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Dalas Kruger A perpetual tourist, bags forever packed, passport forever full. Never truly calling anywhere home. I live between arrivals— half in translation, half erased. Each place a version of myself I almost become: the coffee here is darker, the rain speaks slower, names blur in the mouth, and I forget which language I dream in. Worlds keep folding and unfolding, their borders breathing like lungs. Maybe the world is my home, maybe I have never been a citizen anywhere. I know how to disappear in airports, how to smile through plate glass, how to make warmth from strangers’ weather. I know how to go, but not how to arrive, I don’t know how to stay. Somewhere, my childhood is still unpacking itself— the smell of sea and sun and dust trying to fit inside a carry-on. I’ve learned to keep what doesn’t belong to me: postcards, accents, the way light bends differently in every city’s morning. I am fluent in departure. I am native to nowhere. I am the forever foreigner.

Christopher Curtis After playing Persona 3 and Persona 4 over the past half-decade, and admiring the wider series from the sidelines for years, I’ve finally made my dive into the broader Megami Tensei Franchise with Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, the enhanced edition of the latest mainline entry. The concept alone is alluring: demons, deities, creatures, and mythological figures from world folklore, all embroiled in a war between law and chaos amidst a post-apocalyptic Japan. Yet as much as Vengeance sold me on the franchise, it also left me utterly perplexed. A valley of extreme highs and lows—sometimes in the very same aspect—this was a difficult game to evaluate. Vengeance begins with an intense hook; less than 30 minutes after you’re introduced to the protagonist and his school friends, the world just ends. Awakening in Da’at, the netherworld that now stands in place of Tokyo, you’re left to wander the wasteland, ally with whatever demons will listen to you, and eventually become entangled in a divine war over the recreation of the world. This is the broad narrative thrust, but how the story unfolds will depend on which of the two campaigns you choose. The original release’s story is preserved here as the Canon of Creation, while the new Canon of Vengeance offers a reimagined tale with its own focus, villains, and branching endings. For my two cents—which you probably want, since you’re reading this—Canon of Vengeance is the way to go if you only intend to play this game once. It massively expands the supporting cast and introduces the Qadištu, a spectacular group of villains of Kabbalistic origin. By contrast, Canon of Creation drags its feet too often, with very few characters—including you the protagonist—feeling particularly compelling. Canon of Vengeance is radically more enjoyable. Your friends this time are far more involved in the war, with active and compelling arcs that make their shifting loyalties all the more tragic. Unfortunately, no matter what route you pick, actually exploring Da’at is frankly boring at best and genuinely painful at worst. I understand it’s a wasteland, but surely there could be something to discover besides sand, right? Regardless of route, the gameplay loop remains the same: recruit demons, fuse them into stronger allies, and brace yourself against an onslaught of enemies who simply want you dead. These demons range from pixies and slimes to Odin himself, and building the right party becomes the heart of the experience. Thankfully, Vengeance features a deeply engaging combat system. It rewards party diversity and system knowledge with extra actions and advantages. However, any system you can exploit, your enemies can exploit too. Cover your weaknesses well if you want to live. The result is intensely strategic turn-based combat that, despite its complexity, never feels slow or tedious. This dichotomy is why I feel torn about this game. On one hand, the combat and demon fusion are deeply engaging, with diverse boss battles that greatly reward familiarity with these mechanics. The presentation is also spectacular, backed by some of the most gorgeous 3D animations I’ve ever seen. And when the story wants to be, it’s utterly captivating. Chaos representative Yoko Hiromine is one of the most relatable characters in fiction for me—make of that what you will. On the other hand, the world is a chore to explore, and the story can do a terrible job of explaining itself. Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance is bewildering, positively and negatively. I can’t recommend it blindly, but I would absolutely encourage anyone intrigued by its premise to look into its particular brand of punishment, strategy, and storytelling method. Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance is available on PC, Xbox One and Series X/S, Playstation 4 and 5, and Nintendo Switch and Switch 2. Gameplay: 8/10 Writing: 7/10 Aesthetics: 10/10

Within the span of a week, I’ll be trying to accomplish a long-term task just to see if it’s possible, and to see what I can get out of it. Life lessons, skills, resilience training? The stimulation alone should be enough motivation. Currently, I work a lot. By day I slave in the Salient office, but by night I’m my alter ego: hospitality Front of House. My parents always forcefully encouraged me to have a job or two during study. In the past three years, I’ve complained to them endlessly about wanting to find a new job that pays better, and how hard job hunting always is. They always respond the same way: “Why don’t you just cold call and hand your CV into some places?” And in response I go, “Boy, what a stupid idea. What is this, the 80s, Helen?” In my head, obviously. Never disrespect Helen Tickner, working mother-of-two, to her face. As of late, I’ve realized I’ve never actually cold-called on places for a job. I’ve always painstakingly tailored CVs and cover letters for specific roles, cherry-picked applications online, and nervously handed in papers to outlets that advertise they’re hiring. I decided to finally take the advice of Generation X and ask for a job face-to-face, to see if I can get an interview from cold-calling within a week. What better place to try than Lambton Quay? Lambton Quay contains numerous retail spaces, banks, and major corporate buildings. Nearly a kilometre long, it bustles with people bunched in big suits and fancy clothing. As a Cuba Street kid, I hate it. But there are smaller places, such as the occasional cafe or salon, that aren't big businesses requiring a 9-5 commitment. Therefore, it's an excellent smorgasbord of establishments to go on a tirade announcing that I desire a job. There are countless buildings on Lambton, so I decided to simply print off 100 CVs and 100 cover letters, all exactly the same and stating the same general things. I think I’d rather peel 100 hangnails than write 100 individual resumes that say the same thing. After everyone in the Salient office rightfully ripped the wording and punctuation of my cover letter to shreds—and reworked it, thank you Sub-editor Holly—I went out on the town with a stack of CVs to beg for a job with. Editor’s Note: I didn’t check Will’s CV very hard when he went to hand it out; I just helped him print it. But I did redact items from it when it was going to print. And my advice, on reflection, is this: check your spelling of “permanent” in your CV. Will spelled it wrong… very “Creative Thinking” of him. When I approached each establishment on Lambton, I’d say the exact same thing at every front desk: “Hello, I’d like to apply for any and all open positions you have. Here’s my CV and cover letter. I’m looking for anything from casual to full time. I am available Monday through Friday, and am flexible on weekends.” My deliveries of desperation began at the banking end of Lambton, home to the Kiwibank, ANZ, and BNZ buildings. Handing in my papers to big banks with no warning was my biggest