Official Homestuck Discord + Website News!

Guess who left the Homestuck Reddit Discord?

glad to see the website finally coming back, I really hope it implements accessibility features like the unofficial collection did, without those it was a pain to read...
I wonder what they mean by exclusive content?

we really are returning to 2009,,,

the server is frying my brain so im glad we have this place

if upd8s are so hype how come they haven't made up9s

So glad to see this! The official discord is awesome and the rapid upd8's will hopefully give new people a way to really *experience* HS in a way that the animated series, cool as it is, wouldn't have replicated.

very cool that theres a new discord again. never joining after how shitty the old one was

The discord is actually pretty cool! I like hanging in the Psycholonials and Hiveswap chats since they're a bit slower. I'll probs be on here more regularly bc there's more of a sense of getting to know people, and having conversations that last more than a few minutes.

I posted about Scooby-Doo in there. That's all a discord server is for, really.

I checked who was modding before i joined because a few days ago the owner of the other places was incredibly transphobic towards people in a thread, so I'm glad there is an "official" one now.

rly cool to see an official one but I'll prob join a bit later just so the hype dies down a tinge

I am a little dissapointed about needing to verify my phone number (i don't trust discord with phone connection ever since the app randomly grabbed all your contacts to try and connect you with them in discord) so I suppose I'll just have to make due lol

Okay, I didn't see this part before, and it has me a bit concerned.

...Which is a nice way of saying WHYYYYYYYY WHY ARE WE STILL DOING THIS

Miles's response wasn't good, it didn't show anything other than "we view the situation differently from Gio", and if this is implying Hussie themself is doing a write-up, I have no confidence that they would make anything more-coherent or less-inflammatory. We don't NEED to keep dredging up this fucking drama! It was bad enough to make the Sarah Z videos part of Gio's deal, this isn't doing anything good for anyone! It's just gonna result in more eyes on this same stupid kiwifarms lolcow shit they keep saying they've been trying to avoid the whole time.

They're just Streisanding over and over and over when they should be coasting off the actual good stuff they're doing. Gio called this damage control (and 'scabbing', which. who exactly is on strike? you?) but I don't think that's what it is, I'm sure this has been in the works for a while like Cami said, why can't they just let it be the thing that it is? If it's really as simple as a deal that went south like Miles said, why do we need an official statement? Why are we so determined to make the guy we hate part of our history instead of just focusing on the comic, the other comic, the cartoon or the three video games?

Considering when the drama happened, many people wanted to hear her side of the story so I think it makes sense. That, and Gio did indeed drag a bunch of people who have nothing to do with this into the fray for no reason. A lot of people who have no idea about the situation kept seeing mirrors and other dupes of Homestuck get "taken down" repeatedly and would then spiral into a panic thinking "Oh no the evil Hussie has struck again!" when in actuality it had nothing to do with Hussie at all.

I also think it's a little ridiculous to not expect a response back when you say stuff like this? Sure, Hussie can't say anything about the real legal things he's doing (and I still don't get why people expected Mile's post to say anything either especially since Mile's starts the post off by saying what he can and can't talk about lol, but yet there's still people going "ugh Miles didn't address anything!!") But Hussie can talk about other things that Gio said and alluded to, like the HICU stuff, how licensing works, their relationship with FRAF etc. And IMO that is stuff they SHOULD be transparent about because it would give people a good explanation for when things like a Homestuck mirror "goes dark".

This is communication, and it's open communication, and it's good because a large criticism from a lot of fans is that Hussie never says anything at all and "hides behind other people" or whatever. I guess we should just wait and see until they say anything at all. I suspect it will just be about FRAF and the HICU and how licensing is given out.

