Hello, everyone!

We know that we have been inactive for the past year and a few months. This was not done on purpose. In fact, our founder would prefer to explain it to you directly, as it involves circumstances beyond her control. Here she is now:

Hey folks, NAAN here. If you’ve been like me lately, I sure hope you’re just as barely existing as I am.

If you have (or haven’t) noticed, Aradia Collective and everything related to it went silent for about a year—and continues to be silent to this day. If you follow us on Mastodon, you’ll have seen this quick status update in May of 2025; if you follow our bridged/mirrored Bluesky account, you’ll have seen it pop up here. (A quick reminder that Aradia no longer posts on Twitter or Instagram, so if you were waiting for an update there, you had a better chance of winning the lottery.)

Now to be honest, this longer update should have come a little after those status updates. But once you read the fuller post here, I hope y’all understand why perhaps this happened now instead of before.

A Stroke of Mischance

Around the last week of January 2025, my mother suddenly could not walk. Being her only child, I was the one who had to help her get an ambulance, carry her outside for said ambulance and then go with her to the hospital. We soon found out that she had what the doctors called “a small ‘s’ stroke.” Basically, this meant that yes, she did have a stroke but it only affected her left side and legs temporarily. With hospital care, and then physical therapy, she would pretty much be back to normal.

…A sort of normal. She's fine now, of course. Her left side works again, as do her legs. But the effects of the stroke clearly affected her in ways where it’s astoundingly clear as to why I am still her caretaker. I had to be by her side 24/7 during February, March, and then for about three to four more months during her physical therapy. I pretty much have to be by her side for the rest of her natural life.

(And because I know some of you reading this are gauche, no, I was never paid and am not paid for my caretaking duties. Pretty sure I never qualified either way.)

Obviously, this meant I disappeared from the internet, along with everything else I was working on. Everything came to a full stop, including any chance of ever working on my own comic/s again as a professional. (A sort of professional, anyway.)

If you followed my personal account on Mastodon (or the bridged Bluesky account), you'd seen a message I posted during this time which basically amounted to the entire experience having accidentally detoxed me from online spaces--to the point where though I was 10x more tired in my life, I was also just...not missing online spaces. I missed my friends and all of you who support Aradia and all its ventures. But I didn't want to be online, if that makes sense.

In fact, anytime I remembered and told myself I should try to be online so as to be updated on situations and to keep in contact, I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of fatigue. As I say in the post, I had no more "social energy juice." I am regaining it bit by bit now—I’ve been about 10% active in two Discord servers—-but I still am pretty much almost enjoying life offline, in a way. Well. Best as I can in the current hellscape of the world out there.

Because of the stress and general detox, I also seem to forget to do things a lot more than I used to, to the point where it's only recently I bought a whiteboard. One of those things I wrote in giant lettering is "ARADIA," and thus this update that comes now instead of a year ago.

THE FUTURE OF THIS GRAND EXPERIMENT

I mean, I'm pretty much retired. If you wanna know the extent of what I said above, I still haven't cracked open Photoshop just to draw up a post and write a blog on my own comic's site to indicate my forced retirement and the permanent end of my comic.

But I'm retired from making comics. I'm still drawing and I may post drawings again...whenever I remember to, because again, I am forgetting a lot. But the schedule and time and space and silence I need for comics doesn't exist anymore, at least not for some semblance of professional comicking. So I'm done there.

But I am not retired from anything Aradia. I made this collective for a reason and goshdarnit, the only way it disappears is if I end up having a stroke!

There was something mentioned about this in some update before January 2025, but in lieu of finding it, I’ll just repeat it:

ARADIA BEAT VOL.2 was still planned and will still be planned. It will be digital only, both because I’d already wanted it that way and because I had consulted with my new, yet equally busy, assistant (who shall remain nameless unless they wish to make themselves known) about general printing costs for the magazine’s premiere issue and next issue.

Doing a digital copy will also be much easier and faster, and it will not hurt the wallets of our international supporters, who had to pay extra custom fees unnecessarily for their print copies.

And also, you know, shipping costs are 10x more insane right now, domestically and internationally. If you don’t know why, I envy you…

(This is also why I haven't done anything with the remaining stock of the physical copies of Aradia Beat vol.1 and the merch catalog, besides the whole forgetting to sit down and deal with those.)

That said, we finally have a website for ARADIA BEAT itself! It is pretty basic right now, but it is the new place where we will lead people to read about the magazine, future submissions and all that jazz.

Speaking of future submissions, when will those open for anyone not in the collective start? I don't know, it depends on the next few points--

This to-do list lacks some sparkle, but it tries

I’d like to say upfront that the Tower of Aradia forum we made last year or two years ago or whenever has been taken down. We made it in an effort to combat the centralization of services, and to echo similar efforts in creating new internet spaces that are more permanent, more familiar and more community-based. We also wanted more community spaces for magical girl things and I personally hoped that a lot of fans could join as well as other comics people, and we could really make something out of it.

Then it went unused for so long, that clearly nobody wanted it or cared for its existence.

Oh, well.

Forgive my bluntness (an unintended side effect of my caretaking duties is my sudden unwillingness to be tactful with some things) and forgive me when I tell you that that’s all I’ll say on that topic. I have made two different backups of the forum, of course, just in case.

Now, the next big thing I'd like to try to update first is the webring, followed by the archive. This seems topsy-turvy and not convenient for the comics in the Aradia Collective, but I'm trying to manage first what is small and manageable in my head. To me, that's these two things.

The webring hasn't had any activity shortly after its debut, and I've considered changing its focus from magical girl comics only to anything magical girls media. So games, novels, comics, essays, etc. I'm also possibly shifting it from a webring to a directory, which may improve its activity. But we'll still have a cute little webring-esque banner with pixel art that I’ve commissioned from Shane of Deflectric (based on my design) that I hope people will enjoy. (Please consider commissioning him!)

The archive, as you can tell, is going through it. I had to do some finangling so that it would receive ongoing updates to its code but also meant that I had to use a basic theme skin, since the one we chose was…old. Later this week year, I'll be taking it down and rehashing the entire thing at my own pace. I made an account at archive.org for the collective almost two years ago, with the intent of using it along with Aradia Archives. Other things related to magical girls, but not the collective, will eventually make their way up there too but at a glacial pace.

The main site will one day also receive an update. First with some updated links, and then later maybe a site redesign. It needs to work better...

Taking no questions from anyone unless you are from the Pigeon Press

I don’t know how the rest of my 2026 will go. For most things now, like I said, I just sincerely forget and forgot and when I remember, it's when I never can do it or am too tired to do so.

That said, I always appreciated and still appreciate anyone and everyone who tried their best to help Aradia or cooperate with the collective's efforts. I mean that sincerely, even if it doesn't sound like it. I love the little community we have (had?) and I would surely like to keep it going for everyone, both inside and outside the collective.

It’s a little hard to comment on here—I think you have to click reply if you get this in your inboxes and then I will get the nice reply. But if you read this far, I really, really appreciate it. If there are any questions or comments, feel free to comment on the Mastodon post or Bluesky post that will announce this newsletter post or send an email at admin@aradiacollective.com.

Speaking of, I just saw something cool that can help the collective, so I’ll be creating an email of my own now…

Sincerely with gratitude to all of you,

NAAN