worry, but I was pleasantly surprised at how professional their staff was. I struck up a genuinely nice conversation with the lady at the front desk of Kiwibank about how poor the job market was, and she told me that while they didn’t have any open positions, they would post positions online to Seek & Indeed. I thanked her, and she told me she’d pass my CV onto her manager. As I skipped away, my happiness began to dwindle as I slowly started hearing these exact same answers from nearly every single place. “You can actually just apply online.” “I will pass this on to my manager.” “We actually just hired a whole bunch of people.” “Sorry, we are not hiring at the moment…” “...but we will keep it on-hand in case we are.” By the time I got to Countdown, I had started to get so jaded hearing the same rejections. At Cotton On, I finished the worker's sentence about applying online. Some places outright didn’t accept physical CVs due to sustainability, such as Lush and Mecca. Other places didn’t accept my CV because I’m probably too good for them, like Swarovski Crystal. I was doing the same mundane task and saying the same thing over and over to the point of autopilot. For example, at Shosta Vape Shop, I accidentally said to the girl at the counter, “Here's my CoverC and VLetter." As I turned to leave, I’m fairly certain I heard her tear my paper in two and scrunch it into a ball. While there’s no problem getting rid of trash, the least that girl could do was wait till I was out of the store. After handing out about 80 papers in one day, I put a pause on my rejection therapy. Stores were beginning to close. I started my second day flying my papers by heading up the elevators of the Lambton skyscrapers. I’ve always been curious as to what’s up in the sky above my emergency grocery shopping. While most of the floors required ID, it was surprisingly easy to get public access to certain floors simply by waltzing in. In those tall buildings, I felt completely out of my depth asking for a job at law firms and consultants. I reminded myself this was mostly just for kicks to ask for a job as an underqualified applicant to The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists. Despite how depressing this all was, I did find some pretty funny moments. There’s a lot of women's clothing fashion stores, and I handed my CV into all of them, including Bendon Lingerie. It’s sexy, dark, mysterious, and full of mannequins in bras. I entered nervous, beet red, and very much not wanting a job there. However, the young girls at the counter were so nice, and the three of us had a laugh about being desperate for a job in this economy when I told them, “Please don’t hire me.” On the other end of the spectrum was the men's clothing store Barkers. I came in and did the whole spiel I usually did, expecting to be told nothing but “thanks.” Instead, the guy at the counter started to give me a full mini interview right then and there. Taken off guard, I lost my confident autopilot behavior. I dropped the ball and waffled on about how retail and hospitality are the same—they’re not—so they should probably offer me a job. I don’t think I’ll be working there anytime soon. Going into this, I knew there was no way I was going to get an interview in a week. To rub salt in the wound, a lot of older people would shoot me down, and then follow up with, “It’s so great to see you’re doing this, getting up and out there trying!” Eugh. Thanks. It’s now one week later and I’ve had no interviews for potential jobs on Lambton. Out of the 100 CVs I handed out, I received only two responses back: one from a law firm, another from a consulting group, both including the words “unfortunately.” They were quite nice responses, however, both taking the time to read through my CV and offer me alternatives with proper explanations. If I could do anything differently, I would have dressed myself more presentable and shaved before going out, instead of looking like a scraggly unemployed creature. It seems that the days of cold-calling in Wellington are over, and the era of online job application hell is here to stay. If I could recommend anything though, it would be handing in a physical CV and applying online. Or do whatever it takes to annoy businesses to remember your name and consider employing you. I may have failed this week's challenge, but that doesn’t mean you have to fail the challenge of being employed. Embarrass yourself and try to get a job.

Good news stories (and more) for the planet Kia ora, Salient reader! Welcome to our fortnightly column on the environment, sustainable living, and the small, stubborn act of hope amongst a world on fire! Check in every second week for waste-free recipes, genuinely good news, and practical ways to lend a hand—nudging a happier, healthier earth a little closer into view. Who Are We? You may have wondered, who is behind this strange new surprisingly-hopeful page in the back of my Salient? Maybe you’ve tried one of the recipes and been blown away by the simplicity and deliciousness of what you’ve just created. Well, here’s a little about us: We are a group of university students flatting just down the road from Kelburn campus who, perhaps like you, have noticed that we are facing some fairly big concerns for our planet. Rooted in a Christian faith, we feel that whilst things are pretty (really) bad, there is still reason to feel hopeful, and the least we can do is try. Most of us authors have made the call this year to cut all of the plastic out of our groceries, not because we think we’ll change the world, but as an act of hopeful defiance against a system that is choking our planet. So far the contributors to this column have been Simon, Leah, Jachin, Claire, and Micah. If you’d like to put a face to a name, ask us a question, or come check out our epic jar pantry, feel more than free to send an email to simonlangham06@gmail.com. In the meantime we will keep bringing you fortnightly recipes, good news stories for our planet, and ways that you can get involved in our local area—making a small, but important difference. Waste-free recipe of the week: Hummus—that gloriously flavoursome, deliciously spreadable, protein rich super food. It’s just a shame it has to come in those pesky single-use plastic tubs. If only there was a way to make it at home, for a fraction of the price with none of the waste? Well, you’re in luck! There could not be a simpler or more time, energy, and cost efficient treat to make than hummus. You will need: A can of chickpeas (or two) A blender, food processor, or whizz stick (immersion blender for the less whimsical of heart) A splash of oil (olive is extra delicious but canola works just fine too!) Some flavours (for a classic blend try tahini, lemon, garlic, salt and pepper; I have also tried adding varying combinations of brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, and paprika—all with delicious results!) To take your hummus to the next level, roast some of your favourite veges beforehand and add them into the mix too Now that you have collected your supplies, blitz them all together and watch as the hummus emerges before your eyes. If it appears too chunky, simply add some water and keep blending! Happy dipping, spreading, or just eating with a spoon! Get involved: Ever wander through Kelburn campus with a banana skin, some last morsels of your muesli bar you just can't stomach any more, or a smooshed piece of sandwich you dropped? Never fear, for a compost bin is near!! We have the scoop on a new compost initiative on the corner of Kelburn Parade and Salamanca Road. Why are we chucking perfectly good garden fertilizer into our rubbish just to sit in a dump and smolder? On your way down the hill—to the city, the train station or your flat—drop all your greenery into the signed bin! Be a part of the cauldron of juices brewing for gardens around Kelburn! BUT, please be nice to this new compost bin. Only put food items in, guidance will be provided on a sign.

