the UHC situation

@hD

I think the issue is more that Hussie and other people affiliated with Homestuck had linked to and tacitly endorsed the UHC for a long time prior to everything detailed in the blog post. The contents of Gio's articles weren't heinous enough to invoke a legal takedown then, so what changed? That & the fact that there are a bunch of other mirrors still up, as people keep on very helpfully pointing out, reads to me as a personally motivated DMCA instead of just protecting their copyright. Which is a pretty shitty thing to do.

re: sethblaidd
No, I fully get what you're saying, my whole annoyance with the situation is that Gio is unable to write about this matter without a clear slant, either through malice or emotion, and his claims paint blame and collusion on just about everyone "on the other side". I honestly don't know if Gio is telling the truth or not, but he's made it clear that he can not, or will not, relay the situation with the transparency it deserves. Even ignoring the fact that 25k of the 40k words are extrapolation that's a pretty far stretch, or just straight up opinions, memes, and attacks of character, the timeline of events isn't even relayed and given to the public in a manner that indicates his goal is concise truth on the matter. Obviously Gio's claims make it so almost no one CAN tell the situation in a way that's satisfactory, because he's unable to act like a normal person, and there isn't a legitimate way to disprove claims of "everyone else involved is corrupt" in a way that pleases everyone.

I know no matter what Gio or the HS people involved say, I certainly won't feel like it's the "correct conclusion".

Unless there really is someone who is knowledgeable on this whole situation and isn't tied to either side, which I doubt.
Or like Hussie admits to all this or Gio takes the article down but we all know that's... unlikely.

Who knows thought, It's been like 4 days.

@sethblaidd

I think the "what changed" is pretty simple, for a period of years after HS^2 ended, Homestuck as a story or "IP" or whatever was effectively dead or dormant. The thing that changed was Hussie reorganizing the legal structure of his copyright, the situation with VIZ, and the plan to spin things up again with the HICU and Beyond Canon. The website is now even more busted, and so suddenly it's a big problem there's no official version of Homestuck and the fans have maintained the best version. This is the period of time Hussie and Miles initially reached out to Gio. And by Gio's own admission (via Miles's discord post), the legal advice Hussie initially received WAS to DMCA the collection and move on! But they didn't do that, and tried to cut a deal, and everything fell through. All pretty logical tbh.

I don't even disagree there's probably a personal motive because the bad blood between both of them is pretty obvious. And it may not even actually be about copyright which Hussie has been playing fast and loose with. But if they are concerned about maintaining the Homestuck "brand" or whatever, there's more incentive to go after Gio's website specifically because again, it also hosts articles disparaging the authors! I really don't think the other mirrors have stuff like that? I don't really want to speculate about motives though, at this point people have got that covered in spades lol

Not that tone doesn't matter at all, but I do think it's a little silly to see so many people complaining that a Homestuck fan wrote an essay in a smug, overtly-opinionated, digression-prone sort of purple prose that took forever to get to the point. Like. I wonder who was a formative influence on him. Probably not the person who writes that way even when sending legal threats

"I guess he has no problem making edits to his articles when people other than Andrew Hussie have a problem...?"

Changing your wording slightly to make it less abrasive is not the same as being asked to retract a work that you still stand by and were explicitly told that you would not need to worry about.

"That's not an unreasonable ask..."

It is not. The problem is not that Hussie asked that the articles be retracted.

"...and it also doesn't seem like it's some grand betrayal if that wasn't made obvious from the start as negotiations became more serious."

It is. Hussie's opinion of these articles seems to be constant and negative. Entering negotiations without being honest about what you want (and, in fact, directly lying about it) is slimy at absolute best. Later presenting the change as though it is not a change at all is even slimier. This was one of the central questions about Gio's involvement. It should have been brought up at the beginning, and they should have been honest about it when Gio brought it up.

Homestuck has all of the power in this negotiation. They are the ones who hold the rights to half of what Gio was hosting, and they have more money and more lawyers to enforce their will. Consequently, they should be held to a higher standard of conduct.

re: temporarilytaciturn

Yeah I mean fair.

It's just drama between one of the least communicative people on the planet (Hussie) and someone who's acting in a way that I just personally can not trust. Like obviously some of the claims in Gio's articles are just insane for the sake of being insane (especially the 2nd article, or the weird obsession with comparing Miles and the HS team with habitual abusers) but I can't tell if it's malice or if they really did feel that way. Like yeah if you just look at the evidence he gives it paints a really bad picture, but you really do need to see it in the context of an article that's claiming Andrew fucking Hussie of all people of running a coordinated harassment and NDA campaign for over a year. I don't even think Hussie could manage a lemonade stand for a month without problems coming up.

