ok, so, big day. i’ve been at work all day with my phone blowing up but i just got home so now i can make a post about this UHC situation.
to be clear, this isn’t the “Homestuck Official Response” or whatever, but there’s stuff i clearly want to address now, because this story has taken on a life of its own and i’d like to keep things considerate and maybe give my own side of the story here before any “Homestuck Official Response” happens.
if this is something you have strong opinions on (which i completely understand), i'd really encourage you to give this a read with an open mind.
a few early tl;drs but i’m getting into all of this in more detail below, so... this post is a highly suggested read if you’d like to begin to hear a different side of this story:
A: no, the UHC is not gone forever, there is a fork up right now. the Homestuck site itself is still being worked on and improved and andrew has no intentions of turning Homestuck into “lost media”, that’s not going to happen. Homestuck is not going away or in any danger of disappearing, i promise.
Aa: here is the fork: https://homestuck.github.io/
B: no, FRAF and the HICU are not andrews evil goons commanded by a shadowy puppet-master.
C: i’ve already begun getting threats over this, and also seen all kinds of accusations slung at me, the HICU, FRAF, even james, so i’d like people to hear me out here and not attack people over this. gio, to his credit, has also emphasized this, which i appreciate, and i'll also emphasize that i do NOT want people harassing gio over this. i have no interest in starting a flame war.
D: a more organized and “receipt”-y account of this whole thing from Homestuck's perspective may be coming in the coming days, though certainly not tonight. i am not just talking out my ass, here, but i also didn’t exactly have presumably months to spend perfecting a gigantic article that positions me as the epic folk hero and the other parties as the nefarious pawns of a shadow cabal, so sit tight for some other stuff. i don’t really know that i am going to have much (or any?) part in writing that if it happens, besides offering any screenshots of my own.
E: i'm of the opinion that gio's article was pretty transparently not written out of a benevolent desire to protect homestuck fans' access to the comic.
F: i anticipate that this post is gonna be treated as something to refute, but it's a Post. this is not like, My Counter-Article, like i said i'm not the guy writing one. i'm getting my perspective out because i think everyone has a right to hear it.
okay, let me get into it. some context.
the thing i need to start this off with is as follows: 2 years ago, before HS:BC was even coming out (and, i’ll note, WELL before i was ever a co-director) andrew asked me if i’d be comfortable acting as a liaison/go-between between him and bambosh+gio regarding offering a license to the Unofficial Homestuck Collection and bringing it into the fold, allowing them to monetize and publish a bunch of behind the scenes goodies like more book notes, other future collabs, and sneak peaks etc. it would have been a cool one-stop shop for homestuck shit, and i was new to the HS:BC team and incredibly eager to get involved in not just writing HS:BC but anything else. the reason andrew asked me to be a liaison is because, as i’m sure is pretty obvious to anyone by now, there was no love lost between andrew and gio over the previous round of homestuck PR clusterfuckery that happened 4-5ish years ago, and andrew thought this all might go over better if i was between andrew and gio to like, make nice, try to offer the olive branch in a less intimidating way, etc. maybe also because 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.
i wanna pause and emphasize something here, because it’s one of the most important things i want to get across. i was acting as a Liaison for andrew, as a MESSENGER, FOR andrew, not as like, a Lawyer or and Advisor or a “coconspirator” or the guy who authored the decisions that actually got made here. i did not and do not tell andrew what to do about anything, certainly not about how to handle the Homestuck IP or any moves he wants to make legally. i gave some advice on how to communicate and actually Did The Communicating, but during all of this i wasn’t even the director on HS:BC, i was literally just a writer who thought he was stepping into a short, sweet process to get a cool collaboration going between the UHC and Homestuck as an IP.
i was also NOT acting as a representative of ANY aims of the HICU. you can ask literally anyone on the team if this was on our docket, the answer is no. again, i was acting as a liaison for andrew to try and keep communications more productive so that we could start expanding the Homestuck<—>Fan network and do cool shit. i’m hardly an accredited PR guy, but for what it’s worth, i tried.
