Sincerely Yours

Zine
Title:	Sincerely Yours
Editor(s):	Vali
Organizer(s):
Author(s):
Cover Artist(s):
Illustrator(s):
Type:
Date(s):	2021-2022
Topic:
Medium:	Unknown
Size:	B5, Color
Frequency:
Fandom:	Haikyuu
Rating(s):
Warning(s):
Language:	English
External Links:	TwitterTumblrcarrd[Archived]
Zine logo
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Sincerely Yours was a zine and calendar project slated to feature fanart of the pairing of the characters Miya Atsumu and Sakusa Kiyooomi from Haikyuu!!. The project was dissolved shortly after a slew of production and moderation failures.

About

The zine's theme was stated as follows from the FAQ section of the project's carrd:

The theme for Sincerely Yours will be focused on relationship stages between Miya Atsumu and Sakusa Kiyoomi — from first impressions and becoming smitten to break ups and make ups. The content will feature both AU and canon works, and will be presented in chronological order through the different stages.

The zine was specified to be SFW with no planned NSFW add-on and a general confirmation to be for-profit and charity. Later on, the mods announced that 25% of the sales would be donated to Colon Cancer Prevention Project.

An additional 2023 calendar project was planned to run concurrent to the zine with a lineup of both artists and writers. This calendar was meant to be purchased separately or as a bundle with the zine.

Timeline

Interest Checks began on August 2, 2021 and were scheduled to end September 3, 2021, but they were extended to September 30, 2021. Mod applications began on August 16, 2021 and were scheduled to end on August 23, 2021. However, they were extended all the way to September 30, 2021 on the same day as interest checks. Contributor applications opened on October 26, 2021 and ended on November 7, 2021.

Preorders were slated to launch on March 26, 2022 but were announced to have been delayed. The following statement was made on the project's social media account:

Due to unexpected circumstances the zine will be temporarily delaying preorders. Our team is hard at work to clarify next steps forward, and more information will be shared as soon as we’re able. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you in advance for your understanding!

Contributor Withdrawal

On March 31, multiple contributors announced their withdrawal from the project on their personal social media accounts, citing mistreatment from the mods. The following Tweets are a sample of such announcements.

nicki (ttodomomo) posted on Twitter:

I’ve withdrawn and no longer associated with the Sincerely Yours Zine. I’m so grateful to have worked with such amazing, talented contributors. We’ve been trying to deal with the grief of the situation, the treatment we’ve been given. I was proud of this. Our pieces were ready.

I’ve been staying silent while I waited for a public statement to be made by the zine account, but there hasn’t been any yet, so hopefully this encourages the moderator team to do one soon.

I wanted to extend my love to fellow contributors who worked so hard. I know some of us worked under difficult personal circumstances and still managed to fulfill our commitments. I, myself, finished my piece while I had C*OVID.

The treatment we’ve been given is awful.

I can no longer in good conscience stay in this project. Please support the other contributors of the zine; they’re all incredibly talented and wonderful. I have nothing but respect and admiration for them.

We’ll be releasing a statement as contributors soon.

Maruya posted on Twitter:

Hello everyone. I want to announce that I am no longer a contributor in the Sincerely Yours Zine. I'm really disappointed with how everything turned out since this was my first zine (plus it's a sakuatsu zine so I hella worked my butt off) and seeing how every artist and writer in this zine put in so much effort on their pieces, only for everything to end up like this was even more heartbreaking. These past few days were very stressful due to the events that happened and I hope that this will never happen to any of us again. Sending all my love and support to all my fellow artists and writers who were in the zine with me 💖💖💖 You guys are the true MVPs! It's an honour to work with all of you 🤧💖💖💖 Please send them your love and support because they all deserve the best 💖🤲✨

town (sakuatsimp) posted on Twitter:

I've been pretty ia on this account due to personal reasons, so it's sad to come back only to share that I'm no longer a part of Sincerely Yours Zine.

