Apple Crumble Zine | Edition 2, April 2024

SPRING HAS OFICIALLY SPRUNG!

The tentative remergence of the sun has, as it always does, begun to fill me with gratitude.

Thanks to everyone’s wonderful contributions to the pilot issue (thank you again to Mia, Millie and Becca!!) I’m confident that starting this project was a good idea and so we’re back for our second edition: April 2024! ... If I manage to publish it on time that is.

I’m super excited to share more of your wonderful thoughts and creations with each other and it makes me feel so proud of the incredible minds I’ve had the privilege to know.

One of my main goals with creating this project was that there wouldn’t be a theme. Simply because I always want to submit my work to literary ournals and zines and suchlike but almost every single one has a monthly theme, and stubbornly I hate to turn my passion projects into something that simply fulfills a brief. There’s enough of that out there with university deadlines and outside projects I’m working on. I want my art to remain mine for a little while longer.

So in lieu of a theme, here is your monthly ramble from me.

University life and part time jobs mean that a lot of us are under constant stress and I find it can be really hard to maintain gratitude for the great things we have going on. I’ve certainly struggled with that for the past month or so! But spring always finds a way to bring back that lost thankfulness, and it’s lovely to take time to soak up that feeling (especially in the sun). A few things I’m particularly grateful for right now? The roof terrace at work being open so I can have a cocktail and pretend it’s the summer holidays, finding a partner and wonderful people that take time to figure out how I best communicate; continued relationships with the people that really truly know me; the bluebells blooming on campus and continued (or reestablished) freedom to live life how I want to.

To tame our anxiety, Lily, Ellie and I created the attic man.

The attic man lives, to our annoyance, wherever it wishes to live within our home. Sometimes it's in the garden tapping on the kitchen window at 1am, whilst I’m trying to innocently grab my Mini Cheddars. Other times, the attic man is within the structure of the house and I hear it shifting from Lily’s room, to Ellie’s and then finally to mine. Very rarely does the attic man actually remain in the attic, but I imagine that’s where it goes to recharge its batteries after a long and arduous day of tormenting the occupants of this house.

The last time Ellie and I thought there was an intruder in the house, I grabbed my pepper spray, Ellie, their screwdriver and screamed having accidentally sprayed my weapon on the offender - the bathroom door.

After every suspicious noise and alarming creek, we nervously joke: “It’s the attic man!”

The attic man deserves recognition because it’s the personification of our fears that aren’t real. I notice the attic man particularly when there’s no one else in the house and the silence of loneliness is strikingly apparent.

I’ve spent the last few weeks in the depths of waiting. In total, I had an 11 hour coach journey to and from Bristol from our home in York, and despite having plenty of work to do, I chose to utilise the time by just staring out the window and thinking, and pointing out the occasional buzzard to the unamused stranger next to me.

A few days ago, Lily had to go to A&E. Whilst I waited 8 hours, Ellie and Lily waited 12. To pass the time, we fixed the crisis of the NHS (and Wes Streeting, it didn’t include an over-reliance on private healthcare!), conversed about how best it is to educate children and to the disapproval of the two police officers sitting opposite us, we concluded how we would transform the police service to make it less of a failure.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more satisfied with just waiting - as long as I’ve got a good book with me, that is. At the moment, I’m reading Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors, and it’s a fantastic book! At the time of writing, I’ve got about a quarter of the book left, and I’ve begun to strongly dislike the character Cleo, because of her abrasive and harsh nature which wasn’t present at the beginning.

I’m waiting for the end of the year. Not intentionally. In fact, I don t ever want it to come. Second year of university has been diametrically different to that of the first year, where I spent a worrying amount of time in my room and on trains back home and elsewhere. The realisation that Lily will be the first to leave the house, and then the wait for early July

To avoid being driven crazy with fear at the prospect of waiting for everything to change, I might try to, I don’t know, enjoy it in the meantime? People always say you should relish every new day and be grateful for the time you have, which, sure, sounds great, but how do you do that? In the meantime, I have exams and coursework deadlines and conferences to organise and work to go to and people to talk to. The joy of waiting is the awareness you have time to

