Political empathy is performative & temporary
I attended my first Pride event in 2018, standing on the side of Ponsonby Road with a rainbow flag I’d bought from Look Sharp Westgate wrapped around my shoulders as the Auckland Pride Parade marched along in front of me. You can easily guess the organisations - and corporations - that were publicly declaring their support for the LGBTQIA+ community. Institutions that have been fighting for queer and trans rights for decades, such as Rainbow Youth and The Burnett Foundation, were plopped alongside international conglomerates eager to slap a pride flag over their logo and skive off of any goodwill they could muster from being a progressive organisation.
Keen to run Aotearoa like a business, the National Party grabbed some rainbow balloons from the storage closet and followed suit, with their usual coalition comrade David Seymour dawdling around in the back of the TVNZ broadcast as they marched along. You could tell he was there to support the gays because he was wearing pink.
There was an awkward silence from my cohort of queer teenagers as they walked by. We obviously didn’t know all the details of which MPs voted for and against the legalisation of same-sex marriage in 2013, but we knew most Nats weren’t keen. To be fair and clear, the issue wasn’t across party lines - the late former National MP Nikki Kaye had every right to be at that parade in 2018, given her mahi in reviving the Auckland Pride Festival and integrating updated adoption and surrogacy laws into Parliament in 2012. Besides, there are Labour MPs who voted against the legalisation of same-sex marriage that remained in parliament until 2024 - or in the case of Damien O’Connor, to this day. While researching, I discovered an old scandal of his where he called those selecting the Labour party list as “self-serving unionists and a gaggle of gays”. When centre-left politicians are slinging out new satirical group chat names for communist polycules just as often as their populist rivals, the problem at hand can’t be defined by unanimous party stances.
Regardless of Nikki Kaye’s work or David Seymour's shirt colour, the presence of Aotearoa’s right-wing parties at events they used to diminish felt wrong. 32 of the National Party’s 59 MPs at the time voted against the Marriage Amendment Bill in 2013, amongst them being brief party leaders Bill English and Simon Bridges and ministers who remain part of the current coalition government Louise Upston, Melissa Lee, and speaker of the house Gerry Brownlee. The majority was slim, but non negligible - The
Written By Liam Hansen (they/them) @liamhanse.n EDITOR
National Party, as an organisation, did not support the right to marriage for queer individuals.
If that’s the case, what was the point of pulling out the National banner at the Pride parade? Why did the MP’s that supported same-sex marriage feel the need to publicly declare party-wide support for the rainbow community, despite the numbers showing otherwise? Ultimately, a decision had been made that the risk of alienating voters against gay marriage was better than losing the opportunity to use the #LoveIsLove hashtag and support queer people while public opinion was in their favour. Jacinda Ardern attended that pride parade, being the first sitting Prime Minister of New Zealand to march alongside the queer community, and the same cohort of tweens that was silent for the Nats were screaming for Jacinda to come and say hi. It was the right time for the right to distance themselves from homophobia and to support the LGBTQIA+ community - but even then, one letter of the anagram was muttered more quietly than the rest, leaving the door open for it to be silenced, ignored, and vilified.
Nats spent the years between the 2018 parade and their return to power in 2023 doing fuck all for queer and trans people of Aotearoa. The departure of their most queer friendly MP’s, like Kaye, left the voices for queer communities in the conservative space silent, allowing space for the unnecessary and ruthlessly hateful remarks to come out of Winston Peters’ mouth on a weekly basis. The NZ First leader’s stance on queer people has remained consistently hateful across his time working with both major political parties as Deputy PM; Peters voted against the Homosexual Law Reform Act in 1986, against the aforementioned Marriage Amendment Bill in 2012, and has spent his last year and a half of power taking every opportunity he can get to performatively squeeze trans rights to a crowd of Facebook troglodytes keen on an opportunity to control all women's bodies. The last few months have seen consistent and blatantly homophobic attacks on queer Green MP’s - namely Ricardo Menéndez March, and especially Benjamin Doyle.
While the National Party were happy to dance in the pride parade and claim that they supported LGBTQIA+ rights in 2018, the party will easily slip from their current ignorance of their coalition partners discrimination back into their former homophobia and transphobia if the voice of hatred becomes louder in Aotearoa. Just as the right will use faux support of queer people to seem virtuous, they’ll throw them under the bus for a lick of power. Trans lives, and queer love, are under attack in Aotearoa. If the National Party doesn't care about us now, they didn’t care about it when it was convenient to pretend to. Please stay vigilant, queer and trans friends.
Illustration By Stella Roper (they/she) @dodofrenzy
ARTS EDITOR
University Arts Funding May Be In For a Hit.
It’s that time of year once again, which unless you’re a politician, journalist or keen business mogul, you will most likely be completely oblivious to. It’s budget time.
Each year, the government announces how exactly they will be spending their money, allocating certain amounts to different sectors and programmes. This occurs on Budget Day.
Of course, there is no endless pot of money to dip into, and thus when one sector receives a budget boost, another will be the victims of cuts. It’s not only on budget day that this occurs: We’ve seen seemingly endless amounts of cuts in the time since the coalition government took office. Governments are constantly reshuffling money- it’s frankly most of what they do.
But Budget Day, which occurs in May, sets an agenda of where the priorities lie for the government. And although you may not be privy to it, the decisions made in the debating chamber and hauled through select committees, will most definitely have an impact on your life.
One area that is used to having funding thrown in and pulled out is the Tertiary sector. Despite mounting student loans, sky high fees, and a raging cost of living crisis - the government is spending a lot more on universities than what is coming out of your pocket.
Currently, Government funding amounts to about 33% of Universities income, domestic student fees are 18%, and international fees add a further 10%.
In March of this year, the government announced $2.7 billion in funding for tertiary education this year. However, universities fear that this won’t be enough.
The way tertiary institutions are funded is somewhat complex. The money provided by the government is managed by the government run Tertiary Education Commission (TEC). While $2.7 billion sounds like a large sum, the way universities can spend it is actually heavily regulated.
Degrees are subsidised by this sum of money - the excess is then paid by student fees. For example, an arts degree is currently funded around $7563, and a student would then pay fees of $6,594 to $7,607 on top of that.
The TEC is warning that funding cuts to this system are very possible. The TEC and institutions work together to create investment plans. These forecast which areas of study are expecting growth, or they want to attract growth to, and then allocate more funding to them. This means the government can subsidise a larger amount of students to study these degrees.
The current subjects the government has indicated they want to invest in are science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), health, and teacher education. They’ve also shown interest in funding food qualifications, as well as the construction and infrastructure industries.
The arts - creative, liberal, literature, the lot - are nowhere to be seen.
While this plan isn’t yet set in stone, if it continues quietly to tick along in the background, some deans fear a cut to the arts could be a very real possibility.
The move would follow Australia, where the Morrison government incentivised STEM degrees over arts back in 2020. The move was similar to what could happen here, the government allocating far larger amounts of funding to STEM degrees. This drove the price of some arts degrees to double, and saw a large drop in fees for STEM subjects. While the change was enforced to encourage students to enroll in STEM, it’s largely hailed as a failure - with arts enrollments continuing to rise despite the large expense.
