EDITORIAL | ISSUE THIRTEEN | SPOOKY Written by Tashi Donnelly (she/her) | @tashi_rd | Editor-in-Chief Illustrated by Niamh Donnelly (she/they) | @zaxoof | Contributing Artist Kia ora, nau mai, haere mai! Spooky season is almost upon us, and we’ve chosen to honour the time of year with this very special, first time ever, 13th issue of Debate. As per usual, I looked into the etymology of spooky (I suddenly panicked that I’d accidentally given our final issue of the year a racis

FEATURE | ISSUE THIRTEEN | SPOOKY Written by Emily Smith (she/her) | @emlillys | Contributing Writer The tooth feels heavy in my hand. It is no bigger than my fingernail, but it feels weighty, like a sack of rice. It is heavy because it is full of fortune, apparently. I don’t believe the back of my mouth is a particularly fortunate place, but Grandma does. This one came from the back of my mouth. My tongue can’t quite reach the gap it has left. When I clench my fingers around

POETRY | ISSUE TWELVE | NOSTALGIA Written by Elise Sadlier (she/her) | @elise_sadlier | Contributing Writer Illustrated by Nina Sipkes (she/her) | @teatimings | Contributing Artist We can play at war down by the dragonfly-bitten creek wielding hockey-stick guns shooting planes from the sky with our minds comb the kutus from our hair curling like pikopiko in the basin drowning in tea tree and lye Teach me nothing gentle to leap from bridges, from rocks to let the waves thras

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

REVIEW | ISSUE TWELVE | NOSTALGIA Written by Liam Hansen (they/them) | @liamhanse.n | Associate Editor Any admission of what my childhood was really like will probably only result in resigned, unsurprised nods, but I can remain embarrassed as the realities of technological advancement and neurological development for youth become warped in culture wars and social media bans. I’m not saying my experience was ideal, but it doesn't hold the same connotations as it does today. I

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

TE AO MĀORI | ISSUE TWELVE | NOSTALGIA Written by Skye Lunson-Storey (they/them) | Whakatōhea, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Tūwharetoa | @uku_rangi | Arts, Culture, and Te Ao Māori Editor I’ve watched you from afar for so long. The changes and shifts, like tides controlled by te marama. I look at her and ask “why does the place I once knew seem foreign to me?” My heart feels heavy as I question the strong resistance within. This was never my whenua, yet you raised me. You protecte

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