#gio situation

The Unofficial Homestuck Collection was indeed taken down*, despite official Homestuck companies' and Homestuck creator Andrew Hussie's previous statements in support of the software, an independent desktop app that can allow the reading of Homestuck as it was originally intended before the death of Flash.

*Except not really, you can find it with enough asking around. EDIT: It is indeed still available (from the HICU, ironically enough) at https://homestuck.github.io/

The actual reason why was provided by the provocateur Gio, who after previously collaborating with Sarah Z and Lady Emily to inflate conflict with members of the What Pumpkin company, including Andrew Hussie, posted a couple of articles today that outline the circumstances leading up to him having ownership of the UHC, and subsequently the UHC being taken down by Homestuck.

I will not be linking the articles so as not to give them more attention that they have already recieved.

Gio explicitly misgenders Hussie twice in the below excerpts. I wouldn't count use of he/him pronouns on Hussie as misgendering, as they use any/all pronouns, but it is notable that Gio only uses he/him to refer to them. Along with calling them an "angry man" twice, and tying that into the thesis of his argument, makes his intent behind these lines read rather vindictive and transmisogynistic,

It's worth noting that Hussie's professional colleagues, with whom Gio has posted thousands of words worth of Discord correspondences, generally refer to them with they/them pronouns, so it's not like Gio has an excuse to not know Andrew is nonbinary. He's just misgendering her, except he's not just misgendering her, he's doing so and making that an important pillar of his argument.

Then there's this, which, yeah he changed it and 'apologized' but it seems like an almost textbook example of Schrödinger's Douchebag.

Gio's previous articles caused a massive harassment campaign against the Homestuck team(s) and caused many creatives, especially trans women, to quit from the harassment. Something he himself seems to relish in;

Also, he openly admits to these conflicts which he had with (largely trans women, wonder why) members of Homestuck teams past and present.

And yet, his primary argument is that Andrew has a singular vendetta against him and that's why the HICU is a scam.

I wonder why he has 'drama' with these three people specifically and can talk cordially with other Homestuck team members such as James Roach and Miles [no shade to those guys they're cool] (whether or not he's going to twist their words into a pretzel later).

It's almost like transparency is not Gio's motive.

[EDIT: Gio is editing the article to change the pronouns to they/them.

BACKGROUND

(you can skip to the next colored header if youve kept up on drama to some degree)

This guy Gio is one of the two people in charge of the Unofficial Homestuck Collection, the other being Bambosh. Bambosh hasnt done much on the UHC lately tho so its mostly Gio these days. (UHC if you dont know was, for the longest time, the best way to read Homestuck, because the various links and flash apps in it kinda died over time). The UHC always kinda sat in this legal grey area of sorts; its made of a reader program (which is basically an emulator) and an asset pack (which is basically a ROM, and contains the entirety of Homestuck). The reader nobody is claiming is illegal, but the asset pack is almost certainly illegal--its functionally abject piracy1 of the entire project. But Homestuck proper didnt have a very readable website these days, so it kinda got by on being useful and good, and Hussie even used to directly link to it for years.

Gio also was a part of the massive (and i do mean MASSIVE) drama/harassment campaign surrounding Hiveswap and Homestuck^2 (Now called Beyond Canon) some years ago. I wont go deep into this old drama, but a quick summary of it is that a bunch of people who hated the way HS2 and Hiveswap were being handled came across some supposed evidence that it was actually being run very shady, and there were accusations of abuse, and the people being targetted then (Kate Mitchell (who is notably transfem) and Aysha U Farah) didnt exactly handle it perfectly, long story short it resulted in both projects being shut down for QUITE SOME TIME and the removal of at least Kate (I think Aysha too, but dont quote me on that im going off the top of my head on ages old drama here). A lot of the drama was also accusing Hussie of mismanagement and abuse, tho most of the evidence toward that just sounds to me like shes kinda an abrasive person tbqh. Nothing as major as people made it out to be IMO, it was internet drama, you know how it goes, everyone has to be "INNOCENT VICTIM" or "WORLDS WORST INDIVIDUAL" and nuance isnt allowed. Yes this is the short version

Also since many people missed the news on this apparently: Hussie came out as "Clowngender" a few years back, which they claimed she was "100% serious" about, and uses any pronouns. (Despite the statement that its 100% serious, a lot of folks think its not, which, to be fair, Hussie DOES love multi-layered irony, *side-eyes Dirk's whole thing*).

