Massive: Issue 10 Part 2 'Fiction'

EDITORIAL

IF MIRANDA SINGS HAS ZERO HATERS, I’M DEAD

Collen Ballinger is a perverted YouTuber who used a fictional persona to get away with it.

I was once fictional YouTube character Miranda Sings’ #1 fan. In Year 7, only the hottest girls knew how to pull off a Miranda Sings impression me being one of them of course. We would galavant around school with one side of our mouths turned up and say, “aRe YOu SeWerIouS” and “wHat THe hEcK” to each other.

In 2014, a 12-year-old Sammy and her friends were driven by her my Mum from Rotorua to Wellington to see Miranda Sings live. We sat in the car for 7 hours with bright red lipstick overlining our lips, bobby pins giving us a receding hairline, red sweatpants with the words ‘HATERS BACK OFF’ sharpied on, and a striped shirt buttoned to the top the classic Miranda Sings costume. My Mother endured us playing the hit song, WHERE MY BAES AT?, over and over. I meet Miranda after the show and got this photo. The quick interaction, for a young fan-girl, felt like the best moment ever.

As I grew older, my Miranda Sings phase died down, but I always thought fondly of that time. That was until June last year when fiction became fact.

Allegations started to pour in about Colleen, the first being from 20-year-old former fan, Adam McIntyre. He was in a group chat with Colleen and other teenage fans called “weenies”. He alleged that she would ask him about his sex life and trauma dump about her 2016 divorce with YouTuber Josh Evans. Colleen sent Adam a pair of underwear when he was 13-years-old. She later confirmed this in a video titled ‘addressing everything’, where she said it was simply a “joke” and nothing “creepy.”

Shortly after, a video of a young fan surfaced who was brought on stage for Miranda’s ‘yoga challenge’. The fan was lying on her back as Colleen spread her legs apart while a loud fart noise played. The fan was wearing a short loose romper with no pants.

Colleen obviously wasn’t paying her PR team overtime because her solution was to pick up her ukulele and write a song defending herself. She said that she was just a “loser” who wanted to “be besties” with everyone. Pick me girl alert. She said, “The only thing I’ve ever groomed is my two Persian cats.”

She made a mention of the yoga challenge incident, singing, “I’m not a predator, even though a lot of you think so because five years ago I made a fart joke.”

Colleen hid behind the mask of a fictional character to traumatise young people. But in July, the mask was well and truly ripped off when Miranda Sings’ entire tour was cancelled. Colleen had 11 shows left to perform in 2023, spanning from Idaho to North Carolina, but gave no official statement as to why they were cancelled.

The character of Miranda Sings being dimwitted made almost anything pass as a ‘joke’. But Colleen wasn’t on a movie set with a script her co-stars had read before the scene. She was pulling young people on stage who trusted her to make them have fun not get assaulted.

I look back at my time watching Miranda Sings live and feel grateful that I wasn’t pulled on stage in front of young people like me who also would have had no idea if what was happening was funny or plain wrong. Her videos made for a lot of laughter between my tweenage friends, and I can still smile at that. But from my dark standpoint today, I am the hater Miranda Sings would tell to “BACK OFF”.

Sammy.

Beware the Patupaiarehe Flute

“Don’t stare at the woods too long, they don’t like it when strangers look straight at them.”

Dad told Mum about the patupaiarehe, and how she should conduct herself in their unseen presence.

Mum had thought he was being superstitious. Having grown up in the wop-wops, Dad held many outlandish beliefs that Mum was usually willing to indulge. But the idea that the patupaiarehe had evaded documentation for centuries and lurked in the bush to this day was too much, even for her.

Defiant, she went to a window and stared into the woodland outside until it blended into a mosaic of greens. It must have been ten minutes of Mum staring at the forest and going cross-eyed. Just as she was about to scoff at his advice, a pair of pitch-black eyes peered through the bushes and blinked back at her.

The shock of it sent her reeling, and she knocked her head into the cupboards behind her. Dad iced the bump on her head. “That blink was a warning,” he said. He told her the story of how his sister almost married a patupaiarehe.

AA A

My Koro woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, ears ringing with the sound of cackles. His instinct pulled him to check on his second daughter’s bedroom.

His daughter, Hinerehia, had always liked to sleep with the windows open, a trait that my dad said I inherited from her. But that winter night, my Koro burst into Hinerehia’s room to find her bed empty and her curtains twirling with a mist that had invaded his home.