i obviously mentioned the HICU to gio and bambosh, and it was still taking form as an entity back then so i was super loose with the term and the role it actually played in the issue of the UHC (which is to say, Literally None.) in a way that in retrospect i Obviously Should Not Have Been. that said, i need to make this abundantly clear, now, because the team and i are already starting to get threats over this: the HICU is not “secretly controlled by andrew” (nor is the patreon money split with Andrew, by the way.). we hold a license for Homestuck, his property, and obviously consult with him on merch, 4/13 events and the like that we participate in, but he doesn’t control the team, and he certainly doesn’t control HS:BC. the same needs to be said now for FRAF as well; cami and others have already gone into this and i expect this conversation is going to continue to play out for a while, but FRAF is not “controlled by andrew” either. like the HICU, FRAF holds a license with andrew to work with and monetize Homestuck fanworks, because at the end of the day, Homestuck is andrew’s story.
the number of people who actively talk to andrew between FRAF and the HICU can probably be counted on one hand, and of those people, the number of those who have had more individual conversations with andrew than you can count on one hand is even less.
all this is to say, no, the HS:BC team/HICU are not all “andrew’s goons”, no, the FRAF team are not andrew’s goons, and no, the HICU and FRAF themselves, as projects, are not andrew’s. neither am i. we are licensees with homestuck to get legal permission to do what we do, and earn the right to be compensated for that license (for which i’m extremely grateful, by the way) but i am not a Homestuck Inc./What Pumpkin Employee, and neither are they. any work any of us do for Homestuck or about Homestuck we do because we love it and the fandom, and the role that i played in this UHC scenario was because i thought i was going to be stepping in to mediate a quick situation that would help reconcile gio and andrew and give something cool to the fans at the same time, not because i was trying to, what, get involved in a messy situation for no reason other than to hurt people and punish the fans? why would i do that? or, for that matter, why would andrew?
anyway, i’ve WAY over-emphasized this point, but it just matters to me, A: because i don’t want the HICU *or* the FRAF team to be getting this kind of smear campaign slung at them while they’re trying to do something cool and B: because for trying to help mediate a sticky situation, i’ve been lambasted as a manipulative detriment to the fandom to probably tens of thousands of people???
MOVING ON.
basically, i spent like a solid year on and off as a go-between, trying to mediate between andrew and gio+bambosh (bambosh, notably, seemed really excited to work with us initially until talks deteriorated), from like september 2023 until i think like december 2024 or january of this year or whatever the hell. you can go read the precise dates in gio’s article, i’m positive they’re somewhere in there. after a certain point, it became clear to andrew and to me that my role as a liaison, messenger, whatever was just not working out and i haven’t touched this shit since.
obviously, That Year Of Trying Did Not Work Out, Lol.
actually, for what its worth, i want to emphasize here that i have no grievance whatsoever with bambosh, at all, and for whatever stress i contributed to their life during this saga i am sincerely, actually sorry. they were legit a pleasure to talk to and i was really, really looking forward to seeing what they’d be able to cook up with Homestuck’s backing and resources. i hope you're well, bambosh.
anyway. this is my personal read on the situation (as Miles, The Guy Who Was Actually Here For All This), and i want to try not to sling personal accusations as much as i can despite being dragged through the mud along with my entire team, but my observation throughout this whole process was Not that gio was standing up as a stalwart defender of the rights of the fans to access homestuck, because andrew Wanted to work with him, and bambosh Wanted to work with us, and andrew doesn’t “hate homestuck and want it to go away” (the whole reason i’m allowed to make HS:BC with the HICU is because andrew wants the fandom to keep thriving!). gio was Not trying everything he could to make this work, because by his own admission in the article he refused to sign a license to continue to publish the Entirety Of A Body Of Work That Didn’t Belong To Him, and i also strongly suspect did everything in his power to dissuade bambosh from licensing when it was bambosh andrew was doing the initial negotiating with, Precisely Because We Were Worried About Situations Like This. at the time i actually thought that was TOO paranoid, believe it or not, but holy shit was i wrong about that, lol.