Homestuck^2 Beyond Canon came back a few years back, with the announcement that there was a new "Homestuck Independent Creative Union" introduced, under the leadership of frequent collaborator James Roach. This HICU was supposedly NOT under direct control of Andrew Hussie, but James made it fairly clear that Andrew Hussie WAS still involved; after all, she owned the copyrights and trademarks to Homestuck, AND wrote the general "outline" of how BC would go. Just, the HICU was its own entity which worked with Hussie to create further Homestuck stuff. The best comparison for this kinda thing is a union and employer; yes the union is still working for the big boss who owns all the IPs and shit, but has its own ability to control things set in contracts supposedly.

BC and other Homestuck things happen, largely to fandom appreciation. Theres a lot of acknowledgement that its not what it used to be, but that it feels like its on steadier ground than it was before the HICU. There's a few drives to make new plushes, theres a patreon which funds things, etc. But its not without controversy! By far one of the most notable controversies is that the story (spoiler alert) seems to confirm that John Egbert is going to transition and become June Egbert. And theres a LOT and I do mean A LOT of "fans" who are aggressively pissed over this. Theres lots of supposed reasons why ("I always headcanoned John as transmasc" being probably the most common) but ultimately this is just folks pissed that the main character of Homestuck and Beyond Canon is confirmed transfem. A lot of these annoyed "fans" are notably the same folks who harassed Kate Mitchell during the previous drama. I assure you this is all relevant.

Final thing I suppose to bring up is the very recent news of the Fruity Asshole Rumous Factory, or FRAF, which is a licensing setup to help legitimize fanworks, even giving them an avenue to create merch. This was widely regarded as a cool thing.

THE DOCUMENT

Anyways, fast forward to yesterday, and Gio has posted a massive blog post titled something like "ANDREW HUSSIE HAS SHUT DOWN THE UHC", basically. And its STUPID, we're talking it should have been followed by a panel from Homestuck of characters flailing arms and saying THIS IS STUPID, you know the ones. If you want to see a more thorough rundown of the bullshit in it I have another post summing THAT up right here.

It has a lot in it to unpack, but overview is that it turns out about a year ago, Homestuck's current management team (led by someone named Miles who I cant find a last name for) reached out to Bambosh and Gio saying "Hey we love the UHC, we're trying to make Homestuck's website work again, and would love to have you guys come work to make it happen since you basically already have!", and. Well, it fell apart over time, and eventually Andrew Hussie had lawyers send a C+D and DMCA takedown allegedly. (Basically everything in the document is "allegedly", btw, theres basically zero real proof)

What you need to know is that its claims are:

Hussie is an EVIL MANIPULATIVE ABUSER TIMES A THOUSAND

That Hussie has UNFAIRLY nuked the Unofficial Homestuck Collection

That the HICU is actually working directly for Hussie and is in fact his own personal abusive gang

But these arguments fall apart almost immediately. First and foremost, it's written by a known transmisogynist, and has NUMEROUS instances of transmisogyny against Andrew Hussie--in fact, it originally2 exclusively referred to Andrew Hussie with He/him pronouns.3 It also repeatedly refers to her as an "angry man", a "god-king", a scorpion for some reason, its all over the place. So CLEARLY Gio's intent is already a little suspicious!

This is further cemented when we get to some of the first "screenshots"4 of the conversations with Miles. Miles approaches them with EXTREME kindness (Which Gio refers to as "Love-Bombing"). Gio is already, OUT THE GATE, acting antagonistically...says he's "Decided to approach them in good faith" but almost immediately refers to the idea of actually talking to Hussie as a "terrible idea". So already, we can see that Gio is approaching this entire topic with every possible guard up, despite there being ZERO evidence outside of PAST DRAMA (which was HARDLY conclusive) to believe Hussie's anything but the best of intentions here.

