The following is an open letter, sent to us from a former member of the ILoveKPAlot Team, regarding his personal experiences.
Thoughts and views expressed in Letters to the Staff are not necessarily those of Horse-News, or anyone else for that matter. Opinions expressed in these messages are to be regarded as those of their respective authors. If you would like to send us an article or letter, please email them to horsenewsmlp@gmail.com
Hello, my name is Jordan Morelos.
On September 6th, 2014, I joined a team led by the Brony analyst known as “ILoveKimPossibleAlot.” On August 14th, 2016, I was exiled from the team, the following is my experience during that time, and how it has affected me since.
Sometime mid 2014 I saw a recruiting call to join KP and her team. I’d just picked up the Adobe Creative Cloud and had been teaching myself to make...stuff. I applied, listing my latest project at the time, and answering a few simple background questions. A few weeks later I got an email explaining that I’d have to make a video to the best of my ability using a written script and pre-recorded audio. So I booted up Premiere, got myself a nice tall glass of tea, and got to work, hoping to make a good first impression. Apparently I did because I got in, along with 3-6 others. KP herself contacted me and told me that my submission would be the one to get uploaded to her channel. I found this surprising since I had by far the least experience out of…anyone really.
I was officially added to Team KP on the 6th of September. It went pretty well, the team was full of friendly faces and fellow memelords, my kinda town. KP introduced herself to all the new bloods and we all got acquainted. The next few days I would be working with KP herself, fine tuning the video from the application. She was friendly, answered any questions I had, and would check up on progress several times through the week, giving tips and tricks to make the process easier. On the 11th, my first KP video went live, “Why does Spike Suck.” Looking back... it was a real piece of shit!
After my first video was completed I wasn’t really asked to do anything… for like a day. I was put on the next “weekly” as she calls them, the videos she puts out every week. The script would be given to the editor on Saturday, along with her voice recordings. Every day she would check in with the editor, we’d exchange notes, ideas, jokes and the like… until Wednesday of the following week when the video would be finalized and set to upload on Thursday. It was a fair workload given the amount of time. Anyways, I was on another weekly immediately despite the 5+ other editors we had, I could’ve opted out but I’m a fuckin loser with nothing to do so I said “I’m down.”
Now this weekly, this weekly was something special. I worked my ASS off on this one, I was learning new editing skills at a scary rate, I remember how good it felt, to finally be great at something, I couldn’t leave the video alone. I kept adding to it, making better and better at the expense of time. It wasn’t going to meet the normal Thursday deadline but it was too good to rush. She still had me rush it but I got every ounce of time I could find and poured it into that video. The end result was honestly so much better than the first weekly it baffles me. (Seriously, if you have time, watch my first and second weeklies, it’s nutty how quickly they improved)
After another weekly or two me and KP would talk more and more, you know, getting to know each other and shit. The weeklies would go faster if we were in a call where we could look at and tweak stuff in real time, as opposed to the daily checkups, and this led to some ludicrously long Skype calls. Eventually we’d just chill with people, play some games online, share some jokes, it was a daily thing. Eventually she asked me to join her and 2 other team members at the upcoming Babscon. I was down. So fucking down. I’d only been to one con before this and it was the initial Babscon, but I went alone and overall had a not so exciting time because I was alone.
It was still about half a year away so I was given plenty of time to get everything in order to go. The time was flying, I was getting weeklies done, improving my skills, my relationships with team members and KP, and my self image.
One thing that I could not improve was my tardiness. Every single weekly I’ve ever done has been uploaded either late, or on the last possible moment before upload. I had this perfectionist attitude and would spend as much time as possible shoving things into the videos. There was also a conflict of interest in terms of quality over quantity that came up. KP has this rule, the golden rule, and it’s fuckin stupid. Under no circumstances can 5 seconds pass without something happening on screen. KP justified this rule's existence by claiming we had to “jingle keys” in front of the audience or they would get bored and leave. This led to so many dull, unoriginal, and plain unfunny gags in the videos. This rule seemed to bother me and only me as far as I knew and I’ll go to my grave defending my hatred towards forced-in content for the sake of content.