Recovery from medical issues has already been a serious struggle, and I don't think I can handle more perturbation from this.

I have immense respect and appreciation for my fellow contributors. They don’t deserve this treatment after the amount of work and time they’ve poured onto their pieces; it’s a dismay to wake up one day witnessing all of this go downhill.

I want to express my sincere thanks to everyone who've been supporting the zine and the contributors since day one, and I'm sorry that what happened turned out way differently than expected.

It's disheartening and we're all tired.

Above all, I just wish to see everything that has unfolded arrive to a conclusion so that everyone can heal and move forward.

I might post my works here in the future along with the artists' pieces I've worked with. But for now, I'm taking it step by step and I hope y'all understand. Thank you.

Mabel (drawnbymabel) posted on Twitter:

Good morning, everyone.

I just wanted to announce that I am no longer part of the Sincerely Yours Zine.

It's been an exhausting and confusing week for all of us, and I've started neglecting my IRL duties because of this. I'm tired and want closure. Hopefully it will come soon.

I don't have much to share right now, but i think the fact that I woke up 5 minutes ago and the first thing I did was go to tweet this says a lot already.

I will post my pieces after this mess, in the mean time please consider supporting the other contributors.

Thank you❤

nana (moraxfucker69) posted on Twitter:

Hello everyone! For those who were expecting to see me in the Sincerely Yours zine, then I’m very sorry to say that I will be pulling out of that zine and I no longer want to be associated with it. I’ve been staying silent while I waited for a statement to be made by the account, but since there isn’t any yet, I will say it now. I’m frustrated that it has turned out this way, especially since it was my first skts zine. That being said, the other contributors, all of whom I admire, and I will be released a joint statement soon.

ALLY (kkumrii) posted on Twitter:

I've withdrawn from the @sktszine and would no longer like to be associated with it. i poured my heart into my pieces with this being my first skts zine, giddy to work with amazing creators and friends. we've been trying to recover, and will have a public statement out soon. if you've been wondering why there have been many skts creators talking about how stressed and demotivated they are, we've been losing sleep for close to a week now, waiting for SOMETHING. I'm sick of watching my friends suffer silently.

Joint Statements

Following up on the number of withdrawal announcements from the project, on April 4, 2022, zine contributor inkanii released a joint statement composed with other contributors detailing a timeline of the past few days from around March 26 to April 1, 2022 .

The next day on April 5, 2022, another contributor, asphodellae, posted a supplemental statement to the one posted by ikanii.

Aftermath

The closure of Sincerely Yours affected the the progress of other zines and fan projects such as Spellbound, High Voltage, and the Haikyuu Calendar 2023. Some members of the mod team for Sincerely Yours were also mods for these other projects around the near same time, sparking concerns among the contributors of these other projects and prompting immediate withdrawals from these projects.

The following are select social media posts discussing the zine's failure and the general implications for zine projects in the future.

ALLY a former contributor to the project, posted on Twitter:

what holds a zine together is communication, transparency & trust. you cannot keep your contribs in the dark while your management team, expected to handle the money from our followers and promotions, falls apart. that would have been on all our names should sales have commenced.

on our list of contributors, we had frontline workers, full time college students balancing jobs, and people who relied on zine profit for cashflow. we still did our jobs to meet the deadlines, whole hearts in. yet the mod team wouldn't put out one (1) statement to close the zine

we would've stayed to work things out if we simply had the assurance that this new team was reliable/cooperative. instead, the mod calls us a 'mob'. the SYZ zine has collapsed alongside EJP & HQ calendar zine bc the same mods were handling those as well. that should say enough

ZineThere,ZineThat posted on Twitter:

The SYZ, EJP & HQ Pin-Up Calendar Zines all fell through due to the lack of a good Moderation team. The same team was running the trio collectively so the result was inevitable. Sadly enough, these teams not only have let down their contributors, but their customers too.

