![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
UTSC Weekly: Megalocycles
Feb. 19th, 2026 09:42 amFor those who came from another site I'm active on, you might know me as a pretty big fan of Undertale/Deltarune. Not enough to buy merch, but enough to partake in the community fairly often, and nowhere is this more apparent than the UTSC (or UnderTale Soundcloud Community). This community is largely based on takes of preexisting alternate stories by fans, such as Underfell and Storyshift.
And while those are cool, sometimes you want more. Sometimes, you want to go back further than Undertale and Deltarune, and into Toby's earlier works with the Earthbound Halloween Hack and Homestuck. Well, that's what MEGALO is for!
The main gimmick of this project is that it takes older Megalovania equivalents, such as Reanimation, Megaloglamour, Dynami, and Virtue's Vengeance, and creates an Earthbound-styled cover, an expanded version of the Earthbound cover with added instruments, and a full overhaul of the original. This can lead to some interesting replacements, like South African Freedom Day replacing Halloween, or Everdraed replacing Toby. The names of this universe's media also changes, with things like Doomedearth, Trapped Inhouse, and Cavernfable.
Currently, three of the takes in the MEGALO project have plans to expand beyond this account, being Cavernstory, Fell To Ruin, and Dweller's One Wish. Cavernstory is a Storyshift take by Evelyn inspired by Mother 1 and I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, where all monsters are humans and humans are machines who have trapped humanity underground due to harming the environment. Fell To Ruin is an Underfell take owned by Theoservative inspired by games such as OFF, which tells a much more abstract story that leans into the dark atmosphere that Underfell sets up. Dweller's One Wish is an Altertale take owned by Ari that focuses on expanding the role swaps beyond swapping the goats and skeletons, including some alternate swaps such as Flowey swapping with Frisk.
MEGALO isn't the only project to rend Megalocycles, however. People such as Orange and Lexxiemow have their own cycles, for projects such as Behind The World Border's Ace Of Stars and Tory Fox's Megalomania. The Theoservative frequently creates cycles for Underfell-related Megalovanias such as Strikeback and Atheism, as well as a cycle for Swapswap's No More Jokes, which focuses on swapping the mediums rather than the personalities.
The Megalocycle runs in parallel to a similar UTSC tradition, known as the Puppet Pipeline, which instead focuses on Spamton role replacements, although it's almost always related to The Other Puppet, in which Kris swaps with Spamton. However, the main difference I found between these projects is their attitude. The Puppet Pipeline feels like a spiteful parody, meant to mock the (admittedly quite funny) concept of extreme stacks, such as the (ahem) 100fellheroestimetrio. Meanwhile, Megalocycles feel like a celebration of the history of the community, sometimes being a little out there, such as with the aforementioned (ahem) Space Inbound! South African Freedom Day Hack by John Ztorisvap, but always being sincere in it's distinct vision for how it does things.
I have no idea what to do for a conclusion, so this will end with a personal plug. I myself have my own Megalocycle, being based on the Underswap track Misfortune, in which Undertale was made by Scott Cawthon, thus changing some major elements of Undertale itself, such as the roles. I know I'll remake it eventually (looking back at it, it has SO many issues), but I'm decently happy with how it turned out.