Arie Joe The most damning indictment of the state of this Victoria University of Wellington’s building stock is presently on public display above the front doors of the Student Union Building. There, in plain view of every passing student, are blue cargo straps rated to 2,500 kilograms apiece, doing the job that the architects and structural engineers were paid to do thirty-odd years ago. Namely, keeping the roof attached to the rest of the building. Now consider that Wellington is the world’s windiest capital city. So, on a hilltop campus that catches every gust off Cook Strait, what did someone decide to build? A Student Union Building with a roof shaped like a kite. Two great cantilevered planes flaring outward from a single slender central post. Visually striking, no doubt. The trouble is that nature applies wind uplift to the widest, least-supported edges of the kite, where the roof does all the rocking and the centre post does all the worrying. If the branches are bigger than the trunk, something is generally wrong with the tree. In this case, something plainly is. Some architect scribbled up a roof design, then handed it to a structural engineer in the cheery expectation that the laws of physics would politely yield to the laws of aesthetics. They did not. And so, three decades on, engineers have been called in to lash the building to itself with ratchet straps while everyone works out how to fix what should never have been built that way in the first place. On architectural awards generally The prefix "award-winning" applied to a New Zealand commercial or institutional building is, in my observation, a near-perfect predictor of inconvenience for everyone obliged to use it. Real estate agents will quietly admit that "award-winning" attached to a house listing is a near-guarantee of buyer hesitation. The media periodically run admiring photo features on award-winning architectural houses, all of which on close inspection turn out to be visual and functional dogs. Living rooms with no obvious place for a sofa. Kitchens reachable only by ladder. Bathrooms with full-length glass walls facing the neighbours. Meanwhile every sensibly sited, well-laid-out building in Wellington gets ignored, and the prizes go to whichever firm has produced the most photogenic curiosity that year. The Student Union Building belongs in this tradition. Nice from a distance. Disastrous on contact with weather, students, and the actual day-to-day business of being a building. The rest of the dog The atrium was designed without natural ventilation, condemning the building to permanent and audible mechanical wheezing, a constant droning reminder that somebody, somewhere, was paid to fail to think about windows. Anyone who has tried to study, relax, or have a conversation in the atrium knows the sound. An architectural cleverness being paid for by every kilowatt-hour drawn from the grid and every dollar drawn from the maintenance budget. The doors into the atrium are absurdly narrow. A wheelchair user, or anyone trying to bring in a bike, a piece of stage equipment, or a delivery of any size, can vouch for it. This is an "award-winning" building. The judges, I assume, were not in wheelchairs, on bikes, or carrying anything heavy at the time of their deliberations. The Student Union Building’s compliance schedule and maintenance records make for sobering reading on their own. The scheduled-maintenance register runs to roughly 300 separate planned jobs across two years. The reactive-maintenance log for a single recent period runs to nearly 300 more, dominated by electrical-lighting faults, plumbing leaks, HVAC faults, blocked toilets, fixture failures, and roof issues. This is what is meant by high-maintenance design. Bear that figure in mind, because it is occasionally floated that the Students' Association should take ownership of the building. Bear in mind also that VUWSA is already operating on the smell of an oily rag, with the President’s election promises lying conspicuously unfulfilled for want of money. Now picture six hundred maintenance jobs every two years, and a rusty, corroded glazing bill that would devour any sensible Association budget several times over. Taking title to this place would be the financial equivalent of catching a falling knife. Whatever VUWSA’s current financial troubles look like, becoming the owner of a poorly maintained, leaking, and strap-bound award-winner is not the rescue plan. And then there are the Gordon Wilson Flats If the Student Union Building shows what happens when the University commissions a building, the Gordon Wilson Flats show what happens when it buys one. In 2014, Housing New Zealand sold the University an asbestos-laden, earthquake-prone, eleven-storey concrete wreck that they themselves had decided was beyond economic repair. A government agency, with all its engineers and consultants, looked at the building, looked at its books, and concluded that the prudent course was to dispose of it. The University, which likely trained those engineers and consultants, looked at the same building and concluded that the prudent course was to buy it. For more than $6 million. Eleven years, several abandoned plans, a lost Environment Court case, and a special amendment to the Resource Management Act later, the bill for getting out of this brilliant decision is now $7.25 million for demolition alone, with works dragging on into 2027. The University has no firm design and no committed funding for whatever is supposed to replace it. This in a year when the institution has just clawed its way back to a $7.7 million surplus after years of financial struggle and a recent round of staff cuts, while the Tertiary Education Commission still rates it a medium-high financial risk. In short, the cost of demolishing one mistake is roughly equal to the entire annual surplus. One firm whisper from the demolition contractor about cost overruns, and there will be cost overruns, and the University is back in deficit. And there is only ever one place that money comes from: your fees. The bill for somebody else's award-winning pile thirty years ago, and somebody else's bargain-of-the-century property purchase a decade ago, will land in your bank account in the form of next year's tuition increase, and the next, and the next. Welcome to higher education. There is the further assertion, occasionally heard, that the new build will be "warm, affordable and sustainable student accommodation." Warm, possibly. Sustainable, perhaps. Affordable on a brand-new bespoke build on a difficult Terrace site overlooking the city, with all the associated groundworks, structural engineering, exterior cladding, and consenting costs of a from-scratch project? The far likelier outcome is premium-priced rooms aimed at students whose parents can comfortably absorb the rent. That is not what the city's student housing problem requires. What ought to have been done, and still could be The two buildings are different stories with the same moral. In both cases, the bill is being paid by students, staff, and a maintenance budget that was never sized to absorb such contingencies. What ought to have been done instead of the current Gordon Wilson site plans is what the Wellington City Council has been doing rather successfully. Convert tired old office buildings, of which the city has plenty, into accommodation. You buy the shell, you fit out the interior, and you skip the groundworks, the structural works, the foundations, the exterior cladding, and the worst of the consenting saga. It is faster, cheaper, lower-risk, and produces genuinely affordable rooms rather than what a brand-new bespoke build is going to deliver. The Gordon Wilson site itself was always best suited to its original and frankly more useful purpose: a gateway from Willis Street up onto the Kelburn campus. The Kelburn campus is inaccessible from the flat without a hike, which is a pleasant arrangement for the able-bodied and most travel by bus. Sort the gateway out first. Then put affordable accommodation on the flat where the access exists, in buildings the University does not have to invent from scratch. As for the Student Union Building, a costly permanent fix is required. Whether the lesson stays up is another question entirely. An institution that cannot reliably keep its own roof attached or tell a bad property deal from a good one, has no business pretending it is short of better things to spend its money on.