Koro didn’t bother looking for his daughter in the house, he broke the backdoor and raced through his paddock. The dew from the fog threatened every step, and he could see no sign of Hinerehia through the fog. But by that point, he didn’t need to.

Coming from the edge of his paddock, where our family farm meets untamed bush, was the sweet tones of a pūtōrino flute. He reached blindly through the fog and notes, clawing at the sound until he felt the damp

cotton of Hinerehia’s nightgown. He dug his fingers into the fabric and wrenched her away from the sound. As he did Hinerehia cried out, and Koro saw something pale and solid shift through the mist towards them. He kept his eyes locked on the hint of movement and dragged his daughter back home as she kicked and screamed. Through her bewitched frenzy, Koro caught one desperate call from her.

“Let me go! He loves me! He wants to marry me!”

Koro persisted. Through the fog, his daughter’s sobs, and the pūtōrino’s sickly sweet song, he pulled his daughter into their home and away from the black eyes that he could not see but knew were surely watching him.

Then, he cooked until dawn. Boil-up with doughboys, mussels on the verge of going off, leftover stuffing with pumpkin. Anything and everything he could find and put on his stove. He encouraged Hinerehia to eat occasionally, kneeling to meet her red-rimmed eyes and nudging plates into her shaking palms. But her eating wasn’t his priority so much as cooking itself was. Because as long as there was food on the stove and the smell wafted out into the mist, it would repulse Hinerehia’s would-be-husband enough to stay away.

When dawn finally spilled over the distant mountains and the fog began to creep away from the house, Koro turned his stove off, and reached out to his Hinerehia to fold her into his arms.

From that day on he kept a close ear out and watched for signs of longing in her. In a few days the spell had seemingly broken, and she was the same as she had always been, laughing and bickering with her siblings. But every other Winter, when the fog settled over the house in a thick blanket, Hinerehia could be found staring out of a permanently locked window.

A A A

In all honesty, I sometimes question if Dad was telling the truth. Knowing him it’s likely that he was, but on late Winter nights I tell myself he wasn’t, and neither are the patupaiarehe. Those whispers in the dark are the only thing that quell the tug in my stomach and drown out the sound of a pūtōrino playing in the distance.

FLAME OF THE

Victory can feel like many things all at once. The climax of years of work. The relief that it all went your way. Pure joy and ecstasy that everything you did was worth it. But as the death wails of the tyrannical dragon that had terrorised my people for decades echoed throughout the walls, that isn’t what I felt. My world was my heart trying to escape my chest, my breath the hard labour of an army of men, and the volcanic heat of the dragon's breath against my skin. I fought off the exhaustion until the beast stopped moving and its final roar stopped echoing around me.

As I fell onto my back, armour clanking against the hard stone, I felt my stress melt away into hysterical laughter and tears. My laughter faded into a sigh as my tear-blurred vision grew dim. I could hear people coming to see the results of my divinely appointed task that I knew would become a legend.

AAA

They call me The Conqueror of Flame now. The title bestowed upon me by our people's royal family and the very Gods who look over us. I’m the conquering hero, bedecked in a share of the dragon’s considerable wealth. We are all free from the tyranny of the dragon.

At least, almost all of us. That is why I have sought out them. It’s not the place for mortals to seek out the Gods. Not for most, anyway.

“Dearest Conqueror,” they say, a nation's worth of voices speaking at once. “Why do you seek us?”

I look unto the ever-shifting body of the pantheon running from one form to another like running water. They used to fill me with a sense of dread and awe, their ever-shifting nature making them impossible to read. But I’ve grown numb to the horror.

I speak with my head bowed, “The dragon. I understand it was a great threat to us. To–”

“Yes, the dragon was one of the greatest threats the mortal realm has faced,” they say to me, condescending, like a parent to a child. “You were one of the best the mortal world had. The most capable to slay it.”

“And while I understand that I feel I deserve to know why you didn’t slay the beast.”

“Oh, dear conqueror, we can’t do that. We slay this beast, then we must slay them all. The mortal world grows dependent and stagnant. But heroes bring new inspiration to the masses. Why do you seem so bothered by this? You won, dear Conqueror of Flames.”

As I look at my knuckles, I see how my story has planted seeds of hope in the people. But they are so curious, like dogs starving for the tale of how it all happened. It keeps me trapped there, in that battle. I find myself flinching at the crackle of fire some nights if I let my thoughts wander too much. I feel myself reach for a sword whenever I hear someone flap out a sheet to hang.

