Jed On: A Response, or The Other Perspective On The Spectrum · 5:53am May 12th, 2017
So let me talk to you, briefly, about The Other Side Of The Spectrum.
Yes, I know, I don't do that often, but today is a special case. There has been a bit of a palaver, you see. Namely the way in which Redskin122004, the main author, has blamed a certain co-author, namely VoxAdam, for his unhappiness with the story, in such a way as leaves that author vulnerable to unpleasant assertions and, indeed, unpleasant actions on the part of others.
I wish I could say I was surprised at this. I cannot. I wish I could say that this is uncharacteristic behaviour for Red. It is not.
Now, a caveat. It has taken me a while to come up with a way of adequately expressing this information. I had, in fact, a large and rather emotive blog post written about the whole thing. Two and a half thousand words of me listing various incidents that have happened over the course of my personal experience with Spectrum, with regards to Red and his treatment of people. I was happy enough to post that in a malaise of fury, but it's been two days since this latest, and hopefully last, disagreement began (God, what a tame word for them), and I have calmed down enough to see that a more factual approach would serve everyone better. And as upset by Red’s actions as I am, he seems to be sufficiently upset for even the most ardent grudge to be satisfied, though I must admit to questioning whether he will learn from the experience.
Normally, I do not like airing what I consider to be private business and grievances in such a public forum as a fimfiction blog. Oh, believe me, the times I wished I could... However, since Red has seen fit to bring the dispute into such a forum, and in such a way as leaves colleagues of mine, that I respect as friends, at risk of cyber-bullying and unfair accusations of being the sole cause for the story's demise, I must follow suit and be public in my response, as reluctant as I may be. This public response is also because I am concerned that Vox and others will become the target of more unfair assertions and cruelty on the part of those who read Red’s blogs. I've seen the responses to his blogs, and given what I know of what happened over the course of the last few years, this last year especially, I can't let Red’s perspective stand as the only one.
I said at the beginning that I have tried to tone down my emotiveness, but understand that this is an emotive experience: I feel personally betrayed, anger on behalf of my friends, and genuinely more than a little hurt at the way in which things have turned out.
Another caveat before I begin; I speak from my own perspective. There is also a brief testimonial from another member of the team on this blog. Like Red’s, this perspective is a biased one, but from the other side of the argument. From these two positions, one may find a median, or one may choose a side, but I post this with no motivation other than to have our side of the story heard.
It would take a kind of wilful blindness to not see the fact that Spectrum’s production has been, shall we say, fraught. It is, after all, a unique piece of work. Many writers have contributed into making it what it is. Red is, whatever his failings, and we shall address them presently, responsible for a story that has emotional highs and lows and is perhaps one of the most daring, powerful examples of the Alt-TCB genre. It would be more difficult, perhaps, to understand just how deep and confounding those difficulties are, and Red's posts on the topic have been regrettably one-sided.
Let's start with the obvious, then: Red can be, to employ the anglicised variant of the insult he used against VoxAdam, an arsehole. If that seems harsh, then I'll point out this is a man who openly uses nationalities as an insult in his own resignation blog. Even sticking just with his campaign against Vox, I can point to the fact he used racist insults when discussing him in recent times, frequently complained about him being slow (he really isn't, you know; Red seemed to forget we all have lives beyond the story when convenient to a point). And with regards to an incident he's mentioned about kicking Vox out, just for us to re-add him? Yeah, he tried having Vox kicked out because Vox referenced Queen Chrysalis brainwashing Lyra (a scene directly taken from the finale of Season Two) which Red didn't seem to remember had happened in the show, nor did he particularly like being reminded of it, either. Quite apart from that, Red has been consistently abrasive, rude, condescending, and more than once been racist during discourse among all of the team.
You may get a sense that I was unhappy, and ask why I didn't leave myself. Make no error, here, I wanted to leave, more than once. After some particularly nasty stuff written in an as-yet unpublished, possibly never-to-be-published chapter of a side-story, after Red made racist comments about Muslims whilst a Muslim member of the team was present on the FB chat, and especially after the absolute hell that was Pale Moonlight. I'd done my best on that last one, at Red's direction, no less, only for him to change his mind at the last minute, when all but one of the chapters were posted, forcing me to make such a horrible swerve in direction that I genuinely feel terrible about the whole experience. And considering I did that because I knew he was unhappy about the ending I was originally composing, any effort on his part to claim he had no control and that we ignored him is factually wrong.