Students, today your Unc is combining three different questions that all essentially ask the same thing. All of these questions come down to one thing: vibe. Mixed signals are mixed vibes. Not wanting to ask someone directly is trying to catch a vibe without making things awkward. Wanting to build “rizz” is wanting to improve the vibe you’re putting out into the world. The annoying truth is this: every single person on this planet is different, and every single person communicates differently. Some people flirt like they’re auditioning for Love Island. Some people flirt by standing three metres away from you at a flat party and asking if you’ve done the readings. Some people seem keen because they reply fast, and some people seem uninterested because they’re simply bad at texting, busy, shy, emotionally constipated, or all of the above. I could tell you that eye contact, little touches, or looking at you when everyone laughs are signs someone likes you. And sure, sometimes they are. But sometimes they’re just friendly. Sometimes they’re flirting with no intention of doing anything. Sometimes they’re only looking because you’ve got your high-protein spinach-and-egg-white breakfast stuck in your teeth. Romance is a cruel sport. So when someone gives mixed signals, don’t make their confusion your full-time job. If someone likes you, their behaviour should make you feel more secure over time, not more confused. A bit of mystery is fun. Constantly analysing what “haha yeah maybe” means is not flirting. That’s admin. As for building “rizz,” I hate to say it, but the best way to become more attractive is to look after yourself. Not in a weird grindset podcast way. I don’t need you waking at 4.30 a.m. and yelling affirmations into the mirror. I mean basic good-human maintenance. Wear clothes that fit. Lint-roll your pants if they look like you’ve been wrestling a golden retriever. Use cologne or perfume, but don’t gas the room. Get a haircut if you need one. Ask people questions. Listen to the answers. Got a crush? Give yourself a fighting chance. Invite them for coffee. Ask if they want to grab a drink. Mention a hobby you’ve wanted to try, then actually try it so you have something to talk about next time. Be someone with a life, not someone hovering nearby hoping they’ll notice your romantic suffering. But here’s the real kicker: there is no secret way to know for certain if someone likes you without asking. You can read the signs, consult the group chat, and stare into the spiritual abyss of their “liked your story” behaviour, but eventually, you either ask or accept not knowing. And if you’re too scared to ask, ask yourself why. Is it fear of rejection? Fair enough, but you can get over that. Is it because being with them is a terrible idea? Maybe they’re taken, your flatmate, or your mate’s ex. In that case, keep crushing from afar and don’t turn your life into a messy group-chat incident. Rizz is not magic. It’s confidence, care, and the ability to ask questions and listen to answers. Go well, team. And floss.

