I'm honestly so shocked to see how many people are writing off Gio's claims and acting like Hussie can do no wrong, or if they do, it's justified. I think it is in part easy to write off because of the title of Gio's article - in my opinion, this story is not particularly about the UHC being taken down (and when framed that way, the assertion is made, rightly, that it's still accessible and also Gio sucks, end of story).
This is a story of Andrew Hussie's entitlement toward the creative work of others, stretching all the way back to the early days. This is a story of how Andrew Hussie behaves when not able to control the behavior of others. This is a story among far too many of Andrew Hussie's continual weaponization of legal maneuvers to manipulate people. And in fact, it sure sounds to me like part of Gio's assertions of Hussie's shady behavior has already been confirmed in Miles' statement, where he said:
"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."
From Gio's article - In the messages from Miles during the early communication, Miles says that after giving Bambosh the NDA and a private conversation between them and Andrew, Gio would also receive an NDA and have a similar conversation, sort of an interview before the negotiations began. If it is true that no NDA was presented to Gio and Gio was not stalling, this was just an excuse to get Bambosh alone and not have to deal with Gio. Sure sounds like it tracks, at least to me. They cornered Bambosh, tried to only work with him and cut Gio out of the deal while weaponizing legal documents to do so. The NDA/non-NDA dynamic between Bambosh and Gio meant that they could not discuss the negotiations between them, and Bambosh then left the project.
Please don't think that just because Gio's article is dramatic, that it's not credible. To be honest, if I had been jerked around that much for that long I'd be pretty uncharitable too. The most credible part to me is how familiar it sounds. I know people are discrediting Gio and calling them biased...well, everyone has bias - I think it'd be worse had Gio pretended to not feel the way they feel about things at this point. The idea that language used with regards to abusive relationships is overblown - divide and conquer and DARVO are very real tactics people use to have power over others in many situations, like in cases of medical or financial abuse. Domestic violence is not the only arena in which these things happen.
Finally, I personally am not only interested in how Andrew Hussie treats their friends. I'm far more interested in how they treat people they don't respect. And the answer is...extraordinarily poorly and unprofessionally.
Right. If someone is transfem harassment is irrelevant. Unless it leads to something then it's justified.
gender has ever been irrelevant to anything because we live in a society. lol. lmao.
the epilogues are the best part of homestuck
What about my point possum? What's the difference between uhc and 123freemovies.com? Why is it understandable when the second one gets taken down?
It's interesting that people seem to think I'm saying the way Gio wrote the article (tone, dramatics) is something I think is awesome and the best thing he could have done. I don't. I simply don't think how someone says something affects whether or not what they are saying is true, and I'm sure in a different situation y'all would 100% agree.
Are you just gonna skip past my point? You not gonna debate transfeminism now that I pushed back?
you also ignored my point now don't ignore me possum i thought we were here to have intellectual debate :( I thought you guys loved intellectual debate
I'm not going to derail a thread I started to discuss the allegations at hand, no.
"I wont derail this thread unless it's to my benefit" lmfao
Her gender is very much relevant. Here lemme show you what I said before, promise me you'll read it this time?
"Trans people, and transfem people especially, are frequently viewed under much harsher scrutiny than most other people. As such, it is always important to not engage with the destruction of their lives unless it is very much your business."
- Me, just a little bit up from here
But you're right, we're a little bit sidetracked. What the main meat of my argument was is that this is not so much criticism as it is a smear campaign, and what exactly is the outcome gio expects? His explicit call to action is to abandon Homestuck entirely. Not to make amends, or even to apologise. It's an unproductive article in anything else but framing someone who gio seems to have no direct contact with as an abuser. Anyone with half a brain wouldn't take it seriously.
IMO gio overplayed his hand. Not as subtle as his previous works, it's refreshing to see so few people buy into it. At least in my circles.
@Squiddo (https://www.fruityrumpus.com/forums/reply/689ce9f3eb0e1f3bcab9b209)
Again, as Kech asked, please stop throwing insults at other users. If you continue to do so after this warning we will issue a temporary ban.
Sorry. Hard to contain my anger at someone who is very clearly acting in bad faith. I'll try to keep it more in line.