what it felt to me that gio was doing was stalling any progress andrew tried to make with the UHC because licensing it meant he wouldn’t get to control access to andrews work, or have the, i don’t know, “clout” (???) of managing it without any oversight, and almost certainly because working with andrew would have meant he couldn’t just go around talking shit on andrew and Homestuck as a company anymore whenever he pleased (and, clearly, he pleases). also i guess because he was asked to help recontextualize events that transpired during a saga of misery that resulted in multiple members of the old team being bullied off the internet and the complete halt of Homestuck Anything for like three years.
i am trying not to be uncharitable here but like, really look at the article. it is super inflammatory. there are legitimate critiques to be made about the way Homestuck as a business has handled things in the past, and even some ways i would obviously have suggested this situation be handled differently MYSELF if given another go at it, but this is not a measured critique, this is shouting “FIRE!!!!!!!!” in a crowded theater, presented as an attempt to save the fans from a Datapocalypse that isn’t even going to happen. this isn’t the action of someone who “loves homestuck and wants to protect it” because it accomplishes literally nothing but making everyone who actually likes homestuck fucking miserable. who does that help?
this is conjectural and speculative, but frankly after an entire article painting me as a manipulative liar who hates every homestuck fan after i spent a year trying to mediate a delicate situation so that gio could work WITH HOMESTUCK, when i and my team have lost sleep and poured our whole hearts into trying to make the fandom a cool place to be for all the incredible people who love this comic for two years, i think i’m allowed my own take, and that’s this:
this article isn’t about you, the reader, as a fan and your threatened right to have continuous access to Homestuck, because that’s not in danger. i promise. i have worked on HS:BC for two awesome years now and i have never felt in danger of Homestuck Disappearing, and i wouldn’t BE working on HS:BC if i felt there was some attempt to destroy Homestuck (because, again, why??? would i do that???). this isn’t about copyright law or protecting fan projects, because fan projects are being actively endorsed by andrew and Homestuck/WP and allowed to monetize, thrive, etc. this is about gio. andrew asked to bring gio on to work With Homestuck under a license, and gio refused. i delivered andrew’s messages and was the face of this series of exchanges, and gio spent an entire article painting me as both a villain and a victim in front of thousands of people. the HICU and FRAF and andrew have all been trying in their own ways to make homestuck fans happy with comics, merch, fanworks, and more, and it’s been working, so gio decided to shit on that parade because he screwed himself out of being a part of it.
this has all turned out to be a headache more enormous than i could possibly have imagined, and if i played any part at all in bungling this or making it worse by not being a good enough communicator or a bad liaison then i sincerely apologize for that. i’m here first and foremost to try and make homestuck fun for everyone, and today was obviously the opposite of fun. that said, i also am not gonna just sit here and let a bunch of innocent members of multiple teams, andrew, and myself get thrown under the bus by staying quiet while people take potshots at us.
i anticipate there will probably be some kind of official counter-argument or whatever from Homestuck (not the HICU, not FRAF) in the coming days with more Capital D Documentation, so if you’re looking for a more Annotated Account, that’s probably where you’re gonna get it, not here. i don’t think i’m gonna stick around answering questions in this thread or anything, either, i’d just like people to think on what i have to say, and to reiterate one last time that i’d like everybody to treat all the team members of various teams with grace, because they are literally Not Involved With This.
and also, once more for the record, i do not want people harassing gio over this. i'm zero percent interested in trying to start a flame war.
jesus christ that was long. sorry if i got at all personal, here, and for everyone who stuck around to read the whole thing, i am sincerely grateful.
... as the ancient hawaiians used to say.
People who disagree with you could've also read the thing in its entirety and come to a different conclusion then you did. Not everyone who disagrees with you is some ignorant fool who is brainwashed or illiterate lol.