Until someone actually confirms the content of of Gio's articles, the things inside are very hard for me to believe. Obviously I'm more than ready to eat my words, but Gio's article was clearly not a spur of the moment operation, even according to his own article he would've been writing it since July, and the "faulty construction" of his article, at least to me, is reading as "inherently bad foundations".

I also don't think Miles not mentioning any factual evidence in his response is admittance or confirmation, you need to remember that Gio in his article pretty much said that anything and anyone connected Miles needs to be stopped immediately because Gio claimed that Miles is an evil cruel person who's attempting to manipulate everyone. Quoting directly from Gio in the section "What is wrong with this guy" - Miles "rcktpwrr"

"Miles is an odd case; he clearly works very hard to project this casual and friendly tone, but then he’s so obviously complicit in the worst of the lying and manipulation. Fundamentally Miles is what Andrew demands him to be: loyal. Miles appears to have been recruited out of the Homestuck fandom and is a self-described “diehard, longtime Homestuck fan” Now he’s working directly as a fixer for this mythic figure. I am of the opinion that Miles does bear some fault here; he knew what was going on, he knew what he was doing, he knew what he was participating in, and he signed his name to all of it anyway. Ultimately his willingness to act as a proxy for all Andrew’s worst qualities means he cannot be trusted, so it worries me to see him perform as some kind of liaison"

later, in the section "Don't support this" Gio says

"You especially shouldn’t support this right now, when the currently running major Homestuck project is running a Patreon whose money pays Andrew and Miles. Makeship Karkat isn’t worth having when he pays these salaries. Off the back of this story I’m just going to come out and make an explicit value judgment: you should not be giving Homestuck your money, and if you are you should stop."

Miles' response is just a denial of these 2 parts, because it has to be. In a perfect world where Gio was more concerned about getting his info out there, he wouldn't have put a direct call to action against the people he's accusing in it, because all he's managed to do was force a statement that never needed to get made, and muddy the waters even more.

Ok I think that's all I can really say on the matter. I'll wait on a response from the people who will respond, but I have a feeling this is about all I'll ever be able to feel about the situation. Distrust and annoyance at a lack of communication.

Note Before reading this: I cannot be brief, i had a bad habit of constantly adding onto things i write. This wouldn't be such a problem if i wasn't a slow writer who felt the need to triple check every statement. Like Stars above i made an image to explain things here. This WAS meant as a response to @wheatrice (TOOK TOO LONG, I MEAN THIS POST: https://www.fruityrumpus.com/forums/reply/689a6fd0c24c58e6534862e8, not the one you just posted. I do sorta reply to a small part that's relevant, but that's mainly by accident. I do add in a few addendums though to cover a few parts, though not in much detail due to time constraints.) and sorta still is but accidentally fell into a rabbit hole and ended up with this mess that has taken me well over 3 hours to write. Like i started with pointing out that Gio hadn't lied on either of those statements, it was just kinda shitty of him to do those thing, but then morphed into trying to figure out why Gio said those things. Apologies if this goes in odd directions. While i do believe Gio's accounts of events and interpretations seem plausible thanks to previous accounts of Homestuck Inc. but there are clear problems with the articles (Mainly the HICU one but the UHC article doesn't avoid this issue either.) That seem to have reasons for being like that. (Not good reasons, but y'know, reasons.) Which morphed into this over 2k word behemoth. More blog post than reply.

TLDR

(And i will... now onto the actual reply)

I mean... both of those things are pretty bad of Gio but that isn't really lying. Just shitty things for Gio to do. To be honest i do think i see an interesting connection between the Vast Error assumption and Cami's interview there.

For Vast Error he was speculating on it and didn't make any real definitive statements. To quote the entire Vast Error section directly "Vast Error was promised Andrew wouldn’t make demands, and then… well, I honestly don’t know how exactly Vast Error works, but Austinado is stepping down, which given the rest of all this is a smell, at least. Perhaps something terrible will happen? I hope not though." [1] It's made obvious in the article by it being marked as a Tangent and being a literal sentence long with the conclusion feeling like a penciled in "Maybe????". My best guess as to why Gio did that (And im not of the opinion Gio's deliberatly trying some sort of smear job on Hussie, the discord logs are bad enough, Gio doesn't need to make things up to make Hussie look bad) is revealed with the Message from Cami, GIO MESSAGED CAMI 2 DAYS BEFORE THE DAMN ARTICLES CAME OUT. (Assuming their time-zones are either the same or similar, that means Gio sent this at night, So that's more like 1 day at that point) It's admittedly something I'm surprised I'm not seeing people talk about. It explains so much of the weirdness in the article and constant editing after the fact. The main article was in a finished and somewhat polished state, needed some editing but it's content complete for the most part. meanwhile the HICU article... Just isn't? Like the fact that Vast Error is given an entire heading but is literally just a single sentence reeks of just not finishing the damn article. It's mainly the HICU article that seems to be affected by this problem. like it looks like it's trying to pull double duty of being a HICU investigation post and a summary of conclusions he has drawn from his and other people's experiences with HICU/Homestuck Inc/Hussie.