The whole thing snowballs from there. Homestuck and crew want them to sign an NDA and then a License, preferably very quickly, and move on. Gio however wants them to change language in the NDA (which they do), and then they say theyre gonna have Bambosh sign it and then the License, and then do the same with Gio.

Now, an uncharitable read into this situation, which is what Gio and many fans have done, is that this is a classic abuser divide-and-conquer tactic. But that ONLY works if you presume that Hussie IS an abuser, and that Gio is somehow a super innocent good boy who has never done anything wrong. Which we can already tell he isnt, because he's posted a transmisogynistic screed about Hussie, and has shown us *screenshots* of him telling them he's reluctant to work with them! Given that information, it reads more to me like them saying "Boy Gio's a potential major problem, but luckily the majority of the base work is under Bambosh's name. Maybe we can ease in Bambosh first and then try and convince Gio we're not out to get him?", but ymmv. Point is this is where shit gets messy

See, Bambosh has little to no apparent experience with legalese, and has been relying largely on Gio's self-admitted armchair lawyer expertise to get him thru this all. Yes, they've got actual lawyers they shelled out money for to look over this stuff, but now they're saying theres massive red flags in this contract--Specifically that it binds them to ANOTHER contract, that they have not seen (The HICU agreement, it seems)!

Problem is--I've got actual training in *SPECIFICALLY* how contracts work in collaborative comic projects, I got it in my undergrad degree on Comics and Narrative Practice (Yes thats actually my bachelors degree lol) and this raises ZERO red flags for me! These kinds of contracts quite often reference eachother, and unless the license agreement outright says "You are bound by this other document regardless of whether you signed THAT one" its really not actually binding you that way! Go ahead, pick a website, read through their ToS that youve never read before, I almost GUARANTEE you'll find a reference to ANOTHER contract you're expected to agree to (Usually an End User License Agreement), its REALLY quite common practice!!!

Eventually the narrative suddenly becomes that the Homestuck team is threatening to Cease-and-Desist Bambosh if he doesnt sign. Which, its important to note here, Gio starts conflating with a lawsuit. A C+D is NOT A LAWSUIT, it is in fact not even legally binding! It is simply a formal warning, a letter saying "Hey if you dont stop doing this illegal thing we will act accordingly to stop you doing the illegal thing"! A lawsuit is them saying "because you have done illegal things with our IP you are being dragged to court, and will likely be forced to give us much money". A third different thing which comes up later is a DMCA takedown, which is where the lawyers notify online hosts of the illegal stuff that it is illegal, and threatens THEM with legal action if they dont take it down.

So really "threatening a C+D" is a nonsense phrase--its like saying they "Threatened to threaten me"! And when we do see screenshots of these moments, it turns out its just that between Gio's antagonism and their lawyer's apparent constant ghosting, the Homestuck legal team are saying "we should just send them a C+D and get it over with, why are you reaching out to these people who are breaking the law", which LETS ME BRING UP MY BIG POINT:

IF HUSSIE'S GOAL WAS TO BE A BIG TURD BUCKET WHY DID THEY APPROACH GIO AND BAMBOSH?

See, thats the thing you should be asking, because its at the core of this WHOLE THING!!!! One could posit that for some reason Hussie SPECIFICALLY wants to abuse Gio and/or Bambosh, but...That makes no sense, if she was an abuser he's have PLENTY of abuse options to choose from! Maybe in retaliation for the past drama, but that doesnt make sense either, considering there were people FAR MORE involved in the drama that would also be seeing retaliation!! maybe because they want to bully the pair into making a site for free, but...theres really no need to, the technology is open source, Hussie and co could fork it at any time to make their own version of it (which they do eventually do)! THE WHOLE PREMISE HERE JUST MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE FROM STEP ONE! It ONLY makes sense if you view it as an act of good faith from the Homestuck people!!!!! And I think literally everyone is missing this somehow, perhaps because they view abusers as horrible illogical monsters who run around abusing with no rhyme or reason. (Which is not the case, actually, theyre usually QUITE selective in their targets).

