DEGENERATE GUIDES & ALTERED STATES COLUMN | ISSUE TWELVE | NOSTALGIA Written by Isaac Tenzing | Drugs Columnist Illustrated by Tashi Donnelly (she/her) | @tashi_rd | Editor-in-Chief “Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime…” In between heads full of mescaline and adrenochrome, Hunter S. Thompson would occasionally daydream about his so-called “main era”: the 1960s, a peak he proclaimed may never come back again, des

THE HOT LESBIAN COLUMN | ISSUE TWELVE | NOSTALGIA Written by Paige Turner (she/her) | @paig_does_it | Contributing Lesbian Yesterday I remembered the smell of your arms around me. You had just gotten out of the pool; the fragrance came on strong, an avant-garde perfume that never whetted your insatiable appetite. Chlorine, salty sterile chlorine, bleachy acrid chlorine. Water running down your sunburnt skin in rivulets. A mass of wet hair splayed out like seaweed on your deep

ONE MOON COLUMN | ISSUE TWELVE | NOSTALGIA Written by Priscilla Zhang (she/her) | @p.zhangxy My favourite band is taking a break. MAYDAY. They have been my favourite band for years, and they recently confirmed that they will be stepping away from world tour concerts for a while to work on a new album. The news wasn't entirely unexpected. They have long talked about following in the footsteps of their idols, the Beatles, and making ten albums in total. So when their ninth albu

SPILL THE TEA WITH TASHI COLUMN | ISSUE TWELVE | NOSTALGIA Written & illustrated by Tashi Donnelly (she/her) | @tashi_rd | Editor-in-Chief Scroll to the bottom of this webpage to submit your own question for Tashi to answer: https://www.debatemag.com/spill-the-tea-submissions Q: Do you have any advice on moving on from unrequited feelings for someone whilst maintaining your friendship with them? (In my case, it's a long-distance friendship). I know it might be better if I ju

COLUMN | ISSUE TWELVE | NOSTALGIA Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist A Boy Named Charlie Brown (Bill Melendez, 1969) Out of the gate, one must admit this feature – 86 minutes of Charlie Brown, what a dream! – isn’t the peak of Peanuts. It has the mood but not the wit, and in its slight lack of inspiration it even flat-out reprises scenes from the beloved, 25-minute television specials: Snoopy twirling on an icy lake to Guaraldi’s “Skati

KŌRERO TOI | ISSUE TWELVE | NOSTALGIA Written by Danielle Chen (she/they) | @Dermillion | Contributing Artists My artistic practice explores the second-hand nostalgia I feel for my father’s vibrant juvenile past in Taiwan, and my longing for his youthful experiences there. I researched 20th-century Taiwanese masculine youth and pop culture, combining it with my interpretation of my father’s life during that period. This is how I’ve created a romanticised and partially fiction

EDITORIAL | ISSUE TWELVE | NOSTALGIA Written by Tashi Donnelly (she/her) | @tashi_rd | Editor Dear reader, I’ve got a seriously bad case of nostalgia. As far back as I can remember, I’ve loved looking as far back as I can remember. It’s like an addiction. A compulsion to rehash every experience I’ve ever had and to bore any innocent bystander to death with my remembrances. Every day I wake up and exclaim in pure rapture that the day before has now become a day in the past t

COLUMN | ISSUE ELEVEN | MAHIMAHI / SEX Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist Toute Une Nuit (Chantal Akerman, 1982) Belgian pioneer of avant-garde film, Chantal Akerman, left behind a legacy of stillness in both domestic (kitchens and bedrooms) and transitory (train platforms and corridors) spaces, with critics' appeal commonly bestowed on her career centrepiece, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). And yet I find th

DEGENERATE GUIDES & ALTERED STATES COLUMN | ISSUE ELEVEN | MAHIMAHI / SEX Written by Isaac Tenzing | Drugs Columnist Illustrated by Tashi Donnelly (she/her) | @tashi_rd | Editor-in-Chief Holstered within his work belt: 4 Asahi Super Dry cans and a singular joint. My friend tottered into the living room of this particular North Shore house party and proclaimed, “I DON'T WANT TO DIE TILL I'VE HAD SEX ON METH.” He might not have been a wise man, but at this moment, to me, he was

THE HOT LESBIAN COLUMN | ISSUE ELEVEN | MAHIMAHI / SEX Written by Bella den Boogert (they/them) | @belladbb | Contributing Lesbian Illustrated by Tashi Donnelly (she/her) | @tashi_rd | Editor-in-Chief “Lesbian Bed Death” is a term I’ve encountered many times throughout my years dating women, mostly through online forums or the occasional inside joke with a fellow sapphic about our personal relationships. When I first encountered the term, I pictured my partner and me lying a

Help! I Can’t Find the Tea Under All of This Choking EDITORIAL | ISSUE ELEVEN | MAHIMAHI / SEX Written by Tashi Donnelly (she/her) | @tashi_rd | Editor Kia ora e te whānau, and welcome to the dungeon. In last year’s Sex Issue editorial, I harped on about what the average everyday vanilla civilian could learn from the BDSM/kink community. How, you may reasonably ask, could activities so alarming to the respectable imagination possibly improve one’s relationship with intimacy?

COLUMN | ISSUE TEN | ISOLATION Written by Luke Fisher (he/him) | @lukefish7__ | Sports Columnist Illustration by Tashi Donnelly (she/her) | @tashi_rd | Editor Meeting potential partners post-uni is hard. If you weren’t aware, I’ve transitioned to unc status, having graduated from AUT last year. Much like how America is a third-world country wearing a Gucci belt, I’m a child who can make small talk around a coffee machine and complain about the traffic. I guess I was hoping my

RECCOMENDATIONS | ISSUE TEN | ISOLATION Written by Sophia He (she/her) | Graphic Designer

COLUMN | ISSUE TEN | ISOLATION Written by Isaac Tenzing | Drugs Columnist Theoretically endless. The answer to both how long a piece of string is and how many videos you can find of Joe Rogan talking about isolation tanks on YouTube. The wellness influencer community seemingly has a new topic for their self-help manuals every other week. Podcasts recorded en masse aim to sell your soccer mum neighbour on the idea of cortisol management. Humorously enough, infatuations with th

A Room Full of Strangers ONE MOON COLUMN | ISSUE TEN | ISOLATION Written by Priscilla Zhang (she/her) | @p.zhangxy | Columnist Last week in counselling class, we were talking about trust. One idea from our handout stayed with me: sometimes, the people who put the most energy into helping others or giving advice are the ones who find it hardest to share their own concerns. I recognised something in that. Moving to another country has made me think about trust differently. Yo