@acelad, looking at the update, the bugfix is literally just someone else fixing an issue preventing a flash from loading and Gio changing the version number. It's admittedly a bit funny but the justification is already there, it's just fixing a bug.

Now for my general response. Gio has always said that the Reader itself is fine and wasn't taken down by the DMCAs against the UHC website and Assetpack (The DMCA'S are real, that would be an insane thing to lie about.) Because as the DMCA clarification on June 16th states "Second, [Legal Name] needs to remove any Homestuck assets or links to those assets from the UHC site. We do not have an issue with the reader itself, but the Homestuck assets, including the torrent links on the Carrd site, need to be removed. [Legal Name] may direct customers to the official channels for the assets, which Homestuck will provide on the same." Though it is silly for him to claim he can't maintain the reader considering the fact he directly contradicts that claim on the Github "There have currently been no legal attacks on this, the codebase for the reader. The question of whether this repository can remain up or maintained without the threat of retaliatory legal action is under active investigation." (Though the reader is still at risk, Since there's still the question on if using the name Homestuck to describe a reader for Homestuck is illegal, Since that's part of the reason the UHC website was taken down originally, because it has the word Homestuck on it alongside Homestucky branding. https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2025/08/08/uhc-end/#july )

Also, Gio can still write about his distaste for the whole thing, because that's just his opinion. (A company making a fork of some open source software while DMCAing the website of the old one is fucked up to be honest, that's an belief i hold firmly here. Can't blame Gio for seeing that as an attempt at a Hostile Takeover of UHC. The Assetpack is one thing as Gio doesn't have the rights to that, but not being able to display the reader in action? Seriously? pretty sure that's legal, like emulators can do that thanks to the Bleem cases back in the late 90s and early 2000's. Like just look at the Dolphin website https://dolphin-emu.org/ Nintendo can't sue them for showing Luigi's Mansion on the website as that's just showing what the emulator can do. Heck imagine if Dolphin couldn't describe itself as a Gamecube/ Wii emulator.)

As a sidenote, Gio recently pushed an update to the flatpack linux version of UHC which was stuck on 2.6.7 for a while which is nice.

Also as an extra sidenote: Even now i think Gio wants to continue working on the UHC despite everything. You can take the man out of the Homestuck, but you can't take the Homestuck out of the man.

3x Sidenote combo: As a funny note to end things off. Gio has jokingly confirmed the articles were rushed on Tumblr. (I wouldn't know what else they're talking about here if I'm wrong "Make it exist first" is generally good art advice.) Laughed a bit at this, thought y'all would find it funny too. (Though they really shouldn't have rushed the articles, Journalism is one of the things you shouldn't rush if you can get away with it. Like you wouldn't rush the construction of a building.)