The Albanese government has pitched a roll back of changes, wanting to make tertiary education more universally accessible again.
While what specifically is set in store for Universities here in Aotearoa is yet to be seen, its certain change is imminent. But either way, don’t wave goodbye to your passion for arts and take up structural engineering just yet.
Written By Evie Richardson (she/her) @evi3m4y NEWS EDITOR
Aroha, aroha, aroha
Aroha, aroha, aroha. Possibly one of the most well-known Māori words used in the most universal places. Aroha is more than just the Māori translation for ‘love’ — it encompasses unspoken bonds, unconventional displays of affection, general respect and admiration. While not my favourite Māori word, I love (haha) how well understood this term is, especially in the majority of NZ media.
For this issue’s fortnightly dose of Māori reo, I want to focus on incorporating reo into our daily lives. Lately, my partner and I have been making an effort to use more Māori vocabulary day-to-day, asking each other small questions or using terms of endearment in te reo. Our go-to has been “e kare,” which translates to my dear, my love, my darling, etc. Like all Māori words, “e kare” has multiple meanings, making it an easy term to add into day-to-day conversations.
Using “e kare” as our example, what are other ways to bring a little more reo into your day-to-day conversations? I have a couple of phrases, questions, and tidbits to add alongside our understanding of sentence structure and statements. Ka tahi, let’s take our already established question words and add to them. Instead of just, “Kei te pēhea koe?” let’s learn a couple of longer questions that can build into a conversation naturally with limited reo!
• “He aha te wā?” What’s the time?
• “Kei hea koe?” Where are you?
• “Ko wai koe?” Who are you?
Written By Hirimaia Eketone (they/them) @hiri.music
EDITOR
These questions can be expanded, but the important thing to note is the sentence starters. “He aha” means “what is” or “what,” “Kei hea” is “where,” and “Ko wai” is “who.” There are some exceptions, but these question words become crucial as you begin to piece together your own sentences, questions, and answers.
Once you are comfortable with the above phrases, try fleshing them out even further. Instead of just asking the time, ask what time you have to leave the house. Ask where the event is and who will be there. Google is actually a great resource for these reo questions (just don’t trust Google Translate!), with a lot of online dictionaries that can help fill the specific gaps of knowledge. Honing in on specific gaps, no matter what sentence you’re trying to conjure up, will ultimately lead to a wider understanding of te reo. Make sure you give it a try!
Aroha nui ki tōku tahu, thank you for continuing to learn and grow in my reo. Since it’s the Love Issue, it felt right to feature my tahu (partner). Take this issue as a sign to compliment your lover, friends, whānau, others, on the small things they do to brighten your day.
Mā te wā!
Art By Jay Kennedy (@jk_inc)
In early high school, I got friend-dumped with the attached critique: You only want to talk about the boys you like. Although the friend in question could easily be found guilty of the same, the criticism hit me hard. I didn’t want to be one of those people who poured all their energy into romantic partners while neglecting friendships. Sadly, I knew my friend was somewhat correct. I did tend to lose myself in partners. And I kept doing it, over and over again.
Romantic love was easier for me to believe in. Society certainly put it up on a pedestal. Born in the 90s, I grew up surrounded by the idea that being in a relationship made you whole, and not being in one meant you were somehow lacking. Movies and TV, even the stuff about friendship groups, focused more on who was hooking up than who was showing up. Every song in the top 40s was about romance or heartbreak. What stuck in my head was that the ultimate goal was to be chosen, completed, and adored.
So, from the age of 13, I was rarely single. I use the term “serial monogamist” to describe my former self. I hopped from one relationship to another, with little space between, if not overlapping. I’m not proud of myself for that, but a part of me was terrified of being alone, and unconvinced that friends could ease that empty feeling entirely. Many contributing factors made this my reality. I had a few best friends over the years who weren’t very nice to me, which made it difficult to trust people. But I had partners over the years who were objectively worse, and I still chased the buzz of being someone's girlfriend 24/7.
I expected every relationship I was in to complete me, because that’s what I was told it should feel like. When they didn't (because why should they?), I just moved on. I wasn’t taught how to “fix” or “mend” relationships, I just knew how to get into them. I was good at that, the early stages. My neurodivergence lets me hyperfocus on my special person. My emotional dysregulation meant that the highs and lows felt more extreme. The masking and people-pleasing I was doing unconsciously gave me the appearance of successful relationships. I was proud of the fact that most of my relationships lasted a year or longer; I had
mates who couldn’t keep a relationship going for more than six months. But I was measuring success by time, outward perception, and the ability to put my needs aside. An ability that would slowly diminish as time went on.
Although a lot of this was fueled by how society overvalued romantic love, it was also perpetuated by my confusion about platonic love. Where romance felt like a clear image, friendships felt blurry. I wasn't sure what the expectations were, where the boundaries lay, or how I was even supposed to acquire friendship. I was never sure how physically affectionate I should be with a friend, or how much I was supposed to share. I couldn’t tell if they genuinely liked me or were offering me friendship out of pity. In a sad way, I felt more sure of someone's commitment to me if they wanted to have sex with me. And anyway, why would I take a microdose of consistent platonic love over the euphoric high of passionate romantic love?
To be clear, the majority of my early relationships weren’t bad. Most ended on good terms, with an acknowledgement that we loved each other, but we’d run our course. I learnt a lot about being in relationships, what it takes to be there for someone every day. No one should expect perfection from relationships in your teens, or even early twenties. No one should expect perfection from relationships, full stop. But there was a pattern to mine that is glaringly obvious in hindsight. I didn’t just fear being alone, I didn't know who I was outside of the reflection of someone else’s desire.
The serial monogamy journey had to end somewhere; for me, it happened at the age of 24. If my stint as a serial monogamist was a rollercoaster ride, the last relationship was the part where the seatbelts failed and the carriage derailed mid-loop. I spent three years in a relationship with an emotionally abusive man who stripped me of whatever sense of self I was holding on to. Worst of all, I’d left one of the healthiest relationships I’d ever been in to be with this man. The stakes were so high. I had to make it work. So I stuck around for the abuse, hoping he would change, hoping my unconditional love would fix him. By the time it ended, I was unwilling to be vulnerable. I vowed to myself
that I would never say “I love you” first again.
You may be a little confused, dear reader, as to how I came to that conclusion. “But Tashi,” you may ask, “What on earth does saying the words I love you have to do with quitting serial monogamy?” And in response, I say: gimme a break, man. I was traumatised. I thought this little rule would help me regain some of the agency I’d been stripped of. I convinced myself that it gave me breathing room to engage in sex and intimacy without falling into the trap of intense, all-consuming romance. I thought it would give me more time to assess my feelings, focus on myself, and my friendships.
In reality, it was more of a rigid defence. I feared vulnerability because the last person I’d opened my soul to dragged it across hot coals before biffing it in the bin. Being emotionally withholding wasn’t going to fix my issues with relationships, but it felt like something I could control. I swore off ever throwing myself into the fire again, I would not be the catalyst for my own destruction.