I've read many of Gio's works before this (beyond the Hiveswap articles) and this explains the lack of polish. I really wonder as to why Gio rushed out the articles in this state, since this really isn't his best work. Like was the point that it's like Vriska day or something? Seems really dumb and unrelated tbh. A better self-imposed deadline if there had to be one would've been October 26th, the start of UHC, So it ends on it's anniversary. [A]

(To go on a tangent, it would've been more dramatic too which i do think is a good thing because i find that sorta stuff charming, tbh i feel like the only person who liked the UHC website "redesign", it was kinda funny and charming for Gio to be so intentionally dramatic.)

This also explains the big nothing burger that was the FRAF section of the HICU article (Mainly just warning FRAF about Hussie, because FRAF hasn't really done anything wrong), Cami must've been the only person Gio talked to about FRAF because the next day was the day before the article had to come out (For some reason? This is the main sticking point, i don't know why Gio felt so rushed to get the article out before it was ready? Why not do more interviews? Like the only thing that comes to mind was the existence of FRAF made him feel rushed? I can't really speculate any deeper since i don't know Gio nor have i ever spoken to them so guessing any further would really feel like im writing Gio Fanfiction. Maybe the Official response will help in this regard but i doubt it, that's something Gio would need to answer.)

Also about Cami's response, from the little snippet we see of the Cami and Gio conversation. It's obviously a leading question. Which is bad Journalism for Gio to pull[2], presumably Gio pulled this constantly if Cami felt like Gio had bad intentions. (It really does just feel like Gio had a conclusion in his head, and then kept subtly pushing her to say something that'll support it. Which i guess Gio would have to do if the article for whatever reason had to be released on 8/8, impossible to do Good Journalism if you aren't giving yourself the time to get it done. Also pretty shitty of him in general.)[3]

Like i feel the need to drive this home a bit, the HICU article is very shitty, not in the "Gio has bad intentions" or anything like that. It's just shit journalism, it's a first draft that should've been delayed, reworked, and then polished, with sections which are fully just assumptions that lack the constant qualifiers that should exist to remind the reader of that fact. (Which leads to misunderstandings because this article specifically is just poorly made.) The only parts of that article that felt decent was the first half of it (which feel fairly usual, but are mainly based on old information and stuff from the UHC article, thus could've been written a while ago) and the ending (Which feels decently written, but is somewhat disconnected from the Case Studies.), The SAHCon part was like sorta okay (I got rid of the rest due to finding out the person i was going to talk about requested not to be apart of this)[4] The rest of the "Case Studies" just sucked, they were underbaked and lacked much information, feeling more like leads Gio needed to follow on than things that were fit for publishing half the time.

Now i don't think the UHC article was poorly made, maybe needed to be beta-read or have more polish put on it to deal with problem statements For example "Gio-ish" is one of them, an edgy joke is ill fitting for this article. The article's is about a very serious subject and that joke could lead to an unintended interpretations of the writings, also calling Hussie an "Angry Man" was very shitty, not cool to call an enby a man. I'm only willing to give Gio some leeway on that (outside of the fact that i have a positive opinion of Gio, i do try to separate that when i write this but it's hard to catch your biases...) Since it seems more like an error than intentional Transphobia due to how easily the offending statements could be removed and rewritten without affecting the article. It's admittedly why Gio should've just used They/them or other pronouns instead of He/Him despite the fact people refer to Hussie as He/Him all the time, including Hussie's friends. the best way to avoid an incident like that is to prevent it in the first place. Because it's hard to call an enby an "Angry Man, if you're she/her'ing them or they/them'ing her.

So TLDR On that last part, Gio should've done something like this. (This image is sorta a joke, it's something Gio should've done as a preventative step, but the image itself is a joke to reference OSHA safety standards in Homestuck drama and have it make sense. It is missing the "Get a Beta reader" step though, couldn't fit it in with the format.)

I don't really have any grand conclusions outside of the articles have issues likely because Gio rushed them to hit the 8/8 deadline for reasons unknown. Perhaps Gio could've easily mitigated some of them but he really should've just pushed the date back to ensure they're in the best shape he could feasibly make them, so that's why things keep changing in the article, since everyone reading it is essentially beta reading the articles for issues and Gio has to keep rushing to fix said issues.