"YOU'RE TYPING IN ALL LOWERCASE, WHICH TO ME IS CRINGE"
Kindness, Kindness Terezi~ Kindness, Kindness Terezi~
is this not tone policing mateto, because you certainly seem to be implying that because of the way miles wrote his response that it is somehow abusive because...he doesnt capitalize things? crazy work
check me out at acetyzias.tumblr.com and acelad.crockercorp.com on bsky
A bit of my bad on the first bit there, had realized after posting you'd meant the abuse thing as in regards to Gio's own article and how it's somehow "proven to be 100% factual" just from Miles' post here being written in the same way as the "screenshots" which happen to be html-formatted rewrites instead of the actual screenshots themselves (which in my personal opinion would make it much easier to doctor and/or omit information and brings into question the legitimacy of everything said). Still stand by what i said about you calling Miles cringe for writing without capital letters though, this is a homestuck forum for crying out loud it's not like you're needing to figure out a particularly complicated fantroll typing quirk or something.
As well as, as stated above, Gio's statements about one of the writers of Vast Error have been blatantly proven false.
Then I really guess I should say it: No, I do not think the lack of capitalization is part of the abuse... Did I really have to spell that out?
I came to the forums because I was told to come to the fucking forums. And I found exactly what I thought I would find lmao. This entire situation to be honest is dumb af. From what I’ve gathered all day, it quite literally has been he-said-she-said bullshit.
Gio obviously isn’t a 100% reliable source who did not give credible sources in their blogs or articles (other than that though, his memory of events and timeline seems pretty solid).
On the other hand, in this post Miles is saying that he and anyone else in the union aren't Hussie’s “goons,” while also having people in the union talk to others for them. (Not saying they’re goons, just that Andrew probably treats them like they are.) And not just others but someone whose behavior, said by AH through Miles was so “unacceptable” that it ruined their relationship completely. But not so unacceptable that it would cause AH or anybody else on the Homestuck team to send the Cease&Desist within two years???? (also, listening to what’s “unacceptable behavior” from a person who was openly racist up until like 2015 is crazy lmfaoo but I digress.)
Again, I’m not saying that Gio is absolved and I believe everything he’s saying. I just think it’s fucked up that yet again AH is having other people be the ambassadors of their bullshit, having others mediating things unnecessarily instead of having conversations by themselves like the 46 year old they are. It’s also fucked up that any criticism towards Hussie’s responsibility in all this gets deflected as some sort of hate for the union. Inadvertently yet again projecting all of the heat on AH in the situation towards a group of artists that have little to nothing to do with it??
Anyways, this whole situation is a bunch of nonsense (that I WILL be keeping an eye on). The world still turns, Beyond Canon will still be updated, UHC is still downloadable and Gio will still have a blog.
But before anyone jumps to defend AH just remember: They’re a big racist POS who don’t care about you. They should not be trusted lol. Goodnight.
genuinely what has happened to the internet that when i type something in direct response to the message above mine but I don't include an @ or a greentext arrow or something then it's taken as vague and disingenuous. is this how people use discord servers now too? I'm so old. I'm so frightened and I'm old
>eats somewhere other than olive garden once
>fucking dies
@dilettanteCinephiliac
>which in my personal opinion would make it much easier to doctor and/or omit information and brings into question the legitimacy of everything said
Yes, correct. But Gio's seems like the person to keep receipts, so I'm sure he also has screenshots (and Miles can easily disprove anything he said, too - but did not (yet?)).
>Still stand by what i said about you calling Miles cringe for writing without capital letters though, this is a homestuck forum for crying out loud it's not like you're needing to figure out a particularly complicated fantroll typing quirk or something.
I agree on you in principle. But I suppose that I really think abuse took place, it was Andrew's fault and it should be Andrew's responsability to do something about it (or defuse the situation/prove Gio's wrong), and it rubs me the wrong way that Miles is here on damage control - and personally I find that if Gio is right in his assertions, then Miles (and Andrew!!!) is ALSO acting in a cringe way. I don't think it is a crime to think something is cringe.
>As well as, as stated above, Gio's statements about one of the writers of Vast Error have been blatantly proven false.