I spent the next three years mostly single. My friends became my most important love connection. I prefaced every intimate relationship I engaged in with one rule: I’m not looking for anything serious. It was good. I spent time by myself. For the first time, I wasn’t scared of it. I was too relieved to be free from the shackles of an abusive man. I didn’t abstain from sex and intimacy, just from throwing myself into another long-term relationship. I know now that I do crave a romantic partner to share my life with, but single/slut era helped me reevaluate my idea of love.
I’m in a healthy relationship now, and I’m still learning. I didn’t say “I love you” first, and when he said it I didn’t even say “I love you too”. I asked, “Why?”. He was a little surprised by that question, though I hadn’t intended to confuse him. Having spent years with someone who said the words but weaponised them, I needed to know they were safe this time. I’m still unlearning the damage that was done. When I say “I love you” now, it’s less desperate for approval and validation. I’m not chasing completion in someone else.
Written By Tashi Donnelly (She/Her) @tashi_rd
FEATURES
EDITOR
SRC Spotlights: Kelsey Moleu, Diversity Affairs Representative
Kia ora! My name is Kelsey Moleu, and I am the Diversity Affairs Representative for AUTSA’s Student Representative Council (SRC). In this role, I advocate for the voice of all students, and I am passionate about providing as much love, kindness and support as possible into the community. My role entails meeting with students and providing the information, resources, and support that AUTSA has to offer.
All my projects are based on diversity and inclusion. Most students share their concerns about situations where they felt like there was a lack of inclusion, or felt they weren’t able to speak up. I offer support by informing students of the help within our community that’s available to them, and assist them through the process of reaching out. It’s so rewarding to see how the students and the community can flourish once having access to these resources. I also address these concerns by encouraging diversity and inclusion practices and an ethical culture within the community.
I love giving back to AUT students, and ensuring that they are seen, especially the minority communities within our university. I am currently collaborating with some of the other SRC members to bring some exciting projects to life, so students can feel a sense of belonging. If there is something you would like to see happen, you can reach me by emailing diversity.rep@autsa.org.nz with any feedback, concerns, or collaboration ideas.
Love knows no bounds. It is a part of our identity, how we experience life, and a source of our beliefs. Regardless of diverse backgrounds, we all need a sense of warmth within us to enrich our everyday life, whether it be through support, guidance, a feeling, sexual orientation, or religious practices. Diversity and love intersect, so regardless of your version of love, we are here to guide all students with aroha through their experience here at AUT.
Halls are one of the most important parts of your first year university experience. Something as coincidental as what floor you’re put on can determine your most important relationships in a new city, at least to start. So, it figures that picking where to go becomes the most important decision 18-year-old you has made since picking your ball dress.
All through Year 13, it felt like a professional sport trying to keep track of all the halls in Christchurch alone and the factions they each represent. While this made for a fascinating anthropological study of what the fuck goes on down south, I was at peace. AUT bound, I had a whopping two options for halls, and I was NOT paying Mayoral Drive prices (yeah, didn’t get a scholarship :/.) I was left with the shining beacon of light that is: Wellesley Student Accommodation.
I felt like I was gearing up for war as I prepared to fly the coop, stockpiling rations (buying King Single sheets), training for infield combat (attempting to cook so I was somewhat prepared…. emphasis on attempting), and studying the lay of the land
(checking where the nearest liquor stores were). I went to my GP to cover all those pre-departure topics. Meningococcal vaxxes, mental health, sex. She gave me 100 condoms – I thought that was awfully optimistic given my previous luck.
I was nervous to move out. I’d finally found my tribe in Year 13, and I was acutely aware that I was starting from ground zero – I had few friends (acquaintances, even) moving to Auckland, and even less to AUT. To make matters worse, WSA is an apartment building, more than a hall, so if you don’t get on with your flatmates, it feels next to impossible to meet anyone else. For someone who usually would wait to be spoken to, it was intimidating, and I thank my lucky stars that cosmic alignment kept Olive and me together.
Olive and I’s friendship started out as all good things do – mutually. I didn’t know of her existence for the three years we’d been at high school together until she started dating my friend Lucy. She told me Olive thought my Spotify playlist was good, and since then, I knew I had to befriend her because I thought
hers was cooler. A year later, she’d transcended from the liminal space of a friend's partner to a ride or die. Desperately clinging onto each other as we settled into our life in the big smoke, I wondered what this would do to our relationship. Only in our second(ish) year of real full-time friendship, moving in together was a big step. I felt like a U-Haul lesbian. Would arguing over fridge space break us? Was she secretly a clean freak? Was I secretly a clean freak? (My mum begs to differ.)
Thankfully, we didn’t kill each other. Our first nights were coloured by Cyclone Gabrielle, with thick dark clouds blanketing our city views (we had the penthouse, thank you) as we ate air fryer food. We were adults! Almost. It felt like we were catching up on the preteen sleepovers we never shared, countless nights spent picking apart our lives, thoughts, feelings, ruminations on high school’s dramas, and fears for the coming year. Our friendship grew to truly exist between us two, rather than an association through a larger group.
I knew I loved her because it felt so natural. I imagined this is what it was like to live with sisters, an alien concept to me and an all too familiar one for her. We clicked into each other's rhythms as if we’d been doing this for years, extending a helping hand without asking, and slapping sense back into each other when it was so desperately needed. I still feel like all of our communication happens on a higher plane, one you can only access if you’ve survived a Vesbar Toga Party.
Platonic love is nothing new to me – I’ve been, and am, #blessed with some wonderful friends. Romantic love, however… let’s just say my reputation did not precede me. With a sparse, almost comical run during high school, I had given up. At age 18, it was settled – there simply can be nobody for me! A melodramatic, wholeheartedly held belief, as most things are then. I looked forward to a fresh slate, a new city, a fresh batch of boys – finally, my hoe phase. To my disappointment, all I saw in Bar101 were faux pearl necklaces and a cloud of BO. I spotted a cute guy in an Aphex Twin shirt at orientation, but no chance to introduce myself. Oh well, life isn’t all about boys!
Then I met a boy. Better put, we met a boy – I did very little solo in my first year! Olive and I noticed Zach from our Media Production Foundations class also seemed to live in halls, had a Letterboxd account, and sported one familiar band tee. After some weeks of walking back to halls together-but-not, he beat us to the punch and introduced himself in the elevator. I liked that.
The three of us would watch The Simpsons in his flat after dinner, and I loved watching Olive and Zach compare notes on their equally horrific encyclopedic knowledge of the Simpsons universe. I liked that he wasn’t embarrassed to be so knowledgeable about a cartoon. I liked his hair. I liked his enthusiasm and the way he listened to me. One warm evening, we went over to his place, and he was sporting a basketball jersey. I liked his biceps. You can figure, as I eventually did, that I liked him.
Nothing quite expedites falling in love like sharing a king single bed – there isn’t very much room to be coy. It’s also hard to make up excuses on why you can’t hang out, the sheer idea making you queasy, when you’re only separated by four storeys. Despite this, the terrifying accessibility forced me headfirst into a relationship that feels so perfect, I’ve only recently stopped second-guessing if it’s some too-good-to-be-true karmic payback for an April Fools’ joke. I really do have WSA to thank for being
able to confidently say I Love You so early on.