Sidenote: Kate has apologized for the things she said about Gio, apparently sent an email to Gio about it. https://bsky.app/profile/im.giovanh.com/post/3lw5vzqgubs2w Here's the bsky so you can read it. She specifically says in BSKY "Please do not use my experiences as a bludgeon in this conflict against any individual, including Gio. I am not interested in being involved in disputes over this comic. Thank you." I'm mainly bringing this up since at least under mile's post, no one has brought this up and i think it's good for people to keep in mind going forwards to not bring her up unless absolutely necessary to whatever point you want to make. So because of this Gio has taken her out of the article out of respect and added a new section to that piece of the article. It's under the section of "On Aysha’s Behalf" in the UHC article in the "Update From the Future" box https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2025/08/08/uhc-end/

Sidenote 2: i would not be surprised if there are errors here, I've spent way too long on this but due to the nature of forums, i sorta have to put this up now, unless i want to go to bed and wake up to find the conversation going somewhere else. Like i nearly wrote a note saying Cami might have things in Day month year format in discord, but that'd make no sense since FRAF wasn't around in July. I'm committing the cardinal sin of writing something before going to bed (not my intention but y'know... 3 DAMN HOURS. I accidentally wrote a blog post instead of the reply i originally set out to make. Like can you tell my writing style is a bit inspired by Gio, a dash of Andrew Cunningham, and school essays? Probably not that middle part but you get my point. It's the main reason i haven't gotten around to working on my Home-Skillet analysis posts in like a year. I take too damn long.)

Sidenote 3: I didn't delve much into the Cami Response here. Apologies about that, that wasn't intentional but i don't really have the time to wrap back around to that and go in more detail.

1: https://web.archive.org/web/20250808143410/https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2025/08/08/the-homestuck-union-was-always-fake/ (Gio took that part of the article off but you can find it here. I really do think this was irresponsible of Gio.)

2:I mean, there are situations where a leading question could be a good idea, but that's if you think the person you're talking to will be dishonest so you have to effectively fool the truth out of them. I don't think Gio has any reason to think Cami would outright lie to them, so it's just Gio being shitty for whatever reason.

3: Didn't Gio work for Befriendus a few years ago? He's still in the credits as an advisor and his portfolio lists him as the technical supervisor[5]. Surely he still has some ties to the team and can ask some questions relating to FRAF, as Befriendus is in FRAF. Heck could provide a perspective of "rank and file" members of FRAF and what members of a big project get to be in FRAF. Like is it every member? some? Just one person? It's a mildly interesting question that would've been neat to find out.

4: https://bsky.app/profile/funkmclovin.bsky.social/post/3lvxxtf5ylc2w It wasn't particularly important in the first place to talk about that tbh. So i cut that part out, i just feel the need to explain why i avoid talking about it.

5: https://blog.giovanh.com/portfolio.html#tab1 (Citations in my Citations? More likely than you'd think!) Also this Portfolio doesn't list an end for Gio's work in the project so they may still technically be a team member of Befriendus which could mean Gio's technically a member of FRAF... probably not but mildly funny to think about.

A: wait why A instead of a number? Because i don't want to reformat this list of notes. But anyways, to reinvigorate the original spirit of this oversized reply turned blog post. plansForeseen, you mentioned "..."faulty construction" of his article, at least to me, is reading as "inherently bad foundations"." I mildly disagree, i think the faulty construction is that the articles are the articles being rushed to be finished on 8/8 instead of getting the time it deserved to be fully polished also i apologize for accidentally turning my reply to your post from 5 hours ago into a blog post, I've said this multiple times in this reply but this just happens sometimes. Also, thanks for your perspective as to why it makes sense for Miles to write his post the way he did, i guess that makes sense. I do personally think this post from miles was a mistake as it doesn't say much on it's own. But i can now see why Miles felt the need to write this. Would say more, but it's well past 11 PM where I'm just tired. I might respond to it in more detail later if the conversation doesn't move away from that part of the conversation. (Extra note before i post this reply, yeah i can see why you don't believe Hussie wouldn't be capable of organizing something like Gio says, again I'm tired to i won't go into detail yet. But thanks for your measured response to this.)