Yes, but that was conjecture and not fact. I'd rather them disprove the facts on the article and the main issue at hand.
what a time to have joined the forums once my email started working again... i promise man, most of the (reasonable) parts of the fandom understand where a lot of this is coming from, and it isn't from you. you're one guy who offered up his time and mental energy to something you're passionate about, and i don't see a thing wrong with that.
icon from @clown-heart on tumblr!
ima be real, i don't see how anything in this response Confirms that miles & co are abusers and/or acted abusively. miles' response was perfectly reasonable and rational, and went in depth into what was actually going on as someone who was there.
i literally don't know what you're talking about.
June Eg8ert's #1 Fan. June Egbert's #8 Fan.
What a weird thing to happen, honestly. I've read through both piles of text, and, I think people's concerns are justified for whatever the hell happened in all that legalese stuff, even if it all came from one side. Either way, I'd say remaining neutral about all this would be the best choice, but, it's kind of impossible seeing people already had their opinions on Hussie or Gio prior to all this, so... whatever? Also, was "Homestuck being gone" even a concern to begin with? There are options outside of the main website and UHC that aren't exactly hard to find. UHC is, of course, the superior version, but not the *only* one.
@mateto
> Yes, correct. But Gio's seems like the person to keep receipts, so I'm sure he also has screenshots (and Miles can easily disprove anything he said, too - but did not (yet?)).
Others have blatant proof of Gio spinning things to suit his narrative.
https://www.fruityrumpus.com/forums/reply/68964d40eb0e1f3bcab321ae
Multiple sources for the vast error thing, with the first one also going into a fair bit of detail about how omission of details can lead to people trying to push narratives to "fill in the gaps".
https://www.fruityrumpus.com/forums/reply/68965ec9eb0e1f3bcabd4331
https://www.fruityrumpus.com/forums/reply/689671ecc24c58e653e4a3c4
https://x.com/avstinado/status/1953948887640932581
> But I suppose that I really think abuse took place, it was Andrew's fault and it should be Andrew's responsibility to do something about it (or defuse the situation/prove Gio's wrong), and it rubs me the wrong way that Miles is here on damage control - and personally I find that if Gio is right in his assertions, then Miles (and Andrew!!!) is ALSO acting in a cringe way. I don't think it is a crime to think something is cringe.
Miles' role was to act as a mediator between two parties that have had clear vitriol between them. Gio had previously released multiple articles that sparked a lot of drama, to the point of them having been a major catalyst in what nearly sunk the metaphorical ship of HS^2 and CAUSED it to need a new writing team & the rebrand to HSBC. The point of a mediator is to try and make both parties more comfortable and less likely to lash out at each other due to differences. Miles' writing here is speaking his piece, telling his point of view on everything-- and multiple times addressed as NOT BEING AN OFFICIAL STATEMENT. Gio was blatantly trying to reword stuff Miles had said as being indicative of "being an abuser" when it was literally just trying to mediate stuff and not have to escalate to legal action. The UHC is, to be blatant, copyright infringement but had been done with the intent of (hopefully temporary) preservation of the story to keep it readily accessible to fans due to the site having been down.
Like how can you read the blogpost and not think Gio is clearly trying to paint himself up as some sort of righteous white knight who can do no wrong while treating Hussie, Miles, etc as some sort of villains? Use CTRL + F to look up "Gio Era – 2024-2025" and read that section until the next set of bolded letters for just one small but very blatant example of such a thing.
its just kind of baffling we're [a select few] giving so much credibility to someone who legitimately talks like "however i have already portrayed myself as the sleek FDR bullet train and you as the seething coal locomotive" except in this case he's compared himself to the jewish people and his enemies to nazis, trump, and domestic violence abusers all in the same post. but yeah i guess typing style indicates whether or not someone's an abuser, i guess.
thank you miles, im glad to hear from you so soon when that article must've been a shock and a half. i hope you and the rest of the team are doing well!!
finally actually making an account here so i say that, regardless of what is true and who is "in the right" i guess, i'm sorry for listening to my gut reaction on a situation that is obviously much more serious and deep than i treated it as, for a community i have no experience with, about people i know nothing about. i really ought to have kept my nose out of this entire situation until both sides had been brought to light and made judgement from there. i know that i personally don't have like, any affect on anything, but i feel like i should hold myself accountable in some way.
hey @minerturtle45 i think this is really cool of you to say and i really applaud you for saying it. i think in situations like this it's easy to post in a reactionary way, but much more difficult to actually acknowledge it for what it is. some people are so unwilling to admit they might be wrong they'll die on any given hill. kudos!
