The Projects I Haven't Told People About

To be honest, this is partially a 'puff piece' for myself since I've been feeling down for most of this decade and the last few posts were very bleak. The two things I'll be talking about here have been some of the few art projects I've been enjoying recently, albeit as private projects. I'll explain why in each section.

To start off, for the past 2 years I've been hyper-fixating on Beatmania IIDX, with a large chunk of it being around Roots 26 / the game's characters. So... both of these are IIDX fanfic AUs. I haven't been feeling motivated to work on most of my full original works lately. I think that's part of why I ended up latching onto IIDX AUs as a creative outlet. Since I'm fatigued with my original stuff, it's nice to channel some creative energy into something I'm hyper fixated on.

Also, in the event someone is interested in these AUs, unfortunately I don't know if I want to publish them yet (sorry). This is just what I'm comfortable sharing at the moment.

So, let's talk about them.

Ioswap

I'm allowed to be 'cringe' on my own website; Ioswap self insert body-swap AU between "Io" (stand-in name for myself) and Nix. No one knows what caused it, but they woke up in each-other's bodies. The two of them are stuck for 2-3 months until Nix can get a flight home & the two can switch back. In the mean time... well, they just gotta avoid getting each other into too much trouble. This AU mostly exists in the form of script-formatted drabbles.

I've been interested in the trope for a while. I think it's interesting to explore what it'd be like for someone to be dropped into another life and/or body & some of the experiences they may face. For this AU, I cut down on external stakes. I gave a 'time limit' until Io and Nix get to go back to their normal lives so I can focus more on character exploration and how the two handle the lives they were dropped into. Io gets to live with Siren and Eiri in Tokyo, while Nix is living in a fictional New England town (I don't like adding too much my real life into self-insert fics, hence using 'Io' instead of my name & made-up settings).

This one started as a jokey thought experiment, and was originally just texts between the two & a few other characters involved. But as I wrote more for it, a lot of what I wrote for it got more serious. Themes of gender dysphoria and depression started to come up with a lot of them being vent fics based on things I've been dealing with in recent years.

This isn't the only self-insert fic of this nature I've written. I've made a lot of self-insert fan fiction as a coping mechanism since high school and many of them ended up vent-y as well. But those won't be leaving my vault. For starters, they're old, but also many of them really personal. And the latter is the main reason Ioswap is private.

I started this section with I'm allowed to be cringe on my own website, but it's also hard to ignore the level of hostility self-insert works receive both inside and outside fandom circles. Plus, IIDX is a very IRL-driven hobby, I don't want to risk that hostility bleeding into my real life. I'm not mentally ready to post something this personal. So the most I'll note on it for now is "it exists".

Maybe a vague description's enough for this to land in someone's cringe compilation anyways, but I hope you understand why I want to keep this private. If I were to post this, I'd heavily OC-ify it and find a way to make it less personal w/o sanitizing the themes too much. As well as get myself in a better mental state to handle critique.

Fang and Iron AU

And now, for something that's actually a crossover with an original project of mine.

I'm not sure how much I've mentioned Fang and Iron. I've had a placeholder card for this world for a while onsite now. For a summary of it's current state; a sci-fi future Earth merges with a world of demons and magic. In 23XX, humankind, androids, and demonfolk are learning to thrive, rebuild, and adapt to this new world. It's a world building project with multiple eras to it (3 as of writing), though the crossover AU takes place in 'The Post-rift era', many years after the collision of the two worlds.

So... where does IIDX fit into this thing? It started as a one shot where I re-imagined part of Shilow and Ereki's backstory as something that could happen in this universe. In this AU, Shilow & Ereki are demonfolk who defected from their family and found themselves living among a village run by Shem. The two of them take on jobs as part of the village's hunting party.

It was supposed to be a one-off writing exercise that I wouldn't do much with afterwards and... well... it's now multiple short stories and I think I've written more for Fang and Iron as a Roots 26 AU than as a fully original project, to the point I ended up working more on the original world building. So in a way not only was I writing a fanfiction, but it ended up being a motivator for filling out this project I've been chipping away at in the background and I've come out of this with a decent amount of original lore (separate from the IIDX AU) as well.

For a few notable plot threads;

• Shilow's defection from his family, and Saya's pursuit to get him and Ereki back. This one's is a re-imagining of the drama CD's plotline
• Nix leaving a human/earthen city after getting discharged from the tower guard, and exploring what the world outside the city walls are like
• Shem being affected by a 'violet curse'
• An ensemble special in a tavern where the guests are under threat by a mysterious entity...

On the Roots 26 end this is a heavy canon-divergence AU. I've been doing my best to keep the characters & plot lines with respect to how they are in canon while considering how being in this sci-fantasy world would affect them. I found this way easier to achieve with the human characters, but for the ones who are androids & demons in this AU it's trickier. I think it's because the species swap makes them tied heavier to the original world building & I've had to do rewrites to bring them closer to their canon selves. It's an interesting writing exercise honestly, and in a way it makes this AU a puzzle that I get to solve.

The main reason I'm not sure about posting it is potential confusion. Fang and Iron is a work in progress world that I'd like to be able to work on as a fully original thing someday, and I feel it'd be a mess to introduce it alongside a fan-AU. I imagine it'd lead to people wondering what's canon to what universe.

I've been thinking about just saying "fuck it we ball" and posting at least one snippet anyways. At this point, I think I need to post more works that I'm happy with and if that takes the form of "fan fiction based on a WIP worldbuilding project" then I guess I can let Fang and Iron live as a fan-AU for a bit & just label it as not canon when I go full original again. But that's something I'll have to think about more.

Honestly, I'm not sure what I want to get out of posting this. In a way, this blog defeats the main reasons I haven't posted either AU by letting people know they exist. Maybe I'll get over myself and post snippets anyways, or heavily tweak them beforehand, or even keep them private AUs. Who knows?

IIDX in general has become a very important game for me. There's the fan AUs this article's about, but it's also been a huge motivator for leaving the house & not bed-rotting every week since well, it's a game I have to go outside to play. It's helped me avoid letting my anxiety completely consume me in these terrifying times.

I guess it's also nice to be able to talk about creative projects that haven't felt like a burden to me. Even at the risk of being seen as 'cringe'. And that even at a creative low-point, I managed to find some creative inspiration with Roots 26.