@sethblaidd

would just like to say i agree that bambosh's words and testimony abt the negotiation process ARE very damning and should be acknowledged more i think. i personally all but forgot about that screenshot in the rollercoaster of reading the article (and feeling like almost none of the accusations from gio tracked), i apologise for that + the lack of consideration towards something that was clearly incredibly stressful for them.

bc i completely agree, if that's even like, mostly true wrt how hussie goes about legal proceedings (esp with, unlike gio's established bad blood, bambosh seems to have done exactly fuck all to "deserve" any legal pushback at all) it's pretty damning. and unlike claims made about hussie's 'control' over the HICU etc. it would seem to have precedent considering the aggressive legal strategy pursued over sarah z's videos.

i still have a lot of doubts about what the day to day legal conversations were about (mainly because the timeline as @fralexion summarised it sounds completely insane, and i just cannot fathom how a deadlock as simple as 'we're in a catch-22 here and can't proceed until gio gets the NDA' could possibly drag on for half a year. it's not even that gio wouldn't sign it, but that gio didn't have it? what?). i guess since reading gio's article makes me feel like im getting half of the story at best, i feel like even bambosh's statement raises more questions than it answers. is that level of incompetence even believable...?

[though wrt to 'why gio when other homestuck mirrors exist' i would just note, like @sword said, that gio is the only person that im aware of who tied their personal brand + accomplishments to a homestuck mirror. like, the url for it had giovanh in it, there was a gio dropdown, watermark, etc. that more than explains the terms of the negotiation to me. it was in no way something that could be officially liscenced without granting that same legitimacy to gio and their articles.]

I know this is relatively minor, but:

> gio is the only person that im aware of who tied their personal brand + accomplishments to a homestuck mirror

Didn't this whole thing when the collection was hosted at https://bambosh.github.io?

Bambosh and Gio were contacted when the website looked like this, with Bambosh's name in the URL https://web.archive.org/web/20230424114546/https://bambosh.github.io/unofficial-homestuck-collection/. Gio is only mentioned at the very bottom.

This line:

> bambosh needs time to check with a lawyer and so we’re amenable to giving that time, and again i think andrew is As We Speak instructing his lawyer to get the C&D delayed a while

happens when the website looks like this! https://web.archive.org/web/20231128012930/https://bambosh.dev/unofficial-homestuck-collection/

And at least one other mirror also has the author name in the URL, the kici.moe one. I don't think the C&D has anything to do with a developer crediting themselves.

makin, as in hs reddit's makin? wow. idk if ur looking for a response here and im not sure i want to talk to you. but in the interest of good faith i guess:

if you don't agree that there's a difference between gio and 'kici.moe's intertwining of their own brand with their homestuck mirrors (my main point being, do we even know who kici moe... is? compared to gio being an extremely established figurehead? who had 'saved homestuck' as his tag?) then that's fine. i do know gio's name was in the url mid 2023, but it's possible it wasn't by october. thanks for the archive link, the layout changes i was referring to must've been undone before the talks started. also looks like they weren't archived either way so it's kind of a 'trust me bro' moment, apologies. with all that in consideration, maybe it wasn't on hussie's mind at all, and just mine. i appreciate the corrections.

"Moe" is probably referring to the anime colloquialism, not the name Moe. That's reserved for Stooges and Syzlak's anyway.

Regardless, I don't think Gio's showboating is much of an argument one way or the other. If anything about it is, it's that he wrote the articles and was involved with the UHC at all. The reason the site is gone and not the reader itself is because it gave the articles visibility. It would have done that no matter what it was called, because he's allowed to link his socials or whatever, and that's a normal thing to do no matter how prideful he was.

I'm thinking that's probably why they said the articles wouldn't be a problem at first, they wanted Bambosh on board and knew they'd have to deal with Gio somehow, but figured part of him being involved at all would either soften his view of them enough to change something, or at least publicly display some goodwill in that the guy they beefed with is now part of their team. But they underestimated how much stake he had in the project, and that's why Bambosh being legally unable to sign threw such a wrench in the works. Him transferring ownership to Gio was the nail in the coffin, and that's maybe why things got to "remove your shit or else".

All completely unnecessary of course, if they had been honest and simply taken Bambosh at his word, they could either have requested Gio give full ownership back, or fuck, just said from the start "hey we wanna make this work, but you can't talk shit about us, past or future". Of course, Gio might not have gone for that, given that he probably liked being part of the UHC and views his articles as doing a public justice, but that's his prerogative.

@Wheatrice Alright, I'm going to make sure this response doesn't turn into a blog post. (Responding to https://www.fruityrumpus.com/forums/reply/689aa97dc24c58e6535930f3)

Alright, i can very much see why you don't think Hussie is capable of what Gio said due to incompetence. To be honest i held that sort of opinion too in the past due to the Sarah Z video coming off as extreme incompetence, and just... well it's really stupid to throw legal threats at someone with a lawyer if you don't have the law to back you up. I do still think Andrew Hussie is incompetent at the business and legal side of things here. It's just unlike with the Sarah Z video, the law was very much on their side here. So their legal threats to Gio had some real teeth to them.