Aside from that, me and KP worked pretty great together. It’s pretty rare that I get to work with someone who shares a similar sense of humor as myself. I was even given extra liberties in terms of what gets in the script. I thought everyone got a chance to go through and comment on the scripts before she recorded her lines, but as it turned out it was just me and possibly one other.
A few months passed and I was getting more consistent with my editing. I was confident in my abilities, I felt like I could handle myself. One day KP offered to let me work with other “Horse famous” people she was collaborating with. Now, I don’t really give two shits about “Horse fame” or really fame in general, I just liked that people were enjoying content that I had a hand in making, I don’t really care if they knew it was me or not. I still took the offer because the subject of the video sounded like a lot of fun. After the video was done, I was offered to join the other individuals camp as well, it was pretty much the same as KP’s team, but people got paid. I said something along the lines of “Um duh, yes” and signed up.
So now I’m in two camps, great. I very easily could have left Team KP for the paid work and nobody would judge me, getting paid and all. I didn’t really feel like leaving them however, I had lots of good friends, the work had more liberties for the editor, and I had the time to do both, so I stayed.
More time passes, more videos, more friends. By January 2015, me and KP were starting to get pretty close. Very rarely we’d go the whole day without some form of communication, be it over the team, editing, or just messing around. I was starting to grow attached, I really considered her a good friend. The team as well, there was so many cool, talented people there. I looked forward to every project with them.
Mid February comes around and the number of editors on the team starts to shrink. Jobs, school, illness, life in general, it makes people leave. The current head editor was planning on leaving soon to pursue life, so KP wanted to have me fill in their role on the team. I originally said no, I didn’t like giving orders and honestly didn’t think I’d be good at helping manage things. Somehow she talked me into it and she slapped a “Assistant Head Editor” label on me. I then took an eraser to the label and called myself the “Ass Head.” Truly a fitting title. Even after I left, the editor who took my place was referred to as Ass Head and I think that’s beautiful
March comes along and we’re looking at our new possible editors. Most are… not so great but there’s some decent people in the bunch. I was pretty excited to meet them regardless, seeing as how we’d be working together and all. I was told to interview some of the potential editors so I guess that kinda worked out.
Now there was one editor in this bunch that was really promising, but was in a pretty rough spot. She was in an awkward time zone, had a slow computer, but was clearly talented and motivated. She was able to finish the test application video, and her interview went smooth. We gave her a full video to do with normal deadlines and she just couldn’t do it. Her computer couldn’t render quickly enough and her schedule made it hard to check in daily. So me and KP are discussing what we should do, she clearly wasn’t going to be able to do the on-season weeklies. I was expecting to just send her on her way, tell her we’re sorry but we just can’t make it work. KP had another idea though, and I didn’t care for it. She wanted to convince the girl to leave on her own accord, by not giving her anything to do, hoping she gets bored and quits. Now I thought I could explain that this was a bad idea and would just be a huge waste of everyone’s time, and also was really fucking rude. But we did it anyways, and after a while she eventually did leave… poor girl.
It’s time for Babscon. I’m not gonna lie, I was nervous as fuck. It’d been over half a year of working for KP and now I was going to spend a whole weekend with her, AND two of my favorite people on the team (plus two other dudes I hadn’t met yet). It was pretty surreal showing up. I’d gone to Babs the year before but I was alone. I didn’t exactly have the best time because of that… having friends to go with makes a world of difference. So I show up to Babs, I’m in the lobby, I see KP and send her a message telling her am there. She heads for the front of the hotel and legit walks right past me, who is trying to flag her down… Fuckin great first impression, I still laugh about it to this day.