Meeting in halls painted the city centre with memories together. Flirty conversations along the viaduct turned into days of psychosis, finally came to first dates in arcades and restaurants, and then I became we. I still buzz whenever we go to a new restaurant together, when we talk for hours like we used to 14 floors up in the sky, and when he sends me silly TikToks. Olive never opens my TikToks – some things you just need a romantic connection for.
Halls was a uniquely intimate context that puts all your relationships on a fast track, and I’m beyond grateful that I made it out with two of my favourite people. We were each put there – in that class, that flat, that building – by sheer coincidence, but our relationships today remain rich, reliable and fun because of the love we continue to pour into each other. You might not go into halls to find love (lord knows I didn’t think I would), but I implore you not to shut yourself off from it. However it comes to you, love paints those grey city nights in kaleidoscopic colours – and it helps to have a study buddy for late nights in the library!
Written By
Sophie Albornett (she/her) @sophiealbornett CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Illustration By Olive Cato (she/her) @oliveecato CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR
Love Actually
Ah, yes, love. Arguably the main purpose underpinning human existence. “The best thing to hold onto in life, is each other”, as Audrey Hepburn once said. But I think there really is more to love than what the naked eye can see.
Think of this like a mind ramble or cascades of cluttered thoughts, about the concept or notion of love. Now, don’t get me wrong - I am very much a hopeless romantic, but I think what society often forgets in its romanticised ideals of “love” is the word hopeless.
But…is love really all that hopeless?
This is a culmination of my lived experiences, observations, musings and philosophies about where I think love actually lies.
Mythologies of romance and the media
Growing up a hopeless romantic meant that, for me at least, the romantic part stemmed from a lot of literature, hearing stories in my family, and iconic Shah Rukh Khan films. I mean, men used to go to war and send letters back home, but now we see women struggling to receive the bare minimum.
Love once thrived in handwritten letters with flowers and shared silences; now it struggles to survive amid read receipts, dating apps and a lack of simplicity. The media has made love almost transactional.
Popular trends/concepts I’ve seen include:
“Rose-coloured glasses”, but okay how do you know when they’re on and off?
“If he wanted to, he would”, but isn’t communication the key towards understanding?
“Oh, they’re still in the honeymoon phase,” but maybe he just knows how to outwardly express love in a society that still, in parts, encourages toxic masculinity?
Clichės are comforting…until they become cages. What lies beneath them?
By creating this “highlight reel” of what love SHOULD look like, we forget it is often found in the little moments, the ones that quietly creep in behind the scenes. Success and passion are admirable, but are you able to weather the storms with someone when the season(s) changes to winter?
Romantic love, in particular, is severely overrated in the media. Films, books, articles, and more that all raise this notion of romantic love onto a pedestal.
“I’m so sick of people saying love is all a woman is fit for,” is an iconic message from Jo March in Little Women. While times have changed significantly, being ‘single’ is still often frowned upon. I’d argue that there’s so much more beauty that goes unrecognised in platonic relationships - the friends who pick up the broken pieces of a lover, found family or the sister who holds no blood ties to you.
Cracks between the clichés
So where are the cracks between the clichés? What makes romantic love work? Has love really died in our generation?
As an avid ‘people-watcher’ and societal observer, unfortunately, even I don’t have all the answers, BUT I can say this: love of any form SHOULD bring you a sense of peace.
Your friendships reflect the people you spend the most time with. I always say: if you took my five best friends and placed them in a room, that’s a direct reflection of my character and values in one place.
“You are a mosaic of all the people you’ve ever loved.” Indeed.
Love in terms of your dreams and career should fulfil you and give you a sense of purpose, whatever that may be.
And lastly, romantic love isn’t about lowering your expectations to meet someone’s convenience — it’s about raising the bar to honour your worth.
Love in the quiet margins
For those who have seen Hugh Grant’s iconic film Love Actually, it’s said, “you know I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around."
And you know what? I really wholeheartedly believe it is.
Love actually isn’t in the chapters - it’s found in the quieter margins of the books. It’s in the stories of struggle that often go untold. In the homes that are filled with “stop flirting”, not “stop fighting”, and the people who know and realise that to truly love someone, is to see someone.
It’s in your morning cup of coffee (or two).
It’s in the endless laughter and cackles you share when you ‘spill the tea’ with a friend.
It’s in effort and consistency, it’s in the person who picks you up from the airport.
It’s in the words you tell yourself, it’s in the weather, your hopes and dreams, in the eyes, and so much more.
A Hopeful Close
And so romantically-speaking, to you, the reader…I hope when love finds (you) it is not in the grand gestures, but rather the small inbetweens.
Not in falsified constructs of promise, but in tangible action. Not in “you can do better” but in “I will be better.” In growth together, rather than growing apart.
I think my biggest learning is that any form of love is not supposed to stir whirlwinds of chaos in your mind, but rather bring you peace, and that is sacrosanct. I encourage you to find love, not in the loudest pages of your life, but rather in the footnotes that are often almost missed.
Answered By Tashi Donnelly (she/her) FEATURE EDITOR
Q: 20, She/Her Hi Tashi, new reader of Debate here.
Recently, my best friend got back together with her ex-boyfriend and I'm so angry about it. I almost don’t know what to do with the amount of rage I feel. For context, I spent months convincing her that this guy is no good. She spent months periodically crying on the floor and swearing off ever speaking to him again. The back and forth has happened at least 3 times that I know of, I suspect it's more. If I went into detail about all the shit he’s done, this would turn into a dissertation, but he’s a soft-boy. He treats everyone around him like props in his sad little artist story. He would ghost my bestie for days, then come back with a cryptic paragraph about how he’s phobic of connection and just needs his “freedom”. Then he convinces her to be grateful that he’s tolerating her. And I’ve spent SO LONG trying to show her what real care looks like. At one point he even said I was a toxic influence in her life, basically because I’ve been pointing out his bullshit.
Also, she didn’t even tell me they got back together, I found out because she posted a soft launch on insta. I was literally there for her every time he disappeared and reappeared, while he constantly made her feel like she was asking too much. I was the one who was there for her, holding her while she cried, re-writing texts, bringing over wine and watching rom coms.
Now I just feel angry and sorry for her at the same time. She’s acting all sheepish because she KNOWS she fucked up by getting back with him. She knows I’m pissed about it. I want to find some way of getting over this feeling, but it's hard when someone I love just won’t stop hurting herself. It feels like a horrible merry-go-round of her ex being shit, me picking up the pieces, my friend forgetting everything that happened, and then repeat.
I know it sounds like I’m making this about me, and I guess I am to an extent. I should probably let her make mistakes and try to be less invested, right? It does make me feel a little pathetic to
be this affected by who my best friend is dating. But realistically, he’s getting this fake fun version of her, and I’m getting all the messy shit.
What I’m really asking is, how can I stop being so angry about this?