On the "Habitual Abuser" claims, those are clear reflections of Gio's feelings on them due to the UHC debacle and makes his bias clear (which i think it's a good thing, it'd be weird for Gio to try and pretend to be unbiased on something that directly affects him, like imagine if Gio felt this way but hid it? Now that'd be dishonest of him.). Hussie constantly throws legal threats and Miles supports them all the way by acting as an intermediary (Sidenote 1: i still find it weird Miles continued acting as one when the HICU became a thing, and then when he became co-director, feels like a conflict of interest. To draw a comparison Gio makes, It's like if your Union Rep was great friends with your boss. There isn't anything "wrong" with that, but it could lead to bias which hurts the Union Rep's ability to do their job, which in Mile's case is being independent from Hussie. Y'know like how James Roach didn't involve themselves in the UHC dealings since doing so would make James directly subordinate and literally speaking for Hussie.). But i don't remember Gio claiming more members of the HS team are "Habitual Abusers" like Gio didn't call James Roach one, or anyone else, at most a vague handwave towards "upper management" being responsible.

As i went over before the articles have issues due to being rushed but i realize i don't really have anything else to add that my original post didn't there. Like the FRAF section of the HICU article he uses information he got from his interview with Cami, without it, what the hell would've Gio written? So much of the weirdness to me is the articles needing more time in the oven. Especially the HICU article which would've benefited from more interviews and research on the "Case Studies" (Sidenote 2: if Gio really had to get the articles out on 8/8. Get rid of the case studies and focus on past incidents. Since those aren't reliant on interviews and getting new information no one has seen before. Like the first half of the HICU article, which focuses as to why the HICU needed to exist due to previous incidents of heavy-handed use of copyright laws against people. Like seriously the HICU article could've been a great resource on PAST incidents but its marred since Gio wanted to focus on current Homestuck licensed projects like FRAF despite not putting in the necessary research to make those parts good.)

Now finally on Mile's post here. I still think it's a bad idea and Miles shouldn't have done it. While he might want to protect himself against Gio's claims, since no one wants to be seen as a abuser or otherwise shitty person. The main way he could would be the stuff the OFFICIAL response would have. This leads this response lacking much in the way of things to properly go against Gio's claims of his character beyond well... his personal feelings. (Sidenote FINAL (3): So go on a particular point here is Mile's claim of this article being more like Gio yelling FIRE! In an open theater which to be honest , Gio did. But i do think that Gio thought there was a Fire in said theater thanks to what he personally faced in UHC. It does mean Gio should've spent more time and been more cautious, or release the HICU article later if need be.) There's also the problem that sin of a Official response, people will take this as one because it's the best we got at the moment. Which is a problem since this response mainly focuses on Mile's interpretations of events with doesn't really contradict anything Gio says happened, which just makes Gio look like he's right. Which isn't what Mile's Intended.

(Sidenote FINAL V2 (4): Mainly a quick response to timeisrestored, Gio having their name on the UHC website link makes sense, since it's hosted on his website giovanh.com. Just because they're a well known name doesn't change that fact. If it's your work, it's ok to put your name on it. Also the homestuck.giovanh.com website used to host the online port of UHC, (which was Gio's personal project, unrelated to Bambosh and not endorsed by UHC) and was quickly reworked to also host the offline version when bambosh left the project if memory serves me right.

RE: Maxnexus

After I saw you talk a bit about what I shared from my conversation with Gio before, I thought it might be informative to share the conversation in its entirety which you can find here: https://www.fruityrumpus.com/forums/t/my-full-conversation-with-gio-1

@timeisrestored

I agree the October-June timeline is the biggest question mark, but I don't think we're ever getting answers about what exactly went down in that period... Gio wasn't privy to whatever discussions were happening between Bambosh/Hussie/Miles/lawyers due to NDA's, and none of those parties can release that info, or really have any incentive to. Bambosh might I guess, but they seem to have pretty firmly washed their hands of the whole situation, and also I'm sure does not want to get sued.

My 2 cents, whatever they're worth, is that it really is down to Hanlon's razor -- it was incompetence, from both ends, not malice from either. I will be putting on my speculation hat below -- I am not asserting anything happened that isn't directly confirmed by Gio/Miles' statements.

The Timeline, as presented by Gio:

October 2023 -- Miles first approaches Gio/Bambosh, Gio has reservations, Miles says do not worry about that stuff (potentially, and, imo, probably, without consulting a laywer). Bambosh signs an NDA that Gio/Bambosh are both happy with, with the expectation that Gio will be sent one after. Multiple people are on vacation after this so not much happens for a month.