After that moment of cringe, we just chill and wait for the rest of our roommates to arrive. The other 4 dudes were some of the coolest bros to ever bro. We have a blast the whole con, nonstop. We did a panel, played card games, had some great food, all that good shit. Now I’ve never been able to really meet people before this, always kept to myself, didn’t talk to people unless I absolutely had to. That weekend however, changed all that. I expected KP to get the greetings out and then just run off to do… whatever people do at cons, but nah. We spent about 90% in squad mode. I can’t express how alien it felt to be in a group of friends. Being a fuckin loser and all was keeping me from having a social life and almost overnight those guys, KP included, changed that...god that sounds so corny.
Apologies for this break but my PC has recently experienced a hard disk failure. I had to put this article on pause for about a week while getting everything fixed. Unfortunately KP has blocked me on Skype, which is what I’ve been using as a source to make sure I cover everything in chronological order. I thought installing Skype on my new HDD would let me access our chat history again but it seems the whole 3 year conversation is stuck in my old damaged drive. Due to this, events covered beyond this point may be out of order.
After Babs we decided to meet up at as many conventions as possible. The next con she planned on attending was Everfree NW. I didn’t plan on going but when KP said my room and badge would be free, I decided pursue it. This was the convention where KP would finally meet her idol/god/obsession: John de Lancie.
Now let’s get one thing straight. I am not a fan of John. I think he’s a fine actor, he has some wonderful stories to tell, and he somehow managed to get me into poetry for a while. Aside from this, I don’t really give a damn about the guy. KP on the other hand… I thought it was a joke, hell I still think it could all be a charade. She wouldn’t stop talking about him. She outright refuses to treat him like anything less than a deity. All those nights listening to her plot ways to impress him...ugh.
So Everfree, the big trip to Seattle. I fucking love that city. Me, KP, and one other decided to spend a day out exploring Seattle. We went to the Space Noodle, had lunch at a local seafood joint by the pier… got on the wrong bus and spent a few hours taking an unexpected tour of the suburbs… it was a real blast. What wasn’t a blast was how we treated our 4th. I won’t give his name, but we had another team member in our squad who KP decided should be excluded from our adventures. He was our cameraman for the con, we were using his equipment to interview John, record our panel, and any other stuff that involves a camera. All 4 of us were supposed to visit the city that day and KP decided nah, we’re gonna ditch him. Of course I ditched him too, in a choice between the cameraman, and two of my best friends, of course I’d leave with them. The difference here is I went back afterwards and apologized. You know? That thing you do when you treat someone unfairly?
This was also the con where I finally got to speak freely on a panel. I was on the panel at Babs too, but there was a tech problem that caused me to mostly sit on the side and look confused. The Everfree panel though, we had it together. The presentation was smooth, we all 4 had fun. The audience seemed to have fun too but I tended to focus on the squad for all but the Q n’ A. (If you were at that panel and did not have fun I’m sorry please don’t hate me)
The big event for us was the Interview with John. It was very tense for us all, especially KP. The suspense was killing us, we’d been planning it for at least 4 months. When we started setting up the camera and microphones, we started getting antsy. KP was seriously nervous. We spent the last few moments of prep time having her interview me, pretending to be John. I used the opportunity to try and loosen her up the only way I really know how, by getting her to laugh, it usually does the trick but she still seemed a bit shaky. She held her own though, the interview went off without much hindrance, we even gave John a bag of fan mail as a gift. We say our goodbyes and part ways.
So that was it right? We finally got to sit down with the man himself, mister John de Lancie? We can move on now? Nah… not even close. KP would spend every following convention doing anything in her power to get near him again. She’d camp out by the VIP passageways, ask for special permission to attend all his events, she we was dead set on befriending him, even though he showed little to no interest in her. I didn’t mind going to his panels with her, even the paid events he hosted were pretty fun. After 3 conventions of following him around though, it just got old… and that’s just the cons I was attending, she went to even more.
Bronycon was next. I didn’t care too much for the actual con, too many people. At this point I stopped caring about what guests would be at the cons, it was all about how many of my friends would be there, and woop woop everybody went to that Bronycon. I don’t have too much to say about this one, but it was pretty surreal seeing the sun rise out of the ocean instead of setting.