Pedro Hay There is a good chance many people read that title and immediately threw their copy of Salient into the bin, because surely nothing good can come from an article with such a nonsensical bullshit headline. It sounds like something clearly cooked up by a dangerous raving maniac. Well, unfortunately for those people, they will now never know what makes these frankly insane creatures so special. They will not understand why they matter, why we should care about them, or how there may even be some life advice hiding beneath their armoured little shells. The horseshoe crab—yes, a much more boring name than “walking armoured beach frisbee,” but what else was I meant to do, gently invite your attention?—is an armoured little tank of a specimen that belongs to the phylum Arthropoda. That group includes insects, crustaceans, arachnids, and other weird creepy things with too many legs. Despite its name, the horseshoe crab is actually more closely related to spiders than to anything you would reasonably expect to find in a seafood platter. There are only four surviving species of the horseshoe crab today, mostly found across South and East Asia, with one species living along the Atlantic coast of Northern America. As far as lifestyles go, horseshoe crabs are basically living Mortal Engines. They crawl around the ocean floor on their six walking legs, pinching up whatever small prey they come across before shoving it into the grinder on their underside. Cute! This grinder is made of bristly structures called gnathobases, located at the base of their legs, right where the legs meet the body. As the crab walks, its legs move in opposite directions, grinding the gnathobases together while pushing food toward its mouth. Basically, the horseshoe crab spends all day scuttling around with an industrial shredder attached to its stomach. You’ve got to respect a creature that is, quite literally, always on the grind. By now, you may be thinking, “Oh my god, these things are screwed up, what could be so important about these freaks?” To which I reply: you are being SO impatient and, quite frankly, rude. I’m getting there. First of all, horseshoe crabs have been around for a LOOONG time. The tuatara outside the TTR block? Infantile compared to these guys. Horseshoe crabs have remained practically unchanged since the Triassic period, around 250 million years ago. Fossil evidence from similar ancestral species suggests their lineage may stretch back even further, to roughly 445 million years ago. That would mean these little bastards were crawling around before trees existed. Somehow even wilder than that, horseshoe crabs also carry a secret goldmine inside their creepy little bodies; something so ridiculous it sounds like I'm making it up. They have bright blue, medicinally valuable blood. Horseshoe crab blood is copper based, giving it a vibrant blue colour—the complete opposite to our red, iron-based blood. And while looking like “liquified Smurf” is already interesting enough, this blood is far more than a freaky party trick. It contains cells called amoebocytes, which are crucial in testing vaccines and other medical products for bacterial contamination. Specifically, blood from the Atlantic horseshoe crab is used to create a clotting agent called limulus amoebocyte lysate, or LAL. For decades, LAL has been used to test vaccines for dangerous bacterial toxins. When contamination is present, LAL clots around it, acting like a tiny biological fire alarm. In other words, the blood of this weird ancient frisbee-spider has helped keep modern medicine safe. Naturally, because this blood is extremely valuable—worth thousands of dollars per litre—humans did what humans do best and exploited the hell out of these beautiful creatures. Creatures, by the way, that have existed peacefully on this planet for FAR longer than we have. Every year, more than 1 million horseshoe crabs are hauled out of the ocean and taken to biological facilities to be bled. There, they can have up to 30% of their blood drained by machines that sound, quite frankly, like something a vampire would design. An estimated 10% to 15% of horseshoe crabs die during the bleeding process, and scientists suspect even more die after being released back into the ocean. It does not take a marine biologist to see how grim that is. The good news is that research centres around the world have been developing alternatives to LAL. These alternatives do not require sucking these poor little things dry. Thanks in part to this process, horseshoe crab populations in parts of North America are beginning to recover, slowly clawing their way out of the “vulnerable” category. Yay. Finally, some good news. But before we all start jumping for joy and clapping like the credits are about to roll, it is time to sit back down. Because, of course, it is not all peaches and cream. Across Asia, horseshoe crabs are still in serious trouble, driven down by overfishing, pollution, and habitat loss. The tri-spine horseshoe crab, despite having an objectively badass name, is now considered extinct in Taiwanese waters. Across much of greater Asia, its populations continue to slide toward deeper endangerment each year. Depressing, I know. I did not want to end this piece there, because while it is easy to sink into the despair of what can feel like an impossible fight against humanity’s casual disregard for nature, there is still hope. Annoying, stubborn, inconvenient hope. There is always something that can be done. Next time you are at the supermarket, maybe skip the can of tuna. It smells weird anyway. Take power away from the fisheries that keep pushing further into the habitats of our ugly little scuttling marine friends. Go to the conservation talk advertised outside the lecture hall you have been avoiding. Look online and find out what you can do, even if it feels tiny. Especially if it feels tiny. Do not let hopelessness consume you. Be like the horseshoe crab. Get up every day and keep crawling. Keep moving forward. Maybe even keep shoveling small worms into your terrifying grinding stomach-mouth. Progress does not always have to be graceful. Sometimes, it just has to keep going. P.S: They can backflip. Yes, I saved that until the very end. Sometimes horseshoe crabs get stuck upside down, and then they simply launch themselves into a little prehistoric backflip and flip themselves upright again. Hell yeah.

Andy Lester I hate the concept of intelligence. I hate even more the way we use that word. At first glance, it’s pretty unassuming. You’ve probably used it plenty of times and thought nothing of it, whether you were talking about the smart person in your course or someone who you find particularly inspiring. But as students, the word “intelligence” can be hugely detrimental to us, our confidence, and our learning. To understand why, we first have to ask… What is Intelligence? Intelligence is only really brought up when we talk about doing hard things. Let’s narrow this down to mental tasks specifically, such as problem solving, remembering stuff, or being able to create stuff. Seems like a good start. But somehow, you’re not considered intelligent for remembering to wash your dirty plate after dinner (though your flatmates might still call you stupid if you don’t). Despite the fact that this is solving a problem and involves remembering something, it doesn’t quite pass as an intelligent feat. I believe this is because tasks such as this are something most people can do without much difficulty. So, we need to have a quick chat on difficulty. If you want to know how difficult a task is, ideally you want some objective measurement of the difficulty that applies to anyone attempting it. The problem is, that’s just not possible. We can feel something is difficult to ourselves relative to the amount of effort we exert in completing that task, but that’s our subjective experience only. Because difficulty is an experience rather than some God-given value assigned to every task in existence, everyone is going to have a different experience and feel a different amount of difficulty, meaning no task can have a fixed, universal