A: Dear Furious Best Friend, Welcome to Debate, and congratulations on an amazing debut question. I have a lot of respect for your righteous fury, though I’ll admit now, I’m not sure if there is a wholly satisfying answer to this.
I’ve spent many years of my life being the certified emotional support person for friends who do not have their own best interests at heart. It’s simultaneously devastating and infuriating. You just want to grab them by the shoulders, shake them, and scream. But as we all know, we should never, ever shake a baby.
The memes about hating your best friend's ex more than they do are popular for a reason. When our besties are dating someone, we see the outside perspective. And out of love, we tend to keep a lot of receipts on their behalf. That gets all the more frustrating when you have to constantly haul out your box of evidence, which only gets larger with time, in an attempt to make your friend see reason. So I don’t think you’re being petty, and your anger isn’t self-absorbed. At least, in this advice columnist’s opinion.
Friendships are a kind of emotional contract. It’s not written down, but there are certain expectations about how you’ll be showing up for each other. One of those is loyalty; the kind where if someone hurts your friend, you’re in their corner. And you’ve been doing that over and over again. So, when she turns around and chooses to go back to an actively hostile person, of course it feels like she’s betraying you.
It feels a bit clinical writing it all down like that, but I wanted to point these things out to demonstrate where your anger is coming from. She’s breaking the untold friend contract. I imagine she’s not doing it to hurt you, but by consistently choosing chaos over care, it feels like betrayal.
Your friend is probably experiencing a case of “repetition compulsion”. She’s fallen into an unconscious pattern of repeating painful situations from the past in an attempt to gain control over them, and ultimately to try an achieve a different outcome. Basically, she’s trying to fix some kind of original wound by recreating it, even though it hurts. Since she’s your best friend, you might be able to sniff out what that original wound is.
For example, imagine someone grew up with an emotionally unavailable parent. Maybe they were loving in bursts, but distant most of the time, overly critical, and just inconsistent overall. The child of that parent learns to work very hard to earn affection. They try to be perfect, quiet, helpful, and endlessly accommodating in the hope that they will receive the love they need.
Fast forward to adulthood, and they will be drawn to romantic partners who are similarly on-and-off-again. Distant at one moment, love-bombing the next. It’s a horribly painful emotional dynamic, but for them, it feels familiar. They probably believe, deep down, that if they can just get this person to stay and love them, it means they are finally enough. They’ll finally feel like they fixed whatever was broken. Fixed whatever made them so unlovable to that parental figure.
And although I don’t (and you shouldn’t) have any sympathy for Mr Soft-Boy, it is helpful to remember that his behaviour is stemming from some kind of trauma as well. He’s probably as unconsciously influenced by his own repetition compulsion as she is. But what he needs is a therapist, not a girlfriend he can emotionally steamroll whenever he wants, just to feel something. Okay, so you didn’t ask for an introduction into psychology, but I do think it’s helpful to try to understand the root of where your friend’s confusing behaviour is coming from. I won’t deny that watching someone throw themselves back into a burning house while you stand there screaming with a fire extinguisher is more than aggravating. But you’re mad because you care.
Whether you like it or not, it sounds like Mr Soft-Boy has his hooks in deep. I think of men like this as haunted house actors, all shadows, smoke, and cheap jump scares. To maintain their mystery, they rely on the darkness. Once you turn on the lights, it’s all over for him. Now he’s just some creep with a fog machine and bad makeup. Of course your friend's ex is going to accuse you of being the toxic one, you’re threatening to turn the lights on and expose the wires behind his performance. If you want to lift the veil from her eyes, you'll have to be patient. Shoving evidence in her face could defensively drive her closer to that man-shaped cloud from a smoke machine. There is some hope, though. Your messages ARE getting through to her, as evidenced by her sheepishness and inability to confess their re-connection. He’ll be fighting your influence by making her feel sorry for him somehow, or making her feel like she can’t do any better than him. But your consistency will shine through where his can’t.
So, how do you move on from the anger?
Maybe I’m out of line here, but I say don’t. Even if it’s eating you alive, your anger comes from a good place. Unfortunately, when you couple righteous anger with an inability to fix the problem, you do end up sad, confused and still fucking fuming. But the thing is, your anger is appropriate to the situation. Don’t be afraid of it. Emotions are how we connect with reality. A person is threatening to destroy your best friend's life, I’d be surprised if you weren’t angry.
Realistically, you’ll have to weather a few more breakups before you see any real change. Of course, you didn't sign up for front row seats to a slow-motion train wreck when you became friends. But someone has to be there to investigate the wreckage, and she’s too close to the situation to see it clearly.
Whatever happens, your friend needs to see reality, and until she genuinely sees it, she’ll be stuck in her repetitions. All you can do is be there, evidence box tucked under your loving arm, ready for when she needs you.
From your letter, it’s clear you don't intend to end this friendship. If the anger is bothering you so much that you can’t sleep at night, taking a step back emotionally might help. We pay therapists to listen to our problems because they don’t get tangled in the emotional mess. Friendships are often strained when one party is the sober driver of the other's emotional drunk-dialling. You could write an angry letter that you don’t send, because you can’t realistically be a therapist, clean-up crew, and bouncer for your bestie when she can’t stop herself from re-inviting chaos into her life.
The care and compassion you’ve given is more than most people would. And again, that doesn’t make you pathetic. It makes you someone with deep love who wants the best for your friend. ‘The best’ being a strong grip on reality. That’s a valuable quality that you should cherish.
Hopefully, your bestie will turn the lights on and realise she’s been hoodwinked by a bad-faith actor. Until she turns that light on, she probably won't realise the kind of love she needs has been provided by you all along. But she will realise, it’ll likely take more break-ups, and more wine-fueled rom-com nights, but she’ll be all the more grateful to you when the penny drops. She can’t be in a relationship with an illusion, and the more reality you inject into her life, the less vivid the illusion will become.
I thought love would arrive obviously, at first sight, like in movies with the sappy background music. One and done. Instead, trying to find love feels like rock bottom, and every time after that, rock bottom has its own rock bottom. Frustrating yet weirdly addictive.
I've had several "boyfriends", if I can even call them that. Each felt like "the one" until suddenly he wasn't. I'd dive in headfirst, tell my friends this was different — then end up crying on my bathroom floor three months later over someone I realised I barely knew. Now I stay quiet. It saves me the shame of telling everyone it didn’t work out. It’s not that I don't know how to keep a man, I've just been burned too many times by the evil eye, right?
Our generation doesn't date like our parents did. We swipe left on people because they're too short or give us the ick. We're desensitised to potential because we’re spoilt for choice. Endless matches, perfect bodies, and flawless relationships (only to the outside eye) on social media convince us there’s always someone better just around the corner. So we keep scrolling, ghosting, hoping for a new spark to fix us.
But chasing better means we rarely ask what we're actually looking for. What do I want in a partner? Do I recognise love when it's not wrapped in expectations? Am I seeking someone who compliments me or just distracts me from my emptiness?
Sometimes I wonder if I'm addicted to the idea of love, not love itself. The butterflies, the creeping obsession, the thrill of a text back. But when those highs fade, what remains? Are they choosing me when it's difficult, not just when it's easy?