The only reason I didn't quit is because I have friends on this team I didn't want to leave without support in that environment, and to be honest, I had thought Red was my friend too, even if he and I disagreed on a variety of things. Unfortunately, it seems I was wrong, judging from his subsequent actions. Despite everything I've said before and am about to say, that makes me a little sad.
He tries to paint a picture of Vox just going "nyeh" and doing his own thing, whilst ignoring the fact that he completely, categorically failed to engage Vox in meaningful discussionat any point. He had the possibility of messaging Vox on here, and did not take that, for whatever reason, but then complained to the rest of us of being unable to contact Vox.
One might well say it's his story, that he can do what he wants, and we should just do what he tells us to. Please, don't say that. Ask almost any member of the team, and they will tell you that Spectrum is a collaborative piece. It's been styled as a collaborative piece throughout my time on it. We were not employees, we were colleagues. We were supposed to be a team which had ideas, discussed ideas and came to a compromise, not a team that existed to do Red's bidding. Spectrum is supposed to be a collaborative hobby where everyone had fun, not a writing sweatshop where we work to Red's demanding schedule, or else to hell with us. Had the latter been the case, I assure you, I wouldn't have been involved.
Others might ask whether I would let people do this to Avatar of Albion (Red himself has made that comparison). Well, let's put it this way. VoxAdam did nothing on Spectrum that my good friend RoyalPsycho didn't do on Avatar of Albion. Wrote segments for characters he liked, extending chapters in the process? Check. Hell, on the original AOA, I never intended the Interlude: Celestia chapter to be 19,000 words long, but Royal went the good kind of nuts on it, and I love it all the more for that. Discussed future plot points and the emphasis of the story? Check. Disagreed with me about things? Check. The difference is, Red doesn't discuss ideas in the same way, and Red has no interest whatsoever in meaningful compromise. Oh, and before anyone adds this point, let me tell you; I said “no” to Royal when I disagreed enough, and Red also got his way when he said “no” far more than he suggests. For him to suggest otherwise is frankly a lie, considering how disappointing the "Pale Moonlight" arc was to me personally, and how the only reason it went the way it ultimately did was to please him.
Some of you might think "Oh, VoxAdam and the rest of you put too many side plots in". Well, no, we didn't. Make no mistake, every sideplot in there, was there with Red's blessing. You think he wanted to keep pressing on and we stopped him? He wanted those sideplots, and on those occasions where he didn't specifically order them, he still never said a word until they were already out for months. You think he would have just cracked on? One of the sideplots suggested by him was a whole chapter dedicated to nothing but a visit to Starlight Glimmer's wonderful little village, complete with Marcus Renee kicking their arses, because of course he would.
You think Red should have gotten his way without challenge, because "it's his story"? Well, thanks to him, we had a world where Celestia gets everyone from Chrysalis, on whom more later, to Discord, to just about everyone else shitting on her, purely for trying to protect her little ponies and keep the peace, because "ponies should stand on their own four feet". You have a world where civilians can get mown down, but that's okay, because they were Bad Guys. You have a world of such protagonist-centred morality, it almost makes the individual it was designed to oppose look fair and reasonable. You know who I mean.
You think his Chrysalis would have been awesome? His Chrysalis was exactly the same as the one Vox wrote, Seriously, feel free to go check the actual published story. Except Red inserted a male OC for him to throw shit at her and make her seem weak and foolish, plus a romance to make her "more relatable". So, standard fare then, since Discord did much the same to Celestia for half the story (minus the romance, thank goodness), to the point where the unflappable mentor character from the show is reduced to a pitiful nervous wreck because... reasons.
Red wanted a world where he as much as admitted to me that he didn't think the Solar Empire was meant as a serious threat, where even though Queen Celestia is being possessed by Tirek and has no real control over her actions, making her perhaps the greatest victim of the story, the idea of anyone wanting to save her or even pitying her is stupid and laughable. He wanted a world where his main hero would have broken the ribs of people under his command for disagreeing with him! He wanted a world where his hero would have shot a pregnant woman in the head, which is a war crime, and got off scot free, without consequences or even acknowledging that there ought to have been consequences, with just some barely mentioned mangst to let us know he had a personality underneath all the raging!
