A Glimpse at my Emotions

2021: filled with...LOVE?

2022-02-21, 8:11 PM

So I said in the last chapter that I will fill you in on what 2021 was like for me. And out of all that happened, I have selected 3 big highlights to recount for you all that really made my year all the more worthwhile. Here we go.

1. Undertale 202X

Some of you may know that in September 2020 I finally bit the bullet and played Undertale. (That's what spurred me to start writing Eyes Open, which I still haven't updated after over a year, but that's beside the point). After the Pacifist run I had no heart to play the Genocide run, and just kept the fuzzy memories of [spoilers] with me all the way through to the present. But apart from all the fanart I've made and the story I tried to write, I also discovered the gem on YouTube that was Undertale the Musical, created by Man On the Internet in 2017. After watching the 4-hour long video I watched the individual tracks, learned about how Genocide worked from there, and then proceeded to say "oh that's a thing" and not do anything about it until last February (almost a year ago, wow).

I was on Smule just looking into Undertale the Musical because I really wanted to create a cover of it on Smule--to my surprise, there were a lot of different versions of Undertale the Musical on the karaoke app, with all the different song tracks sung by different groups. So I eventually decided to give it a go. I changed my second account to make it UTM related, and put up an announcement saying I would be doing this--a cover of UTM, with a casting call for potential singers filling major roles. About 3 weeks later, I got the cast together and brought them all into a Discord server where the entire production would be organized, from listening to the original recordings to sending them the harmony guides and director's notes when it came time to start the production. I had the name be UnderSmule202X at the time, with the 202X being a reference to the game (in New Home there was a calendar in the year of 201X with a date circled on it), but also because I wasn't sure how long the project would last. It could take us years, it could take us weeks, who knew?

At first, I was really nervous--the casting shuffled a little bit as we began to bond, and in the prep stages I didn't know if everyone would know what they would be doing. But once I got the first number underway, I began to feel more confident--and the group really came together as an incredible ensemble and cast of characters. On the second day of recording, one of the cast members suggested we bring it onto YouTube. My main concern at the time was potential copyright infringement as I recalled MOTI making a video saying not to perform UTM unless we had explicit permission, but she said it would be fine so I rolled with it. Let's just say, that was the best decision we made--soon we got together a group of incredible artists and some of the cast members stepped up to become our video editors, and soon things got underway.

Four months after we got underway, we finished the entirety of UTM. A little while after that we put together a cover of the Genocide Package as well. While we're still slowly working through the main UTM on YouTube, I'm really happy that we at least managed to sing through the entirety of it together--we all sounded amazing, and everyone's not only incredibly talented but incredibly chill and fun to be with. We always got together and did lots of stuff--from playing games like Gartic Phone to our own little playthrough of Undertale (we only got up to Hotland before I ended up formatting my computer and started the whole thing all over again) and we even had a cast-only secret Santa event last Christmas. It was so much fun getting to know and hang out with the cast, and we also now have a public Discord server for the viewers who wanted to hang out with the cast and crew.

This project eventually launched me into a hobby of voice acting and singing a lot more with other members of the cast who soon put up their own projects. And I've never felt more accepted and happy with them.