I've stayed in situationships that hurt more than comforted. I convinced myself that crumbs of affection were enough. Those red flags screamed ‘I can fix him’ rather than being warning signs. Everyone says love is patient and kind, but nobody mentions that love should feel safe; that love means consistency, not chaos. That you shouldn't erase yourself and your standards to be worthy of someone staying.
Yet we stay, because leaving means being alone, and in a world where worth depends on someone else's desire for you, being alone feels like failure. So we settle. We tell ourselves we're asking too much, that love should hurt a little. But maybe we're just afraid to admit we don't know how to love ourselves without someone reflecting it back.
The older I get, the more I see that knowing what you want matters as much as knowing who you want. Not superficially, like my current complicationship —tall, dark and handsome— but deeply: shared values, emotional
intelligence, and aligned goals. Can they communicate? Grow through discomfort? Accept you as you are? Love isn't just feeling. It's deciding to show up daily, even when life gets boring or stressful or completely unglamorous. If you don't know what you stand for, you'll lose yourself in people who don't either. So instead of obsessing over when he'll appear, I'm asking a different question:
When will I show up for myself?
Maybe love starts with me. Maybe it’s becoming my own safe place. Maybe it's walking away when my heart knows it deserves better, even if being alone feels tough. Maybe love means having standards because I finally know my worth.
I haven't figured everything out. I still want a connection. I still get lonely. But being alone doesn't mean being empty. It can mean space, healing, and understanding who I am as a person. It brings the opportunity to become so rooted in myself that anyone who enters my life becomes an addition, not a lifeline.
So where is he?
I don't know. Maybe he's lost. Maybe he’s also working on himself. Maybe he isn't real. Sometimes I think, maybe he got hit by a bus. But I know this: I'm tired of outsourcing my happiness to someone who hasn't arrived. I'm done wasting energy on people who don't see me, hold me, or choose me completely.
For now, I choose to be alone. Not out of bitterness but out of strength. Because falling in love with myself might be the most powerful thing I could do.
So here I am, the protagonist of my own love story, riding the train with sappy music flooding through my wired headphones—a slow crescendo rising to this very moment.
Finally, I see it clearly: the person I’ve been waiting for all along has been me.
Written By Anonymous
Make Way for Tomorrow (McCarey, 1937)
3 Films About Aroha
Column By Ricky Lai (he/him) @rickylaitheokperson CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST
Is this really the kind of “Aroha” that we want to think about, Ricky? A Great Depression-era dramedy about two elderly parents spending one last night out together before their home is foreclosed and they are sent by their burdened children to separate retirement homes in different states? Mileage may vary, especially during the first half of this film which sympathises with the banal annoyances that the mother and father awkwardly intrude upon their youngins’ lives. But movies about the love between our grandparents just really don’t show up at all - so give it up for yer’ elders, folks. The remaining thirty minutes during their last date, free of any actual conflicts, is earnest and starry-eyed, with members of the public showing them care and mercy, and thus raising a curious concern: that exhibiting kindness to random strangers is a much less emotionally involving responsibility than supporting a deeper, frustrated, custodial connection with a family member.
The Taste of Things (Trần Anh Hùng, 2023)
Titled the ‘The Pot-au-Feu’ overseas (the way nicer name), this potpourri of sensuously expressive culinary gestures between a chef and his personal cook in late 1880’s France is one you can practically lean into and catch the scents of. When I saw this at the Bridgeway cinema a couple years ago, in a packed theatre full of clientele all a good few decades older than I am, I could hear audience members around me sigh and gasp and lick their lips at the sights of shucked oysters, the crisp of a sliced truffle, caviar spooned onto the back of a hand. Dodin Bouffant doesn’t express his love very well through words — though who ever could, if said love was Juliette Binoche? — but if his love language is through the intricate disciplines of the cookingof cooking process, then along with ‘Babette’s Feast’ (1987) and ‘Big Night’ (1996), this makes for one of the most seriously romantic films about food that there’s ever been.
Night is Short, Walk On Girl (Masaaki Yuasa, 2017)
The best part of love is the frolicking. No plans etched in stone, just the spontaneity of the night. Masaaki Yuasa (‘Tatami Galaxy’, ‘Mind Game’) offers here a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it masterwork of 2010’s animated cinema about the greatest night out you’ve ever had, with all the sober, drunk and hungover phases that share equal wisdoms. So much careful, fussed-over detail in eye-popping colour — the glow of a traffic light, the pinkish shades of raining koi, the swollen lips bulging from spicy hotpot, the splash of sliced ginger root as it hits a pot of boiling cola — is all rolled seamlessly into one symphonic sweep, so that even when the narrative is resetting, and even when the story drifts back towards characters you might find a bit annoying, and even when you can’t buy into the blushing romance of that meetcute… the pulse is still there. ‘The night is short — walk on, young maiden’: I finished highschool in 2017 and wish I could’ve made it my yearbook quote.
Chook Royale
Pinto
Chick Chevelle hamburgini
The Love Language of Playlists
In 1992, Dr. Gary Chapman introduced one of the most widely recognised theories in relationship psychology. This framework is still widely used to this day, providing a better understanding of how people give and receive love. Of course, I’m talking about The 5 Love Languages: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Quality Time, Physical Touch, and Receiving Gifts. That last one, Receiving Gifts, is often the trickiest to navigate for those who don’t consider it their predominant language (myself included). Finding the right gift for a special someone can be daunting. Especially if arts and crafts aren’t your strong suit, then the odds are truly stacked against you.
Despite that, I’ve found there’s always been one thing I could fall back on when I needed a thoughtful and personal gift for someone special: a playlist.
Ah yes, the humble playlist. Whether you’re the type who’s constantly starting new ones and abandoning them after three songs, or you’ve dumped your entire listening history into one chaotic mess (organise your library, please), playlists have become our primary way of curating and consuming music. The art of music curation has changed drastically with each era of technological innovation, from recording songs onto cassette tapes and burning CDs to the golden age of illegal downloads. But in today’s age, we are gifted with the streamlined convenience of streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music (and not to forget SoundCloud, if you’re a true supporter of the niche and upcoming). Despite these metamorphoses, the love of the playlist has remained constant. There will always be someone trying to win over their crush with the perfect collection of songs.
As you painstakingly analyse the extensive music library to select just the right tracks for you-know-who, a shock of second-guessing rushes through your body – stunlocked. Is this song too cheesy? Too obscure? Should I include songs they already know, or go full deep-cut mode? It’s a one-step-forward, two-steps-back kind of process. While it might seem ridiculous to stress this much over a playlist, the pressure is real for a reason.
Playlists are acts of emotional labour. They help you express feelings when words fall short. They can reflect your personality, your values, and your memories. Sending a song to someone can possess a multitude of hidden codes for someone, either through the lyrics, the instrumentation, or the mood of the song itself. In short, creating a playlist for someone is an act of vulnerability, especially if it's for someone you care about deeply. But in a cruel twist of irony, all that effort and emotional nuance can feel like it vanishes the moment you hit share. Because at the end of the day, it’s not even about the songs - it’s the thought that really counts.