RE:[illusoryMechanist]

I also do not like the phone verification and have made a topic in an attempt to get it removed

@elegantspinstress I'm not saying they shouldn't be transparent, I'm just not convinced they will be. The responses thus far haven't been. Miles saying "recontextualize some stuff" referring to Homestuck going "delete/rewrite the blogposts according to our vision or you won't work with us + DMCA" is already dishonest (also again bringing Sarah Z up was a bad idea and an even worse one the second time). I think it's likely that "fanworks never have been and never will be at risk" uses a definition of 'fanworks' that excludes people who piss them off. If Gio's a special case, how many other special cases are there? I'm not a Homestuck creator, but I believe some stuff in the blogs. If I became one, would that cause issues?

For the stuff Gio got wrong, that Hussie's paid by the HICU patreon or has veto control over FRAF or even the Vast Error thing, Miles, Cami and Austinado addressed it directly. For the "Hussie's a cult leader" claim, that's kind of an unfalsifiable opinion, but we've seen enough accounts from FRAF creators that you can only really dismiss them by claiming they're not of sound mind.

Now, Gio said "we couldn't save the UHC" and "we can't work on it anymore" when the thing that went down was a landing page, the reason it went down is a personal grudge, and he's been working on the UHC as recently as last week. Did that create an impression of Hussie as a mustache-twirling cartoon villain attacking reuploads like Nintendo with Mario LPs? Absolutely, but that's simple to clarify. A tweet saying "kicimoe was not DMCA'd" or a screencap of the reddit post saying it was a power outage would be enough. And Gio didn't even want people to think this anyway! He's not trying to portray Hussie as Ken Penders or Dick Dastardly, he's trying to portray them as Jim Jones.

The criticism that Hussie "hides behind other people" isn't because his words are better than theirs. He used Miles because shit would've turned ugly faster on his own. The problem is that it still did, he's the source of this, it's causing issues, but largely the people working for them are taking the criticism. Gio acknowledges this even as he's participating in that same culture (this is because Gio kinda sucks).

If Hussie just dryly recounts some business stuff with regards to how HICU and FRAF operate, maybe I'll be eating my words. They haven't made me expect this so far.

My optimistic guess for the statement is some polite platitudes to the people they know they screwed (mostly Bambosh), treating the situation with the UHC as not having a complete picture of Gio's role in the project (which may be true), mistakenly-assuming they'd be able to incorporate Bam in a way that keeps Gio at arm's length, not expecting Bam to hand control to Gio, and then fumbling to "if you want to work for us you can't be publishing misleading information about us", with still no elaboration on what Gio's blogposts get wrong.

Do I think that would help, though? Not really. I think any attention they bring to this hurts them more than ignoring it would, and most of this wouldn't've happened if they ignored Sarah Z years ago. I cannot fathom their responses to these issues creating less negativity than complete silence, true or not.

I don't think there is anything wrong with them responding to people who talk to them, though lol. I've said this before, but there is like 0 empathy ever given to Hussie when it comes to this kind of stuff. If someone was talking about you to millions of people and saying all sorts of stuff about you, AND they dragged your friends into it and portrayed you as some shadowy cult leader with a bunch of followers that do your bidding,you'd also probably say something about it rather than just ignore everyone saying stuff about you. It's easy to go "they should've just ignored it and moved on" when it's not you on the receiving end lol.

Also, I don't exactly agree with the sentiment that Mile's statement is also a Statement for Hussie. Nobody knows if Hussie "used" anyone. People just saw that Miles spoke at all and just brought in entirely to this idea that Hussie controls him in some way, and that Hussie "used" him. But that is just not true, nor is it what happened. And I would think the fact that Hussie is speaking now is proof he didn't "use" anyone or "hide" behind anyone because he's going to speak soon. It is just a bit telling that people believed whatever Gio said, and now, because of that, nobody at the FRAF or HICU can speak without people going "why is Hussie HIDING behind them???" when that is just not what is happening, and it is not what Mile's post was even about. Most of Mile's post was him patently debunking the statements made about how FRAF functions and who runs it. It didn't pertain to the actual controversy, and honestly, I think fewer people actually read Miles' post lol, because everyone just keeps acting like Miles had some stalwart defense of Hussie or something, or that THAT'S all the post was when it wasn't T_T?