AAA

I sit on the green grass outside my gated home, pondering what the Gods said. I never considered that the Gods could be short-sighted. That immortality could rob them of the complexities of death.

ThE cOnQUeRor of FLaMe. How can I have conquered what now terrifies me to inaction? The title has turned into a chain, a farce I must maintain of the dashing hero.

I hear the crack of footsteps walking towards me. I should have gone inside if I didn’t want to be pestered.

I don’t bother looking up, “I’m sorry, but I have no more tales for tonight.”

“Oh, I don’t need no tale, thanks.” I look up to a confused stranger. “I just came to offer you a blanket. You look cold.”

“Thanks. Sorry for… that.” I make awkward eye contact.

“Do you speak of the conqueror’s tale?” They laugh, throwing the tattered blanket into my chest. “I’ve had enough of that to last me a lifetime. The guy seems a bit selfabsorbed if I’m honest. You some bard he hired?”

I feel the heat of the flames from my story die down, if only a little bit, as realisation dawns on me. They don’t know who I am.

A weak smile graces my face, “I’m sure you have far more interesting stories than some tale about a silly dragon slayer,” I pat the space next to me, “if you’d like to share them?”

It took Sophie much longer than she’d like to admit to recognise her own face. Staring at the glossy screen, the reflection was hollow. When had her eyes lost their usual warmth? When had they become so black and heavy? The only light left was from the computer screen, a Zoom meeting.

One square was lit up. Her lecturer.

Dozens of other squares were there too.

Names without faces.

Sophie was brought back to focus when she heard the lecturer ask a question. She did not know what question was asked, nor did she really care. Evidently, the other names on the screen shared a similar opinion.

The lecturer’s square pulsed green again.

Sophie heard him this time. In fact, she knew the answer. The lecturer was reading a question directly from the textbook, one of the eight chapters assigned to her this week alone. She had already read through them and had grasped the theory, but theory wasn’t the problem here.

A period of awkward silence. Sophie imagined crickets chirping.

"Let’s move on then."

The process continued. Even though Sophie couldn’t see her classmates, she could picture them well. Only some of them she had met in person, but that didn’t matter.

She envisioned the eyes. Heavy shadows, weighed down with sleep.

Faces, drained of life.

Sitting in a small dimly lit room, alone.

None of them had the energy to engage. None of them saw the point to engage. This was only the fifth week of the first semester of the next three years of their lives. It shouldn’t have been like this. Sophie felt betrayed, she felt lied to. It wasn’t long ago that she had made the jump.

Out of secondary, into tertiary. Out of childhood, into adulthood. Out of order, into chaos.

It was meant to be the next grand chapter of her life. Newfound independence, new friends, new opportunities. They had told her university was going to be the best part of her life.

Yet here she was.

A name amongst dozens of other squares, yet alone.

Paying dearly for accommodation, her bank account suffering. Working weekends to make it by. All to listen to a pulsing green square talk to her about the theory she’d already spent hours upon hours reviewing.

There had to be a change.

Sophie’s name moved up the screen.

The virtual hand was up, and mute symbol off.

"When will we have an opportunity to put this theory into practice?" she asked. Sophie knew this was the question they’d all been thinking. When were they going to get out of their rooms? When were they going to get into one of the labs the uni liked to advertise as ‘world class’?

Sophie held her breath. This was it.

Finally, she would get what she paid for.

The lecturer responded.

"We have a practical lab session scheduled for next Wednesday from 3 to 4PM."

Sophie’s heart dropped. Only an hour? She spat a retort back.

"How can we put whole textbooks of theory into practice in only an hour of lab session?"

Sophie imagined the heads of her classmates nodding in approval.

"There’ll be another one the week after as well."

"And how long will that go on for?"

The lecturer hesitated, "Also an hour."

"But after that we’re expected to go onto our placements. I’m not going to be able to perform anything I’ve been taught. When I signed up for this course, I signed up to be taught on campus. Instead, you’ve thrown us into online classrooms, sprinkling in pathetic amounts of lab work. How does that make any sense? Do you want untrained nurses?"

The lecturer was fired up now, it was clear he was stressed too. "We just can’t afford it. Take it up with the heads of school."

Sophie didn’t know how to respond. So that was that then. A nurse with next to no hands-on experience. She’d be heading out to her unpaid placement soon, expected to pick up the slack on a pressured medical system, completing tasks she hadn’t been trained to do.

