. You all know her better as the illustrator of some of my stories, and she felt like recording for it. And you know what, I personally think it's turned out great! You all really should hear the voices she gave the characters, especially our mainSpectrum - A Few Thoughts · 1:05pm Oct 17th, 2017
I've worked on The Other Side of the Spectrum for over two years; it'll be three this year. And those two years have been a hell of a ride for me, my friends over in the crew, and, of course, the world in general. Needless to say, let's address the elephant in the room; the Spectrum Crew's split with Red, nearly half a year ago.
I'm sure that around half of what I want to say has already been stated by Jed, Vox, DoctorFluffy and Kizuna, and so you're very much welcome to see their perspectives on this matter. I was at the forefront of some of the incidents mentioned in those posts, and yet I've decided to keep quiet, for I knew that each of them would have described it better than I did. Long story short, I'm finally doing this once the dust had settled, and my own biases are somewhat clearer.
Keep that in mind; it'll be a recurring theme here.
So, where do we start? Frankly, I'm not quite sure how it started, happened, or ended, but looking back, well, I suppose I did have my own hand in the matter. But first, to recap; After months of tension, hiatuses and a frankly unpleasant work atmosphere, Red, and the majority of the team (myself included) had a huge disagreement over how matters were being handled in the story. It got ugly quickly, Red was banned for a day, and even now those days are still quite fresh at the backs of our heads.
Now, the various story issues as described by Jed, Vox, Doc, and Kizuna are sufficient enough and will not be mostly repeated here, though let's just say that I was there for a lot of them, most of them Vox's bits and pieces. Same goes to the various accounts of Red's antics and behavior - I'm not exactly keen or enthusiastic on remembering them.
Anyways - now that hostilities between us, and Red, have mostly died down, I believe it's time for me to man up, speak up, and let it go.
Unlike some of the other members of the crew, I joined in by request. I had an idea, a story to write, and asked a few details here and there - and Red allowed me in. Simple - now here's the hard part, what to write?
Admittedly part of writing Adrift was to simply hit it big, shine and all that jazz, with an idea to carry me through, but over the course of the next few months I thought, "I should do something a little bigger". So I took a look at the ongoing chapter, and started to write, about the Equestrian Royal Guard named Winter Truce, and the Changeling Morning Glory. Purpose-wise, it was to give a viewpoint for the lower-deck crew, a non-vanilla viewpoint of the war. And, miraculously, it attracted the attention of someone in the crew; that is to say, Vox.
Now, as some of you might notice and think, Vox is a rather eloquent, thoughtful, and I daresay, dark fellow. But he took notice of what I was writing, and offered in his own two cents. And thus, a partnership - and friendship - was born.
The next few months was marked with me chipping in to write and edit in the main story, whereas Adrift, regrettably, was left behind (Ironic, no?). I have a poor habit of coming in with a big idea, and I mean big, ambitious, extravagant - and be unable to complete it. But I thought to myself, No, this is for the greater good. I simply must add a viewpoint, something new and unique for the story, something to complete the compass.
And this is where it really began.
Writing this chronologically, I realise, would be quite the handful. And so, here's the two main points for the growing tension between Red and I, as well as the crew in the end; Chrysalis and the Kidnapping Arc
Chrysalis is the root cause. I can and will say that our characterisation of her, contrast with Red's, was deliberately going against his word, for we found the cackling-villainess version of Chrysalis to be more faithful to canon, and an absolute delight to write. She was evil and she knows it! She isn't going to let an old Changeling get in her way, for she was going to see herself higher than everyone else, war or not. Red didn't like that one bit - more on that below.
The Kidnapping Arc was difficult to write, and I'm not entirely sure it's 100% Red's fault either. It starred both Ana and Chrysalis with major roles, it had a simple enough plot (initially), and it was meant to be fun. It wasn't, though I will admit 'Only Human' was one of my favourite chapters to write.
Tying this all up together, the Kidnapping Arc soon bloated to the point where, amidst the absence of key writers to write it in, I found myself helpless to write it. I tried to keep going, handle it myself, add in bits here and there, but it simply wasn't enough nor was it inclusive enough for some of the other writers to help in - and with my school year ending soon, I really didn't know how to finish it soon enough.
The first half of 2016 was marked with the first major falling out I had with Red - after around half an hour of waiting in a bookstore line, I was greeted with a facebook message, in the public chat, from Red. You see, Red had this tendency to keep absolutely quiet about things, not a single word muttered or written, until it exploded out of him in anger, bitterness, or a combination of the two. In the context of storywriting, this meant that he would often keep quiet about the story, a few 'meh's and 'ok's here and there - before, at the last possible second, and I mean, right at the completion, explode. Why is this like this, I didn't want this, et cetera, et cetera. And believe me, it happened a lot.
The aforementioned message showed that Red was annoyed at the story taking so long to complete. As Vox, for his own reasons, does not use Facebook, nor is Proud that active, he proceeded to address myself over the chat. I didn't take it well - the stress of schoolwork, waiting in a long, long line, and the anxiety of Red demanding that I and I alone finish the arc was too much, and I frantically asked Doc to just stop it. I left the chat, and explained myself to both my parents and my sister.
The Kidnapping Arc would be finished soon after, with much grievance, but the second, larger falling out Red and I had would occur months after, when I stumbled on Red, as usual, ranting about things he didn't like.