So, yes, we disagreed with him on these things, like any collaborator should do. All of us disagreed with him about different things, at different times. Because that is what we were told we were, is what we considered ourselves to be, and he didn't bother contradicting us... except, you know, when he wanted to hold a pity party on Fimfiction about how hard done to he was, then incited cyber-bullying against someone he doesn't like. Given how much work and effort and joy and, frankly, tears we all put in, I think we were entitled to some sort of say. You wanted him to be the final say? Well, he was, when he could be bothered to be, when he could be bothered to talk with people for long periods about ideas and concepts. He just didn't. And then he’d complain, and we'd have to either bend over backwards or else try to explain that, mate, it's ready, we've just spent a month or more perfecting it... no, never mind, we'll try to fix it. That, by the way, basically sums up Pale Moonlight’s last two chapters. I know I bang on about them, but that, to me, was honestly the single most disappointing thing I've ever written.
Does VoxAdam stop us from working? Nope. The last chapter published and the next two in production were a combination of work from him and ProudToBe, as Stephan Bauer and Trixie Lulamoon fall under his auspices, not Vox's. But since Red likes Proud, it's all Vox's fault, gosh darnit. Truth is, both Vox and Proud are busy people, because we all have lives. Most of us understand that; the fact only becomes a problem when it concerns someone Red wants to complain about.
The most irritating thing is, we all tried our best to act with respect towards Red, even when we disagreed with him, which just became more and more difficult. He didn't engage with any kind of discussion, would sulk, throw tantrums, ragequit from the chat at least a dozen times, and there was an attitude of walking on eggshells around him. By the end, it was not in any way a fun experience to work with him on this story considering I only got into this fandom because of Spectrum, is a tragedy for me to consider. The final act, his attempting to delete the story before finally passing it on, was just the latest in a string of childish actions from the man. He would not have gotten a fraction as far as he did with his story without help. Help from TB3, from Doctor Fluffy, Vox, Sledge, TheIdiot and yeah, I dare say myself, but he chooses to forget that and instead turn us all into the villains in his little pity party, and would turn on any one of us at a moment’s notice. Sure, mate, you were “left high and dry”. He accused us of "riding on his coat-tails".You think his work was good in the early chapters, before other writers joined in en masse? You're probably reading TB3. Try looking for a chapter without a terrible use of tenses, no definite article on the Whovian "Doctor", and spelling mistakes galore. That is unvarnished Red, and ain't it just a treat.
TL: DR? Red can be a real dick. He's been racist to more than one member, outright insulted people, been aggressive without reason, hypocritical, nasty, and downright cruel at times. And he's been incredibly disrespectful towards a dedicated bunch of people, none of whom owed him one second of their time. That’s not how friendship works. You don’t ‘owe’ people for being their friend, you do good because they are your friend. For Red, there wasn’t much distinction.
And here it is from someone Red actually said he liked:
It was fun while it lasted. But I’m not lasting. I’m suffering through this, through all of it, because I’m too weak to make myself stop.
But it’s like everybody’s least favorite Zack Snyder movie once said: “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” So here goes this shit: Working for him has been more of a chore than anything in the last year. He threatened to quit almost biweekly over the last 11 months, repeatedly, insults people constantly, and said I was the worst member of the group when I had my doubts about a story submission with such a threadbare outline it barely qualifies as such. He tried to pass the story off to me when I didn't want the power and wanted to keep doing my own work. He spent what felt like an hour treating me like a stupid child for my political opinions, and didn't hesitate to do so either when I commented on the posts of my friends on Facebook. Which was goddamn humiliating.
All the while he treated me like the one guy who he liked, even as he kicked almost everyone I regularly interacted with in the docs and on fb in the shins. And it might seem like small potatoes, but that hurts. That really hurts, knowing that others get the lion’s share of punishment and nothing will change. Knowing that your friendship will be hung over your head and other heads like a guillotine, all with the constant suggestion that you somehow owe something when in reality that is not how friendship works.
I wish I could display some sympathy, but the novelty wore off after the umphundredth time he insulted my friends. Again. It was fun while it lasted, but like what Jed will say: he's done making apologies. And I should be too.
On some level, he's my friend. But the weekly angst, the fact that I have been doing damage control nigh on a year with no observable result, playing peacemaker only for nothing to change, wanting to quit the biggest story I'll ever finish, AND NOT EVEN PROPERLY HAVING A POST-SPA STUPOR WITH MY CONGRESSWOMAN AT LUNCH (No, really, this happened) have proven that, for the sake of my own peace of mind, I can’t keep keep doing this. Cause I've been unhappy awhile and don't think much will change.