For someone whose love language is gift-giving, the fact that you created something just for them is more than enough. Liking the music is just a bonus.
That said, curating a playlist that feels meaningful might be harder than ever in 2025. The digitalisation of music (of everything, really) has made it easier yet less impactful to share the music we love. Yes, platforms like Spotify and Apple Music are convenient, but they strip away the intimacy and personal touch of physical media like CDs or Cassettes. It’s hard to convey emotional depth when all you’ve done is click a few buttons on a screen. No handmade cover art and no scribbled tracklist. Just a bunch of 1's and 0's. Pretentious as it may sound, gifting a mixtape really does work best when you can physically hand it over to someone.
But let’s not completely throw streaming under the bus. One of the beautiful things about modern music platforms is accessibility. Nowadays, anyone can curate a playlist. We can all partake in the art of music curation, and more importantly, we can go at our own pace. You’re no longer limited by what you physically own. Back in the day, making a mixtape required a decent music collection, blank tapes or CDs, and recording equipment – all adding up to a hefty sum. Now, all you need is a streaming platform of your choice and a few spare minutes, and for that, I'm forever grateful. If someone has a desire to create a 250-track playlist dedicated to their favourite flute solos, they’re able to make it. Still, if you ever have the time and cash to spare, I highly recommend going the physical route when making a playlist for someone. Burn a CD. Make some dodgy cover art. Use glitter, old magazines, stickerswhatever you’ve got lying around. Show someone just how much they mean to you by committing the time to create something no one else could have made. It shows someone you have character, and that’s extremely attractive.
To hammer home my whole point about why the playlist is a perfect vessel to express affection for someone, I want to conclude by sharing a personal memory relating to the topic. When I was a kid, my Dad would make a custom CD mixtape for me and my brother every Christmas. More than any toy or scooter, those mixtapes will forever be the greatest gifts I've ever received. Those CDs were how I first discovered The Beatles, Outkast, Led Zeppelin, Harry Nilsson, Gary Numan, Interpol, and The Jacksons (all essential listening). They were the catalyst to my relationship with music, something that has deeply shaped my identity and self. When I hold those CDs in my hands now, they bear so much significance to not just my relationship with music, but the bond I had with my Dad over our shared love of music. Now, I'll never hesitate at the chance to make someone a playlist or a custom mixtape. It's one of the most earnest forms of self-expression, and I always struggle to
find a gift for someone that holds the same depth of impact.
So, if you've never made a playlist for someone, CD or streaming, I highly recommend you give it a shot. Don't get caught up in your doubts. If there’s a song you used to embarrassingly obsess over as a kid, or a song that feels a bit too personal to you, put it in there. Share it with your partner, your sibling, your best mate, your mum. If it matters to you, it’s worth passing on.
Written By Jed Scott (he/him)
@Jed__Scott CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Illustration By Stella Roper (they/she) @dodofrenzy ARTS EDITOR
Memoh. Comics (she/her) @memoh.comics DOMINION COMICS CREATOR
I first came across Dominion in 2023, through a “Season Preview Zine” I bought from Karangahape Road’s late great Parallel Aotearoa. It leapt straight into the action. Fires burning, a horse and cart overturned, a bloodied woman screaming bloody murder. Then abruptly, the story shifts to a mild-mannered guard going about his day. Intrigued, I quickly discovered that Dominion is a sprawling epic series, jam-packed with its lore-rich yet grounded fantasy worldbuilding, enticing murder mysteries and slow-burn romance. It’s easy to get lost in Blackbridge, and with 15 planned volumes, I don’t see myself leaving anytime soon.
After digitally publishing chapters 1-6 via Webtoon and Globalcomix, as well as selling chapters 1-4 as high-quality full-colour zines, series creator Memoh is set to publish Vol. 1 of Dominion on the 21st of May, her debut graphic novel. As this issue is all about aroha, I thought who better to ask than the creator of a romance graphic novel that will be released a week before the issue comes out!
LEIGH: With the rise in Romantasy (Romantic Fantasy) as a genre, stories often feel like romance with elf-ear set-dressing. How did you find the balance between the expansive world-building of Dominion, the dramatic stakes of a murder mystery, and the burgeoning romance of Pasha and Desmond?
Memoh: I was reading a lot of Josei at the time that I was writing Dominion. I had this idea: I’m going to write a Josei manga that’s not only about romance, where we have a plot that goes hand in hand. They’re equally important, double-helixing around each other. You can’t get further in the plot without the romance, but the plot isn’t only the romance.
I went into Dominion wanting to write a fantasy romance, but at the same point, I really was reacting to a lot of fantasy romances I’ve read where the female character just kind of exists to be in awe of the male character and to get dragged around by the plot. So there's a lot of feminist conversations I wanted to approach (after all, the whole series is about power), and so I wanted to tackle women's issues through the lens of a fantasy world and how class systems work.
I wanted to break a lot of conventions of how women were treated in the genre. Whose gaze are we existing in, and what does that say about the
narrative? So I made Desmond into a ‘Camera Character’. Part of the central mystery of the series is figuring out what's going on with Pasha, and so we’re seeing through Desmond’s eyes. Trying to figure out what she's about and ‘is she gonna look my way, she's really cute.’
Personally, I like making the guy the centre of the female gaze too, so there's plenty of fan-service. *laughs*
LEIGH: Blackbridge, the story’s central location, is a very tightly designed city. What is your process for city building? I was really impressed with Lowtown and the sudden flooding that it experiences. It’s really interesting that you’ve added environmental factors for the physical class separation within the city.
Memoh: Yes! When you're approaching a fantasy book, some people have an opinion of fantasy that things can kind of be flighty, and you can explain things away with magic. But for me, what makes fantasy feel like fantasy is that it feels really grounded in historical fact. Not necessarily in the sense of, “Indigo should only be an expensive dye”, because you can
(she/her) @memoh.comics CREATOR
be like, “Well, actually, there's a similar plant in this world, and so Indigo is inexpensive”. It doesn't have to be restricted to human Earth history, but I think it has to be restricted to human effort history.
For instance, stone versus timber and the amount of human effort it takes to move and to work with those materials. Because Dominion’s magic system is pretty limited, I really wanted it to feel grounded - that human effort drives industry and the way that people live in this world.
Blackbridge is built on this big, volcanic, igneous rock outcropping that's in the middle of a river delta. There are these two massive bridges on either side which connect it to The Pale, the surrounding woodland.
It’s a walled city with big black walls, other than these two massive architectural wonder bridges that go out of the city; So, it occurred to me to call it Blackbridge. And geology is a core piece of the plot! Maybe it rubs off from me being a big geography nerd as a kid.
The city started from the port area because the bridges weren’t built yet. Portside and Lowtown were the first inhabited areas, made of stone. There was extensive mining, and the walls and the bridges were built. Then you have the merchant class and the middle class, all in that area, you start to see a lot more timber buildings, because it’s lighter and easier to haul, and iconic bridges were built to help haul that material. Then, when you look at the upper class in Hightown and the Dukedom, you start to see stone again. Because it’s a massive show of wealth that they could afford to haul the stone from all the way down the bottom of the city all the way up to the top of this massive island/mountain.