It was shortly after Bronycon that the work started to change in tone. KP had started making longer videos, but the deadlines remained the same. I personally, would spend a minimum of 40 hours on my weeklies. This was more than what most would put in, but still, it was a tall order every time, often required help from another editor to meet the Thursday deadline. KP herself was less involved in the process. She had us, the head editors, revise the other editors work. KP would only check the videos when we thought they were done, then she’d tell us why they were not done. Any editor who wasn’t able to do weeklies was instead put on the radioplay.
Ah yes… the radioplay. This thing was in production longer than I was even on the team. Artists would draw, and draw, and draw… The actors would Record, and record, and record. Then nothing, nobody wanted to edit the damn thing, I sure as hell didn’t. We’d get a chapter done here and there, it’ll eventually get done…
EQLA 2015, this was a treat. It was close to home, I got to go to Disneyland with KP. That was probably the con me and KP spent the most time together, ever. I have only fond memories of it. Sweet sweet memories.
The next con however… ugh. This is where it took a turn for the worst.
I wasn’t even supposed to go to Pacific Pony Con. I had no money, a medical condition kept me from working on the rock farm, and EQLA was still fresh in my memories. It was close but I just didn’t have the funds to make it happen. HOWEVER, a week before the con, I got a call from KP. She’d just asked her con room mate if she could bring some friends and they said yes. I was ecstatic. The free room made this doable. Then a friend of mine invited me to stay with them a few days before and after the con. Jeez, a guy couldn’t ask for better friends.
The con was small, which was fine by me. It was cozy. We showed up, the usual stuff, panel, see the city, chill with our friends, relax in a bitchin pool. John wasn’t there so we didn’t have to deal with KP freaking out about that. That sealed the deal, this was paradise.
Saturday evening of the con, I had taken a moment to reflect on the last year of my life. I realized how much my life had improved after meeting KP. I never really shared much about my prior personal life with her, she didn’t realize just how much she changed me. I was miserable before all this. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with myself, I was terribly lonely, I didn’t really do anything with my life. I wanted to thank her, and everyone else I met along the way, for everything they’d done for me. That night, I had a moment alone with KP and decided it was the perfect time to do it.
I’m not gonna lie, I froze up, and didn’t say anything even close to english. I just couldn’t get the words out… I still can’t describe what went through my head in that moment. There was a moment of silence, then just awkward cringe. We went to sleep. The next day was even worse. I felt like shit, absolutely pathetic. All I had to do was say “thanks for everything, you turned my life around.” What kind of idiot can’t do that? I was scared of her, scared she’d see me as pathetic as I saw myself. She was due to leave that night and I was freaking out. I wanted to explain my actions but the thought of approaching her after that incident terrified me. I secluded myself by the pool, covered up in a towel to hide my face. She came and found me before leaving, spending as much time as she could to try and calm me down. I stayed out there for another hour after she left, just a mess.
After the con, I tried to explain myself to her via Skype, but couldn’t. Once again she thought I was crushing on her, which is fair. It’s not hard to come to that conclusion when someone tries to pull you aside and just gawks at you. I still froze up at my chance to explain myself, and I didn’t know why. I tried a few times over the next month, I just could not bring myself to do it.
It was during this time that I started developing depression. I was so upset with myself, and I had this phobia that KP was going to leave me behind like I’ve seen her do with so many others. She said on that if I stopped editing for her, she would likely just stop talking to me altogether. That statement hung over my head constantly, that couldn’t possibly be true could it? After all the shit we’d done together, was I nothing more than an editor to her? It drove me insane.
About a month after the con, I was talking with her on the phone and I had to tell her how depressed I was getting, that it was getting to the point that I felt suicidal. There wasn’t much response from her, she rung up another friend of ours to give me some advice about it. I knew KP was bad with feeling empathy for others, so it didn’t come off as too surprising when she had someone else talk to me instead.