I don't want to say "abusive" or "toxic" cause the good memories still linger, but then I know I'm probably one of the only people writing this who still has a set of rose colored glasses. Whatever this was, as it is now, it is not healthy. And I'm getting out before he runs roughshod over me again, makes me talk him off the ledge for the umphundredth time, and still acts like my friend 5 minutes later.
I'm choosing uncertain happiness over certain misery.
So there you go. Both sides of the spectrum, as it were, so you don't just have Red and his self-pitying to fall back on. For myself, I'm done making excuses for the man, done making excuses to my fiancé about why I still work with someone who makes me this angry, done taking free time away from my work and my family in the hopes he might get better, because he won't. He doesn't think he's done anything wrong, even when he's basically inciting people to bully someone over the internet. Which, incidentally, is illegal.
I apologise if I have remained emotive. It is difficult to maintain objectivity in these matters. I hope this at least provides our point of view. I honestly don't expect much; it has disturbed me somewhat that people so readily accepted Red’s word even in a post that incited cyber-bullying and used racist insults. It disturbs me more that VoxAdam - an individual I have found to be intelligent and thoughtful, measured and considerate, and interested above all in the integrity of the story - should be targeted in such a way.
As for Spectrum itself, the unaltered version of the original should be available very shortly, under TheIdiot’s profile. We have yet to decide, as a group, what to do next, since that requires time for us to recuperate and think about whether, given everything, we really want to continue.
I'll add one final note. I don't wish ill on Redskin, and I never have. I've been angry, frustrated, hurt and livid because of the man, but I do not wish any nastiness or unhappiness upon him. I wish there had been a way for us to resolve this situation without him feeling the need to do as he has done. I wish things had not escalated to the point where I’m having to speak of things I consider private in this public manner, as he has. As it is, he’s seen fit to be cruel to VoxAdam, and by extension many of us, without granting us the chance to respond. I don't even think this has brought him any happiness, judging by his subsequent blog, which is perhaps one of the biggest shames of the whole thing. If he had been somehow happy about what happened, or found some measure of happiness in what he's said and done, it might have at least made it worth it for him.
This blog, all three and a half thousand words of it (wow), is ultimately my best response, on behalf of much of the team, to his words.
Take it as you will.
Now as a purely administrative note, much of any FIMFiction-related activity I’ve undertaken over the last few months has been to do with Spectrum, so my own work has been on the back burner. Given everything that's happened, and my new job (which takes a good 12 hours out of my day) I regret to say that I suspect my work will still be slow. Apologies for that.
Take care, all. And be positive to one another where you can, and even where you think you can't.
Jed.
I am truly sorry to see the way things have gone with you guys. I truly am. I hope that one day you guys continue the story. But if not I hope you and the rest of team spectrum go on to better and brighter things. Your story truly made me happy at least.
4529373 Thank you :-) I think right now it's just a case of everyone being a bit too hurt to really continue, and uncertainty about where we all stand. As I say, the original Spectrum will be back up, unaltered, hopefully very soon. Beyond that, only time will tell. Thanks for your support over the years :-)
I'm very sorry that all of this happened. I wish you, Vox, and the rest of the Spectrum crew the best of luck in your future endeavors.
4529390 Thank you.
4529373 You strike me as a nice fellow. Thank you.
Thank you so much to all those who have left supportive comments on this journal.
For my take on the matter, see here. https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/735463/my-side-of-the-spectrum
There's so many things I want to say here. Both in defense of Red, but also in defense of you guys. I'm the kind of person that tries to see both sides and keep the peace, it's the way I've always been. But despite a few things I want to point out, its probably better that I just stay out of this.
I wish you all luck and hope that you all start to feel better soon.
4529786 Like I said, I hold no ill-will towards Red. I don't think he wanted things to get out of hand, any more than any of us did. Honestly, I suspect this whole thing is one of those "you had to be there" things, and only those of us who were present can really say one way or the other what happened and how it went down, and we're still all biased. I just wanted - especially after Vox started getting nasty messages - to get the other viewpoint out. I wish I hadn't had to, but seeing a genuinely nice guy get so lambasted does not seem right to me.
4529790 I know.
Man I have been away and everything seems to have changed so drastically. After reading the various posts I definitely sympathize with you and the others. It's sad to see just how chaotic everything got. Ill be watching to see what happens with the new endeavor. I enjoyed providing pretender assistance the few times that I did, it'd be nice to do that again I think.