The attic man and the joy of waiting

Millie Simon

Dais Hanmer

after ‘Because the Color is Half the Taste’ by Paige Lewis, and tumblr user bao3bei4’s YAOI zine. I’ve spent the past three years thinking about a somewhat-obscure 90s anime. A lot of other things have happened during that time, but the ones that I find most interesting are inevitably dull to anyone that isn’t me. For instance, my housemates started showing me Community for the first time in February, and I found myself struck by Abed Nadir’s character; an autistic twenty-something without a formal diagnosis and a special interest in film and TV that shapes both his perspective on the world and the show’s storytelling itself. Being autistic, I’ve had a tumultuous journey with that facet of my identity. It was only last summer that it became ‘real’, so to speak. I’d been self-diagnosed with hesitancy since the age of sixteen, but my therapist managed to put my reservations about the whole thing to bed just before I turned twenty. Another way to say this is that Abed came to me at the perfect point in my life, where I could see him and see myself in him. My special interest is the lens through which I observe and understand the world, I say. This is, arguably, the foundation upon which Community is built. It is endlessly metatextual, loaded with pop culture references both subtle and unsubtle, continually simulating for the audience what Abed’s lived reality is like. It resonated with me.

Abed typically creates conflict in Community when his special interest fails to offer him emotional regulation. This usually happens because another character refuses to engage with his special interest, and he has to find some other way to settle this discontent inside of himself. It reminds me, not obscurely, of myself, and how I engage with special interests; namely, that it’s changed radically over the past three years as I’ve struggled to maintain old habits. What I mean by this is that I haven’t finished a fan-fiction since the summer of 2021, and inside of me is some strange half-aching absence that doesn’t quite understand itself. Fan-fiction is silly. It’s also incredibly profound when it wants to be, and partially responsible for my realising I’m aromantic. It’s important to me, however much time I could spend examining its culture and all of the ways I despise it. I haven’t finished a fan-fiction in three years, but I’ve attempted to write so many. And they shifted, slowly, from domestic and romantic to introspective and dark. They moved from What if those two guys who eye-fuck in the background of this show had a complexity I’ve inferred from near-imperceptible acting decisions? to What if I wrote a manifesto about the complicated and terrible relationship between two profoundly traumatised characters in this highly complicated and expertly written show? They moved from an exercise in making two Barbie dolls kiss to a careful and utterly agonising exploration of complex trauma that would always leave me feeling raw, raw like I felt after I finished my last big fic and realised that all of it— all of it— was an ode to a piece of myself

I’d been trying to crunch out like grit. Recently, I’ve gotten overly invested in Ted Lasso. This is unfortunate. It’s an Apple Original sitcom with more sponsored brands than I can count, following a Premier League football club and their adventures being über-rich. It’s an ideological nightmare that won its cast a visit to the White House and a handshake with Biden. It features storylines about sexual misconduct in the workplace, systemic racism, homophobia and exploitation in the sports and entertainment industries, but is first and foremost a comedy show written for American liberals.

These facts have troubled me. Spending as much time as I have researching and analysing a show like Revolutionary Girl Utena, it’ s difficult to then engage with something that lacks its complex approach to patriarchy, gendered violence, systems of exploitation, the institution of the family and queer politics. But alas, I do not control the brain-worms.

What’ s interesting about being aromantic in fandom spaces is how you engage with shipping. This is, in many ways, the primary function of fandom. Making the dolls kiss. The Ted Lasso fandom is all about shipping culture, but in the newfangled way with the fresh coat of paint, the tendency to respect and affirm canon relationships, to flirt with a-spec perspectives. It would be dishonest of me to say that the Utena fandom isn’t all about shipping culture, because it very much is, but— it’ s easier, I think, to find people who want to analyse before they want to wank. The thing is, I do come to fandom for the latter sometimes. Utena doesn’t offer that whatsoever for me. Ted Lasso absolutely does. What if I made the silly footballers kiss? My primary hang-up here is merely the way that romance creeps into these narratives and, with it, amatonormativity. I like the friendships between these characters, they are robust and meaningful and deep. I don’t want to see them get married. I don’t want them to be boyfriends. I just think it’ s neat when they’ re physical with each other, and have strong emotional bonds that are queer but not codified within these narrow margins of what makes a ‘relationship’ .

