Newsletter

Zines and Things

May 2026

Hi! This is the first of what I hope to be a monthly newsletter!
Here I will be sharing major stuff I did in the month, along with media I've enjoyed. Aaand that's quite it, to be honest. I don't know much about newsletters, but I thought making one would be cool, so why not?

Anyway, May has, genuinely, sucked! Off to a good start, am I? But the point is to highlight the positives so... After a couple weeks of no swimming, I finally returned and I had a blast! I'm really starting to feel comfortable and happy in the water, and reaffirming to my brain swimming is good for me.
I also finally had the courage to visit Treasury to try to update my name/sex in my country's social security system (medical settings, essentially)... After some stress and frustration I did manage to get them updated! I also got my sex updated in a system I wasn't aware of, so yay!
And well, this month did suck BUT that made it so I returned to journaling more! Journaling always was a struggle for me, but seeing that I returned to it without effort after a rough path, is a good sign that it works to help me feel better and ground myself, yay!

I've been focusing more in trying to scavenger the indie website, mostly Neocities, where I can find links to different blogs and sites and whatnot, which has been great to find articles, recommendations, journals, music, etc! Genuinely a lot of stuff that rarely would have bled into any big platform I'm in. I've gone as far as writing down on paper the websites URLs that caught my attention haha.

This month I also attended an anime convention. It kind of sucks but sadly it is the only, major, remaining convention nearby, and also one of the few chances I get to see a friend since she almost always sells art there. Honestly I had LOW expectations, not only because the convention already sucks, but due its position and performance, many artists don't feel encouraged to try their luck selling here, which means, I usually always see the same artists when I go, and merch for the same media (that I'm rarely into -_-). This time I also wanted to hunt for ZINES specifically, and forget about merch altogether, though I also wasn't expecting to find more than a couple because zines are costly and don't sell well.
I bough NINE zines in the end, and not more because I already was waayy over my budget, but there were more! I also found some merch for stuff I liked that usually REALLY struggle to find (specifically Deltarune, Pikmin, and omg, MY LITTLE PONY??). I know these may not be niche fandoms at all in the anglosphere, but where I live, they ARE, it was very hard to not snatch a few pieces of merch which I now happily display on my board. I also saw many new artists, and more diverse merch, which was so nice!!! Sooo I ended up having a better time than I expected despite the pain in my wallet! Many artists were really happy I was interested in their zines and some even signed them for me! My only regrets were not partaking in the activities offered more, or taking a look at the gamedev section, but I struggle heavily with shyness, and my time in the day was limited. Either way, I was happy to have a good time, and it made me want to prepare better so I can support and enquire about all the indie zines I come across next time!



I also finally sat down to properly tackle music theory! I had tried before but I just didn't get it. Music has always been confusing and nonsensical to me. But after trying really hard and working through it, I made a breakthrough, and things are FINALLY starting to make sense! It made me realize how most explanations online are, quite honestly, very poor and inaccessible, feeling like people are teaching to others already familiar with music instead of actual beginners. Or maybe I just happen to really suck at it, but I don't know, the teachings I've seen really feel wishy-washy now that I know what they're trying to say. Oh, and it really highlighted how poor the theory lessons in my classes are; my teacher teaches me theory when it is absolutely necessary to the context of the lesson I'll be practicing, but this means that other basics keep getting omitted, which on the long run, ends up being more confusing to me if I didn't correctly understand the lesson at first (and I rarely do...). I know that I'm there for the PIANO lesson and not the music THEORY lesson, but I don't know, it feels like a flawed approach... I now know that it will do me good to tackle music theory on my own along with piano, though.

In general, I've already sat down a few times to try studying and learning stuff, and each time it's been successful, so I think I finally found a method of learning that works with me and has the right balance of comfort while pushing me. It's been great and uplifting! It's also been getting easier to do the stuff I wanna do: read, learn, practice piano, go swimming, etc. I think less about it, and I'm able to do the stuff without requiring wanting to do it 100% or I don't do it.

So May started terrible, but the second half has been so much better! It seems like now I find it a bit easier to jump back from a very bad time, which is very good! There's other stuff I'm taking steps towards and I'm proud of it. Despite the evils, it has been a surprisingly full month! June is ahead and I already have some events in my calendar I might attend should my anxiety or laziness not stop me.
Making this newsletter has also been very fun? It's very nice to write and recap the positive stuff, and easy to keep track of the stuff I read or watched or whatever, so I wanna keep at it. I'd like to add a section of goals to achieve during the next month in the future, but I do struggle with committing to stuff like goals and deadlines, so I'll see how it goes. Little steps as always.