UPD8: Gio and manipulation through language.

So, I suppose this thread has become the “Gio bullshit newsletter". Not terribly proud of such a thing, but honestly, not that ashamed either. I think it is past the time someone gives Giovan himself the Gio Treatment. Minus all the speculation (God, I loathe speculation) and the 3 dollar compliments on Kofi.

This one I will admit, however, is a minor one. Worry not, I do not intend to simply gossip about every little stupid thing he says on BlueSky. But I do want to use his new favorite word to have a talk about how Gio chooses to phrase things. So, a minor one, but definitely not a short one.

So, Giovan has decided to start calling the not-yet realized relaunch of the Homestuck website “scabbing”.

As we see in the second image, this isn’t the first time he’s done it, as Gio was quick to make clear in his article that any attempts towards having an official way to read Homestuck would be interpreted by him as an act of “scabbing”.

So. For those unaware, a “scab” is a pejorative term for a breaker of labor strikes. That is to say, someone who either continues to work during an organized strike, or someone who is hired to replace those not working, either for the duration of said strike or permanently. Now, I am not one to be stuck to dictionary definitions, especially as the crossing of the picket line evolves as labor practices evolve, said evolution often being directed not really by laborers, but by corporations, who have become increasingly better at technically not committing labor violations.

So. Gio’s argument is that, after the negotiations between him and HICU fell thru, any attempt by Hussie to make their own body of work available through official means qualifies as scabbing. Any attempt. Becuz it is, you see, “replacement labor”.

If I assumed good faith on Gio’s part, I would say he does not understand the meaning of the word scab. That he is fooled by a superficial similarity that is made much worse than it actually is by the fact that, as he’s made very clear, he believes HICU and Hussie and What Pumpkin NYC and Aysha U. Farah are all out to ruin his life. When someone pointed in the post’s comments he was not striking, let alone employed by Hussie in anyway, he had this to say:

And this is why I don’t assume good faith from Giovan.

So, we immediately admit there is no strike. No strikes, no scabbing. But there is a “labor angle”, you see. As a “capital owner is refusing to negotiate with people using it to produce actual work”.

So. The capital in question is, I assume, Hussie’s own art, made available thru the Unofficial Homestuck Collection. Which not only includes Homestuck and all MSPA content, but also previous comics such as Whistles and And It Don’t Stop. I find very interesting how Gio poises Hussie as the “owner” of this “capital”. Not becuz it is inaccurate, Hussie does own all which is made available thru the UHC. But I’m sure the more accurate term would be “creator”. Becuz, unlike the owner of a factory, since we wish to sound oh so syndicalist, Andrew Hussie wrote and illustrated all the content that Gio is using to produce “actual work” (the exception is, of course, the music, which Hussie has not created, nor owns, nor has claimed to at any moment).

That established, you must be wondering: what is this actual work Gio has made with Hussie’s stories. I wish not to diminish Gio’s work on making the UHC possible -- while Bambosh is the actual creator of it, Gio has by all accounts been fundamental to its maintenance and improvement. But if I, let’s say, upload a piece of media to The Internet Archive for preservation reasons, and then a few years later, the entity which actually owns (or, in this case, again, created) the media in question decides to re-release it... How is that scabbing? How is that... Anything but extremely normal or, even, positive?

Now, I hear you, the analogy isn’t perfect. Giovan didn’t simply rip all of the Homestuck assets and uploaded somewhere. He helped to maintain a tool which made it’s reading especially accessible and comfortable. Funnily enough, that’s not the labor he decided to bring up all the way back in the second image, but the fact he “wrote a working site” that they tried to take control over, but I digress. That is, indeed, labor. It is work. I suppose it would be more comparable to me hosting my own website to grant access to the proverbial piece of media, and kept it updated with all that I thought could be related to it.

I even think it is fair to want some kudos for such an attitude. I’m a historian for goodness sake, I understand the effort that goes behind preserving something that, if we are not to put that effort on, may be lost, or at least, made inaccessible. And I certainly understand how it feels to get little to no acknowledgement for it.