The Utena fandom more frequently understands this because the show itself understands this. But, as I said before, Utena is not a show for fun sexy times. There are two jigsaws on the table and I can ’t combine them. I’ m stuck between yaoi-yuri genderfuck ambiguity and football yaoi. One seems horribly complicated until you cut down to the bone and understand that it’ s all about freedom. The other is unbearably simple until you spiral into autism-induced madness, and all of a sudden you ’ re writing an essay about queer complexities in an Apple fucking Original that seems scared of the word ‘ gay ’ half the time. Why can ’t I just make the dolls kiss? Why does my tummy hurt so desperately? Why is it so hard to examine trauma meaningfully through the form of fan-fiction? Why is that my solution to life’ s problems? Why am I procrastinating finding a new therapist?

After the lockdown at the beginning of 2021, my ability to write fan-fiction slowly declined. It seemed obvious at first; less time to write. But then I looked back at my habits in secondary school, always writing on my phone, during my commute, waiting for classes to start, eating lunch alone. I found time. I made time. I wonder if my need to write— to make the dolls kiss— has waned because I’ m not quite sure, anymore, what it is I really want. This discontent sits inside me, the silliest thing of all, but it’ s what I want to write about, what I need to write about.

In episode five of Community’ s fifth season, Abed Nadir creates a school-wide game of Hot Lava in an attempt to stop his best friend, Troy, from leaving their college. At first, this is presented as a ploy, a deception, something Abed has invented to keep things as they were. In the episode’ s climax, this is challenged: It’ s not a game to me, he says. I’ m seeing real lava because you ’ re leaving, Troy. The world warps to his emotions, his perceptions. Reality is flimsy, easily challenged by feelings you can ’t identify or understand. It’ s out of Abed’ s hands. His best friend, the only person who sees him even a little, is leaving. And the floor is lava.

I don't think the lava's here because you're leaving. I think it's here because I won't let go.

A lot of things have happened to me in the past three years, but I can only think to tell you about them– to understand them at all– like this.

Scarlet on her experiments in glasswork!

These are some photos of me doing my glasswork and the stuff I made, I feel really invigorated by learning a new skill and I’m excited by the skills I learnt and I can’t wait to put that into more artwork that’s for myself, it’s made me really think about what I want to make and how I’m going to go forward making it - I’ve been super inspired by flowers like orchids at the moment and I want to make them out of glass, I’ve also been thinking of how I can mix glass with silver smithing.

The trip to the Yorkshire Dales feels like years ago, as I am focused on exams, coursework the University of York Labour Club’s annual conference and the final print of Nouse in May. It’s fairly redundant to say I’m overwhelmed and so April is the month for preparing. It’s not going very well but it’s the thought that counts. I have learnt the lesson, this month, that saying ‘No’ to opportunities is healthy and that when I’ m back at University for my final year, I won’t be taking on so many responsibilities - I’m in my decline era (Obama knows all too well!)

MillieSimon

Contributed ‘The Attic Man and The Joy of Waiting’

Contributed her beautiful Glass Blowings!

Lately I’ve been enjoying reconnecting with Levi and creating new friendships, although it always comes with a pinch of salt because (at the same time as it being lovely and super fun) I always miss you guys and wish I was doing more things with you all, I miss our silliness a lot. Also we’ve been creating a new yard. It's been nice creating new art in our home and working to get it back to what it was, which means a lot, especially as being at home means I get a lot more affected by it being different again.

Recently I’ve been cooking a lot of good food with my friends, eating even more good food, and going to open mic poetry nights (as well as watching my friend snag second place at UniSlam!). Our profoundly bisexual Gothic lecturer did a Rocky Horror screening the other day with a quiz-along we actually had hopes of winning. We lost <3 My tutor has given me a ridiculous stack of disability studies books to read and I’ve never felt more alive!

Contributed ‘Writing my Insides Outside’

Charlotte Coultharde-Steer

Creator of Apple Crumble and the one to blame for how late this issue is! Sorry!

I’ve spent the majority of April in bed sick, and then what feels like the rest of it in the library scrambling to catch up with coursework! But that does mean that I am loving the nice weather more than ever! It’s so nice to just be outside and to slow down and relax with my friends <3

Fancy showing our friends what you’ve been up to lately? If you’d like to share something be it poetry, art, an essay or even just to write an article about something you think is amazing: scan the QR code or just message Charlotte to register your interest!