difficulty. Instead, we compare our subjective experience to as many other peoples’ experiences as possible and use that to judge approximately how difficult a task is. Imagine you just did a pull up and it was the most gruelling, excruciating five minutes of your life. After putting in all that effort, you’re very proud of yourself (as you should be!). But you don’t know how difficult a pull-up is, only how difficult it was for you. You know your subjective experience. If one day, you walk past a playground and see someone effortlessly doing mad pull-ups, looking like a juiced-up jack-in-the-box, then this adds a new dimension: capability. It’s clearly not taking as much effort for this stranger to do a pull-up as it did for you. A pull-up is a much easier experience for them. And suddenly, you stop thinking that pull-ups are hard. Instead, you think that you’re bad at pull-ups, and this person is good at doing pull-ups. You now think they’re more capable than you. I think of capability like a ratio between how much effort someone puts into a task, and their output for that given task. I find this effort to output ratio a really helpful idea, and we’ll come back to it soon. But capability for mental tasks isn’t a one-for-one definition of intelligence. The sentence “I’m capable of doing algebra, I’m not capable of doing calculus,” is different from “I’m smart enough to do algebra, I’m not smart enough to do calculus.” Capability is particular to a given task, and can change with practice, learning, and training. Intelligence, meanwhile, is thought of as some inherent trait in each and every one of us and applies to every mental task we complete in every aspect of our lives. You’re smart or you’re not. Simple as. But in practice, because the difficulty of any mental task is inherently comparative, intelligence is also inherently comparative. So, what’s the big problem? What I mean by this is that intelligence doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The same way we don’t have a basis for how hard a pull-up is until we see other people do it—which then defines how capable you are at that task—we can’t know how “intelligent” we are until other people do the same thing and we can assess how much effort they put in. And we can’t compare apples and oranges. Different disciplines often require vastly different skills: doing maths isn’t objectively harder than writing essays and believing anything along those lines is pointless (coming from someone majoring in physics and theatre, I back this 100%). We will have the best judge of “intelligence” for people who do similar mental tasks to us: people in our courses, our jobs, clubs, and so on. The similarity of mental tasks we must complete through assignments and tests offer many opportunities to compare ourselves to our peers. Unfortunately, this makes it very easy for us to form ideas about how intelligent other people in our courses are. And the people who we are most likely to perceive as intelligent are usually going to be the people who do better than us. Not surprising, but important to note. Rather than attributing a person’s success to their efforts first, we often find ourselves attributing it to their natural intelligence more than anything else. On top of that, intelligence is often thought of as an unchangeable quality of a person. You can’t get more intelligent. This leads to my biggest gripe with intelligence. When we take this for fact and believe that you can only do better than you are now by being more intelligent (which, for some reason, we also believe can’t happen) we believe we’re fated to do either the same or worse than we are now, forever! How good! This doesn’t have to be the case. I work for a tutoring company, and so I see this often materialises in an internalised belief students hold that “I’m not a maths person,” or “I’m not an English person.” These beliefs are entirely self-inflicted blows. If you approach a subject already thinking “I’m bad at this, and I’ll always be bad at this,” it’s not surprising that you hold yourself back. This marks the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Students with a fixed mindset often find it harder to motivate themselves to start and complete necessary work, as they don’t believe it will yield any results regardless of how helpful any given chunk of learning may truly be. But the upside of your mindset being entirely self-inflicted is that it’s also in your control. You can choose not to believe it. By doing so and instead believing that your effort is what will give you the results you want, suddenly everything you do is no longer defined by some roll of the dice that determined how intelligent you’re destined to be. You take your life back into your own hands. What we need to do as individuals is to shift what we believe causes academic progress and broader learning from intelligence towards effort. As it stands, if you believe intelligence matters, then progress primarily sits under an external locus of control, rather than an internal one. Similar to a fixed and growth mindset, a locus of control says how much we believe we can change the outcome of our lives and surroundings. An external locus means you’d believe outside factors control your life more than your choices and efforts, and an internal locus of control is the opposite. Remember that imaginary pull-up that you did? It was hell. But you did it. Firstly, congrats on your imaginary accomplishment. Do you think that that effort would be meaningful? From the perspective of a person wanting to improve, wanting to get fitter, wanting to do something, I think that effort is something you should always be proud of. Regardless of how difficult it was for anyone else, the act of putting in that effort showed that you can do hard things. This is what I want. I want you, reading this article now, to know that when you put in effort, you make progress. That progress doesn’t look the same every time and certainly doesn’t look the same for everyone. But it’s progress. Even if you look at every other person who’s ever done a pull-up, or ever done an essay on To Kill a Mockingbird or Fallen Angels, and take all the notes on how they do it, the only way you’re going to actually improve is by going for that pull-up, writing that essay, and making that effort. As students, everything that we do should be focused on improving ourselves and our knowledge. We will not benefit from constantly comparing ourselves to the people around us, so why keep using a word that has its entire basis in petty comparison? And no buts. Now, there are some alternatives for how people measure intelligence. For example, the effort-to-output ratio mentioned earlier. This is what some people believe really defines intelligence, but as it has to be considered for a given skill. I earlier called this a capability, but proficiency is also a good word for it. In terms of learning a given skill, I should make you aware that memory is something we can also train! In fact, there are actually memory tournaments, where people who dedicate their lives to remembering compete to see how many random numbers or sequences of images they can recall. The human species is really fascinating, huh? But they all use a set of techniques to help them remember these unconnected bits of information, not just their ‘natural ability.’ For problem solving or similar displays of already held knowledge, I raise the counter argument that applying learnt knowledge is something we also have to learn how to do and is subject to the same arguments as above. Believing another person’s success to be entirely because of their natural talent or intelligence does nothing for you. Actually, it does worse than nothing: it denies the impact of any of their efforts to get to where they are now. It helps no one and only stops you from checking out a winning strategy. If you completely delete the word intelligence from your life here on out, and disregard it in your learning, you’ll be better able to focus on your own learning and make the changes you want to see in yourself. Intelligence is fucking stupid, but you’re not.