Side note: I think it is crazy that contract negotiations like this are taking place over whats basically IRC... it's surreal to see Miles drop stuff like the Cease and Desist threat with the hawaiian rocket power guy as his avatar. Maybe I'm out of touch but it seems a wildly unprofessional medium to have those kinds of conversations. Whatever! Useless tangent!

November 2023 -- Bambosh is sent a license of some kind to look over, and gets their own lawyer involved.

Hanlon razor/wild speculation point number one -- it is entirely possible that Bambosh ended up with a lawyer that wasn't very good at their job and/or was just not making Bambosh a priority. I don't have a contract laywer on retainer, nor do I assume most normal private citizens do, and if I were getting one to look over some documents that I thought were relatively innocuous I probably would not be shelling out a bunch of money. I think this primarily because of Miles comments about the lawyer ghosting them and not responding in a timely fashion -- Miles reads that as an intentional delaying tactic, i.e., malicious, I read it as (there are other, higher priority cases in that lawyers load or the situation has not changed and there's no point reiterating something that has already been stated).

This is, again, wild speculation, but Miles intimates that they don't even have a lawyer... I think the tone of Miles' messages suggests he thinks the "lawyer" is just Gio, at this stage, but we really have no idea.

Hanlon razor/wild speculation point number two -- at some point in here, Miles/Andrew talk to their own lawyer, and are told that Gio's involvement is a bad idea or straight up a non-starter. Gio reads the flip-flopping on this point as intentional manipulation but I think it's just incompetence -- Miles or Andrew promised it wouldn't be a big deal, lawyer says actually it would be a big deal, now it's a big deal. Which is, again, why having contract negotiations over discord is ridiculous, but whatever.

Hanlon razor/wild speculation point number three -- I think the really big point here, and if I were trying to construct this post intelligently I probably would have lead with this, is that Hussie/Miles don't think whatever co-ownership deal Bambosh/Gio have set up actually holds water, legally speaking. The impasse, from Gio's POV, is that Bambosh can't sign it without Gio's involvement, they refuse to send Gio the NDA, so nothing can happen. That behavior makes no sense from Hussie/Miles POV, and Gio sees it as malice... but if whatever lawyer they have takes a look at it, says "nah this is not legally binding, you don't need this guy around to move forward" then it makes sense to get Bambosh to sign off on things without having to put someone they do not want involved under contract. In terms of incompetence v. malice, they fully intend to involve Gio in some capacity after Bambosh signs the license... they aren't lying, but it's a sticking point.

That explains messages like "as for your involvement, running the project as a twosome, we get it and as im just now getting back we can look into getting you under NDA so you can mutually look over the license." Gio reads this as a lie, more or less, but to me it scans more like "Bambosh can sign this without you, but since it is a sticking point for the both of you, we will continue to look at getting you involved [although our lawyers have already told us not to do this for whatever reason]"

November-February

Firmly in speculation territory here. We have no idea what happens, and at least officially, nor does Gio. We get a conversation with James Roach that says "I’m assuming you’re not familiar with the details then but right now from what I’ve been told things are locked up with lawyers for some reason"

Couple of assumptions here -- totally possible Gio is more in the loop than they claim and simply cannot fess up to it because it would have involved Bambosh breaking NDA. It certainly seems like Miles thinks this is the case, as the big message in May addresses both of them as a unit despite Gio claiming pretty much complete uninvolvement for the remaining months. Regardless of whether or not it's true, it explains the hostility Bambosh claims to have experienced -- they believed Gio was using them as a proxy, which is why Miles speaks of Bambosh kindly in the message that started this whole thread.

Other assumption -- not much happens in this period because it was primarily over the holiday season, and, again, Bambosh got a lawyer that was not treating this as a high priority for whatever reason. Miles and Andrew both had vacations in October, sent things in November, look things over, maybe exchange emails requesting clarification or rewording or whatever... I can very easily see how things proceed cordially till February with bi-weekly email exchanges. Or, as Miles suggests, maybe Bambosh didn't even have a lawyer in November, and was either looking things over on their own or spent some time shopping for one in this period of time.

February-May

We have literally no idea what happens here. Things obviously stop being cordial at some point.

My interpretation: Bambosh continues to assert that they won't sign without Gio's involvement, using an actual lawyer. Probably more prevarication over wording. Hussie/Miles/lawyer assert, Gio can be involved but will not until the license has been signed and despite whatever Gio thinks, this is legally possible. If Bambosh does not sign a license, the C&D will be issued at some point.

It stretches out for a long time, because, despite what Gio asserts, this was not a chess game on the part of Miles/Hussie -- they have genuine good intentions, do not see the license as a power-grab, and do not actually want to issue a C&D. They will use it, but it's more of a last resort than a bludgeon.

