Myeah, it annoys me as well, considering there's a bunch of questions surrounding things seen independently that could be clarified (I've posted about it here: https://www.fruityrumpus.com/forums/reply/68967355c24c58e653e549e3 ).

On the one hand, to me, Hussie seems, at best, Matt Mullenweg-levels of haunted-by-the-spectre-of-Lowtax levels of consummate poster. This is not how one should lead a project. Previous instances of lucid and honest statements have been very rare (the response after the Trickster Mode was a welcome change compared to earlier, at best, irony-laden not-entirely-serious Tumblr and Formspring posts, but then the 'fat vriska' jokes continued anyway), and an honest and clarifying answer here would be very welcome. This doesn't mean Hussie should be some kind of hero/example one should look up to (seriously, read the old Formspring posts), nor are they some kind of 'unique genious' (the influences Homestuck had are sometimes pretty blatant). But calling for Hussie's death (like in... that one thread) is extremely gross.

On the other hand, while Gio's posts try to sound objective, there are some stylistic things where petty grievances shine through. But given some material evidence (see the linked post), I am inclined to believe there is some truth to it. I wasn't present in the fandom from 2016 to 2022, so I really do not know how the "Hiveswap drama" played out in detail, so I also don't know how 'evil' Gio was in this period. I'm hearing things about him potentially harassing Kate (Mitchell I assume?), which would track with HS2, Pgenpod, and Snowbound Blood all halting at the same time, but I haven't seen any connection between that and Gio yet. (Kate did post https://shrike.club/@kate/114994954835369686 recently, which isn't super informative. The "I cannot comment publicly on the workplace conditions of Homestuck due to an NDA." sounds weird to me as a European, but it doesn't seem unthinkable to me that this might just be common US labour law bullshit , while such practices would absolutely be illegal over here.)

On the third hand (what kind of chump only has two?), someone posted this kind of questionable Reddit link to the forums: https://old.reddit.com/r/EnglishPumpkinParty/comments/1gh8mvk/breaking_news_hussie_is_still_in_control_of/ , the only saving grace for me about this is that Michael Guy Bowman seems to appear in there (I'll warn you, it's Reddit, don't read the comments). I don't know if he has published any sort of statement recently because I don't know anything about his socials etc.

In conclusion, I'm willing to believe at the same time that Homestuck Inc/Hussie/... are very bad at doing project management while being even more trigger-happy on legal threats than Nintendo to their own detriment, while Gio is also not a 'perfect little angel'.

(P.S. while "other forks of the UHC are still online", the asset pack takes some effort to locate, and most forks --- including the 'official' HICU one --- are behind on updates and bugfixes! Plus it's currently unclear how exactly development will continue. Will the HICU continue from their outdated 2.5.7 fork, or rebase to the latest version? Or try writing something else entirely? And at what pace, considering MSPA.org and homestuck.com have both been down for a prolonged amount of time.)