It's currently January 6, 2022. I'm sitting right next to the window of my apartment, looking at the rain, thinking about what I should write to sum up my thoughts on Iversia. In a way, it's a fitting end.
I'm going to talk about my personal abuse here, so content warning.
I started writing Iversia in high school, back when I was skipping most of my classes to spend time sitting in my car. I remember my thoughts behind making the series quite vividly, despite my memory issues. I was used to making ship art for danganronpa, quite obsessively, as it was my only outlet from thinking about the abusive pedophile who I had just left. But just like the rest of my life, I realized that everything I had ever made and everything that made up "me" was just things other people had turned me into. I wanted to do something, I wanted to make something that was all my own- so Iversia came into being.
The first thing I did was make a list of things I liked. I wanted to create a protagonist like me- someone just becoming an adult, who seemed to have everything together, but was really quite neurotic. I also wanted to be able to make a ship-like dynamic with him and someone else, maybe a bit like the dynamic of Ace Attorney. Over time, I realized that my neuroticisms were symbols of deeper mental health issues- you can see that develop throught the comic as well, fragments like Lisem talking about Alex at the beginning or the whole of Lupi's sister. The comic started to stop being about these short-form strips that I liked to make as a teen and started being an exploration of the themes of my own life- my mental breakdowns, other people's views on me, diagnoses, thoughts on life and the nature of humanity and what it means to be connected to people- all of it's in there. This story is so intertwined with me sometimes I worry it's impossible to read without knowing me intimately as a person.
But I wanted to create something that I liked, and that was all that mattered. I wanted to escape the influence of social media and the people who had controlled me through it, so the fact that Iversia didn't gain any traction didn't matter to me. All I wanted was a way to process my feelings. I started writing Iversia when I was 18, and I'm about to turn 21 now. It's been nearly 3 years of work, and It's finally over. And in a strange way, I feel sad about it, but mostly... Ready.
Iversia has been so important to my life. But it's time for me to move on, and it's time for the story to move on, as well. If you've made it this far- thank you greatly. I'm sorry if the end was not satisfying to you, or you feel like certain things weren't resolved. If that is the case, you can always DM me or email me, as I have concrete answers for any possible questions you might have. However, I feel satisfied. The most important thing in the story is that all the characters were able to have things happen to them, and then move on, and live their lives. I finally feel able to do that in my life with the abuse and mental health issues I've faced. And so, it's time for Iversia to end. I can't thank everyone who helped me enough- the various people who I've lived with, my friends who I've sent the panels and explained my ideas to, the few people who read it and gave me kind comments in the beginning or later on just the people reading the website. None of these people contributed tangibly in any way, but having that support really helped push me to create a real story with a plot.
If you've read this whole letter, thank you. Iversia is the longest project I've ever worked on in my entire life. I never thought I'd get to see it through. But now, it's done.
What's next is a mystery to everyone, myself included. I plan to write another story called Computerboy, but whether I'll do it in the same format is unknown at this time. I might make a full-fledged game. But no matter what, just know this- I'm not going to stop creating things, whether it's comics, games, illustrations, or anything at all. I love to do this. And to finish Iversia has been one of the greatest privilges of my life.
Thank you.