Anyways, the short of it is that Bambosh (who is confused and scared because of Gio whispering in his ear that this is all shady and threatening) panic-quits not just the agreement, but the UHC *ENTIRELY* and then leaves it all to Gio. Which means the Homestuck team have got to work with Antagonist Prime in order to make anything of this.

So the Homestuck folks talk about how bummed they are about this and decide to proceed, but Gio lets loose a little things he's been kinda hiding in all this: Apparently during all this, Gio and Bambosh's lawyers have been ghosting Hussie's. Which is an extremely suspicious fact. We also, iirc, around here see the screenshot from earlier where Gio literally tells them "If I wanted to be a provocateur, I'd leverage my popularity in the fandom to create drama". He claims he meant this as a way to show his good faith, that he has NOT done this, but it really literally comes across as a threat to them. And no, its not lost on me that this document is Gio doing EXACTLY THAT, meaning he is now BY HIS OWN DEFINITION, being a provocateur!

Anyways at this point, Hussie and the other Homestuck crew folks come together and decide they want an apology if this is going to proceed. Which, considering the threat and the past bad blood (which Gio claims he's willing to look past YET BRINGS UP AT EVERY TURN), is reasonable to me. They likely expected it to be rejected, but its a show that they are still willing to work with them.

Of course, the offer is rejected, but Gio does the FUNNIEST and MOST OBVIOUS bullshit in the entire thing here: He refuses to show what they ask for in the apology because he says he "Doesnt want to dignify it". Which is such a blatant dodge, it makes me instantly assume its full of a list of all the actual bullshit Gio's done that DOESNT show in this document!

Somehow around here Gio pulls out the old Kate and Aysha drama, because of course he does. Theres not much to say there except that Gio is hellbent on continuing that drama and its so sad and petty I dont think anyone should pay it any heed.

Gio's angry reaction to them DARING to ask for an apology to proceed means that Miles and crew reply "Well that sucks, but I guess its time for a cease-and-desist". They do that, fork the project on the official homestuck github, and then send a DMCA takedown. Its basically all bog standard "we're protecting our IP" shit.

Then Gio goes full pepe silvia! Begins RANTING about how Its UNCLEAR if the HICU is acting seperately from Hussie in all of this, despite the fact that SINCE THE START, HICU have been up-front that the legal rights to Homestuck still lie in Hussie's hands. Its basically all conjecture which we even got disproven by folks in the Fruity Rumpus Asshole Factory.

1 - Okay so theres this whole debate over whether or not piracy, especially piracy as a form of archiving is good, ethical, or even if it SHOULD be legalized. Frankly I'm not gonna make that debate happen here, we've got enough on our plate CLEARLY. But it must be said that AT LEAST UNDER CURRENT LAW, the asset pack was quite illegal!!

There's bits I could add but this is already long as hell, and you get the point. But in case you need it summed up:

CONCLUSION/TL;DR

There's basically no reason to believe any of the post, its a big fucking callout post based entirely on one maligned transmisogynist's vendetta against Andrew Hussie (and frankly anyone who touches Homestuck and isnt male apparently). The collection IS still available through the Homestuck github so the posts saying "Theres no way to read homestuck now!!!!?" are proving to be just a bunch of fucking dumbasses

2 - Gio has since supposedly updated the document to have they/them in every single instance instead, which is what we in transfeminist circles refer to as "degendering".

3 - So, you may be like "HEY! But Andrew Hussie uses ANY PRONOUNS, so He/Him are technically correct!" and like, sure, its TECHNICALLY not misgendering her. But its definitely suspicious in conjunction with the other stuff. (Note: Miles and James both use He/Him for Hussie primarily as well, but theres some they/thems mixed in as well. Their intent is harder to parse as we have a smaller sample size and less concurrent evidence.)