Privately, Hussie/Miles think that Gio is using Bambosh as a proxy and stonewalling to do... something, which is why they feel the C&D becomes necessary. I'm still very ??? about this -- Miles message in May (that's fun!) asserts they were stonewalling to gain some kind of leverage, and sort-of-says that leverage is weaponizing community against Homestuck if they are forced to issue a C&D, which makes very little sense. It's the best read I can get from the what we have, and this is one of those things where with extra context, "leverage" was a licensing fee or something and Gio/Bambosh come out looking a bit worse.

That really, really got away from me, and I appreciate it if you read the whole thing.

@sethblaidd

I'm reading over your idea of events, and it looks fairly plausible. But even then it makes Hussie and Miles look kinda shitty. If Bambosh wants Gio in the negotiations, even if technically not necessary for whatever reason, they still have to. I'm not a legal expert by any means but Gio and Bambosh ARE under a co-ownership agreement, even if there isn't a formal legal document. If lets say it was agreed over discord and thus there's a paper trail. It's still binding even without a legal contract since there would be an agreement between that the two of them knowingly operated under and affirmed for years, Legal Contracts and EULA's mainly exist to state these things explicitly and in full detail but aren't technically necessary. Those mainly exist to prevent confusion of the exact terms. It's still weird they apparently keep insisting on operating without Gio, like if Gio being in the conversations is one of Bambosh's demands due to their agreement, Homestuck Inc. would have to comply even if their lawyers say Gio doesn't have to be in them. That's because it's the terms Bambosh has no interest in moving away from, it's non-negotiable.

Also it's generally rude to keep reminding Gio and Bambosh that you can take legal action, it's true but it makes negotiations more tense and a constant insistence you can do it sours relations and gives the feeling of being strong armed into agreeing to a legal contract.

Another thing is why would Hussie's lawyer say Gio being a part of this is a non-starter? The only thing that comes to mind is the Hiveswap Articles might be saying some things that could possibly get WhatPumpkin sued? Agreeing to let Gio on might come off as an endorsement of the articles in a courtroom? Again I'm not a lawyer, but it's just my best guess as to why a lawyer would recommend against having Gio on. It's a plausible reason, especially if they listen too much to their lawyers when at the end of the day the lawyers work for them to advise the best legal course of action for what they (Homestuck Inc.) want to do and not to make the legal decisions for them. an issue if have with this though is that it's not what it comes off as later when they ask Gio to speak out against the Sarah Z Homestuck video which has nothing to do with him beyond it using his work. Could be them overcompensating for whatever reason but still, it's all very weird and i hope the official response gives a better idea of what happened.

Either way, thanks for the write up, i admittedly hadn't considered both side could've been incompetent here but it could explain some things (Like why Miles was here when the HICU is supposed to be independent from Hussie, having one of them directly work for Hussie is weird but it could be explained by Miles and Hussie just not realizing how that could look bad.)

gio writes like a journalist. journalists are annoying to work with. but the chat logs from his article that no one from Hussie’s side has bothered disputing show that Hussie was using the threat of a DMCA to fry and wrest control of the project and to force Gio to take down Hiveswap articles from years ago. this is after Hussie threatened legal action against some youtuber just for mentioning the articles without being able to describe any specific libel that was occurring. just not a good look for the guy

Gio does not write like a journalist, Gio writes like a pretentious person writing a callout post

@Squiddo cute that you think there’s a difference

Ah, you're pretentious too. I see.

@sethblaidd

The timeline on the "Gio involvement is a bad idea" realizations would have to be pretty tight for the chatlogs to make sense. On October 4th Miles affirms that the plan is for Bambosh to sign, then Gio signs his own immediately afterwards, then they talk. The next day Bambosh signs, then that evening Miles reaffirms that the plan is for Gio to sign. They most likely had a lawyer's input on the drafting and editing process of the first NDA; why would they have not talked over the broader plan already? How would it have reached the last second before they realize that it's such a bad idea to involve Gio that they'll refuse to send the NDA? And what changed for Hussie/Miles to apparently be willing to get Gio licensed anyway, after Bambosh left? This doesn't even get into the sudden insistence upon a settlement, which is roughly the same as the above all over again.

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, why are the NDAs staggered to begin with? They should be more or less the same document, so why would one need to be signed before the other can even be made available? I can't say for certain that there isn't some complicated legalistic or logistical issue with it, but it's strange that this window of opportunity exists at all.

I don't think it's strictly impossible for this to be the result of a lot of incompetence and changing opinions, but there would need to be a very impressive explanation for all this for it to not reek of malice.