I kept editing and managing the editors despite the depression. My performance was slipping however, I was sleeping irregularly, and was clearly in poor spirits around other members of the team. They were supportive, the team. There was two editors in particular that would prove to be the friends I needed most. Their names are Taylor and Bennett. They were the two I gravitated towards when things got rough.
At this point, KP had turned her team into a video producing factory. She had taken herself out of the process as much as possible. She didn’t work with the editors directly at all. All information was sent to the heads, and her responses sent back with us as the middleman. She’d write the script, record, and was not to be bothered until the product was near complete. She didn’t even upload the videos herself anymore, she had us do it for her, description and annotations too. She almost didn’t have to be there after her one day of scripting and recording. She stopped watching the episodes with us as well, she didn’t want us distracting her while she was taking it in. Hell, we even did the charity work for her.
February and March were agonizing. Every day felt like an eternity, my depression was getting worse and worse… there were days I genuinely wanted to end it all. All I wanted to do was talk things out with KP. Get my feelings out. But now… I wasn’t even sure those feelings were true anymore. I wasn’t happy with where the team was going, it felt loveless, like KP cared about her content more than her team.
I was unsure whether I wanted to attend Babscon again. KP had invited me, but the thought of approaching her still petrifies me. It took a second reassurance from her that everything would be alright. I was staying with another newer team member this time, and not with KP. I showed up early, and waited in the lobby for everyone to arrive. I was very nervous the entire con. I had my hood up whenever possible, face hidden. I really didn’t want to be seen. If I wasn’t staying at the Crown down the road, I probably would have stayed in the room the whole time.
I was waiting to get my badge when she showed up. She didn’t make eye contact, she gave the sorriest excuse of a hug I’ve ever felt, didn’t say a word, cut in front of the line, took her badge, and left. I felt completely broken after that. I had hope that she meant it when she said she wanted to see me there, until that exchange happened. All my fears were coming true. I spent that con trying everything to just get a moment to talk to her about this. I needed to know if she still considered me a friend. She dodged me every chance she could.
At this point in time, KP had recently become good friends with a comic artist. KP followed this artist everywhere. She didn’t seem interested in me, or any of the other team members who were attending, even the ones who hadn’t had the chance to meet KP yet. It wasn’t until our panel that we got some actual time together, if only because the schedule demanded it. After the panel, we pulled KP aside and laid it down. There was tension in the air and we needed to clear it asap. We excused ourselves and found a place to talk… not a very good one as it turned out.
It went poorly. It started fine, KP showed interest in my well being. She told me to get immediate help for my depression, since suicide was becoming more and more of a real problem. The issue with our position, our actual physical position at the time of this conversation, was that we were in plain sight, where everybody and their mother could stop by and say hi to KP. I begged to go somewhere actually secluded but she just got annoyed, claiming it was fine. Every time I tried to speak, someone would interrupt us. It was like a bad script. The worst part, the actual worst possible thing, was that KP didn’t care at all. I’m here trying to figure out what’s going to happen between us, and she just decides to turn around and talk to whoever comes by instead. Literally, she literally turned her back to me to talk to someone just passing by. The conversation ended there, I was breaking down and left.
I spent the rest of the con with my local friends, trying to make the most of it.
After the con, I was still determined to fix the relationship. KP wanted me to get professional help for my depression, fine. I searched, and searched but couldn’t find anything in my area. There was one building in my town that supposedly had therapy services, but several phone calls and attempts to go inside lead to nothing. KP was refusing to speak to me until I had proof that I was seeing a therapist. I was starting to give up on making things right, but in the back of my mind, I knew that if I got through this, everything would go back to the way it used to. We’d be friends again, I’d stop feeling like shit, hell I might even go out and get me a girlfriend. The grass could not have looked any fucking greener on the other side.
Eventually KP told me to step down from my position on the team, she wasn’t letting me edit until I sorted this out. I guess that was when I should’ve seen it was over. I left the team, but KP still wanted me to get help, so I kept trying. Eventually, in early June, I was able to get in contact with a counsellor, who insisted I see her immediately. I told KP right after my first session. There was no response.
