Undertale - So Sorry - Addendum
Okay, this has been a long time coming. Unfortunately, I wasnât aware of threading comments on twitter so mostly Iâm just grabbing what I wrote there and stuffing it in a text post to get it in one place.
Okay, hoo, here goes. So, seven months since Undertale. As Toby predicted, I was found in under a week - then found out shortly after. Now people say shitty things to me and about me legit all the time. It stings but, y'know, water off a duckâs back. Iâm autistic, Iâm fat, Iâm poly, I might be NB, I have anxiety disorder, Iâm on medication. Iâm used to getting things slung my way. And I knew that once the connection was made to me in Undertale, itâd be same old story. We both knew how it would go. Toby warned me, expressed his concerns and asked me if I wanted to back down. I said âits worth it to be part of something I love so muchâ.
The problem is, some stuff had happened preceding that and surrounding that that kind of hurt.
Firstly, he was cool with me, loved my character, said nice things about me, agreed to a unique room, an encounter, a battle and NPC. Then someone said âhey, Samâs a freak by the wayâ. I never was told who, only that someone brought it up to him. Ever after, its been pain. Now, unique area, npc, boss fight, encounter - all that stuff went to another backer, who Iâve since been told is his friend?
I didnât hear much for two years. I waited patiently, hopeful the bad stuff was over, super excited for Undertale. Then one day he messages me near the end of development and asks if he can just shitcan the whole thing, refund the money. All the fun ideas we talked about got scrapped. I stood up enough to say âno, thats real unfairâ and that was about it. In the end, we didnât even get to see the lovely sprite Tuyo did for So Sorryâs front - we only get the back in the game. I think its probably okay for me to share this now - if she says otherwise, I can take it down, of course.
I love the fight, I love the game, but its all tangled up in so much stress at this point. I donât feel like a âcool secretâ as I was told about. I feel like a skeleton buried under the floorboards of a closet. People keep comparing me to Muffet and its not hard to see why. Sheâs really cool, I love her design and the battle is amazing. But sheâs also an external creation and you HAVE to fight her before you are even ABLE to trigger the So Sorry secret for some reason. That and not even getting my name in the credits with the other monster designers it feels like yeah, he didnât want anything to do with me.
And Iâm done, Iâm done feeling hurt about it. Iâm done with the naysayers being enabled nothin being countered. Iâm done doubting myself for ever wanting to be out in the open. Iâm a real person. My life has meaning no matter what.
And it would have been fine if Toby had actually ever directly addressed any of it. Instead, it was âdonât harass my backers, no good will come of itâ and âall monsters are goodâ. No good came of it - for me, at least. It wasnât all your backers being harassed and they werenât being harassed for being your backers. It was one developmentally challenged guy who wound up with a weird job on the internet. Iâve tried talking to Toby about it, as has Khato, as have a couple of friends we talked to about it. Toby doesnât want to make a scene. Heâs worried about the backlash I think? But he has nothing to lose and I had everything to lose by being so involved. And Iâm tired of losing. Iâm tired of being indefensible for existing. I already got hit by the backlash. Iâm just tired.
Also Toby isnât bad, I just think how heâs dealt with me has been kind of, uh, a little dehumanizing. Just all this stuff is really contrary to the meaning and moral of his game since I guess Iâm the wrong kind of monster. And Iâve spent seven months dealing with the stress. Its affected my health and my work both and thereâs no end to it. It feels good to finally get all that off my chest. Its been a long time in coming but its been killing me, very slowly.
tldr: toby was more invested in me being a secret than me being a cool secret and not standing up for me made me feel isolated and hurt
I appreciate all the well wishing by the way. Its been exhausting and the support means a lot to me (by the time of posting it to tumblr, thereâs been an outpouring of it on twitter and oh my god I was not ready for that).
I hope one day people like me and my audience get to just be ourselves in our own little corners of the world without being denied happiness.
I donât think Iâm a great person or anything. I try to avoid hurting people. Some times I do. I know Iâm not perfect. I make mistakes. But Iâd like to think Iâm generally an okay person and I just want to be treated with the same amount of respect as all living things
going forward, I donât know what to do now. I donât think I can talk to Toby about it anymore than I already have. It hurts too much. I didnât want a refund, I just wanted to be involved in something that made me feel powerful emotions and give what I could back.
when the game was being kickstarted, I fell in love with it instantly. I spread the word to every person I knew. I explicitly asked if heâd want to do the fantroll thing and he said sure. When it came out, I spread the game to everyone I knew, everyone I cared about and a bunch of people I look up to and respect because the game means so much to me as it is and I wanted to share that good with everyone who might want it. I worked and saved up as hard as I could to be involved - as best as a low rent commission artist CAN do - and I did it again when the game came out and I saw people itching to play it. It means a lot to me - I have a lot of stuff going on in my life but it made me feel like maybe things would be okay.
but the longer I go on dealing with the stress, the less Iâm sure things will be.
some people have asked about what the original plan called for. I donât have it to hand but it involved him stumbling around his art studio, trying to draw a butterfly that wouldnât keep still. silly and toothless stuff, but thats all the plan was for. Just something light and fluffy. I commissioned some art from Tuyoki of it at the time since she was open and seemed to want to work with me. We didnât have a whole lot of interaction, but she never did anything that made me feel intensely alienated or anything. Thats the piece at the top of the post - again if she isnât cool with me sharing the work, I can take it down from the post.
Finally, someoneâs told me it may be even more complex and possibly worse than I was aware of. I wonât say anything specifically until I can find out. I donât know what the case is and I donât want to say anything based on supposition, only what Iâve experienced or understand. I guess Iâll make an addendum to the addendum if I find out more.
Thanks for listening, folks, and thank you for the kind words on twitter.