Right now, Blackbridge could more accurately be described as a mercantile city that operates out of its port. The richest people and the dukes who run it live physically above the rest in the merchant district (or higher). The mining that used to happen had to be stopped for reasons I won’t say for now. But part of the reason why Lowtown is so poor now is because all of their industry is gone, and the flooding caused by overmining.
Building the city informed my approach to costume design too, and what trade the city would have access to and it’s thinking through histories like this that help the genre feel grounded - at least to me.
LEIGH: Desmond says, “I need to stop them here without harming them” before LAUNCHING his polearm at Pasha’s clothing to pin her to the wall. Does Lord Cael’s blessing and Desmond’s healing powers also give him super accurate aim when he aims to “not harm” someone?
Memoh: The way that magic works in Dominion, the core of it is will. Basically ‘Manifesting’
In that instance where he’s throwing the polearm, you see gold flecks around his head. In my mind, there’s a kind of nonverbal communication between Desmond and Lord Cael - I try to communicate that with the sparkles. It’s not literal words until Lord Cael says “Save her” later in the chapter (which is a big deal).
So when you’re a Blessed you can say “Pretty please, Lord Cael, can you do this for me,” and Lord Cael can choose whether to honour your request or not. In this case, Desmond asks to pin her without harming her, and because Lord Cael is a God, he effectively guides the polearm’s path and makes that wish a reality.
LEIGH: The quote “Magic has to come from an external cosmos source”, e.g. paints the world as one of divine magic, a world of paladins and clerics, which leads to the character’s assumptions that all magic is divine in nature, and limited to the access of the Blesseds. Even the Desolates, who “sell their soul” to the Devils, draw their magic from essentially the same cosmos source as the Blesseds. A wizard-type magic user, or as they are in Dominion, a “Conjurer” like Pasha must seem completely alien. How rare are Conjurers within the world, and what was your process for the design of the magic system and creation myth of the world?
Memoh: You’re definitely on the money. Conjuring is considered rare.
At its core, technically, Desmond and the Desolates aren’t wrong. Power in this world comes from the Cosmos Eye. But every piece of creation has their own Cosmos Eye. Through this Eye, that’s how Desmond can nonverbally communicate with Lord Cael. So, as much as the Blessed are special, they’re also not special. Everyone with a Cosmos Eye can *do* magic. It’s a matter of if they can figure out how.
In the world of Dominion, most people do assume it’s either one or the other [Lords vs Devils]. Conjuring is closer to… have you ever heard of a woman, when her baby is trapped under a car, she has the ability to somehow develop superhuman strength?
Again, all magic ability is based on will - so if you want something bad enough, and you know exactly how to manifest what you want…You, as a sentient creature, are not without power.
And that piece of Cosmos Eye… there’s a reason that the Devils want it. It’s not without its own power. And that’s all I can say for now.
As for my creation myth process, I started with the core idea of “if divine beings were irrefutably real, would that change human behaviour?” I then did a lot of research into religious tradition. I definitely channelled some JRR Tolkien with how you can take a traditional idea and reshape it into something that’s new but still has a strong element of truth to it. It’s something I try to tackle both visually and textually: for example, the depiction of Death in chapter 8 mimics a lithograph of Lucifer being cast out from a scene in Pilgrim’s Progress.
Tying it to the magic system, I really was fascinated by the biblical idea of “willing” into being - and it had always interested me how “willpower” was a magic stat in DND and video games, but was never really explained. I wanted to really set that idea in stone for my world, so I tied magic directly to the creation myth.
LEIGH: You’ve said Dominion is a series primarily about power, literal magic power, but also the dominion of others. John, as the oldest Oakenhart son, seems to be the patriarch of the family. His dynamic with Desmond seems to be that of a controlling abuser. John takes Desmond to a deathmatch, and it seems like a thinly veiled punishment. He sees Desmond’s agency as purely stubbornness and “fighting for sport”.
Memoh: You hit the nail on the head. But when you write for a villain character, you don’t want to make them cartoonishly evil. I often find that in writing, sibling relationships are typically depicted as idyllic. “Oh, they all loved each other and got along forever”. From my personal observation, it’s never been like that. Often, you have a sibling who feels like they have to preserve the success of the family.
Laz’lo [Desmond & John’s father] has never been the most effective businessman. The family is upper-middle class, old farm owners. They have a large family that takes a lot to provide for.
As a result, John is a parentified child. If you notice how the youngest sister Catherine is dressed, the different fashion suggests she’s wearing hand-me-downs. The family is not so well off that they don’t feel stressed. Desmond just doesn’t think about the cost of their lives, but John does. He’s far more cognizant of what it takes to run the family. Some of it is self-adopted expectation, but he feels that the success of the family relies on him and his ability to keep his “idiot” family intact.
That’s his motivation when he’s trying to control Desmond. The Oakenharts are trying to present themselves as upper class, and Desmond is working. It’s very unfashionable. He doesn’t want people to even see Desmond as a Guard out and about.
LEIGH: Pasha is fire: Burning, a force of nature. And Desmond is healing: Peaceful, pacifistic. Their powers suit their characters and their dynamic. It’s interesting that Desmond’s Blessing reveals the power of lightning only when the two of them meet, that there is literally this “spark” between them. Did you intend for the magic system to reflect their relationship?
Memoh: Yeah! Yeah! It definitely is very intentional. Romantically speaking, Desmond’s probably in the demi[sexual] camp. You could probably read in and reveal some sexual symbolism and say that Pasha is Desmond’s ‘awakening.’
With Pasha, Desmond is finally doing what he wants to do. He loosens up. A lot of his stiffer scenes are when he’s around his family. I intentionally designed the family dining room to look like a birdcage: that he’s being confined by his family, that he can’t be himself. With Pasha, who is, in theory, a criminal that he should be looking after, he still can’t help but relax. During the repartee in chapter seven he tries to police what he says, but he wants to talk to Pasha.
A little secret: Watch Desmond’s hair. With his family, it’s all slicked back. When he’s on duty he’s half himself, so it’s half down, but when he’s with Pasha it’s all down!
A deep theme of the series I want to explore with their relationship is the tension between the things you need to do for yourself to be independent versus the things you need to ask for help with. Desmond and Pasha are struggling with the balance of that, and they both have something to learn from each other.
Dominion, Vol. 1 is available for purchase from the Wizard in a Can Store, and from physical bookstores around Aotearoa.
Is it the breath that tickles my neck
When the trees are silent, drenched in bark
Love?
When there’s nothing present save for my beating heart
Spreading that breath to my blood?
I feel it evaporating.
Through my skin
Trapped in my clothes
Scents that swim-
Through the recess of thoughts in my mind
Tangling neurons that race to connect-
Though it’s silly
To wonder
To think
To consider what might have been-
Or what was here?
Not the droplet that drips from my cheek
As the breath- yes that breath!
Still persists
It is nameless yet still distinct.
Hirimaia Eketone