This time, it was muslims, about how they're all insane cultists, and thanks to another fellow whom I will not be mentioning here, apparently as bad as Nazis. And unfortunately, I was a muslim.
I won't go into detail on this one. Going into it would only lead to me further trailing off on another, larger happening in my life at the time, but long story short, Red never apologised to me, and meeting someone absolutely wonderful led to me realising that Red, far from the big brother figure he seemed to project himself as, was often full of shit.
2016's latter half was filled with vitriol from all around thanks to the US elections - despite not being American myself, I found Trump to be completely and utterly abhorrent, and that led to disagreements with Red, who seemed uncaring and at times outright mocking of our concerns for Trump.
Here's the thing, you can actually be friends with someone with differing opinions and views and not argue about it every time - I'm a Marvel, and Jed's a DC, and yet I never, ever let it get between us. I understand his thoughts, passion, and liking for the DCEU, and that has never been an issue for us. But Red? No - we had to get in line.
The turning point came when Vox mentioned Chrysalis brainwashing Lyra, in 2017. Yes, this happened in the show (A Canterlot Wedding), but that didn't stop Red. You see, Red was livid that we were stubbornly defying his interpretation of Chrysalis as a tragic figure, someone who was (gasp) wronged by Celestia, who never seemed to go two chapters without someone screaming at her that "YOU DID THIS (insert whatever horrid event happened to said person)".
Except, we were putting our foot down. We weren't going to have Chrysalis, the same Chrysalis who, y'know locked up Cadance in an underground cave, be a fullblown good guy. No, she was Queen Chrysalis, and we weren't going to let her be turned into yet another case of villains-who-are-actually-good-and-better-than-the-actual-good-guys.
We overstepped, I will admit it (Kizuna mentioned this in her blog, and I can confirm it). We were so dedicated not to have Chrysalis' character be turned away from canon that we were willing to defy Red so thoroughly.
It resulted in the incident a few months back - Red kicked Vox out of the team, we (and I mean, we) refused to let that happen, Red threw a tantrum and handed over the story to TheIdiot (Yes, he completely, 100% willingly, handed over the story; nowadays he's saying that he was blackmailed into doing so), and made one last half-hearted attempt to return to us before leaving for good.
I parted with Red on poor terms, soon after. On Facebook, preemptively, I sent him a message stating that his remarks of a year ago were, thanks to the benefit of hindsight and someone utterly wonderful in my life, so completely full of bullshit, and that I wasn't going to turn away from Vox because, y'know, he was a true friend, and didn't call me a fucking Nazi. And so it ended for me, and Red.
Unlike some of the others, I've never told any of my real life family and friends about this. Not my sister, my mother, my father, or my best friend. Many a times that my dedication to Spectrum led my father to question just what I was doing late at night, and I knew that if he had ever caught wind of how Red was treating us at his worst, he'd never let me go on Spectrum again. And so I was left alone to deal with this, apart from pouring my heart out to Vox, Jed, and occasionally Doc. And I'm sorry - I've treated you as crutches before, someone to pour out all of my angst, concerns, opinions, or any combination of the three.
Long story short, while I wish Red the very best to recover from whatever issues he might have had, I cannot simply let go of a few things, and I don't think we'd ever be friends again.
But I do have friends, friends who actually care, who actually look out for one another. And they're the Spectrum Crew. We still have a story to finish, and we'll finish it.
Cheers,
-Sledge
Well. This is deeply affecting, mate.
I'm not inclined to suggest someone has had the "very best" and especially not the "very best" of a situation, as it comes with the implication that people's feelings are to be measured against others at all times. But knowing how Red would make it a habit of acting like his emotions trumped all others, and you made your way across this experience at a formative period of your life, I think it merits saying that out of the group, this must have been especially hard on you.
We've something in common in that we hardly talk about Spectrum off the Internet.
It took you a while to speak out. Now you have. As with the quality of feeling, coming in later than others does not dilute that it is what it is.
Although, providence help me, I'm somehow still willing to believe there's more to Red than he lets on – albeit certainly not to the extent of giving third chances, as becoming a target of racism due to my own background is too big to let slide – the memory of him displaying a manipulative streak in the past, is more than reason enough to err on the side of caution.
As for the new Spectrum, its third chapter should be up soon, and while I cannot say with assurance whether it'll be finished either, consider how far we've come.
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But, at the very least, I've had people like you, like Jed, like Doc, like Kizuna, like TB3, like TheIdiot, and like her to help me throughout the way - and for that, mate, I'm eternally grateful.
I believe that, had I posted this earlier, it would be filed under 'knee-jerk-hatred'. Now, well, I've had time to really think about it.
I'm really sorry to hear that you've had to deal with this tough time mostly on your own. The Kidnapping Arc (and how bloated it got; I kinda personally blame the additions of Short Fuse's old criminal "buddies") really was where it all broke down, eh?
Thankfully though we're free to start over fresh and free of burdens. New beginnings after all.
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It's why, shortly after my own post, I left Red a (probably final) private message essentially telling him that he has a choice to make and to not make it for me or anyone else but himself (that was probably the shortest summary I can make of it). And yeah, the bad memories have definitely left a taint on the good ones that at most, even if I were to really reconcile with Red, I'd likely keep us to an "arm's length" kind of level.
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Thank you - truth be told there was a point during the Kidnapping Arc where I wished I had been assertive enough to just say "No, this is enough". There might have been, except it didn't quite work.
Well, I was never alone on the way, at least I've got you guys