A few weeks passed, counselling was helping immensely. I’d told them everything about my adventures with KP, and how it suddenly tanked. They put everything in perspective, how KP played only a part in my achievements, the rest was all me. I was the one who went above and beyond. I had turned myself into a well oiled machine capable of any editing task that was thrown at me. I told KP I was ready to talk things out with her. There was no response.
I waited a few more weeks, still nothing. I felt better from therapy but still, it hurt seeing KP just ignore me like this. Like I didn’t matter anymore. I messaged her again, this time she did respond… and said that she didn’t want to talk yet.
July was a shitstorm. KP’s team was unhappy, to the point of revolt. A meeting was had where everyone could voice their concerns about the working conditions. I wasn’t even on the team, but they decided I should be there. Most of them didn’t know what I was going through, I’d kept it as vague as “I have depression” until this point. They made a list of demands and planned on presenting them to KP at the next meeting. I wanted to make this go smoothly, make sure everyone gets what they need out of it. I told KP ahead of time that this was going to happen, otherwise I’m sure she would not be able to handle it out of the blue.
At first she didn’t want to talk to me as usual. I had to insist again and again that she needs to hear this. She did not take the news well. There was a clear sign of fear in her messages. I had some conflicting feelings about talking to her. It’d been months since she started giving me silence. I was happy to see her again, but I didn’t want to make this about our problems. She kept prodding for info about the ordeal. Names, names, I need names Jordan. How could they do this to me, my own team? I can’t deal with this, I’m going to break… She was freaking the fuck out.
The team had put me back into the team chats for the intervention. KP was given a list of demands from the team, read out loud by our friend Taylor. KP agreed to most of them, giving more credit to the editors throughout the reviews, and more input on the scripts. The big one though, was the demands on “Let’s Go and Meet John de Lancie.”
KP knew about the assets the whole time, and she had to remove it. If she didn’t delist the video, there would be a mass leave. It broke her heart, having her magnum opus taken from her… it was rough. She did take it down, it’s gone. There was still some issues to be cleared up but the JDL video was so taxing on everybody, we postponed the remainder of the meeting until the next day.
The last thing KP had to do was apologize to the public for the way she treated the radioplay. She’d promised everyone to promote it on her channel, but decided she didn’t care about it anymore, and tossed it on a new channel where nobody would see it. All that work, over 2 years of it, all for nothing. Her apology was… well it was bad. Nobody was happy with it. It wasn’t sincere, she didn’t admit to doing anything wrong. We had her rewrite it, and it still sucked. We ended up fixing it for her.
She made a video apology after, all on her own. Judge it for yourself, if it’s still up. (I’ve been informed that her apology is no longer up. Go figure.)
So the team got their demands, mostly. On the whole they were optimistic but skeptical. Taylor had been in charge of the whole thing, being project manager and all, Taylor still cared about the team and wanted it to grow healthy again, much like myself. KP took Taylor’s actions as a threat. Telling Taylor that what was done was scummy, and hurt her feelings. She then took Taylor’s head status away, even though she claimed that she wasn’t upset with Taylor personally at all.