She was here to help the world.

It seemed the world wasn’t going to help her.

Polyester pimento

WORDS

BY ASHLEY HARNETT A SHE/HER

Red is like olives

Striking enough on its own

There was a time

When there was no place for red

Nor olives

In my perfect little world

Red was an attention seeker

Olives were tangy and also attention seeking

Dark red was a sultry, murder mystery kind of whiny whore

Bright red was a cheap, polyester op shop crop top kind of hoe

Medium red was the sweet-spot femme-fatale lipstick kind of thot

Each one destined to be lonesome, far too much amongst other, more civilised colours

Olives set my mouth on fire

Green was a phoney jalapeño

Black olives were phoney liquorice trying to jump into my subway sandwich

I’d always stop them in time

The pit was always a b-horror jumpscare

That made me grit my teeth

That was then

I am older, wiser

Now I’ll greet the innocent punnet of strawberry red

Or sophisticated Kalamata olive (pitted, please)

And enjoy it on an itchy jam jar gingham picnic blanket

You‘ve brought a jar of green olives stuffed with polyester red pimento

We’ll enjoy them together until you’re a civilised olive and I am a civilised shade of red

MASSIVE

MASSIVE

Lottie

WORDS BY ASHLEY HARNETT A SHE/HER

The air here smells like Lottie’s house an old friend. Rich with the laundry detergent her mother used. A sausage sizzle brewing yum. My last memory with Lottie exists on the trampoline, where we both came to an agreement upon how horrifying death is. We were lying down, still breathless from trying to jump so high we could see the roof of the world.

"Cross that bridge when we get there" she said.

I stared at the ceiling sky. Somehow her words were a comfort like no other, embracing me as the bread does the sausage sizzle, soft and warm.

I come across Lottie’s Instagram or Snapchat story. She’s posted a mirror selfie It’s the same bathroom we used to make slime in. I can smell the laundry detergent through the screen. I wonder if she’s found the roof of the world. I know I’m still searching. Or if she has managed to escape the haunting bridge, like I have never been able to.

I’ve never been in a committed relationship so it’s hard for me to say how you can be a better girlfriend. But what I do know lots about is kinks and a feet kink is nothing I haven’t seen before.

I suspect your girlfriend must be a farrier, because all farriers have feet kinks. Every farrier I’ve ever met has seemed all too into my hooves. They always nuzzle my leg in between their thighs, caressing my hooves before they trim my tootsies. I admit, I do have rather nice hooves. All the sex means I never get laminitis.

So, your girlfriend wants to take her farrier work into the bedroom. I’m surprised she doesn't want to have more work life balance but to each their own.

My motto is EMBRACE THE KINK! Never judge someone's kink.

Pretend you are a sheep, horse, cow (or me) and let her lick your feet. It will make it more realistic to her work in the field. Make sure you snap your leg back a couple of times like most of the sheep do. You’ll make a good tease. She can even keep on her chaps and apron for extra dirtiness.

DITCH IT!

CROSSWORD.

ACROSS

6. Where is the book and movie quote “Curiouser and curiouser” from? (5,2,10)

11. Conception of the Earth's shape as a plane or disk (4,5)

13. Number of lines in a haiku (5)

14. Theme of the 2024 MET Gala 2024 (8,8)

16. A situation in which a large mass of people believe that an event occurred when it did not (7,6)

17. Last week’s Massive issue theme (5)

20. An app to keep track of the books you’re reading and want to read (9)

21. Number of sisters in Little Women (4)

22. Reese Witherspoon's production company that makes movies based on books by women (5,8)

23. A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful (10)

DOWN

1. “I'm twenty-seven years old, I've no money and no prospects. I'm already a burden to my parents and I'm ______” (10)

2. What astronaut landed on the moon first? (4,9)

3. Which US state is Area 51 in? (6)

4. A form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic language (6)

5. Content that conveys information about the real world (3,7)

7. Genre of popular book The Song of Achilles (7)

8. Love interest in Anne of Green Gables (7,6)

9. Which Massey campus has underground tunnels? (10,5)

10. An apparition of a dead person which appears to the living (5)

12. How many rings are there in The Lord of the Rings? (6)

15. Subcommunity on TikTok that focuses on books and literature (7)

18. What NZ district is the alleged billionaire bunkers in? (10)

19. The Harry Potter series parallels which Shakespeare play? (7)