The key difference here is that Andrew Hussie is alive, active, and very much in favor of having control over their art -- something that is apparently an unforgivable crime to those who haven’t created much in their life.

The framing of “refusing to negotiate” is hilarious when you consider Gio wrote a whole article about how they did negotiate. It didn’t work out, as it seems Giovan is an extremely difficult person to work with for reasons you are free to decide if you find legitimate or not. So. Hussie, who wants their story to be available, is making a new website. Becuz they are not, nor were they, ever, even for a second, obligated to work with Giovan.

And for those who still seem to be under the impression Hussie, or HICU, or literally anyone, has taken down the UHC: IT’S STILL AVAILABLE. It’s been 20 days since Gio said it was definitely gonna be gone for real, yet you can still download it from the creepypasta ass website, as well as GitHub.

Alright. I promised this wasn’t gonna be a wall of text about Gio’s most recent tweets (or whatever the BlueSky term for it is). What I’d like to point here is the very deliberate choice of words, and how this is a pattern with dear Giovan. He loves implying, or outright saying, untrue things without technically telling any lies. Again, how he calls Hussie the “owner” of Homestuck, a true statement, but one that serves the clear purpose to paint them as the rich uncaring businessman as opposed to the person who actually did all the work in question.

The same happens with how Gio is obsessed with the idea of Hussie/HICU “taking control over the fandom”. Again, if we lived in a world where this was said in an isolated vacuum, it would be a fine, accurate statement. After three years of silence (damn I wonder what caused that), Homestuck is not only back with a new team, but they have released the FRAF forum, and there’s all these fanworks which are now receiving support from it. That does speak to a desire to provide official Homestuck channels that can be overseen by people that Hussie trusts. This, additionally, has the effect to finally addressing and taking measures against the bigotry of the main unofficial Homestuck communities, be it the general concept of the HS fandom in social media, or those with more direct moderation, like the subreddit and its respective Discord server.

Unfortunately, we live in the world where people like Gio exist. So any official Homestuck channel is actually a sneaky personal attack on the integrity of fake amateur journalism and a nefarious attempt of taking control over the fandom. By supporting fanworks. And making a Discord whose owner hasn’t publicly stated it is a “safe place for homophobia” (hi Makin). The horror.

And if you think I’m exaggerating about Gio’s reaction to the Discord server’s mere existence, I have bad news for you.

I’ll be the first to say that the Official Homestuck Discord is. Rather unusable right now. A lot of people have been joining exclusively to cause problems, and a recent situation, while seemingly resolved, did cause a bit of a stir among me and other transfems. It is also the only large Homestuck community that has made an actual, continuous and on-going effort to address transmisogyny in the community. Is it perfect? Absolutely the fuck not. It is ten thousand times better than any of the oh so sacred fan spaces Gio is trying to protect from... Like, idk, having competition? ‘Cuz much like Gio’s fork of the UHC, all other communities are still around. If you hate yourself and/or trans women, the subreddit Discord is waiting for you with open arms and an awful list of media recs.

I would now like to specifically address the people who are, let’s say, more charitable to Gio. Not his fans who skimmed past it all, the people who are listening to both sides, and see flaws on Gio, but are also suspicious of Hussie and HICU’s reportedly “scummy” behavior. First of all, thank you for reading all of this. I have not proposed myself as an unbiased commentator at any moment, and tho I think that attempting to be one is fundamentally flawed, your willingness to hear me out despite that demonstrates to me you do indeed care about the truth, and at the bottom of it all, skepticism is allowed and supported in this household which we are all stuck inside.

Second, however, lemme ask you something: what words are being used and with what intent here? If you write a book and maintain the rights of it, would you first be called owner or author? More importantly, in what situation could you imagine someone calling you one or another? To what ends?

This is all I have for you tonight. I do have plans for a breakdown of Gio’s mirror of Psycholonials on MSPFA tho, becuz that one is... God it sure is. It’ll probably be a while until that is done tho, as it requires both an analysis of a work of art and an analysis of the opposite of that.

Wait patiently. You'll be seeing me again.