The following is Taylor's own remarks on the matter:
“I had brought up these issues several times over the past few months, including the notes of a ex-member of the group who posted a catalyst for the conversation as well as a popular Twitter feed. I used this to express urgency to KP directly for resolvement and discussion as a group regarding the concerns, as head I had worked to invite other people to be more open and to share feedback assuring privacy to other members (I had been somewhat aware of this member causing ongoing issues though I personally didn’t know of their accuracy as Jordan did), both current and post, I raised these concerns on repeated occasions to have them shot down and brushed off as a personal issue rather than a systemic one. When that radioplay came around again for the several times over final edit I was struck like many others in the team to have to restart a project I myself had been a part of a year ago. In fact it was the first project I ever worked on for the team. Though it was, quite frankly, very much not my favorite project I was more torn between keeping it and not but many others on the team were not very enthused by her decision to scrap it. This in conjunction with the lack of resolvement in past issues not being resolved by KP directly caused an escalation and I helped form the Union chat. I gathered old members and new telling them to keep it private until our requests could be ironed out. It was a ridiculously long Skype call that took place over about 3 days from start to finish. Despite strong tensions on both sides I helped manage everyone to speak one at a time and to write up a draft of the modifications we wanted to see changed as a team.I believed the best course of action was to attempt to reorganizing, still having much confidence in the team and enjoying most of the work we’d do. Regardless of everything I wanted to maintain the sense of community and talent that really flourished in the group. I had high hopes of rekindling this passion for a more team benefitting role of inclusion and representation. Quick shout out to Steph, a master artist with a full degree that created the breathtaking art in the Different Dispective series - story or not, the work and passion put into these projects are breathtaking. After the discussions I was blocked from communication with KP by essentially ignoring any messages I sent to reconcile. I chatted with the other head at the time and KP remained quiet for several weeks. Some time later I was invited to a group chat and was bashed for betrayal and demoted. Yes it had been my original intent to be kept in secret, and she took it as a stab in the back, despite the intent being for organization and to avoid a full out strike - I was even invited back to the team some time ago, something I saw as an olive branch of sorts - though by a representative (I had left afterwards for unrelated issues a few months later). I have great hope in what that group accomplished, KP no doubt works hard for what she does, and yet it got to the point where people were overlooked for what they could do for her, when I started she was a different person than from what she became. I fully respect the team and what they have accomplished she was an effective leader pulling together huge resources, but it got to a point of being too much like a business for volunteer work.”
I’d told KP that I wanted to rejoin the team, and settle whatever beef we still had. I wanted to build the team back up, make it feel like home again. A few days later I got a message from a mutual friend of ours. He told me that KP no longer wanted anything to do with me. She didn’t even want to tell me herself, she had someone else do it for her. After some back and forth however I was told I’d get one call to say goodbye… but our friend would have to be there too. Fine, at least she could be bothered to attend.
KP was very slow in the call. She took her time with every statement she had. I’d ask her why she was doing this, there would be a pause, then a very vague response about it being the best choice she can make for both of us. It bothered me how long she took to speak, until she forgot to mute her mic after I asked a question, and I heard someone else in the room with her, telling her exactly what she should say. I couldn’t believe it, I wasn’t even talking to KP, I was talking to her mom, or her friend, or whoever it was, through a KP-shaped walkie-talkie.
After she was caught, she was finally forced to talk to me, as herself. She didn’t know what to say at all. I was devastated, it was all for nothing, she didn’t care about me at all. She didn’t want me to get professional help because she cared about my well being, she just wanted me to sort it out with someone else, to go away. I wasn’t any use to her anymore so why should she bother keeping the friendship alive? We ended that call and I left the house.
I told Bennett and Taylor what happened, and the whole team was there in minutes. They had a big call to keep me sane, I was hysterical, I drove out to the middle of nowhere and just hid.
I left a final message on Skype for KP. I’d worked up the courage to say everything I needed to months before, but she never gave me the chance to say it. If anything, I’d at least make sure she sees it in text. There was no response, she blocked me immediately after.
Months passed, I didn’t edit, I didn’t watch ponies, I didn’t do anything. I sat in my room, alone for hours, letting my depression eat at me. I wasn’t angry, I was just sad. I got worse and worse, I only talked about how sad I was, pathetic.
I’d become determined to end it. Just call it quits on everything all at once, I told only one person, Bennett. Bennett had taken my place on the team after I left, and I’d grown close to him after the drama. I didn’t even have any time to tell anyone else, Bennett called the police and they were going to take me in. I spent the next week in a mental hospital, they let me out early.
