trip!

“I have so many deadlines and so little time! How do I get over the Winter blues at university?”

Winter deadlines are fast approaching for most of us, whether that’s formative or summative assessments, it’s incredibly stressful and let’s face it, the cold, dark weather really doesn’t make it any easier. With the sky becoming pitch black at 5pm this can take a toll on our moods. We wake up and it may be cloudy or bright blue sky, and it feels that within only a handful of hours the day is over before dinner! This shift accompanied by the chill in the air can no doubt make the motivation to open our books or laptops a tiny bit more difficult. Do not think you are alone in feeling like this. I am a planner for sure so I would advise you to write a little to-do list or even a daily schedule of when to study and make sure to be kind to yourself and have plenty of tea breaks. I also find that being in the comfort of my own home can be my worst enemy in terms of managing my workload. If you live close to campus or a coffee shop then this too, from my experience, can be progressive. A change in environment has been a huge help for myself and makes you feel good, going out for a walk and getting a coffee can make you feel productive and overall feel positive for the day.

There’s no hiding the fact that deadlines silently creep up on even the most organised versions of ourselves. It seems that you care deeply for your studies, which is great! Stress can no doubt be paired with caring and hoping to be successful so managing this stress with giving yourself time and kindness can reflect in the quality of your work. Remember that the winter blues are normal and that taking a 10-minute break or having an occasional lay-in may be the best for you to be as productive as possible. You’ve got this!

A change of perspective can sometimes help more than we think and there are so many ways you can look at it, it’s best to steer clear of the good old saying of “oh I don’t really care what grade I get” because yes, yes you do! You wouldn’t be paying so much, studying so much, and struggling so much if you just didn’t care. One bad grade in one essay really won’t alter your universe and devastate your final grade, you will have ample opportunities to improve and aim higher. I have always found that a good trick for getting out of the deadline slump is to make plans for after your deadlines have passed, whether it’s a night out or a wholesome winter wonderland trip, it’s good to have something to look forward to and to reward yourself for getting through it. Because you will get through it.

I have said it before and I will say it again, do not spend all the hours of the day crying into your textbook in the library! It’s not worth it, it really isn’t. It might feel like a productive use of your time because you are surrounded by studious people, but you have to take breaks to allow yourself to process the information you are taking in. Create a revision timetable tailored to your needs and your own schedule, find a place that is better for you to study - it may even be your own bedroom if that works for you, have non-negotiable breaks for eating, drinking, and just having a breather, and most importantly you need to set yourself a time to finish because it’s not healthy to be typing away at 3am when you know you have a 9am lecture the same day - this will stress you out so much more! Just take that deep breath and keep going.

You are the main character.

By Keira McTernan Associate Agony Aunt

As winter is now upon us, it is the prime time for chick-flicks and movies which are objectively terrible but also provide a sense of comfort. In nearly all these movies there is a socially popular, pretty and vain teenager or young adult who eventually learns there is more to life than the next Gucci handbag, a sort of Scrooge ending to the stories. This brings home the message of what we were taught when we were younger, to be considerate and care for others around us, to not be vain. Vanity is chained to feelings of selfishness, being self-obsessed or being wrapped up in ones-self. Therefore vanity is bad, right? Of course, we may agree with this statement, however the qualities of being vain may not be all negative. To be vain can be an accumulation of different qualities such as being narcissistic, self-absorbed, perhaps attention seeking and self-loving, the last quality particularly interests me. Self-loving is seen to be a synonym for vanity although I do not think they are entirely one and the same .

In recent years the movement of self-love and self-care has been recognised as an overarching mental health movement to promote better personal wellbeing, to prioritise your needs and

to show yourself kindness. Lord knows that everyone could do with a mental-health day now and then. Whether it is just the pressure of getting older with more responsibilities or if there is further research into diagnosing mental health it can be noted that younger people are presenting with mental distress, “one in seven 10-19-year-olds experience a mental disorder” (World Health Organisation, 2024). Of course this is upsetting, therefore the movement to promote self-care is becoming more popular to lower this surge. Preaching that vanity is a good quality is not entirely the backbone of this writing, however to take qualities or the simple synonym of the word; self-love could and should be welcomed. Maybe additional qualities of vanity should be considered such as the lack of care in other people’s views of yourself, again, people are awfully concerned with strangers or friends opinions of their appearance and frequently question whether they have acted or said the ‘correct’ thing but when it boils down to it, we are all the main character of our own little movie. I highly doubt that Sarah form biology is thinking ‘what a gross top Keira was wearing today’. Okay I don’t know a Sarah and I do not study biology but still,

you understand my point. It may all be the terrible movies which are flooding my TV lately but I think to myself that the qualities of vanity may not entirely be such a terrible embodiment, we just have to be careful not to jump headfirst into it, maybe just dip your toe into the qualities you feel are right. Perhaps one day you feel that it is in your best interest to be self-absorbed and wrapped up in your own means and the next be humble and modest, life is all about balance. To put your oxygen mask on before you help others is not the definition of vanity by any means, it recognises that you need to look after yourself before you can help those around you. I think being a teeny-tiny bit selfish once in a while will not cause you to end up like all those vain, narcissistic characters in low budget movies which we seem to love but will help you feel appreciated by the one person who truly matters, yourself. I know those around me and myself included are worried about being judged as selfish or maybe even vain however I think as long as people keep a balance of being modest, self-absorbed, kind, selfish and self-loving then there’s a mix of just being human.

Crossword

Across

3. An extended journey, something that an ego may have or benefit from (4)

5. Protagonist, or a type of attitude or approach (4,9)

7. Something brash or done without thinking (9)

9. A state of self-respect (5)

10. Furniture with a mirror and drawers (8,5)

Down

1. One’s mode, something that may be complimented (5)

2. A forced demeanour or manner, plural (4)

4. A movie starring Rachel McAdams (4,5)

6. A feeling towards something, a feeling of awe and approval (10)

8. A piece, activity or production, may done out of vanity (7)