Ryan Reinolds Last week, the decision was made to dismantle the Broadcasting Standard Authority. In explaining the move, Minister for Media and Communications Paul Goldsmith cited, among other things, inconsistencies between digital and print media, along with removing more “red tape.” In order to keep up with consistent regulations, Goldsmith has announced an AI replacement for the authority: Winston AI. The new system is eponymously named after not once, not twice, but thrice-former Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters. Using the brand-new state-of-the-art Invercargill AI data centre, the latest large language model has reportedly been trained entirely on Winston Peters’ Facebook page. Speaking to The Horse’s Mouth, Peters said: “In order to weed out the cultural Marxists and their wacky woke ideologies, we have trained our chatbot on the only thing I know I can trust: myself.” Peters refused to comment any further, telling The Horses Mouth he believed the wider publication, Salient, to be “fake news” and “liberal propaganda." Early testing of Winston AI has reportedly shown promising results. When asked whether climate change is real, the chatbot allegedly responded, “That’s a very good question, sunshine,” before changing the topic to immigration statistics from the 1990s and demanding to know who funded the interviewer. Government officials insist the AI will improve efficiency across the media sector. New legislation introduced to Parliament this week aims to operationalise Winston AI. The oddly named Not My First Rodeo Bill 2026 proposes to give Winston AI sweeping powers over media regulation. Under the bill, all media reporting would be checked for inherent bias and categorised into one of three groups: Communist, probably Communist or New Zealand First Policy. However, critics have raised concerns over the transparency of Winston AI after the system repeatedly refused to answer questions directly, instead accusing journalists of “running a smear campaign” and somehow bringing Jacinda Ardern into entirely unrelated discussions about fishing quotas. The Government has defended the rollout, arguing that the reforms represent the future of modern governance. A spokesperson for New Zealand First told The Horses Mouth: “People are sick and tired of these elitist experts telling us what we can and cannot report on.” The spokesperson went on to say that so-called “experts” probably received their degree “thanks to that socialist Labour policy of handing out fees-free education.” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is yet to comment on the proposed reforms. However, a spokesperson from the Prime Minister' s office noted that, once operational, Winston AI would play the role of “kingmaker” in the formation of future New Zealand governments. There has even been some suggestion that, to ensure a stable coalition, Winston AI will also share the Deputy Prime Minister’s position with ACT Party leader David Seymour. Where this will leave physical Winston is yet to be clarified, as some sources tell us he has already been replaced by Winston AI and we are just yet to notice. Meanwhile, Seymour has welcomed the move, proposing that all future school history curriculums also be reviewed by AI “to ensure children are protected from dangerous concepts like empathy and public transport.”

A feed for fuck-all KC Cafe What: Cantonese Price: $7.00 - $16.00 When: 11:00am – 11:30pm, Sunday – Thursday, and till 1:30am on Friday and Saturday. One of Wellington’s best, even for those on a budget. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Of all of the iconic jewels studded in the grubby yet glittering tiara that is Courtenay Place, KC Cafe & Takeaway deserves top billing. Not as glittery as St. James or The Library, but it is bursting with charm and prowess. Nick Iles, of Two Bear Sandwich Club fame, writes a fierce ode to this place: its rich wood panelling and 60s-chic interior design, the glittering meats that hang in the kitchen window and the behemoth of a menu that wraps around the walls. And that’s before he gets to the food. KC Cafe is a beautiful place that never ever disappoints, and I will always stand against any presumptive, colonial insinuations that this restaurant, by its cuisine, is at all cheap or dismissable. So then, why is it featuring in your feed-for-fuck-all column, Guy? Right, yes. Thankfully, KC’s legendary status is not exclusionary. While most of the menu does look upwards from the $20 mark, there are a handful of excellent dishes for those with a bit less to dish out. For these we turn to the section ‘Soups/Starters/Congees’ (numbers 30. through 53. on the menu). Working our way backwards, the Fish Congee is the easiest to review: not very good on its own. This rice porridge would, I imagine, be a comfort food for many, but the kind that you have to grow up with to like. Unfamiliar, I found the congee to have an unpleasant texture: too watery to try and chew, but too lumpy to spoon like soup. I was surprised by the flavour of the light, salty broth and ginger, but the combination of white rice and white chunks of fish made for a big bowl of $10 plain. The same could not be more false to say about the Wu Xi Pork Ribs. Equally priced but infused with flavour, this starter is a thing of beauty. Dripping with a syrupy red braising, they’re almost caramelised but with a deeper, spiced umami. As you bring each piece to your mouth (with chopsticks or fingers; you’d be forgiven for using your hands to pick every last piece off) you can smell the orange oils and the ginger in the glaze that cut through what could otherwise become sickly and cloying. These tender, flaky ribs are like the refined older cousin of the sticky ribs from the gastropub down the way, but just as moreish. It’s not a big enough plate to call it a meal by any standard, but with a side of rice and some choy sum it could go a long way. Honestly, it’s good enough to order as a side regardless. What does suffice as a meal are the soups, which max out at $14. Everyone at the table let out a ‘woah!’ when my bowl was set down, a bowl I could wrap my arms around and cradle as the steam warmed my face. I picked the Roast Duck, Gai Choy, and Tofu soup, which was a whole meal for $12. The tofu was silky and soaked up lots of the savoury broth, as did the leafy parts of the gai choy, while the stalks remained crunchy and burst between my teeth. The thick-cut roast duck breast, sliced from one of the golden birds hanging on display, was tender and gamey. It was a little impractical to eat; I ended up pulling the meat off the little bones with my fingers in the end—so worth it. The seared skin went soggy in the soup, but still a deliciously salty fried addition. This is genuinely one of the best meal deals I’ve found so far, for its size, quality and nutrition. I could come back to this for days on end. KC Cafe’s menu is so extensive, there’s enough under budget to explore for another column. I, for one, won’t be complaining. I have so much love and respect for this institution; it’s no surprise the restaurant is coming up to its 30th birthday in a few years. If the menu is still daunting, check out Nick Iles’ articles at @twobearsandwich, as well as the icons at @kc_review who are eating their way through that phonebook of dishes and living my dream. Or head down with a random number generator, it’s very hard to go wrong. I’ll probably see you there! Am I talking shit? Do you wildly disagree, or want to feed my ego by telling me I’m so right? Or have I overlooked a place so far that readers really need to know about? Send me something to chew on at: guy@salient.org.nz.