With a bad reputation against these Moderators, it would also shed bad light on the Contributors who're now connected to these titles. With little information to go off of, it's sad to see their hard work crumble.

⭕ If you plan on creating a Zine, or applying as a Moderator, you MUST be sure as to what it is you're getting yourself into! Your actions will not only effect yourself, but everyone participating in the project! Make sure that you can abide by the Schedules provided‼️

Alks posted on Twitter:

The fact that contributors are apologizing for disappointing people after being completely fucked over and there has still been no official statement from the people that have disrespected them and caused them to leave in the first place is frankly rage-inducing.

les posted on Twitter:

every part of the zine has to do their job. the contributors did, it isn’t their job to keep the thing afloat when there’s people in charge to do it. incredible how many like to speak and point fingers without knowing a single thing.

Lola🐬 posted on Twitter:

People truly need to realise that running a zine is more than thinkin "I want to run a zine, it must be fun✨" with zero previous knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes. Even having experience doesn't guarantee anything and in the end contributors are left scarred for life

leen posted on Twitter:

Wanna make it clear I am very in support of the sincerely yours zine contributors and am extremely proud of them for standing up for themselves, but I am also supporting all of the mods (except the head mod) for the amount of stress they faced as well.

Now that I’m a zine mod for another zine, I can see how much of a passion project it is, and how you’d do anything to keep it together. It’s meant to be a fun project, a connection, a community. I am so sad that one mod made a hell for so many contributors and fellow mods alike.

It could have been handled differently, yes, but it’s a labor of love. People aren’t professionals at this, they aren’t perfect, people fuck up and can be forgiven. So please. Support the contributors AND the mods (again, not the head mod) through this extremely stressful event.

Especially since I know that a few mods were also creating for it, are equally upset and outraged, are also dealing with the backlash and Do Not Deserve To Be Given Hate For Things Out Of Their Control. Be kind and support *everyone* please

Creators

The following list was compiled using the announcements on the project's social media account.

Contributors

Page Artists

• Mae (orengiicha)
• Kage (kaged640)
• Mego (megoart000)
• Love (lovelykujo)
• Blaxe (blaxe00)
• Rui (RuiLuieRui)
• Ysa (queenkeiji)
• Snotty (snottle)
• Novak (NovakRouge)
• DazzleTwig
• Vivi (tsumeboshii)
• Irene (ialegriarts)
• Nina (OyaOyaOya_gym3)
• Mirandrv17 (mirandarv)
• Elian (eliks_log)
• cosmofrogg
• Marina-Umi (marinaumiartist)
• Maruya (maruya_33)
• inkanii
• Lark (KiriOxel)
• Ally (kkumrii)

Merch Artists

• Aji (ajifrying)
• Lark (KiriOxel)
• Chris (weivy520)
• Kiwi (kiwimemer)
• Awaari (awaariart)
• Thaya (deerlingscientist)
• Kiwi (kiwilandu)
• Karla (kurluwu)

Writers

• Bella (aalphard)
• Jennie (aspholdellae)
• Nicki (ttodomomo)
• Logan (atsumusbiceps)
• Tookumade (naffnuffnice)
• Sora (Soralith2)
• Marie (mochigetsu)
• Danny (sprdc_obssn, sporadic_obsession)
• Nyx (skts_ftw)
• Nana (yuyangs)

Mods

The earlier announced mods were as follows:

• Vali (vintagecrown)
• Bella (aalphard)
• Am (omisbiceps)
• Chris (weivy520)
• Grey (greyedscale)
• Lark (kirioxel)
• Maki (SOUM4KI)

Most of the original mods did not remain on the project. Newer mods were later added to the project, but were removed from project listings as soon as they left. By the untimely end of the project, only Vali remained listed on the project's website.

Gallery

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  Social Media Banner showing the zine's title and concept

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  Project icon found on social media accounts