@Catgirltreats
It's less that Gio wants homestuck abandoned entirely and more like he wants to forcefully enact the kind of "hussie put homestuck up for creative commons license" idea he put forward but just by like. force. Like he knows Hussie won't do that so he's moreso running a "become ungovernable and be independent from the HICU and hussie" kind of thing. It's not really a good method considering he's well aware FRAF just became a thing and his convo with cami shows he doesn't really know what to do about that so his final point just amounted to "uhhh dont give homestuck money"
All-tempting draught. We'll drink of her again.
FR Gio shat the bed with the negotiation and now he has to flail around and call Homestuck dead and poisoned and try to hit Hussie's reputation. Forgetting that the only reason people would believe him is because people believe whatever they want to about Hussie already. But at the same time he can't even pretend to not revere them (you can really see it in the way Gio talks about Hussie lmao, he can't even hide the intimidated idol worship. it's why he keeps framing it as domestic abuse - GIO sure felt a certain way about it all). All Gio can do is try to tarnish the HICU and FRAF, except that people are already moving on with the show and the new work HSBC/FRAF is putting out. He's even here arguing on the forums that they made! It really would just be funny if it weren't him trying to stoke up another harassment campaign, this time against Miles of all people, even as he had to make Miles being polite and cordial for TWO YEARS of bullshit into nefariousness LOLLLLLLL.
re: @catgirltreats https://www.fruityrumpus.com/forums/reply/689ced5aeb0e1f3bcabaf64d
pretty much my feelings exactly
I think we just kinda got the exact right combo of people who are frustrated about remembering All That Shit from 5 years ago with nothing to do about it but scream into the void, the FRAF forums starting up where key people who've had a hand in the general tone and narratives the homestuck fandom buys into for a long time *don't* have that same voice so the previously mentioned crowd doesn't feel like they're fucked if they talk about their experiences here, and the tone of these two recent blog posts being... overconfident about how well they'd be received due to reasons I can only speculate but probably have to do with how well things went for him 5 years ago, that there's actually seeming to be a decent amount of people looking at it and pushing back because it doesn't really pass the sniff test.
It's hard to believe that any of you actually read the actual article. You can't have an opinion on the content of the article without reading the article. Smearing Gio's character is not a defense against the accusations. Reciepts showing Gio is wrong would, and we'll see what the official response is. But Gio's been consulting with a lawyer and is not an idiot. He is making these claims with legal advice, so he would not be simply fabricating claims. Even his lawyer, far more of an expert than any of us are, states clearly that his past articles are not libel, and after forking the UHC, it sounds like WP/AH have dropped the matter. Miles also did not refute any of Gio's arguments, just said that he is not trustworthy. That's just a straw man argument. That's not actual engagement with the issue at hand.
I think it is important for the fandom to know whether or not AH dispenses legal threats toward people they don't like and otherwise weaponizes NDAs so that people cannot talk about negative experiences working with them. That's worth knowing and it's strange y'all don't think so.
Wild. So smearing someone's character without specific evidence is bad? That's crazy!
Gios claims wouldn’t hit as hard if this wasn’t the third time Hussie pulled a similar stunt. after the Sarah z fallout im shocked anyone still wants to bat for the guy.
tara and raven superfan
Agreed, ancientJadeTotem. I'm an old fan from before the Hiveswap debacle and none of these accusations are only being made by Gio. This is a very familiar story and has been for a long time. But focusing on Gio being a bad actor means people don't have to actually engage with any of that.
Gios claims shouldn't hit as hard because its the third time he's smearing hussie with nebulous evidence lmfao
I'd also like to draw attention to a statement Kate Mitchell made the other day: (https://bsky.app/profile/kateshrike.net/post/3lw3mwzral22i)
in it, Kate says:
"I would rather not be involved or have my experiences dredged up as part of conflict over a project I have not been involved in for a long time, even by those seeking to defend me. Thank you."
I honestly don't know much about the accusations of Gio being a transmisogynist, nor have I seen screenshots of it. I'd definitely like to if there is evidence of it. If what y'all are talking about is with regard to Kate, then this seems relevant to what y'all are saying.
Ultimately though, the bottom line is - If Gio was sharing people's addresses, the only detail I've heard of but haven't seen evidence of, that's super shitty of him, but regardless, it doesn't mean everything he says is untrue.