Also, Gio's article riled people up with those personal fears of "what if MY fan project is next???" when really Hussie just has an issue with this one guy. Gio doesn't just "kind of suck", he DOES suck because he has caused a bunch of fearmongering for no reason when the actual problem at hand is something way more simple, and does not involve "All fanwork creators", it is just him. Also, at the end of the day, it is Hussie's work? They're allowed to pick and choose who they want to associate the thing with on an official basis. Fans like you and I are free to make whatever we want in association with Homestuck, and some fans can get licenses to monetize their work which is a really cool AND rare thing for creators to even do for fan works. If Hussie doesn't want this guy to work with him he doesn't have to, and if he wants the guy working with him to at least be a little normal about it he has the right to ask at least. And if he doesn't want that guy distributing the comic because he won't be normal about working with him and won't stop saying stuff about how much he sucks then he also has that right T_T

I think the only thing that was "bad" here is potentially DMCA'ing the whole reader instead of the asset pack but even then it turned out they didn't even do that and really had just DMCA'd the asset pack, and that Gio was just lying about the whole "I can't update this ever again" part. I wouldn't work with someone who just openly talks shit about me the whole time and who spreads a bunch of stuff about me, and I think it's a bit disingenuous of Gio to frame Hussie coming to him with the chance to work together as some last ditch attempt to "take control" because he could've just done that years ago and chose not to obviously? And they are indeed working on the website and there's a pilot for a whole TV show. When you really just think about it, the idea that Gio was trying to spin doesn't make sense because the website being fixed and the pilot being made are two things that Hussie would've known about months and months ago. Gio is spreading this idea that Hussie cares nothing for Homestuck, but all their actions prove that they do.

They would not have made this whole forum possible or made licenses for their work, there wouldn't be an effort to even bring the website back, there wouldn't be a whole tv show in production right now lmao? if they "cared nothing about Homestuck" like Gio tries to claim really hard. Anyways I'm tired and this post is not even about the gio hussie thing.

This is a post about them talking about other stuff but for some reason even just talking about it is bad which is a bit ridiculous IMO. especially since there was a pretty vocal and loud crowd who wanted them to speak and say anything at all that whole time. And now they're about to speak for the first time and hopefully undo the amount of needless fearmongering Gio was doing T_T

@elegantSpinstress

I understand what Hussie and the team are going through. I say all of this as someone who still loves Homestuck and wants to see it do well. I hope by my various posts on this subject it's apparent that I'm doing my best to be fair to them (and yes, feel free to bring up my older, more-upset posts from when this news first broke and note the change in my tone if you'd like, I have a lot of complex feelings on this subject), and I fully admit I do not have the specifics on their perspective. One thing I've seen and hadn't considered for example is that simply granting visibility to something without its consent can invite harassment all on its own, even if that coverage isn't necessarily negative. The example given was retweeting someone's 18+ account that they don't necessarily intend to have associated with their SFW account for those not in the know. With this framing, and knowing there are places like kiwifarms and 8chan that obsessively stalk and track people like Huss and their often seemingly-vulnerable circle of queer friends and coworkers, puts something like the attacks on the Sarah Z videos into some kind of sense, doing an "any means necessary" to remove the attention (and by proxy, harassment) being drawn to onesself.

But what I've also tried to stress is that, if this is indeed the problem, I don't think what they are doing is much help. I keep invoking the Streisand effect because it keeps fucking happening. On the contrary, way, way more people know about this stuff now than they ever would have without the legal shitshow. And importantly, the goals they wanted (if those were indeed the goals) were not achieved! Unless the argument is that specifically the troubles with image they face are the fault of people seeing the UHC landing page site, going to Gio's blog because of it and reading his old-ass blogposts, it does not make sense to me.