Weekly Pacific Politics with Otis Whinney GOING BAND FOR BAND ON IMMIGRATION POLICY 26 votes to 22 have decided the fate of Solomon Islands’ Prime Minister Jerimiah Manele. The vote of no-confidence for his leadership finally took place on May 7, the third time the parliament of the Solomons had attempted to push him out in this manner. Former foreign minister Peter Shanel Agovaka—who crossed the bench to help take out Manele—threw out allegations that Manele was facilitating corruption among his ministers, while 1000 police patrolled the capital to prevent unrest that has previously broken out during other political events such as this. Manele didn’t step down quietly, directing comments to the leader of the opposition, Matthew Cooper Wale, arguing he should “be very careful of who you are dealing with and sitting next to.” Considering some of Manele’s own allies switched up on him to remove him from power, maybe the warning should not be taken lightly. Manele has done his best to balance his country's relationship with China and the West, so his ousting is significant. A diplomatic move to recognise the People's Republic of China over Taiwan in 2021 sparked enough unrest in the streets for Australia to deploy troops and police to the islands, and a 2022 security and defence pact between the Solomons and China raised many eyebrows among the usual suspects. Whether a move towards or away from China is on the cards, or whether the new leadership seeks to maintain the status quo, remains to be seen. A new vote for a replacement is due to take place before this article releases, so we cannot consider this whole debacle over just yet. Niue is also having some changes in government, but is doing it the normal way by having a general election. Incumbent Dalton Tagelagi managed to retain his position as Prime Minister, but the biggest shock came in the demographic changes. The Fono Ekepule (Niue Parliament) now holds 7 woman MPs out of the possible 20, boosting their representation to 35%. Moments like this are significant, as it shows a shift in how people are perceiving leadership in a region that is still untangling itself from generations of misogyny. We obviously still have a long way to go, and progress on this front will depend heavily on how these new MPs perform in their role, but thanks to these results, the opportunity is there for the taking. Unfortunately, our leadership in Aotearoa cannot change until November. But time is ticking on the coalition, and every party in government has already begun slinging mud to convince as many voters as possible that all our country’s problems are because of the other guys. One of the key issues right-wing parties across the globe have been bringing to the forefront is immigration. Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Pauline Hanson; the world seems to be assembling the racist Justice League. New Zealand is no stranger to this; immigrants have been used as a political tool since Richard Seddon was bad-mouthing our Chinese community to win over racist miners in the late 19th century. We had irrational restrictions on immigrants from China in the 1880s, and of course the dawn raids under Robert Muldoon in the 1980s. In the modern day, we have Shane Jones calling Indian immigration a “butter chicken tsunami” while Brian Tamaki radicalises the people of Facebook. In short, this whole debate has been in our midst for a long time, and our good mate David Seymour claims he has the solution. David Seymour and the ACT party have officially released their new plan to solve New Zealand’s immigration crisis. It's a 6 point platform that includes making it easier to deport migrants who are serious offenders, stronger English language requirements, and a dedicated enforcement unit to deal with overstayers. Now, it's not ridiculous to claim that New Zealand needs to update its stance on immigration. Migrant exploitation and worker shortages in key sectors are just some of the things successive governments have been kicking down the road for the next lot to solve. But ACT’s platform, to me at least, seems more like a series of signals to a certain type of voter in the run up to an election. Seymour’s immigration stance has always been interesting. He has, at least recently, presented himself staunchly in favour of immigration and consistently claims that this country was founded by it. When defending these policies to Sean Plunkett on his openly far-right radio show, Seymour still refused to play along with Sean’s more radical outbursts, even saying that “we all, at some point in our family history, have a story of immigration, and in many ways New Zealand, being the last major landmass to be settled by humans, is the country of immigration.” A perfectly reasonable statement, in sharp contrast to Donald Trump claiming Haitians are eating people's dogs during a televised debate. Even as Sean threw out a daft reference to Shane Jones’s butter chicken comment, Seymour declined to engage in that kind of anti-Indian racism. A similar story played out as Seymour spoke to Duncan Garner, another far-right media personality who parrots those anti-immigration talking points. Even when speaking on a platform that gives him carte blanche to say whatever he wants about anyone, Seymour won’t budge. This is less surprising when you consider the ACT party’s frequent race-baiting over this term in Government towards Māori, pandering to the many who believe Te Tiriti is being abused in favour of Māori over others. Things like the Treaty Principles Bill and his constant references to apartheid pander to this demographic, draping the want to erode Te Tiriti’s legal power in assertions that all New Zealanders should be equal under the law. Seymour and ACT have always been about ‘cutting red tape,’ removing regulations and allowing the private sector to have more freedom in how they operate and make money, regardless of the consequences for things such as the environment, or the people who work in it. Te Tiriti has been a significant roadblock to this for some time. Seymour needs the right to vote for him, so these new immigration proposals seek to activate that crowd, but he’s got to toe a line, lest he break his own argument that all New Zealanders are equal. On the other hand, since when have politicians been consistent? Unfortunately, it seems like our right-wing parties are entering a sort of anti-immigration arms race to see who can demonise this group most effectively. After ACT released this platform, Winston Peters took to social media to argue it “doesn’t even touch the sides,” and that Seymour needs to “watch this space” for what a real man’s immigration policy looks like. Minister of Immigration, National’s Erica Stanford, has also been showcasing proposed changes to immigration laws, including making it much harder to appeal deportation on humanitarian grounds. The coalition is going band for band on immigration, and the escalating rhetoric will have ripple effects through not just the Pacific community in this country, but to the many other diasporas that call Aotearoa home. The endless rise of anti-Indian sentiment specifically in this country should worry us all, and as Pacific peoples we should be more aware than most about where this could end up taking us. South Asians have been disproportionately affected by racial abuse and hate crimes in the past few years, with Police hate crime data reporting 4,767 hate incidents involving South Asian victims in this country occurring between January 2022 and October 2025. All it takes is our politicians to continue to lean into this racism to gain support (as Seddon and Muldoon did before) for this to end up mirroring some of our most shameful moments in history. So let’s hope we can collectively see the forest for the trees when it’s time to tick those boxes in November.

Zara Boon I sit and listen as my belly dancing class discusses petrol prices. The other Arab person in the class isn't here today. I miss her familiar words, the warm accent, the laughter as we trade dialects. They worry about the shipping costs of their costumes. I regard those prices with a bleak indifference. For me, no strait has to be closed to leverage power. I would pay a fortune in transport fees if it meant my olive trees were left alone. Instead, they burn, and I hold my hands out to the flames. It's important to take warmth where you can get it. Petrol prices are high.