This is frankly an awful response to the situation that only goes to show that Gio's portrayal on the situation; as far as the official Homestuck team's attempt to work officially with the UHC, not necessarily on his claims relating to HICU and FRAF; is overall a true and honest portrayal of how you guys operate. Nothing in this post does anything to actually soothe people's biggest concerns on the conduct and attitude of the official Homestuck team especially relating to fan projects like the UHC; the manipulation, gaslighting, frequent resorts to litigation over minor disagreements, and continued lack of accountability when rightfully exposed for this behavior. But to be fair, the only good response to what Gio revealed really could only have been "hey guys, these are doctored screenshots, we never actually said any of that, we don't know who this person is." But you didn't say anything like that so I guess that's a tacit admission that, yeah everything he showed really did happen and the only defense is that maybe he took it out of context to paint you as the bad guy for doing all the stuff that you did. You claim this post a response to defend yourself from unprovoked mudslinging and yet this serpentine behavior only proves what he says about you! If Gio is a person we shouldn't trust when it comes to exposing the behavior of the official Homestuck team, show us why we shouldn't believe him instead of just going "Well, I work for Homestuck and I think everyone that works for Homestuck is a swell group of guys." Why did you guys pretend to be professional about Gio being involved with negotiations about TUHC when approaching Bambosh only to later act like it was something that required concessions? Why did you guys lock out the co-creator of the project you were trying to license when it was necessary for him to be involved with negotiations to move forward, despite promising to get him under an NDA that would have allowed him to be involved? Why did you threaten legal action towards the original creator of TUHC to the point he stepped away from the project? Why did you repeatedly pretend it was TUHC's fault negotiations were going nowhere when it was your reluctance to involve Gio, and play the victim of being 'given the run around'? Why do you guys constantly flip-flop between TUHC being an amazing fan project that you guys appreciate and support as the best way to read homestuck being made by guys you want to work with in official capacity, and it being a grave infringement of copyright that Gio and Bambosh were lucky you guys allowed them to get away with? You can't have it both ways on this! You can't pretend(?) to be grateful for the work they did on that project, which allowed new readers to experience Homestuck closest to the way it was meant to be when your website was either broken or DOWN, and then also act like them doing so was this massive test of your patience that you have every right to strike down with full legal force if they don't play nice with you! It's either a copyright infringement you want taken down or it's not, you can't play it both ways to have the benefits of fans doing this stuff for your benefit while also having the guillotine of legal action over their heads the whole time! I'm not even under the impression all these questions don't have good answers you might have that actually can soothe the fanbase from this. But if you do, fucking say them! Say the things that will show us, "oh, the homestuck team actually WASN'T trying to manipulate these people that made this incredible boon to the fandom into handing over all of their work wholesale in exchange for nothing out of petty resentment over previous drama". Don't just say, "guys, please trust us, this guy is just a drama queen, I mean I think he's a nice guy and all but you can't trust anything he says, I've been getting threats over this, please just trust me that everyone working on homestuck is a good person that would never act the way he's saying we acted, even though I won't say all the evidence he has of us acting this way is fake." You're proving literally everything in his article that he says about you guys correct when you refuse to engage critically with any of his points and instead railroad the discussion into places it never was to pretend you have a real argument! Yes, the legal action you guys took against Gio for no reason other than petty resentment and cruelty will luckily NOT result in homestuck in it's original form being inaccessible because of the fork and the asset pack still being available. That's good. But what would make it even better would be if you just DIDN'T TREAT PEOPLE THIS WAY! And especially the well-poisoning potshots you take despite your cheery, positive, exasperated facade("shit like this “exposé” has a tendency to keep happening when gio is around, which is a riddle i’d invite us all to contemplate", real classy) just goes to show that Gio is right you are fully aware of the role you play in all of the lies and manipulation. Awful display.