Over the past few years I've been in the UNDERTALE community, never have I seen it so divided until now, and I need to say my piece:

First of all, let me preface this by saying that I do not condone harassment of any kind towards anyone. There are ways to go about criticising people and harassing them everywhere and spreading drama is unproductive. This APPLIES to the recent situation surrounding Nickolas (@nIk2656 ). There are ways to give criticism correctly and maturely. Remember that in the end there's still a human behind that screen.

That being said,

Recently, a situation has come to my attention regarding a debacle around pricing over @nIk2656 's song, "SLAUGHTER IN THE SPOTLIGHT // THROUGH THE FLAME", made for @ImAri 's DUSTTRUST X.

At first, when the song dropped. people loved it so much to the point where people were commenting "This is the most positive UTSC comments section ever.", and so on. Which is nice. Positivity is cool.

However, as time went on, people noticed that Nik was charging the FLP (A file containing the entire "internals" of how the song was both made and produced.) for $200. This is quite expensive to many people, me included, and people made a few jokes about it but still appreciated the song.

This information suddenly started spreading like wildfire, with some attributing it to greed, for example @StretchGamingInc 's post. While this post wasn't specifically naming Nick, a lot of people took it as such and began harassing him. Stretch states that the post isn't a specific point about only Nik, just that that situation was the straw that broke the camel's back.

However, I am of the belief that Stretch didn't plan for or intend harassment to Nickolas, only to criticise him (I will not be mentioning other posts by other people here, as those splintered off into something else irrelevant.) But something like that is subjective and people have different experiences with him. In my opinion, Stretch could definitely have worded that post better but with the context he had, I can see why he would, with his experiences with other community members, attribute it to greed. That doesn't mean his assumption is correct.

But assumption is not fact; and I am firmly of the belief that Nick is innocent. He may have made a minor mistake, yes, but calling it "illegal" is completely wrong.

(A small bit of vital context missing, Nickolas according to the people I have interviewed before this post frequently undersold themselves, and so was told that $200 was an alright price for the FLP.)

(To get a fair viewpoint on both sides, I asked Lemi, a friend of Nick, and this is what she said:

---------------------------------------------------------

"The price was absurd, and Nick is evil and greedy for selling his FLP for $200!!!"

I understand why people thought the price was absurd, I am not going to sit here and say it was not a bit pricey at first. I was one of the people who encouraged Nick to set that high price point. However, the definition of greed goes as follows; "an excessive and selfish desire for material gain or social value, such as power, status, or riches." The price point may check the excessive box for some, but not for all. That's the power of subjectivity! However, the "selfish" desire part is just wrong. Nick was encouraged by people around him (and by me) to make the price that high. It was not solely on his own accord. People like me believed that that was a solid price point, because I've never seen people sell their FLPs at the time. And the few times I've seen Nick price his music, he underpriced the shit out of it. Because at the end of the day, he can price his music at whatever the hell he wants, and people don't need to pay anything for it. Not if they don't deem it worth their money.

With all of that said, people still going on about how Nick is a bad person, and how he's greedy for making money, are just being assholes that are purposely trying to incite harassment towards Nick. I have sat here watching the negative mental effects of all this take a toll on my friend and I'm fucking sick of it. He has every right to do what he is doing and the people who are trying to prevent that are failing. If you see people still talking bad about Nick, I HEAVILY urge you to send them this post.) - Lemi

---------------------------------------------------------

Strangely, people also seem to forget that Toby Fox also sold fan-works.

https://sleepytimejesse.bandcamp.com/album/i-miss-you-earthbound-2012

Toby and his associates would NOT have the Earthbound album up for sale if he did not agree with selling fan-works. This album contains motifs and references to the game Earthbound and it's perfectly fine to sell it because it's their OWN music dedicated to the original project. This also ties into my other point. There are many people who sell fan-works, it's not a new thing to make Undertale-inspired art for somebody for money, or to commission someone for music, or even for Undertale-inspired animations.

Having your own moral code for a fangame is completely fine, and I respect both Stretch's and Nick's viewpoints to profiting off fan content; I personally have been taking any money earnt from anything Brotherly LOVE related and pouring it right back into the game. It would be hypocritical of me to say that making any money off of fan content is problematic.

What is strange to me, however, is how my opinion has been misconstrued and twisted as something else. While I can definitely be a quite polarising person, I'd rather stay that way rather than practically lie about how I feel about things. I apologise if you came to this point expecting me to condemn one person or another. There are other people's posts for that. I hold no personal ill will towards anyone with this post, and I am just giving a (hopefully) unbiased standpoint from what I have seen.

While I understand the "get a job" narrative, some people aren't able to get jobs. For some people, the only way they can get things is by working on something they're passionate on, whether that be off commissions, art, or selling FLPs.

Personally, if I were Nick, I would focus on commissions instead! However, I understand that takes a lot longer and selling an FLP doesn't require any extra work and is a neat bonus for musicians who are willing to pay to learn. (However, a lot of the time for people who sell FLPs, they get leaked. Not endorsing piracy here but it's an unfortunate fact of the matter) However, I am NOT Nick. He has the right to sell what he wants.

This leads me to a different point; some people in this community really do need to learn some nuance. You can agree partly with people without completely agreeing with everything they've ever said. I cannot name the number of situations I've been in where people have assumed my opinions/beliefs just by hanging out or talking with other people of differing beliefs. You can interact with someone without being completely eye to eye on everything.

For example:

Person 1: "I like apples."

Person 2: "Oh, i also like apples."

Person 3: "Well, Person 1 hates bananas, and that's your favourite Person 2."

Person 2: "Oh, damn."

Person 3: "So you're two faced? You hate bananas too?"

Person 2: "I'm pretty sure they didn't-"
Person 3: "Shut up, banana hater..."

People also seem to have suddenly forgotten what forgiveness is; a person can make a mistake, that does not define their entire life. (Unless you're a pedophile or a groomer, at that stage you should be locked up) I have recently lost a good chunk of friends who wrongly assumed things about me for these reasons, and while that is disheartening, it's just what happens when you get stuck in the middle of situations like these.

If anybody was wondering, Brotherly LOVE's assets, souce code, and FLPs will all be publicly available for free once the game is complete. That isn't a standard that should be demanded from everybody, however.

What UNDERTALE fans need to learn is that the first solution to things is not harassment, is not to go around and parrot the beliefs they've learnt from other people, it's to think for themselves. Which is why I am going to leave this comments section up, for a hopefully civil discussion about this topic.

tl;dr NICK IS NOT GREEDY AND IS INNOCENT, LEAVE HIM ALONE. DO NOT HARRASS OR GO AFTER ANYONE ELSE EITHER, IT IS UNPRODUCTIVE.