Jed On: Final final word/Spectrum P2P/Liberation · 12:30pm Apr 11th, 2021
Well, here we are again. It’s always such a pleasure.
This is, quite obviously, a response to the recent blog post by TheIdiot, in which he has revealed the fact that I've asked for all of my work to be taken out of the current Spectrum-verse proper. That is to say, all conceptual work, all characters, all writing. Sam Yarrow, Galatea, Daniel Romero, Howard T. Preston, a whole bunch of other characters you probably never heard of. That’s obviously a very significant chunk of the work.
Fun fact: I haven’t read that blog post. I know what’s in it, roughly speaking, but I have a choice of reading it, or not having a massive debilitating anxiety attack that will ruin my weekend and possibly my whole week, so I’ve left it to people I trust to tell me the pertinent information.
(That’s not an exaggeration, by the way: typing with a shaking hand is a bitch)
And let me tell you, judging by what those people have said… whoo boy, glad I did that. But that’s about all I have to say there.
So, there’s a lot I could say. Thing is, though, I’m not interested in tit-for-tat or going on a vent particularly. Or rather, I don’t see the usefulness.
What I am interested in, though, is a little clarity on why I asked for that material back. I don’t know if they touched on what they perceive to be my motivations, but I do know that they don’t trust my motivations and so probably have not been accurate to them.
Now, the following is leaving out a lot of the context of that decision - there are specific circumstances that lead to it that I won’t go into because they’re not pertinent. What’s pertinent is this.
The arse end of 2020 brought with it a realisation: I had created a number of what I considered interesting background bits for Spectrum - the third sister brought with it the dynamic of the “Silent Sentinel”, a genetically engineered woman with a purpose dictated by her creator/mother. I also loved the version of Tirek’s backstory I created (and no, that’s not a spoiler, they’re not doing anything with Tirek’s backstory now because that was mine and I am having it back) and I wanted to explore that. I had also realised - through conversations with friends - that I had done in Spectrum what I did quite often, which is create a history to fill a gap that could, with some work, stand on its own. I’d already started on this process - as mentioned in my previous blog, “The Battle of the Last Bridge”, a self-published short story I wrote, was a direct reworking of background elements I’d created for the “Freeverse” (AOA’s Equestria), so it had always been on the table for me to rework some things to use in an original context. And frankly, that brings with it more freedom.
So after some um-ing and ah-ing and a talk with my wife, I asked TheIdiot to begin the process of removing my work from Spectrum. This was contentious in and of itself, obviously. I was very short with these people, I freely admit. I was there for business, not chitchat, and I think their blog makes it clear that we are not on good terms. I explained that I wasn’t asking for this out of spite. They found this difficult to believe, of course, but the truth is… well, I’m a petty shitbag, no question, but I’m not interested in feeding that aspect of myself. But this is different - if I’m to take that work into the professional world, it can’t be in fanfiction. And my work was very heavily in a great many chapters of that story: anyone who really paid attention to this would have seen how similar my “Redux” and the early chapters of Spectrum were. So it needed to be removed.
That, as far as I’m concerned, is the end of that discussion.
If I’m being completely honest with you, I don’t see why they should be concerned with this (beyond any animosity they hold towards me). Obviously they’re going to need to rewrite a lot of work, but these are people who write 30,000 word chapters: they’re fully capable of creating their own work. And if I’m being blunt, I’ve known for a while that they really, really don’t like my work. Sure, they like the basic idea of some stuff - notably Galatea, or rather their perception of her - but they were always either lukewarm or outright dismissive of a lot of the background stuff I wanted to do, or a lot of the plot points I had set up. They and I, you’ll be downright shocked to know, had entirely different ideas of what to do in the story, and I’ve seen some… interesting retcon work to try and mould what’s left of what I put in into their vision (including their treatment of Commodore Romero in their latest chapter, who I know they actively don’t like, so on a petty note, thank God I’m taking him with me). There is now going to be no remnant of what I created for them to be beholden to (even to retcon), no bits I’ve set up for them to try and write around. They can really explore what they want to do, without the least bit of a hangup of what I started. Speaking from my own experience on the work I’ve done for the last few weeks, that’s actually incredibly liberating. And though I won’t lie and say I don’t share their animosity, I can’t say I don’t think this will be better for them and the story they really want to tell. Whoever they create to replace Galatea can be exactly what they want from her, without the hangups left over from what I made. I could go on, but I think the point is clear.
I, meanwhile, will get to take on the challenge of creating an entirely new world. I get to develop entirely new character dynamics (which I’ve already started doing, and let me tell you, it is amazing!), and generally have a lot more fun with this than I have in years. I get to do that whilst no longer being beholden to the limits of fanfiction. If I want to make these characters one way, I no longer have to worry about how they have been portrayed elsewhere, or whether it clashes with the Canon. If I want to make a world of superheroes, condense or expand character arcs, kill people… it’s mine for the choosing. I don’t have to re-interpret existing characters, because now I am creating these people from archetypes and whole cloth, cutting away the vestiges of what was and finding the new. I can make a cat-woman-Gandalf. I can have massive sword fights or robot superheroes. I don’t have to juggle what I want to do, how I want to portray these people, with anything. It is, again, incredibly liberating. I hope, and I’m not even being sarcastic when I say this, that they will experience the same feeling of liberation that I do.
Who knows, maybe in ten years, when I’ve finally found what I’ve been seeking for four years and they’ve finished whatever they’re doing, we’ll all look back on this and laugh. Pipe dream, maybe, but it would be hilarious after all of this.
Anyway, that really is the final word, now. I feel a little lighter, reminding myself of the fact that I’m now free to do as I see fit.
Liberation, then. Here’s to it.
Goodbye.
Jed R.
I’m sorry about things have turned out. I hope you have a good year and able to move forward with your goals. Stay safe and stay happy!
5495345
Cheers. Frankly, I doubt things could’ve turned out much better, but at this point I’ll take what I can get 😂
5495991
Sort of depends on some bits that I probably ought not to discuss until I actually have an answer. But there’s some self-published bits and bobs of mine on Amazon’s kindle service, including a full science fantasy novel and a compilation of short stories that you can get as paperbacks. As for the stuff I’m working on that used to be this stuff, well, that’s in an incomplete state and it’ll be a while before it’s ready for anything.
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Awesome 🙂 As I say, the stuff that I’m doing that’s based on the more recent stuff from here is a ways away, but hopefully those links are interesting enough in the meantime.