Hi all, just wanted to throw my thoughts in here as well. I have read through both gio's post and this reply in its entirety. I of course have opinions on this (as everyone does) but prefer not to share as they are going to be fluctuating as time passes and new information is provided on the situation (especially since an official Homestuck response has yet to be published). I will admit I was definitely a hardcore doomer when gio's post first came out, but it is important to look at sources from all different perspectives on this and also remember to put sources in conversation with one another in order to get a fuller picture.
This is still a very fresh and volatile situation and it is important to keep an open mind on everything and take all perspectives with a grain of salt, as well as keeping inherent biases of all parties in mind. I do think there are important things that miles addresses in this post that discuss points brought up by gio (mainly involving FRAF and the HICU), as well as other points that were omitted (which may have been purposeful or may have just been a time issue or slipped the mind, which both are possible).
Anyone having super concrete opinions is fairly worrying at least in my opinion, with the nature of the situation and again, how recent it is with fairly few perspectives/sources released, but having scrolled through the comments it is very obvious that some people have cemented themself in one point of view, and this can be seen for both sides of the argument. Out of all the posts here personally I feel like @imminentlycacoepistic has the best reply so far, while it doesnt entirely reflect my opinions on everything it is definitely good for mentioning the he-said-she-said nature of this all that it is currently surrounded in.
Im going to be trying to follow this situation the best I can, and I think everyone else should too, just try to keep an open mind on everything and dont let your own biases cloud your vision on this all. I love this community and hate to see it a mess like this. Anyways thats the gist of it, hope this mess clears in due time, have a good day everyone <3
FedoraFreak
honestly I don’t really even go here but as an outsider whos mostly just been a casual homestuck fan in the past and has a lot of friends within this creative part of the community, I know there are many issues with Hussie between people and I wont discredit that at all but this is the most professional and graceful way this situation has been addressed so far, compared to Gio’s response painting himself as the humble hero the of the story who “would NEVER want to drag up drama…”
I started reading his article as a simply curious bystander, nearly won over knowing that there’s definitely been issues in the past, but now I’ve heard quite a lot through the grapevine about gio (and only within the last several hours today) and i truly can’t take his story at face value when he’s kinda proving that he isn’t a reliable narrator. Insisting ”I’m the frog… and Hussie is the scorpion…” and such feels extremely disingenuous, when Gio doesn’t seem to be exactly free of sin either. And to repeat it multiple time like an epic zinger is just weird.
Also, hey! From a jewish person; the line “The Gio-ish Problem” is a fucking insane antisemetic dog whistle to use in your post about this situation and crazier to remove and only be able to say it was only “poor taste”, that’s fucking strange dude. I won’t say anyone in this situation deserves to be harassed but idk, Im probably not gonna side with the guy who referenced a term related to Nazi campaign in an article where he wants to be perceived purely for his good nature.
I have a couple questions about this.
1. Is the legal threat at the end of Gio's post real? You didn't deny it, or even mention it, despite it being by far the worst thing being accused, which to me makes the answer to this pretty clear. Going full Nintendo and baring your legal fangs at people doing the work of bothering to archive your work when you don't is reprehensible, and nobody would defend it if it wasn't Hussie. This goes double, no, triply so when you're using this legal threat as a way to coerce people into removing reporting that is negative of you.
2. Did Gio not receive word, in writing, that the Hiveswap articles were not a problem? Why were they later brought up again?
3. This one isn't really a question, but I'd just like to point out how you repeatedly claim that nobody is Hussie's "goon", while in the same post talking about how you're all going through this rigamaroo of relaying messages for Hussie instead of just talking normally. These two facts seem to be at odds with one another.