See one of the worst things you can do to yourself is deny any social activities. I didn’t talk to anyone outside of a small handful of Skype friends. Most of the team I’d cut out, not wanting to be reminded of KP. The only exceptions where Bennett, Taylor, and one other. So when I arrived at the mental ward, I was forced to share a room with others, eat with others, live with others. Suddenly having people around, it was just what I needed to start picking myself up. By the last day, I’d made friends with nearly everyone in the ward, I even hosted games of blackjack using sugar packets as chips.
Once I got out I started taking steps to fix myself. I took therapy more seriously again, reconnected with friends, I even planned on attending Babscon again. Well it turns out someone had told KP about this and she decided that I shouldn’t go to Babscon.
I got a message from one of my local friends, who had just been confronted by KP and told to tell me to stay away from Babs. I was pissed, when KP was exiling me from her team, one of her demands was that I never have anyone contact her on my behalf. Well here she is, doing that very thing, and then what does she do? She does it again. She has Bennett tell me not to go to Babs, just because she would be there.
For a while I considered it, I really didn’t want to see KP again. I mean I did, I wanted with all my heart to set things straight, clear any bad blood between us, but I know that it will never happen. If I saw KP again, I’d probably break down, just like at the last Babs. It took a lot of thought to convince myself to go. I’d even managed to score a room with some new friend-o’s.
I went to Babs, and guess what. KP wasn’t even there. She tried to force me out of a con she wasn’t even attending. The worst part is the position she put my friends in to do it. It wasn’t until well afterword that Bennett told me how she used him to get the message to me. He’s one of my closest friends from the team, and she tried to use that against me… My own friends. It got to the point where Bennett was forced to choose between working with KP, or being my friend. This is one of the few moments where things actually worked out for the better, because he chose to leave her. He quit the team and came to me with an apology for everything she made him do. I’ve never been more proud of him.
The following is Bennett’s own words on his time on Team KP.:
“I edited for Team KP from November 2015 to April 2017. Toward the end of my time on the Team, it became clear that KP was taking advantage of my dedication to editing—regardless of whether she realized what she was doing. In March, I was involuntarily hospitalized long-term and had to drop everything, the Team included. KP blamed my hospitalization on my carelessness, and when I called from the acute facility (which was essentially jail)—in my darkest hour—to let her know I would be missing Whinny City, she let me know how I had fucked up. Later, from another hospital, I called to resign from the Team. At first, before she knew I was quitting, she expressed how concerned she was for my wellbeing. However, upon quitting the Team—when I was no longer of any use to the KP fame machine—I never heard another word from her. She never gave any messages of thanks, which I suppose sounds petty to ask for, but it’s the least she could have done after I had sacrificed two years of my life for her fame.
When I gave my resignation, I left KP with this dichotomy: ‘From one leader to another—you with the Team and I with Inscribe—the difference between us is that you manipulate your editors with fear and your fame, but I make my people feel like the most important people in the world.’”
So that was a sight into what working with KP was like for me personally. On the whole, I really miss her, the old her. She used to have a real sense of comradery about her team, but now it’s just a “Make KP more famous” machine. I doubt it’ll even stop until she says so, we’re so disposable to her, she can throw us out and immediately get someone else to do her bidding without a second thought.
I wish I could say that I’m over everything, but it still hurts. At the end of the day, I lost one of the best friends I ever had, even if she turned out to abandon me in a time of need, the memories of our good times still sit there, in an awkward space, no longer comforting.
I don’t know what I want from her anymore, if she sat down and cried her eyes out giving me an apology, an actual apology… I wouldn’t even believe it. I guess I want her to leave, not like get sent to outer space or anything, but if I could just figure out a way to take that part of my head that keeps thinking about all this, and throw it in the garbage, never to be seen again… well that’d just be great. Maybe I’d stop having all those nightmares about it… a man can dream though.
I decided to write this so I could finally have everything put out in the open. Now I can look back on this doc and say “That’s it, that’s everything that happened. I can move forward now.” Only time will tell if this actually works. If you have any questions, or just want to call me a tool or something, you can add me on Discord @Jmore#6854
And KP, if you’re reading this… Happy late birthday. (Warning: Cringe)