With regards to Miles's statement, my bad on the language of "used". I only meant that he acted as a liaison, not that Hussie was specifically exploiting him by doing so (though we can all agree that this was probably the wrong decision overall). I also don't think Hussie is intentionally deflecting criticism of himself onto his friends or team members. Like I said, I think the entire reason they did this is because Hussie isn't good at it. Miles says he didn't tell Hussie what to do. I think maybe he should have.

But I'd also say that Miles was not solely dedicated to just clearing up some misconceptions in his post. Gio is obviously trying to push a narrative, but Miles is trying to counter that with his own narrative. I'm not about to go track the actual word count or anything, but roughly half of his post (starting from 'my read on the situation') is talking about how Gio is the problem, and the stuff that happened is his fault. It starts with saying that he wasn't "doing everything he could", because he refused to sign a license, of which Miles talks around the condition where Gio had to lock himself into massively altering or removing his own content and disavowing videos talking about it.

It's also framed in this manner where Gio being able to distribute Homestuck, officially or otherwise, is a "privilege" Homestuck is granting him, which they had the right to "revoke" with the DMCA as their hammer. And I suppose this comes down to personal values, but I'm someone who straight-up doesn't believe in Intellectual Property law, and Homestuck as this fan-driven quasi-socialist queer hub that constantly incorporates the work of others, feels hypocritical to be acting in that position.

Like, I'm outwardly in favor of digital piracy. I don't think Nintendo is right to take down ROM sites either, even if they released every single possible game on them on the virtual console or Switch online or whatever. I think people should get money for their Sonic fangames, even if those Russian creeps could have seriously damaged fan relations with SEGA by trying.

But Homestuck is not a massive corporation. By Hussie's word, it's a very small one. Just because they legally had the right to take down the asset pack or the landing site doesn't mean they should have or that they had to. Even if every word out of Gio's mouth is a lie, I don't think that's an appropriate response. Like for instance, if someone were, say, an abusive spouse, that wouldn't make it right to set a precedent where abusers are framed for armed robbery.

Now, are you correct that this won't actually become precedent? Not sure. Like I said, I have no idea if the fact that I believe some of the stuff in the Hiveswap posts would be a problem for me. Any FRAF members who have experience with that and/or believe any part of them can weigh in on this if they'd like. I'd like to think that someone acting on genuine belief and concern wouldn't be targeted, even if it did mean signing a "no shittalking us" agreement. Gio himself says something along the lines of "I hope this is the worst it ever got", implying he doesn't know of a worse scenario, but I'm pretty sure here and there I've heard rumblings of Homestuck fan projects not working out because of official involvement. Obviously the Viz and Odd Gentleman deals didn't go the way they wanted.

This is why I try not to litigate things based on the moral character of Gio. Narrative or otherwise, I think Homestuck acted in the wrong. And moreover, their actions were related to suppressing (something Gio views as, accurate or not) corporate whistleblowing of worker abuse. Would we rather that information not be freely accessible just because the messenger is a prick? Is the negative impression the framing of those blog posts generates worse than what happened to the people described in them?

Ultimately I'm not saying they shouldn't be ignoring it because I think it's wrong for them to try, it's because I think whatever they have to tell us is either going to change nothing or will make things way worse. It hasn't gone great for them in the past. They can prove me wrong if they want. I hope they do.

I just want all of this to go away. There's not even money on the line here for the most part (hypothetical money and whatever Bambosh paid that lawyer, I suppose)! Just a bunch of kids saying mean words and then going "he started it, no SHE started it" when the teacher breaks them up. It's all so fucking stupid.

oh were so fucking back

-I think it's likely that "fanworks never have been and never will be at risk" uses a definition of 'fanworks' that excludes people who piss them off.

This is sticking with me bc the UHC asset pack is not a fanwork? It's Hussies work. Like, this situation has no bearing on fanworks bc it doesn't involve one.